Only Son (18 page)

Carl felt her kissing the top of his head. He started to unfasten the pearl buttons of her chemise. His hands trembled as he brushed against the soft skin of her breasts.

“God, don't rip it!”

The chemise hung off her shoulder, and one breast, with its rose-brown nipple was fully exposed. Still, the harpy tone of her voice made Carl pull his hands away.

“I didn't tear anything,” he murmured, looking up at her. “Was I being too rough? I'm sorry….”

The lipstick was smeared around her mouth, and when she gave him a limp smile, she almost looked like a clown. Connie buttoned up the camisole. “You're just going a little too fast,” she said. “Don't get me wrong. I like you a lot. In fact, I want to sleep with you tonight. We could cuddle and kiss and cuddle some more. But I don't want to do anything else—beyond that.”

Carl squinted at her. “Um, you want me to spend the night, but you don't want to make love?”

Connie nodded, then kissed him. “I even have an extra toothbrush. Of course, it's early yet….”

Carl's arms were still around her, but he didn't respond to her kisses along the side of his neck. They wouldn't lead to anything. She wiggled on his lap, rubbing his erection with her buns. He was ready to burst. He couldn't imagine another hour of this luscious torture without any release—no less an entire night of it in bed with her.

“Can I ask,” he said, “if there's any particular reason why you don't want to make love with me, Connie?”

“Oh, but I do,” she replied, between kisses. “But tonight, all I want to do is cuddle and sleep together. You understand, don't you? That big waterbed can get awfully lonesome when you're in it by yourself.” She nibbled at his ear.

Suddenly, he felt sorry for her. She probably had scores of men ready to lay her; but half-wits like Wayne—the ones who stuck around, slept with her, and made her feel loved for more than a couple of hours—were probably very rare. “Connie, I can't stay the night,” he said finally. “I promised the baby-sitter I'd be back by eleven-thirty.”

“Oh, shit, I forgot. You have a kid.” She sighed. “Well, can't you just call and tell them you'll be back in the morning? I'll cook you breakfast….”

She started to kiss him again, but Carl gently pulled away. “I wish I could, but—”

“Listen,” she said. “If you really want to—you know, do it, that's okay. But you'll have to spend the night if you do.”

“I'm sorry, I can't.” Carl pried her hands off his shoulders and squirmed out from under her. “I feel like a real jerk,” he said. “You fixed me a wonderful dinner and I—” He shook his head. “I should be going, I really should.”

“But it's not even ten yet,” she grumbled.

“I know,” he said, getting to his feet. “But I'm a little worried about my son. He had a stomachache when I left. I really should be with him. I'm sorry.” Carl kept one hand in his pocket to camouflage his hard-on. “You've been terrific.”

She looked at him dubiously. Her lipstick was still smeared. “You'll call me?”

“Of course,” he lied. “Sometime…soon…”

Connie smiled. “You will,” she cooed, giving him a long kiss at the door. It left him dangling with its false promise of more; but then, he'd just made a false promise to her. He wasn't going to call her, and he'd avoid having lunch at the Red Robin for a while. The guys at work would be pumping him for details of this dismal night's activities. He'd tell them that they'd kissed a little until she got a long-distance call from her boyfriend, and that had been that. He'd tell them no more.

Carl kept thanking her and apologizing as he inched out the doorway.

After putting Sam to bed tonight, he'd catch the end of his movie, then pull out a girlie magazine and release his pent-up desires. He'd go to bed himself, and fantasize he was holding a girl in his arms instead of the spare pillow. Then he wouldn't feel so lonely by himself in the big double bed.

 

Amy carefully folded up the sweater and set it in the box with all the others. She'd already filled another box with shoes, and two more with books. Standing in the bedroom doorway, Paul silently watched, his hands in his pockets.

“If it's okay with you,” she said, taping the box shut, “I'll take the negatives, and you can keep the photo albums. Then I'll get prints made of the pictures I want. We have duplicates of Eddie's portraits from Sears, don't we?”

