Mummy Said Goodbye

Looking both mulish and sheepish—speaking of animals, she thought with a certain wryness—Ryan nodded again.

“Then this incident is forgotten. You may go back to your desk.”

Of course, she was lying. The incident was not forgotten by either boy, or even by her.

Wednesday, she had her students begin journals, which they would leave in their desks every night.

“I’ll read them from time to time.” She wandered among desks, touching a shoulder here, smiling there. “Not to correct them. I want you to write freely about your experiences, your thoughts, your feelings. I’m checking only to be sure that you are in fact using your time to write. Still, be aware that I may read any particular passage, so in a sense you are writing for my eyes.”

She gave them twenty minutes to open their spiral notebooks and—for the most part—stare into space. Each day it would come easier, until the majority of students actually enjoyed this time, took up where they left off, explored contradictory emotions, forgot that they were writing for anyone but themselves.

On Thursday she interrupted a shouting match between Brett and a pair of boys from April Nyholt’s class. They said, “I’m sorry, Ms. McKinnon,” and retired from the battlefield looking smug. Brett smoldered.

Robin wished he could see that his attitude was most of the problem. Other kids in this school had had notorious parents. Students had buzzed a couple of years ago when a sixth-grader’s mother left her father for another woman. But the girl had had the sense to say, “She’s my mom and I love her, but…it is so-o freaky!” Everybody had sympathized and quickly forgotten. Brett didn’t let anybody forget.

Robin didn’t look at her students’ journals until Friday. She asked that they be left out on the desks. When the room was empty, she walked from desk to desk, flipping open the journals.

Some had only a few lines.

I’m going to my dad’s tonight. I hate going! It is so boring!

Robin smiled at the multiple underlines beneath “so,” even though she felt sad at how many children were shuttled between divorced parents’ houses with no regard for where they preferred to be.

One boy wrote in some detail about a Seahawks game to which his uncle had taken him. The excitement shone through, and that provoked another smile. Several kids couldn’t spell, and she made a mental note of their names. Ryan wrote about “that Lofgren kid” trying to beat the crap out of him. “All I said was…” Robin sighed. Her little lecture had apparently not had much impact.

Perhaps deliberately, her route brought her to Brett’s desk last. She opened his journal, started reading and made a small sound of shock.

Oh, dear, was no longer an adequate response.

CHAPTER TWO

CRAIG DID NOT expect to hear from his son’s teacher on a Friday evening. In fact, he didn’t expect to hear from her at all. Last year’s teacher had never once called him in for a conference, even though Brett’s grades sank throughout the year and the principal did summon Craig several times. When Craig showed up for the traditional November parent conferences, Ms. Hayes had appeared uncomfortable and kept their talk as short as she could manage without outright rudeness.

Last week, when he’d asked how the first day of school went, Abby’s face had brightened. “I really like Mrs. Jensen. She’s letting Summer and me sit together.”

Brett shrugged.

Craig had tried a couple of times in the intervening week and a half to talk to his son, but Brett always mumbled, “It’s okay.”

Don’t borrow trouble, Craig warned himself. He didn’t want to assume Brett would do poorly this year. Time was supposed to heal, wasn’t it?

Craig had been gone the past couple of days. He’d flown the polar route to Frankfurt and back. As usual, his father stayed with the kids.

Dad had already fed them when Craig got home at seven-thirty that evening. Waving off Craig’s thanks, he said, “See you Tuesday,” and left.

As he did every single time, Craig wondered what he’d do without his father, who’d retired nearby a few years back. Who else would stay in this house? Something told him that motherly types would not line up outside his door if he ran an ad in the weekly paper asking for live-in help for half the week.

