I stood in the driveway with Rick and Caroline, waving as Kurt’s taillights disappeared down the street. We stood in silence for well over a minute, no one having the heart to attempt conversation. Finally, Rick said, “Well, Caroline, it’s time for us to go.”
She gave me a hug, then climbed into his truck without saying a word. Tears were already rolling down her cheeks.
“That was beyond anything I hoped for.” Rick’s voice was choked and barely understandable. He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “Thank you.”
I didn’t trust myself to speak, so I simply nodded. Then, for the second time in only a few minutes, I stood watching taillights as they left my driveway.
The quietness of the house always bothered me most at night. Especially tonight, with my heart still aching from the too-soon departure of Kurt. I needed more time with him. Much more. And to be left only with silence, this night of any—with not even Caroline around to lift my spirits. As much as I’d always moaned about her endless “Come check on me” pleas after climbing into bed, her complaints about homework, the dirty cleats tracking across the carpet, it killed me to be in the house without all that, especially now that Kurt was driving north.
I’d grown to hate the end of the week. Rick took Caroline Wednesday evening through Saturday morning. Sometimes we did dinner, but lately not as much. Mostly I tried to busy myself. And I’d have to do that tonight as well.
I went to my computer and checked my e-mail. This was something I’d started doing obsessively since submitting my proposal to Ken’s editor friend after working on it a little more based on the girls’ suggestions. That had been a couple of weeks ago, but still nothing. I couldn’t understand what could possibly be taking so long for him to respond.
There were a couple of e-mails, one from Sally Spiro, the president of the PTA. I didn’t bother opening it, it could wait.
The second was from Reisha Cinders. The name was familiar, but I couldn’t remember why. I clicked on the icon.
Dear Mrs. Stewart,
I haven’t as yet heard back from you about doing a guest spot on the Christian America Talk Show. We have an opening about a month from now, on Monday the 19th, and I’m hoping you’re available. The show goes live at 2:00 p.m. We’d probably want you to call into the station around 1:45. If this doesn’t work for you, please let me know some other dates when you’re available. I will call you next Monday to talk through arrangements.
Blessings,
Reisha Cinders
I’d always considered helping others with grief a part of my God-given call. It was something I knew I should do. I clicked Respond.
Dear Mrs. Cinders,
That date looks like it will work. I look forward to it and to your call on Monday.
In Him,
Alisa Stewart
I sent the e-mail, thinking about the newfound hope in my story now that Kurt had returned. It would be so much more uplifting than before. Then I had a flash of brilliance. My new epilogue. The happy ending after the prodigal came home. Two hours later, I had seven pages of what I was certain would be the perfect ending to my book. Without pausing long enough to consider what I was doing, I attached it to an e-mail and sent it on its way to Dennis Mahan at Allenby Publishers
Unfortunately, it was only ten o’clock and I was wound too tight to consider sleep. I needed to at least do something to help Kurt. But what? That’s when I remembered the storage boxes. I’d been so disappointed when I found out he was moving to Jodi’s, I’d completely forgotten about my plan to clean his things up for him. He would be needing those things up in Templeton, too. I could get out all his clothes, wash and fold them. Not only would it be helpful, but it would give me an excuse to drive up and see him this weekend.
I walked out the back door, crossed our California-tiny backyard, and threw open the door to the storage shed. The smell of lawn trimmings and machine oil greeted me with a calming familiarity, even before I threw the light switch. I made my way to the back and pulled out the three boxes. I managed to drag them all into Kurt’s room and prepared to begin my task.
The cardboard boxes had a picture of avocados on the side, and the tops were sealed shut with packing tape. Remembering my plan to keep these boxes as a future reminder, I tugged at the tape with care. The first piece peeled back, taking with it only a thin layer of brown fibers. The second piece of tape peeled back with equal ease, and I flipped the top flaps open.
Inside, it was full of clothes, wadded into a giant mess. It looked as though someone had gone into a closet, picked up all the clothes he could find, and dumped them into the box. Which, I suppose, is exactly what did happen.
Seeing the complete disregard with which Kurt’s things had been handled made me angry at first. Then, on second thought, it made me extra glad that I had decided to clean all of this before taking it to him. I wouldn’t want him to know that his things had been treated with anything but the respect that they—and he—deserved.
Ten minutes later, the first box was empty and three small piles of laundry surrounded me on the floor. Mostly faded jeans and T-shirts, along with three pairs of worn tennis shoes, and one sweat shirt with the words Ocean Hills High School across the chest. The faded navy blue, almost gray now, brought tears to my eyes. I hugged it to my chest and inhaled deeply, looking for any trace of scent that my son might have left behind. I found none. It simply smelled like dust and smoke and mustiness.
