Authors: Ada Uzoije
Doug’s father looked at his wife for a long moment and said, “And I am a man, so I get no empathy at all? Do I get no credit for having fed him and housed him for 15 years, slaved to send him to the flossy school, all with no thanks at all? Huh?” He looked at her, waiting for an answer that never came.
“Where’s the appreciation for what I do, Jean? I’m tired of both of you.”
The decision she had entertained for quite a while now simply came out.
“I want a divorce!” she said to Norman and disappeared into their room and slammed the door under the force of her annoyance.
At that very moment, Norman realised he might lose everything. He hoped to put things right the following day. There was too much confusion and he thought he needed some time to cool off. His family was the most important thing to him.
Doug was wrong.
He had never put his business before his son. Everything he had done was for Doug to have a bright future. Now, he was not sure of that.
The next morning came quickly.
Outside it was silent, mostly, save for the occasional car passing through the street or the vague sound of a lawnmower far away in another block. Jean had woken after only two hours of sleep, unable to stay in bed for another moment. Norman never came to bed as he had wisely chosen to sleep on the sofa.
Jean was parched, so thirsty that she went downstairs to fix herself a cup of coffee. She saw her husband snoring in the parlour as she made her way to the kitchen. In the half-light of dawn she sat contemplating her life, her hands both tightly clutching her mug as she stared into space, reliving the things that had recently unhinged her happiness and how she could not figure out how to begin healing it all. After all, as mother, was that not her job? So she sat well into the sunrise and the morning with only the radio to keep her company.
At 6:30 a.m., she heard Norman having a shower upstairs. She figured he was getting ready to go to work. She could hear the water pipes and she waited for him to make his appearance. No doubt it would be quite awkward, but such things had a way of finally unknotting themselves and she hoped for the best.
Jean took a sip of her cold coffee and wondered how her boy had slept. Since he described his troubles to her she had often guessed at his state of mind and now she sat here, wondering if he had seen any demons during the night after his father exiled him to his room. She could hear movement upstairs between the bathroom and their room, but Doug must’ve still been sleeping, she hoped. The last thing she needed was for the two boys to walk into one another up there now, with matters still unresolved as they were.
She decided not to prepare him breakfast. He did not deserve any kindness from her for his brutish behaviour, and this time she would not give in. He would need to apologise to their son or she would leave him. Her mind was fixed
.
The doorbell rang.
How odd, for this time of the morning. Jean certainly did not feel like welcoming visitors, especially now. She stood still, trying to figure out who it might be and then it chimed again. She heard her husband rush downstairs. The door opened and she could hear unfamiliar voices, so she went to see who it was.
“Is this the home of Norman Bates?” a female police officer asked and her partner simply brooded over her shoulder. Jean did not like the sight of them. The police? It could not be a good thing.
“It is,” replied Norman. “Can I help you, officers?”
“Can we come in, sir?” the woman asked and Norman stepped aside to let them in, closing the door behind him slowly and looked at Jean with a measure of uncertainty which unsettled her. He offered them a seat in the living room and sat down across from them.
There was a brief silence in the room and then the male officer spoke.
“Mr. Bates, I’m afraid we may have some bad news for you.”
Jean came into the room and stood behind her husband. Her stomach knotted at the disturbing statement, although she could not think of what they might say.
“Do you have a son about 15 or 16?”
Jean choked on a lump in her throat. Doug? Why Doug? What could the police possibly have to do with this? Had he been acting out with Mick and Thompson, perhaps? More trouble from a troubled teen?
When Norman nodded, she asked, “Do you know where he is?”
“He’s upstairs in his room asleep.”
The two cops looked at one another, a little surprised. The woman raised her eyebrow and nodded to her partner.
“Well, I think you’d better check,” said the male officer and before he could continue, Jean interrupted.
“What is this about, officers?” she said quite abruptly, her tone driven by concern, not rudeness.
“A body of a young boy was found under the bridge by a kayaker at first light this morning, ma’am. He had a billfold in his jeans pocket with the identification, ‘Douglas Bates,’” the man said softly.
“Could you check on your son?”
The words echoed like flying glass through Jean’s soul. It was so unreal. Her face contorted in disbelief and denial, she gasped.
Norman got up quickly and raced up the stairs, and knocked at Doug’s door.
“Doug? Open the door,” he said plainly, minding his tone. There was no response.
“Doug? Come on, pal, let’s get some breakfast,” he attempted another approach, but still there was no answer. Norman could feel his body tense up, a sinking feeling in his stomach making him sick. Eventually, uncertain of what he wanted to know, he opened the door and found the room empty.
He looked everywhere, even in the closet and under the bed, but there was no sign of his son. Norman felt the panic set in, but he had to compose himself. For all he knew, the boy had slipped out of his window and gone to sleep over at Mick’s after all. He was quite adamant about it last night anyway. Yes. Yes, that’s where he was. That’s where Norman wanted him to be.
