The Ones Who Got Away (7 page)

***

It has been six years since I have lived with my mother. She tried her best to make it up to me by quitting her job and spending all her time and money on me. She need not to because I had forgiven her. A mother was all I wanted all my life and it did not matter if she was not perfect because nobody is. I am now taking up counseling course in the local university so I can help out thousands of people like me to cope with their problems and dilemmas.

We were just about to leave to the airport for a holiday trip to Venice when a letter slipped under the door. It was from a Ms. Kiera Baker and was addressed to my mother. As she read the contents of the letter, she almost fainted. After a hot drink, I asked about the letter, curious on what was in it that brought my mother to her knees.

Kiera, my mother explained, was their classmate and a big fan of my father. Kiera caused her to have a tough time as she was obsessed with Jason and did all she could to take him away from my mother. However, Kiera was dying of kidney failure and wanted to unearth a secret she kept buried for so many years. She may have caused my mother’s pain but now she brought my mother hope.

***

On that night of their formal dinner, Kiera followed Jason when she saw him walking across the parking lot. She wanted to confess her feelings for him but Maria was always in the way. Now, they could finally talk alone, in peace. She followed him as he went into an abandoned construction site nearby. A man was there, waiting beside a car and shook hands with Jason. She could barely make out his features in the dark but it was someone she recognized.

“I got the car seat, diapers, milk formula,” the man ticked off each of it with his fingers.” I thought of everything. So, is it a boy or girl?” The voice belonged to someone Kiera knew so well. Mr. David, their Physics teacher. But what was he doing here?

“It’s a girl.” Jason replied.

Mr. David’s fist punched the air. “Yes!!” He exclaimed as if celebrating it. “So,” He looked around the deserted construction site. Nobody was there. “Is Maria going to bring her here?”

“No, Mr. David I can’t do it. I‘m sorry.”

Mr. David ran a hand through his hair. “What?!”

“I know I didn’t follow our plan but I’m sorry. After all I saw tonight, I realized those two girls are all I want. I want to build a new life with them and have a family.”

“Look kid, my wife and I have been trying to get a baby for ten years. Ten years! Do you know that? That baby is the only chance I have to save my marriage. You and Maria are better off without the baby. You guys have years ahead of you so don’t be stupid!”

“I’m trying to save something too. I‘m sorry Mr. David. Maybe you can try adopt or something.”

“We’ve already tried that!” Mr. David yelled. “Jason!! This is my life I’m talking about. Jason!!” But Jason had already walked away.

Mr. David got into his Toyota Vios and slammed the door. He turned on the engine, headlights off, rage overpowering him, and drove straight into Jason.

Kiera who was hiding behind a pile of bags of cement, stifled a scream. She then ran into the darkness. She never told anyone until today, in her letter to Maria. Jason’s body was found the next day and was the talk of the town. The baby that was found was made a headline but nobody figured the two cases were related.

Kiera locked herself up for months after that and would not talk to anybody as she was traumatized by what she saw. By the time she started to recover, Maria had already left town. The police had ruled off Jason’s death as a hit-and-run but could not place a finger on the parents of the baby. But Kiera knew. She had overheard Jimmy talked about planning the abortion at the clinic that she frequented for her dialysis treatments. Kiera kept that to herself too.

I was stunned when I read the letter. My father never left my mother. He was planning on keeping me and having a life with us even if it meant sacrificing his future. At the end, he sacrificed his life. I cried in my mother’s arms and she cried in mine and I offered a silent prayer for my father.

Be Careful What You Wish For

I breathed in the cool crisp air with a grim smile as I glanced at the cemetery. It was devoid of people and all that dwelled there were a few trees with branches that blocked out every inch of sunlight, making the atmosphere a tad gloomier. I walked to his grave, avoiding from tripping over other graves which were hardly marked except for small mounds of earth above them. My eye caught something as I neared his grave, a piece of paper I thought. It fluttered in the wind under the weight of a few pebbles and almost flew with the breeze. I caught it before it got any further.

I stared at the drawing, taking in the fine lines of the pencil. It was a drawing of a boy around Jeremy’s age. He was fifteen when it happened. The incident that took his life away. In the drawing, the boy was lying on the train tracks, while two other boys the same age looked on from the sidelines. They were wearing smiles. Victorious ones or was it sinister? I could not tell. I gripped the paper in my hand and looked around the cemetery. Which sick person would leave this and why. Did that person think what happened to Jeremy might have not been an accident? Like I do? I was not certain but one thing is for sure, I was not going to let this rest until I get to the bottom of it.