“You can take all the pictures. I don't care.”

“Don't be silly,” she muttered, returning to the closet for more sweaters. “Even if you don't want any pictures of me, there are dozens of you alone or with Ed, the ones from college—”

“Fine,” he said. “Take the negatives. Take anything you want.”

Amy just nodded, then resumed packing. After only one session with Dr. Amberg, Amy had realized something about her aborted suicide and the botched seduction of Paul that night. She didn't want to die; she just wanted a second chance at life. And Paul's cruel rejection of her advances had only given Amy what she'd really sought—a reason for leaving him.

Her new apartment was a fifteen-minute drive away, and she'd been making trips back and forth like this all week, trying to time it right so not to catch Paul in. Sometimes, she'd leave him a note on the kitchen table:

She took only a few furnishings. Thanks to her employee discount at Frederick and Nelson, Amy had bought a sofa, a bed, a TV, a stereo—practically all the essentials. The decor was far classier than all the secondhand furnishings they'd accrued during their struggling newlywed days. She'd even spent sixty dollars on a lamp—for him—to replace the one she'd taken.

“You haven't said anything about the lamp. Do you like it?” She'd set it on the end table by the sofa, where the old lamp had been. They hadn't spoken—or seen each other—in over a week. “Anyway,” she said, taping up another box, “I hope it's okay.”

“Do you like the lamp?” he asked.

“No, Paul. I hate it. That's why I bought it for you.” Amy rolled her eyes. “C'mon, don't be this way. Of course I like it.”

“Then take the lamp. I don't want it.”

“Tell you what,” Amy growled, lifting the box. “Bring it back to the goddamn store and exchange it for one you like.” She brushed past him as she carried the box outside.

When she returned to the bedroom for a second load, Paul was rummaging through a pile of work papers in a box on his closet floor. “You might as well take these, too,” he said. He tossed a thin stack of postcards, held together by a rubber band, onto the bed. “They're all addressed to you….”

“What are you talking about?” She picked up the postcards. They were the blank, generic kind, no pictures—just the stamp and her name and address scribbled on the front of each one. The handwriting was distinctly masculine. Amy took off the rubber band. “What are these?” She read one of the cards. There was no salutation or signature:

“What is this?” Amy murmured, frowning. She read the postcard again, and its message became more clear to her. Anxiously, she read the next card:

Amy sank down on the edge of the bed. Tears brimmed her eyes, but she was smiling. Eddie was still alive. Someone had her little boy, and he was safe…loved. How she wished she'd been there to see him take those first steps, to hug and kiss him proudly. She missed him more than ever now. Yet beyond her frustration and wanting, Amy felt grateful. The notes verified what she'd somehow known all along: Eddie was alive. “My God, he's okay,” she whispered. “Oh, Paul, he's all right. How—how long have you known?”

“The first card came over a year and a half ago,” she heard Paul say. “It was a Saturday. You were at work.”

“Which one is it?” she asked, riffling through the cards. There were seven of them.

“It's not there. I thought it was a crank, so I threw it out.”

“You threw it out? God, how could you? We stopped getting crank mail a couple of months after it happened. Look at the dates on these! Look at what he says. They're genuine. What did the first card say?”

Paul shrugged. “I don't know. Something about him being healthy, then the weight and height. I don't remember. Second one came a few weeks later—on a Saturday again.”

“That's pretty damn convenient,” she replied, her eyes narrowing at him. “Did all these cards just happen to arrive on Saturdays while I was at work?”

He shook his head. “Just the first two. I gave the second card to the police, and they forwarded it to some crime lab in California. All they could tell from the handwriting was that it was from a male in his thirties or forties. The postmark was Vancouver, Washington.”

“He's just across the river in Vancouver?” she asked.

“Look at the other postmarks,” Paul said glumly.

Amy examined them:
Portland, OR.; Longview, WA.; Castle Rock, WA.; Olympia…

“All up and down Oregon and Washington,” Paul said. “He's a foxy son of a bitch, isn't he?”