Weary, Craig said hi to Abby, engrossed in a favorite TV show, and to Brett who was hunched over the computer playing Snood. In one way, he was stung by their lack of interest in his arrival home. In another, he was pleased. Abby had clung to him after her mother disappeared. Every time Craig had to leave, she’d sobbed and begged him not to go. Brett had hidden his feelings better, but Craig could feel his anxiety, too. He’d considered quitting his job, maybe seeing if he could fly for a local carrier like Horizon, so that he could be home every night. But just recently, he’d seen an improvement. The kids were beginning to have faith that their Dad would always come home.

On his way to the kitchen, he gave something approaching a laugh. Faith? Hell, maybe they just liked Grandad better. Craig knew damn well that his father wasn’t as demanding as he was. Abby and Brett had manipulating Grandad down to a fine art.

Without interest, Craig gazed into the refrigerator. His father had left a covered plate. Craig lifted the tin foil, saw leftover spaghetti, and stuck it in the microwave to warm even though he wasn’t very hungry. He had to eat.

The microwave was still humming when the phone rang. Craig started. The telephone in this house didn’t ring often.

He lifted the receiver and said cautiously, “Hello?”

A woman’s voice, sounding tentative, said, “May I speak to Mr. Lofgren?”

“This is Craig Lofgren.”

The microwave beeped. He ignored it.

“Oh. This is Robin McKinnon. Brett’s teacher.”

His heart sank. So much for his foolish hope that Brett’s notoriety would wear off and that he might start joining the pack again, so to speak. It seemed Abby was, even if none of her friends were ever able to come home with her to play.

“Yes?”

“I’d like to set up a conference with you, Mr. Lofgren. To discuss Brett.”

“What’s he done?”

There was a moment of silence. “It’s not so much what he’s done as how…unhappy he seems. He’s very isolated, you know.” In this pause, Craig sensed she was searching for words. “He’s angry.”

Angry. That meant Brett was still starting fights. Rubbing the back of his neck, Craig said, “Is Monday too soon? I’m an airline pilot and I fly out again Tuesday.”

“Can you come right after school on Monday? At two-thirty?”

He agreed. “Should I be speaking to Brett about something specific in the meantime?”

“No-o.” She seemed to draw the word out. “I’d rather talk to you first.”

“Is he doing his work?”

“In a perfunctory way.”

Damn it, Brett was a smart kid. He’d been a topnotch student until… Craig grunted. Until his world fell apart.

“Did you say something?” the teacher asked.

“No. I’ll see you Monday.”

He replaced the receiver, then stood frowning into space for a long minute before remembering the spaghetti. He ate without tasting it, dumping half into the garbage. What was Brett doing? Beating the crap out of every kid who said, “Hey, did your dad bury your mom in the backyard?”

Yeah. Probably. Craig could even understand the temptation. There were days he was angry, too. When he sure as hell wanted to punch somebody. He was angry that he couldn’t grocery shop locally without mothers shooing their kids out of his path or all conversation dying around him. He was angry at “friends” who hadn’t known him at all. And sometimes, on really bad days, he hated the cops, and especially Sergeant Michael Caldwell, the investigating officer who had made up his mind from the get-go that Craig had killed his wife and had hounded Craig for the next year.

A week ago, he’d felt sick to realize that he was happy to see in the newspaper that Michael Caldwell had died in a car accident. An easygoing man, Craig had never truly hated before.

And he was lucky enough to be able to escape the miasma of suspicion and judgment when he went to work. Co-pilots and crew came from all over the country. Some didn’t even know about Julie. Others had never met her and had forgotten the notoriety. In the air, he was just Captain Lofgren.

Besides, he had a lifetime of lessons in self-restraint to draw on. Brett was at a tough age anyway. What scared Craig was the long-term effect of all this anger on Brett. Hormones were putting him through the wringer already. He was supposed to be slamming doors and sulking. He wasn’t supposed to have discovered that theoretically decent people seemed to need to have a leper in their midst whom they could despise and fear. He wasn’t supposed to have discovered already what it was like to be that leper.