I opened the small box next. It had Kurt’s personal belongings— the signed soccer ball his tenth grade team had presented him after he scored the game-winning goal during play-offs, an LA Galaxy fleece blanket he’d had since eighth grade, and a trio of framed pictures. I turned the first over. Nick. Smiling for his senior picture. I ran my finger over the glass, stared into the innocent eyes of my firstborn son. Had the thought ever crossed this sweet young man’s mind that barely a year after this picture was taken, he would be beaten to death for fifty dollars? Would he still have been able to smile if he’d known how his death would wreck his entire family, that his brother would descend into drugs, that his parents would become distant strangers who eventually moved on with their separate lives? I was glad he didn’t know the truth. Glad he’d had those last few months of happiness without being burdened by what was to come. Oh, but I wish I had known then. I would have never allowed the trip to New Orleans to occur. Nick might have been eighteen, an “adult,” but I was still his mother. I wouldn’t have let him out of my sight.
Something about the surface of the picture seemed wrong. I leaned closer and held it up toward the light. Then I could see that the picture had been crumpled. It looked as though it had been wadded into a ball, then straightened back out after the person thought better of it. I wondered who would have done this. Was it someone Kurt had met during his time away from home? Had Kurt gotten angry about it, ordered the person to leave his sight? I suspected that’s exactly what happened, because Kurt had always been Nick’s protector. I knew he wouldn’t have done this. He may have been younger, but he was stronger in every way—at least we’d thought so.
I turned the second frame over and found a picture of a toddler-sized Caroline standing knee-deep in a mud puddle, her face streaked with grime, a look of complete joy on her face. I remembered when Kurt took this picture for a photo class at school. It made me laugh every time I saw it.
The last picture showed the two boys, maybe eight and ten years old, standing with me in front of the Pacific Ocean, smiling at the camera. This photo had always been in the mix of dozens of photos filling a shelf that ran the length of our hallway. It stunned me to realize that in all this time, I’d never even noticed it was gone. I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that I didn’t notice. I’d missed so many things since Nick’s death. I’d managed to miss the early signs of Kurt’s increasing drug use until it was too late to do anything about it. It was my fault in a lot of ways; I know that. But how could a mother be expected to focus on details when she had just lost her son?
The fog of pain had covered me so completely in that first year—still did at times—it made it all but impossible to see anything beyond the mist that choked and blinded me. It took more energy than I possessed to continue to move, performing like a robot, doing all the usual things—work, carpool, attending Kurt’s soccer games. I never woke up on those mornings with any other thought than simply making it through the day before me. Why hadn’t I opened my eyes, spent the time to peer through it all to notice that my son had started to self-medicate his own pain? Nick’s death had been more or less out of my control, but Kurt’s descent, well, I had been there. I should have seen it happening and stopped it.
At least this was the one thing I’d have the chance to do over. This time, when Kurt needed my help, I would be more than certain not to miss it.
I put the items back into the small box, planning to set them up in Kurt’s room as soon as I finished unloading the final box, the largest of the three, which I suspected would provide more laundry for my piles. I peeled back the tape and, as expected, found another wad of clothes. I sorted them into the piles, then looked at the remaining items in the box. Toward the bottom there were a few odds and ends. A flyer from a rock concert, some plastic cups and forks, and a tattered gray blanket. I picked it up, planning to add it to the laundry pile. As I lifted it, I heard the thump of something falling from the folds. I put the blanket on the floor and looked into the box. My heart stopped beating when I saw it.
Lying there, perfectly symmetrical across the remaining items in the box, was a Louisville Slugger baseball bat. I squatted down, trying to catch my breath, waiting for reason to overtake the sudden panic that had seized me. And after a few deep breaths, it did.
Louisville Sluggers had to be the most common bats around. Kurt was a very athletic boy; he’d probably joined a softball league or something. Of course that must be it.
When I reached down to pick it up, I wrapped my hand around a shirt first—it wasn’t that I was concerned about fingerprints, because I knew there was a reasonable explanation for what I was seeing. I think I’d just watched one too many police shows.
I held the bat up, closer to the overhead light of the room. The grain of the wood was worn, chipped on the end, in fact. Years of playing baseball would likely do that to a bat. I rolled it over, noting that it looked perfectly normal. Until the very last of the rotation. A couple of darker areas of the wood caught my attention. I grabbed another towel from the laundry pile and rubbed it across the grain, praying that it wouldn’t pull away blood red. It didn’t. In fact, nothing came off at all. Of course it wasn’t blood, just an old stain, for crying out loud. What had even possessed me to think along those lines? It was a little stain—likely mud. If it were blood, then it would be red, instead of this pale dirty brown. No, this was just dirt.
I knew I was blowing this out of proportion, so I looked into the box to see what remained. I pulled up a towel—completely stiff with dirt—and beneath it found a pair of cleats and a deflated basketball. Sports equipment. Of course. Just like the bat was.
But now what? I hesitated and weighed my options. Put it in Kurt’s room, leaning in a corner, like it was a treasured memento? Hide it away until I knew for sure? Or should I call Detective Thompson and tell him to come take a look?
After several years of teaching at grief seminars, I knew the official answer I would give to a woman in my position. You call the detective. Now. If there is nothing to this, then you sleep easier that night knowing that you’ve done the right thing. If this is indeed the murder weapon the police have spent the last couple of months searching for, then your son has some serious explaining to do, and likely some consequences that he rightly needs to pay.
Only the truth would set you free.
But there was no “you” here.
Only me. Only my son.