Amy clutched the postcards to her chest. They were her only connection to Eddie. Dazed, she looked up at Paul. He turned and walked out of the bedroom. She followed him into the kitchen. “How could you keep these from me?” she asked. “All this time not knowing for sure if he was alive or dead. I'm his mother, for God's sakes! How could you? How
did
you? These cards are addressed to
me!
”

Paul grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator, then sat down at the breakfast table.

“Paul?”

He sighed. “After the second card came, I promised the mailman twenty bucks if he'd hold any more like it whenever they came, then give them to me on Saturdays while you were at work.”

She gazed at Paul as if she didn't know him. She never imagined he could be so devious and scheming; he didn't seem shrewd enough for that; no, not her thoughtless husband.

Sipping his beer, he stared back at her, almost shamelessly, but not quite. “I thought you were better off not knowing,” he said. “When the cops couldn't trace the second note, all I felt was frustrated and pissed off. He's torturing us, and I spared you from that.”

“Oh, how noble of you,” she snapped. “So why did you think I should know about these letters now? Why did you spring them on me today? To see me fall apart? So you could hurt me?”

“If you move out, they're not going to deliver the notes here anymore.”

“No, they'll deliver them to me at my new place. I filled out a change of address form last week, Paul.” She glanced at the postcards in her hand. “Jesus, I can't believe this. For over a year, you've known he was alive. Yet you kept me in the dark. Why?”

Amy stood by the kitchen table, staring down at him. Paul's eyes avoided hers, and he glumly stared over toward the kitchen sink as if she wasn't there. “I felt you were better off not knowing,” he mumbled.

She shook her head. “If that's true, you're even more stupid than I thought. And if it's a lie, then you're a sick and hateful person. Either way, any second thoughts I've had about leaving you just flew out the window.” She started for the door.

“What about the rest of your stuff?” he said, frowning.

“I'll come by after work tomorrow. Try not to be home.” She opened the door.

“Wait a sec,” he said, rising from his chair. “What if you get any more cards about him? Are you going to tell me?”

Amy smiled coldly at him. “Would you feel better off not knowing, Paul?”

He said nothing for a moment, then sank back down in the kitchen chair. “I guess I'll take the few crumbs this asshole tosses us,” he muttered.

“I'll let you know,” she replied.

Inside the car, Amy sat behind the wheel and pored over every card again. The most recent was dated six weeks before:

Amy wished she could hear what he sounded like as he spoke the alphabet. She didn't know his voice. Was his hair still that golden blond shade? His eyes had changed from blue to hazel green after the first couple of months. Were they still that same misty color of the sea or had they changed again? She wondered if she'd even recognize him now.

She would. And the day would come when she'd see her son again. Amy knew that—as surely as she'd known he was alive all this time.

Amy slipped the postcards inside her purse. She looked forward to receiving the next note. After nearly two years of misery, she finally had something she could look forward to.

Turning the key in the ignition, she glanced back at the town house, then started for home.

The woman in the framed, blown-up photograph was a striking brunette, wearing a floor-length, ruffly white dress. She sat in a wicker chair and held a boy in her lap. He looked about Sam's age—four and a half—and wore a little suit with shorts, knee socks, and a bow tie. He had his father's red hair, and a sweet, puzzled expression. The father, decked out in a blue suit, stood at his wife's side, one hand on her shoulder.

Sam couldn't take his eyes off the picture, which was displayed in the window of a photo store at Southcenter Shopping Mall. Carl tugged at his hand. “C'mon, Sammy, there's nothing in here we want.”

He knew why the photograph fascinated his son. Lately, whenever he picked up Sam at the day-care center, he'd notice his boy looking at all the
mommies
there to take his classmates home. Most of the time, Carl was the only father there, and he knew Sam felt different from the other kids.

“Am I a norfin?” he'd asked, early one evening the week before. They were driving home from Sunnyside Day Care.