Jeremy died ten years ago. Why did he matter to me, you will soon find out. Meanwhile, try to figure out who I am while I try to figure out what really happened to Jeremy. He was found on the train tracks. There were no witnesses. Nothing, so they ruled him out as an accident. By they, I meant the police and everyone else in society. It was easier for them to accept that someone like Jeremy brought that tragedy to himself than try to dig in deeper. But I was different. I pushed and prodded the police to carry on further investigations on his death. They heard me for a while but then shut me out so going to the police with this new evidence would not help. They would think I set it up and it will further prove their point that I was hallucinating and that won’t help me in any way.

The next day, I paid a visit to the cemetery again, determination burning in the back of my mind. As I got out of my car, I noticed a man, crouched over the grave. I walked over to him and greeted him.  

“You knew him? Jeremy, I mean.” I began, sounding genuinely sad.

“Yeah, I used to take care of him,” the man replied with a grim smile. I observed him. He was slight taller than me with broad shoulders and big arms. He was probably just two or three years older than me and I was in my middle twenties.

“Ten years has passed. I can’t believe it’s been so long. Have you been here before?“ I said in a distant voice. Feeling the words echo the silent graveyard. Then I turned to him, “Never seen you around…. umm”

“My name’s Danial and it’s my first time,” he replied in a voice equally distant as mine.

We sat and listened to our own minds talking within and sat in silence for a few minutes. All that we had in common was the person we cared about. The person who is now gone. So what keeps us in common now? The feeling of missing him. I don’t know if maybe I was the only one feeling this way, but as I stole a glance at Danial, I could see he felt the same way too.

“So, you’ve never put anything on the grave?” I blurted out. I looked surprised to see his surprised expression until I realized what I just said.

“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about,” he said, his eyebrows linking together in a frown.

I showed him the drawing. The one that made me hardly sleep a wink last night.

“Maybe you know something? I want to talk it out with you since I bet you know Jeremy really well.” I said, the string of words flowing smoothly out of my chapped lips. I bit my lip making it almost bleed, waiting for his response. “But, it’s best if we not do it here.” I motioned to the not so conducive environment for a little chit chat.

“Sure. Anything for Jeremy,” he finally replied. I inhaled in relief.

***

“How long have you known Jeremy?” I asked over a mug of hot chocolate at a diner. The place was really packed and noisy chatter enveloped the atmosphere aside from the distracting smell of bacon. But Danial didn’t seem to mind. His eyes bored on mine.

“Three years. I picked him up from school three times a week. Looked through his homework,” he said while swallowing a mouthful of curry puff.

“So, kinda like a babysitter.” I asked, eyebrows raising. I didn’t know there were male babysitters for hire.  But then, the world was changing so fast these days I can hardly keep up with the pace and end up tripping.

“Yeah, he needed someone.” Danial said, washing the toast down with two gulps of coffee.

“Where were the parents?” I wondered aloud.

“The dad was out of the picture. His mom, Megan worked at supermarket checkouts. Taking as many shifts as she could get.”

“And Jeremy had some kind of condition?” I wanted to make sure if he knew.

“He was limited. Needed extra care.” That explains Danial in the picture.

“So you and Megan looked out for him and then, she got sick?” I asked. Confirming the story I already knew by heart. Jeremy was very close to me anyway. Now, that is a clue for you to guess who I am.

“Breast cancer. It killed her.”

“Do you know who might have done these?” I showed him the drawings that has been disturbing my mind.

Danial shook his head.

“Anyone who disliked Jeremy? Tried to hurt him?”

“Only people he knew at school. Other than that, could have been anybody.”

“Why’s that?”

“Jeremy was loving, trusting. Everything kids that age can’t be.”

“So, open season on the slow kid?”

“There was one day, I found Jeremy on his knees in the water fountain outside the school. His clothes got all wet and he was shivering in the cold water. I rushed over and it turned out he was collecting the shells at the bottom of the fountain. There were kids milling nearby, laughing pointedly at him but Jeremy didn’t seem to notice. He was too busy getting himself soaked up.”

Danial shook his head as he continued his story, “When I asked what it was for, Jeremy told me it was for Elena, a girl he had a big crush on. One of the boys in his class told him that this Elena loved shells and that‘s why he did it. To prove his love. I had to convince him that making a wish that she would like him was enough to get him out of the fountain. And that was an average day. There were worse.”
 

“Did Megan ever try to put him in a special school?”

“She had no money. She even paid me with lunch sometimes. Or filled in my college applications to pay me for taking care of Jeremy. I mean, I was nineteen when he died. On my way to college.”