Norman came downstairs at the sight of the two officers and his shaking wife, waiting with bated breath, his findings.
He looked at the police officers and didn’t say anything. Jean sank to her knees on the cold tiled floor and held her hands over her mouth, the dreadful revelation smothering her and she had to fight to hold down the bile that had heaved up.
“Oh God, no!” she wailed behind her hands.
“Please, God, no! Not my baby! My Doug!” she screamed into her hands. “I couldn’t catch him this time! My God, I couldn’t catch him!”
Norman was stunned silent. He then sat down on the couch without uttering a word and began to cry. “I did everything I could think of to help him, but it wasn’t any use. He just wouldn’t listen. He just wouldn’t see.”
“Ma’am, we also found this in your son’s pocket,” said the woman and handed Jean the crucifix pendant her son had worn after his visit to the church.
“Is it his?”
Jean’s shaking hand took the icon from the officer while Norman looked on in disbelief.
“Uh, no!” Jean replied through her sobs. “It’s my baby.”
Norman took the necklace from Jean and stared at it in awe and confusion.
“You killed him!” Jean slapped Norman's hard across his face. The female police officer intervened quickly before she could slap her husband again.
“Ma’am, please calm down,” the police officer said.
“Arrest him! He killed him! Arrest him, officer!” Jean kept shouting and pointing at Norman.
“Ma’am, is there anyone I can call to give you grief support at this time?” the officer asked.
“It’s okay, I will ring her parents,” Norman said. He was shaking and started dialling his in-law's number.
The male police officer helplessly looked on, feeling sorry for the woman in pain who had just lost her only son.
After the summer had passed, a hard year followed, not only of winter’s cold and darkness alone, but another cold season in the hearts of Norman and Jean Bates. Norman had learned the hard way and there was not a day that passed that he did not feel immense guilt for what had happened to their son. Jean had slowly begun to forgive him, but she would never forget that night. Their son had been absent from their lives for fourteen months now and still the pain remained, although it had faded with the passing of time into a reminiscence they both felt at certain occasions especially.
The house stood dormant of much activity, save for the mundane goings on of the two people who occupied it. They had decided to move house and became foster carers to see if that might bring back normality. Bridge club and work still kept them busy, but the house was void of that vivid life it used to hold. In his room, which remained the same, the blue light of the aquarium prevailed, the computer screen now dead and black and the stack of computer games still crookedly piled as it had been since Doug had packed for the night he would never spend with Mick.
The school had paid their respects to Douglas Bates in a memorial plaque where Thompson and Mick had spent the entire day when it was unveiled, everyone leaving flowers and heart-warming messages beneath it. But not once was there any mention of the manner in which he had ended his life.
Such things were taboo.
“Your parents should be here soon. We are moving in less than an hour from now,” Norman said.
“They should be here,” Jean said sadly.
Norman went and hugged her and said, “Jean, I am so very sorry. Deep in my heart, the pain I caused you and Doug ...”
“You can't bring him back,” Jean snapped and walk away upstairs to clean up Doug's room.
Immediately, as she found herself inside Doug's room, she heard her parents arriving at the front door. Soon she heard them chatting with Norman as if all was right with the world again. She had previously taken off all Doug’s old posters and such, leaving his computer, desk and the papers in his drawers to be cleared. Shortly after his death she had already taken out and packed away his clothing. A mild breeze wafted through the room, forcing the window ajar with its presence, like a breath of fresh air sighing onto her.
The aquarium would be the last to go, as it took the most careful and arduous work. She had no intention of getting rid of it. Doug had had his fish since he was a small boy and he took good care of them. She smiled. When he asked for the aquarium she suggested a dog or a cat and he disagreed with the choice. Doug loved fish because they did not need to be cleaned after and they made no noise. It was quite cute at the time, that he had such conviction.
He knew exactly what he wanted, that boy.
She took a cardboard box to empty his desk drawers once and for all. Jean had not had the heart to do it previously. The right drawer contained some comic books and loose papers with doodles on. Doug loved scribbling silly images on pieces of paper when he was thinking. There were stacks of them, filed into his comic book pages, some with pictures and others with his own superhero creations. Jean had to laugh. Her son was very creative and his sense of humour showed in his ridiculous characters.
After clearing out the right hand drawer, she opened the other one. There was nothing in it, apart from “
Flight of Icarus”
and one other small black book she had never seen before. It was made of fake leather, padded and adorned with two silver cords of thread with tiny balls of tin at the ends. She opened it right at the beginning. It was blank, but the second page onward was filled with page after page of black pen scribbling, sometimes neat, sometimes untidy and sometimes totally incoherent and hostile over the words already written.
Jean sat down on her son’s bed and read the first page.
‘My life has changed drastically since I saw that man on the bridge. It all started as a dream…’
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