“No, you're not. An
orphan
is a child whose mom and dad are
both
dead. As long as I'm still alive, you're not an orphan.”

“Larry Westhead said I'm a norfin.”

Larry Westhead is full of shit
, Carl wanted to say. “Well, you're not, sport.”

“Is my mommy really dead?”

“Yep, I'm afraid so, Sammy. I told you, she died in a car accident shortly after you were born. She's buried near where we used to live in Santa Rosa.”

“But you said she's in heaven.”

“She is. But her body is buried in the ground in Santa Rosa. Hey, tiger, whaddaya say we go to McDonald's for dinner tonight? Won't that be neat? Dinner with Ronald?”

Carl knew how to get Sam's mind off such things. As he pulled Sam away from the photography store window, he promised to buy him a helium balloon at the toy store. The ploy didn't seem to excite Sam much. He let go of Carl's hand while they strolled through the crowded mall. “Did my mommy look like that?” he asked, wiggling his finger inside his nose.

“Look like what? Stop that.”

“Like the lady in the pitcher.”

“No, but she was very pretty. Do you want a handkerchief?”

Sam finally pulled his finger out of his nose and wiped it on his khaki shorts. “Do we have any pitchers of her?”

Carl hesitated. “Yes. But I'm not sure where they are. What color balloon do you want?”

“Gween.” Then he was quiet for a while. Carl welcomed the silence. Sam was going through a talkative phase lately. He was constantly asking questions, and his new favorite word seemed to be “why?” Yet he'd never hold his tongue long enough to hear an explanation. When Sam wasn't talking to him, he talked to himself or to the TV. He even talked in his sleep. Carl did his best to listen when the never-ending chatter was directed at him, but sometimes even
pretending
to listen wore him out.

The problem with Sam when he was blessedly quiet was that it indicated there was a problem. He walked alongside Carl, frowning down at the floor.

“What's wrong, tiger?”

He took a deep breath, then squinted up at him. “Did it hurt when they cut off her head?”

“What? Cut off whose head?”

“Mommy's. You said her body's in the ground and the rest of her's in heaven. I don't want them to chop off my head.”

Carl laughed. “Oh, no, Sammy. They bury you all in one piece—everything attached. Your head stays with your body when you die. The part of you that goes to heaven is your spirit.”

“Like a ghost?”

“Not quite. See…well, okay, when somebody dies, it's like they go to sleep forever. But you know how you dream when you're asleep? You can still see and feel and think even though your body's asleep? Well, the part of you that feels and thinks and sees goes to heaven when you die. Then your body sleeps in the ground while you see and feel everything in heaven.”

Carl was proud of himself for what he thought was a clever explanation. His own father wouldn't have bothered. Hell, the old man wouldn't have wasted a Sunday afternoon taking him shopping.

He reached down and mussed Sam's blond hair. “You understand a little better now?” he asked.

“Fred Flintstone saw a ghost yesterday, but it was Barney under some sheets, trying to scare him.”

“That Barney's a real cutup.” Carl sighed. “There's the toy store up ahead. See?”

Sam ran ahead of him. Carl smiled and shook his head. He thought about the young mothers he'd sometimes notice during his strolls through the Volunteer Park Art Museum with Sam, the ones who tried to educate their toddlers in the fine arts:
“Now, the man who painted this painting was named Picasso. Can you say Picasso?”
then in the same breath:
“Do you have to go potty?”
Sometimes, trying to explain things to Sam was just as futile.

Sam slowed down several feet ahead to gaze at a toy in Woolworth's window. Carl wasn't close enough to see what had captured Sam's attention, but Sam was looking back at him now. He gave an excited, little jump and pointed to the toy.

All at once, a woman stepped between them, her back to Carl. She was plump, wearing a cheap red wig, sunglasses, and a flowered jumper. She seemed to come out of nowhere, and she grabbed Sam's arm.