Craig tucked Abby in and heard about her week. Summer’s mother, thank God, had allowed her daughter’s friendship with Abby to continue. Summer didn’t come over here, but Craig could live with that. Abby had asked a few times, Summer—or her mother—had made excuses, and Abby had quit asking. But they had her over often and kids her age had been oblivious to the police investigation. Some of them had probably heard now—mothers must give some explanation why little Bridget or Annie couldn’t play at Abby’s house—but even in fourth grade they were too young to care, apparently, about grown-up stuff they didn’t really understand.

“Can I go tomorrow?” she asked, as he pulled the covers up and smoothed them.

He realized he’d missed something. “Go where?”

She rolled her eyes in a good imitation of her brother. “To Mt. Rainier.”

“Just for the day?”

“We’re taking a picnic and stuff. Summer’s brother is bringing his yucky friend, so she needs me.”

“Of course you can go. Maybe I’ll take Brett fishing.”

Her nose scrunched. “If you catch something, I don’t have to eat it, do I?”

Craig laughed. “No, you don’t. Your loss.”

“Uh-huh.”

Still laughing, he kissed her good-night and turned out the light.

He didn’t suggest bedtime for Brett for another couple of hours. Then he wandered in to say good-night and stopped in his tracks.

“Hey! Your bedroom’s clean.”

“Grandad made me.”

Hmm. Maybe his father wasn’t quite the pushover Craig had feared.

“Good. Did he also make you wash a few loads, or is it all piled up in the laundry room waiting for me?”

“Uh… I started a load. Tuesday night.” Then Brett grinned, for a second looking like the cheerful kid he’d once been. “Just kidding. I washed three loads. And folded them.”

Which meant Craig’s dress shirts were probably wadded in a stack on his bureau rather than hanging in the closet, but Craig wasn’t about to quibble.

“Thank you,” he said, and meant it.

“Did you know that Grandad doesn’t throw his socks away when they get holes in them? He says he doesn’t mind a little ventilation.”

“He grew up without much money. Even though he’s got enough now, he thinks before he buys anything.”

Brett puzzled over that. “Oh. But…socks?”

“Maybe we should buy him some for his birthday.”

The boy’s expression made plain what he thought of socks as a birthday present.

Casually, Craig said, “Your teacher called tonight.”

A flare of something very like fear was dampened in a heartbeat. Brett’s face went blank. “Ms. McKinnon?”

“Uh-huh.”

His son tried to hold out, but couldn’t. “What did she want?”

“A conference.” Craig waited for a deliberate moment. “Do you know what it’s about?”

Brett shrugged. Craig’s least favorite response.

“We’ll see,” he said.

Brett turned his face away on the pillow.

“Do you want to go fishing tomorrow?” Craig asked.

He looked back at his father. “Really?”

“Yeah, why not?”

“Does Abby have to come?”

“Nope. She’s going somewhere with Summer.”

“Cool! Yeah!”

THEY HAD A GOOD DAY, taking their poles to a small lake where they rented a rowboat and trolled. With Labor Day weekend past, the lake was uncrowded, a few powerboats crisscrossing, one water skier making half a dozen laps before taking a spectacular fall.

The sun was warm, the blue surface of the lake dazzling, the occasional excitement of hauling in a trout of legal length all they needed to save them from boredom. Trees grew down to the shores of the lake, interrupted by summer cabins and docks.

Craig made no effort to direct the desultory conversation, just let it drift along with the boat.

Only once did the subject of Brett’s mom come up.

After one of the many long, contented pauses, the eleven-year-old said, “That policeman is dead, right?”

Craig nodded. “His funeral was last week.”

“What will they do now?”

“I don’t know.” Craig flexed his pole and cranked the reel a few times. “It may not make any difference that he’s gone.”

His son gave him a look older than his years. “He thought you killed Mom.”

Craig considered denying it, but dismissed the notion. He wasn’t a believer in telling his kids lies.

“Yeah, that’s the impression he gave.”

“Maybe the other cops don’t.” Hope was scrabbling here. “Maybe they’ll find Mom.”

