Later

31

I saw him again on Friday, outside of school. There were quite a few parents waiting for their kids—there always are on Fridays, probably because they’re going somewhere for the weekend—and they didn’t see Therriault, but they must have felt him, because they gave the place where he was standing a wide berth. No one was pushing a baby in a carriage, but if someone had been, I knew that baby would be looking at the empty spot on the sidewalk and bawling its head off.

I went back inside and looked at some posters outside the office, wondering what to do. I supposed I’d have to talk to him, find out what he wanted, and I made up my mind to do it right then, while there were people around. I didn’t think he could hurt me, but I didn’t know.

I used the boys’ room first because all at once I really had to pee, but when I was standing at the urinal, I couldn’t squeeze out even a single drop. So I went out, holding my backpack by the strap instead of wearing it. I had never been touched by a dead person, not once, I didn’t know if they could touch, but if Therriault tried to touch me—or grab me—I intended to hit him with a sackful of books.

Only he was gone.

A week went by, then two. I relaxed, figuring he had to be past his sell-by date.

I was on the YMCA junior swim team, and on a Saturday in late May we had our final practice for an upcoming meet in Brooklyn, which would take place the following weekend. Mom gave me ten dollars for something to eat afterwards and told me—as she always did—to make sure I locked my locker so no one would steal the money or my watch (although why anyone would want to steal a lousy Timex I have no idea). I asked her if she was coming to the meet. She looked up from the manuscript she was reading and said, “For the fourth time, Jamie, yes. I’m coming to the meet. It’s on my calendar.”

It was only the second time I’d asked (or maybe the third), but I didn’t tell her that, only kissed her on the cheek and headed down the hall to the elevator. When the doors opened, Therriault was in there, grinning his grin and staring at me from his good eye and the stretched-out one. There was a piece of paper pinned to his shirt. The suicide note was on it. The note was always on it and the blood spattered across it was always fresh.

“Your mother has cancer, Champ. From the cigarettes. She’ll be dead in six months.”

I was frozen in place with my mouth hanging open.

The elevator doors rolled shut. I made some kind of sound —a squeak, a moan, I don’t know—and leaned back against the wall so I wouldn’t fall down.

They have to tell you the truth, I thought. My mother is going to die.

But then my head cleared a little and a better thought came. I grasped it like a drowning man clutching at a floating piece of wood. But maybe they only have to tell the truth if you ask them questions. Otherwise, maybe they can tell you any kind of fake shit they want.

I didn’t want to go to swim practice after that, but if I didn’t Coach might call Mom to ask where I’d been. Then she would want to know where I had been, and what was I going to tell her? That I was afraid that Thumper would be waiting for me on the corner? Or in the lobby of the Y? Or (somehow this was the most horrible) in the shower room, unseen by naked boys rinsing off the chlorine?

Was I going to tell her she had fucking cancer?

So I went, and as you might guess, I swam for shit. Coach told me to get my head on straight, and I had to pinch my armpit to keep from bursting into tears. I had to pinch it really hard.

When I got home, Mom was still deep in her manuscript. I hadn’t seen her smoking since Liz left, but I knew she sometimes drank when I wasn’t there—with her authors and various editors—so I sniffed at her when I kissed her, and didn’t smell anything but a little perfume. Or maybe face cream, since it was Saturday. Some kind of lady stuff, anyway.

“Are you coming down with a cold, Jamie? You dried off well after swimming, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. Mom, you’re not smoking anymore, are you?”

“So that’s it.” She put aside the manuscript and stretched. “No, I haven’t had one since Liz left.”

Since you kicked her out, I thought.

“Have you been to the doctor lately? To get a checkup?”

She looked at me quizzically. “What’s this about? You’ve got that crease between your brows.”

“Well,” I said, “you’re the only parent I’ve got. If something happened to you, I couldn’t exactly go live with Uncle Harry, could I?”

She made a funny face at that, then laughed and hugged me. “I’m fine, kiddo. Had the old annual checkup two months ago, as a matter of fact. Passed with flying colors.”

And she looked okay. In the pink, as the saying goes. Hadn’t lost any more weight that I could see, and wasn’t coughing her brains out. Although cancer didn’t just have to be in a person’s throat or lungs, I knew that.

“Well… that’s good. I’m glad.”

“That makes two of us. Now make your mom a cup of coffee and let me finish this manuscript.”

“Is it a good one?”

“As a matter of fact, it is.”

“Better than Mr. Thomas’s Roanoke books?”

“Much better, but not as commercial, alas.”

“Can I have a cup of coffee?”

She sighed. “Half a cup. Now let me read.”