For a moment, Carl didn't know what was happening. He was still several feet away. But then he heard her as she started to pull Sam toward the mall exit doors:
“Your mommy sent me to get you, honey. Come with me outside. She's waiting in my car.”

“HEY!” Carl yelled, racing toward them. He felt a rush of anger and panic.
“That's my son!”

The woman saw him, and her pudgy face froze. Then suddenly, she gave Sam a hard shove. He toppled to the floor and let out a startled cry. The woman barreled through the crowd for the exit door, never looking back.

Carl reached Sam and scooped him into his arms. “You okay, Sammy?” he asked, out of breath. He looked over toward the glass exit doors. The woman ducked inside the front seat of a beat-up, beige Cadillac that had been waiting outside for her. She'd left in her path a dozen curious onlookers. The car sped away.

Carl and Sam had drawn the attention of the crowd too. “You okay, Sammy?” he asked again.

Sam nodded, then buried his face in Carl's shoulder. He was embarrassed by the crowd. Carl stood up, clutching him to his chest. He patted Sam on the back, then looked around for a pay phone to call the police. He wanted to take Sam away from all these people. No one stepped forward to offer help—or to ask if his boy was hurt. They just stared. Carl noticed one woman eating an ice-cream cone as she gaped at him.

He turned away and carried Sam toward a pay phone. “You're okay now, Sammy, aren't you? Did she scare you?”

He felt Sam nod against his shoulder. “She said my mommy was looking for me,” he whispered. “She knew where Mommy was.”

 

Carl phoned the police again. It was seven o'clock, and he stood at the kitchen counter, fixing dinner. The cop on the other end of the line told him that they still didn't have anything. Carl wasn't surprised. He hadn't given them much to go on—a fat lady in sunglasses and a wig. He hadn't even gotten the license plate off the Cadillac. He'd been too worried about Sam at the time. It had all happened so fast that he'd phoned the police from the mall without a thought about the risk of involving Sam and himself with the law. He just wanted to get that sleazy bitch who tried to steal his son away.

The idea of her taking possession of little Sammy made Carl's stomach turn. He still felt a little shaky—as if he'd cheated death. He couldn't help thinking about how Amy McMurray must have felt when it had happened to her four years ago. Strange, how he still felt connected to her, even though they'd never met. In a way, Sam was their little boy—his and Amy's. With every minor and significant event of Sam's life, Carl thought about Amy McMurray. Then he'd write to her, take Sam for a long drive, and mail the card. No one else could have cared as much as he did about the milestones in Sam's childhood—except her.

He wouldn't write to her about what had happened at the mall that afternoon. With a little detective work, she could trace him through the police report on the incident.

The cop said they'd call if they found anything. Carl knew they wouldn't. But he thanked him anyway, then hung up.

He set the kitchen table, made a glass of chocolate milk for Sam, and got dinner ready: meat loaf, green beans, and Tater Tots.

Thanks to a helium balloon, a G.I. Joe doll, and a stop at 31 Flavors on the way back from the police station, Sam seemed to recover from any traumas. In fact, all the kid gloves handling had put him in a bratty mood. Funny, how he picked up on the fact that old dad wasn't about to scold him for anything right now.

Calling him to dinner, Carl found Sam standing on the living room sofa—his shoes on, no less. He was playing with his new G.I. Joe doll as he gazed at the arrangement of framed photos on the wall—pictures of him and his father. He mimicked machine gun noises and death cries.

“C'mon, Sammy,” Carl said. “You know better than that. Get down from there.”

“How come there aren't no pitchers of my mommy here?” he asked, bouncing on the sofa cushion.

“Most of the pictures were lost when we moved from Santa Rosa. Did you hear me, Sam? I said climb down from there. You're getting the couch all dirty. Dinner's ready. Come on now.” Carl retreated into the kitchen.

“Don't we have
any
pitchers of her?” Sam asked midway through the meal. He'd already eaten all of his Tater Tots, but nothing else. He walked G.I. Joe across the place mat.