“Did Jeremy had any friends who might have known who had it in for Jeremy?” I couldn’t believe that in a whole high school, there was nobody who did not care about being popular and bullied the weak, different kid just to be liked and accepted. Teenagers could not be that mean. But then, they were teenagers. All about identity crisis.

“There was a kid, Joshua.” Danial said, trying to conjure up Joshua’s face in his mind. I could tell by the way he scrunched his eyebrows. “He was Jeremy’s friend, or at least the closest thing he had to one.”

***

Joshua turned out to be a jobless guy. He just got sacked from his only-God-knows-how-many-times job as a waiter at Denny’s.  I was sure I got the right Joshua because the other Joshua’s who went to the high school the same year as Jeremy was either a businessman in Sydney or was in the slammer for bringing drugs over the border.

The Joshua that befriended Jeremy, as according to Danial, wasn’t the kind who mixed around with junkies but also wasn’t that bright. In fact, given Jeremy’s condition, Jeremy was smarter. I knocked on the door of the apartment which was ready to topple anytime soon. Dilapidated was not even the closest word to describe it. Imminent collapse was more like it.

“Are you from the Thai place?” The man asked peeking from behind his door. His hair was sticking at weird angles and I wondered when he last shaved.

“Nope and not the pizza girl either. I’m Hannah and I’m here to ask you about Jeremy. You‘re a friend of him, aren‘t you?” I gave him my sweetest smile, hoping that was enough to melt his heart and let me in.

“It’s been ten years. Why now?” He asked, sounding suspicious as if I was the Feds.

“Somebody thinks what happened to him wasn’t an accident.”

“Come in.”

The door creaked open and I stepped into the cluttered space. Old newspapers, yellowed with age was everywhere, there was an ashtray full with ashes and cigarette butts. The air smelled damp as if it had been circulating the apartment for the last decade. I walked across the room and heaved open a window, finally, I can breathe.

Then, I saw a drawing of a man in an expensive suit, strangled with his own necktie stuck on the wall. I looked closer and realized the way it was drawn, matches the one in my handbag. The drawing of Jeremy’s train accident which was pictured as if it was not.

“Who is this?” I asked, pointing to the disturbing drawing of the suffocating man.

“My old boss.” Joshua answered, exhaling puffs of cigarette smoke that made my eyes watery.

“Looks like the same artist.” I stated, showing him the drawing of Jeremy.

“Joshua, are you trying to say something about how Jeremy died?”

“I don’t know how he died.” Joshua denied it.

“Then why did you leave these pictures at the grave?” I asked. By the way he reacted, I knew he drew it because he didn’t deny drawing it.  

“It’s just something for him. A remembrance. Sort of like a gift for his tenth anniversary.”

“Is this Jeremy on the tracks?” I asked, pointing at the boy that was drawn lying supine and motionless on the train tracks while two boys around that age looked on, laughing.

“No, Jeremy and I are the ones by the sidelines. The one on the tracks is Matthew.”

“Who’s that?” I asked, trying to search my head for a Matthew. Nothing came up and Joshua had already interrupted my thoughts with his story.

***

“Don’t. Please don’t hurt JJ.” Jeremy pleaded. Joshua and Jeremy were on their way home from school by foot and they had to pass by the train tracks to get back. There was where they came across a group of guys. Matthew’s little army. Matthew was the popular guy. Rugby captain, loved by the students, despised by the teachers. And when Matthew wanted something done, he had his little band of bandits to help out.

“Is that what I’m doing? Hurting him?” Matthew laughed mockingly. He was holding Jeremy’s prized possession, Jeremy’s teddy bear. And it did not seem like he was going to give it back to Jeremy. At least not in one piece.

“Yes.” Jeremy said softly between tears.

“Yeah, you’re right. I can hear him crying.” The other boys were chuckling. Some, yelling out profane words at Jeremy. One of them was holding Joshua captive, making him helpless.

“Stop it!” and Jeremy tried to grab the teddy but Matthew was too tall and pushed him away.

“Hey!” Matthew said “I can give your teddy back. All you have to do is say please.”

“Please,” but in a flash, the cotton fillings of the teddy spilled out before his eyes. Matt had ripped off JJ’s hand

“NO!!” Jeremy’s moan filled the air. Tears were spilling down faster now as he looked at his now one handed teddy.

“Awhhh…Look at what you made me do.” Matthew said, his voice full of mockery.

Jeremy continued weeping, sobs breaking from his chest.

“Whatever.” Matthew said and gave a big fat punch that knocked Jeremy off his feet. When Jeremy was down, Matthew kicked him over and over. Jeremy coughed, parting his lips not to shout out for help but to gasp for air. “