“I might have one or two photos tucked away someplace,” Carl said. “I'll have to check. Now, c'mon, put G.I. Joe down and eat your dinner. You haven't touched your meat loaf or beans.”

He maneuvered Joe around his plate. “When can I see her pitcher?”

“
Picture
,” Carl said patiently. “We'll talk about it after you finish eating. Now, would you please—”

Sam knocked G.I. Joe against his milk glass.

“Oh, Jesus, Sammy!”

Chocolate milk splashed across the table and dripped onto the floor. Carl got to his feet. “Okay, that's it, that's it. G.I. Joe goes into the living room until you finish dinner. Look at this mess. For cryin' out loud, Sam…”

Sam was a champ at milk-spilling, both chocolate and white; he wasn't picky. But usually he was apologetic. Not tonight. He seemed downright resentful as Carl snatched the doll out of his hand and tossed it into the living room. Carl wiped up the mess with a sponge. His food was getting cold, and Sam glared at him, lips turned down in a pout.

“I'm sorry I yelled at you,” Carl said calmly. “Accidents can happen. Now, just three bites of your meat loaf, and three of your beans, then you can have a chocolate chip cookie for dessert and play with G.I. Joe all you want. Okay?” Just once, he wished he could get through a meal without having to plead and bribe Sam into eating.

“I want another glass of chocolate milk.”

“Put a dent in your meat loaf first, okay?” Carl dropped the sponge in the sink, then returned to the table. He picked up his fork.

“But I want some chocolate milk! I'm thirsty!”

“Don't use that tone with me, Sam. Now, eat, or you can go straight to bed, no cookies, no G.I. Joe. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. You're making me very angry.” His own father wouldn't have stood for this.

Sam idly pushed the food around his plate with his fork, frowning at it. “I'm not hungry,” he grumbled.

Carl swallowed some cold meat loaf. “Then you can be excused from the table and go to bed.”

“You're mean.”

Carl put down his fork. “Did you hear me?”

Sam sneered down at his plate.

“I said you can eat or go to bed—”

“I don't wanna eat this,” he shot back.

“All right,” Carl said. “Then slide your little butt off that chair and move it into your room before I make it a
sore
little butt. Get moving.”

“Mean,” Sam grunted. He shoved himself away from the table. But he hadn't quite lifted his hands from the place mat, and it moved from the table with him. The place mat, silverware, and his plate—full of food—toppled onto the kitchen floor.

Carl jumped up from his chair. “You little brat—”

“I didn't mean it!” Sam yelled back.

Carl took his napkin and grabbed Sam's arm. “Dammit,” he hissed. “Keep still.” He bent down and brushed the food off Sam's shoes and pants.

“You're hurting,” Sam cried, wiggling his arm against Carl's grip. “Ouch…stop it, Daddy…I didn't do it on purpose…”

Carl released him, only to point toward the general direction of Sam's bedroom. “In bed, this instant! Or I'll really give you something to cry about.”

Sobbing, Sam ran out of the kitchen. “I hate you! I hate you! I wish you'd die!” he screamed.

“And leave the damn G.I. Joe where it is!” Carl called back. He heard Sam's bedroom door slam shut and the muffled crying.

Carl cleaned up the mess. He couldn't stop shaking. He felt so defeated—angry more at himself than his son. He kept replaying in his mind the moment that awful woman had knocked Sam onto the mall floor. How close he'd come to losing him. Yet he let this happen tonight—of all nights, when he should be thanking God he still had him.

His dinner was cold, and he threw it out. He didn't even save the remaining meat loaf for leftovers. Everything got hurled into the garbage. He scrubbed the dishes, letting the hot water nearly scald his hands.

At least once every couple of weeks something like this would happen and make Carl sorry he'd ever snatched Sam from Amy McMurray's car. “What have I got?” he muttered as he worked the Brillo pad over a casserole dish. “Shit job, no love life at all, no real friends, and a kid who hates my guts right now. Don't get a moment of peace or privacy and yet I'm lonely as hell….”