“You know, even if they did, I don’t think she’ll be coming home.”

Brett nodded. “Unless she’s, like, being held captive somewhere. I read about this guy who kidnapped women and kept them for, like, six months at a time. Or she could have amnesia or something.”

“Almost anything’s possible.” Craig made his voice gentle. “But the chances are she’s either dead or she left because she wanted to.”

“Yeah,” his son said despondently. “I know. But…hey!” His pole bowed. “Wow, this feels like a big one!”

That was it. Excited about his catch, Brett didn’t seem interested in talking about his mother anymore.

Sunday was catch-up day: clean the house, mow the lawn, buy groceries for the week. Brett was even quieter than usual but helpful, Abby as chatty as always.

Monday Craig did errands: the bank, the dry cleaners, the post office. He usually drove to Tacoma to do them, just so he didn’t have to endure the stares.

Coward, he accused himself. Or maybe he was paranoid; maybe some of the stares were imagined. Could be that he and Brett both were being egotistical in believing the whole world gave a flying leap about their personal drama.

He still went to Tacoma.

Abby and Brett both took the bus home from school. They’d be okay without him for an hour. Craig parked in front of the elementary school administration building and waited until the buses pulled out and the majority of the parents picking up children had left the parking lot.

While he waited, he tried to remember a woman he’d met a few times but probably hadn’t exchanged ten words with. She was pretty, he seemed to recall, but not in Julie’s class. He remembered her as too thin, tense. Always nice, but looking wired, as if she didn’t sleep. Brett had hung out with her kid and seemed to like her. For some reason, Julie and Robin McKinnon had clicked, which was the part that worried Craig.

Finally he made himself get out of the car and walk in. This was the kind of place he hated most to go, where he was especially unwelcome. A sign on the door read Visitors MUST Check In At Office. The secretary looked up with a smile that froze when she saw him.

“May I help you?”

“Just checking in to see my son’s teacher. Ms. McKinnon is expecting me.”

He signed in and she handed him a pass that he was supposed to clip to his shirt pocket.

“I’ll let her know you’re on your way.” The secretary turned away.

Striding down the hall, careful not to turn his head to look into classrooms or to make eye contact with passing adults or kids, Craig imagined that she was summoning reinforcements to be sure that Robin McKinnon didn’t risk life and limb by being alone with him.

More paranoia.

Turned out that Brett’s classroom was in a portable just outside the double doors at the far end of the wing. If he’d known, he would have parked in the back and gone straight to her classroom without walking the gauntlet. The hell with their rules.

Not a good attitude for the parent of two young kids.

He went up a ramp, knocked and went in.

As Robin McKinnon turned from the blackboard, an eraser in her hand, his first thought was that she was prettier than he’d remembered.

She’d put on weight, but in a good way. It made him realize that what he’d seen back then was worry. Something wrong in her life. He remembered something about a divorce, but that had been a while back, hadn’t it? But divorce did bring consequences: money problems, or her boy had reacted badly to his dad moving out.

Now she had a round, gentle face, big brown eyes and light brown hair pulled loosely into a ponytail on the crown of her head. It was beautiful hair: thick, straight, shiny. Heavy silk.

She wore a batik-print skirt in brown and cream and a cream-colored T-shirt. Quite a bit taller than his petite wife, Robin McKinnon was five-seven or -eight, slim but curvy in the right places.

“Mr. Lofgren. Thank you for coming.”

She didn’t smile. Blocking his awareness of her as a woman, he nodded curtly.

“Please. Come and sit down.” She led the way to her desk. When she sat behind it, he followed suit in a creaky old armchair of that yellowed oak being retired from all public institutions.

She looked nervous, but her eyes met his. “We’ve met before.”

“I remember.”

“I was very sorry to hear about Julie’s disappearance.” She said it carefully. Had rehearsed it, he guessed. “I liked her.”

He nodded again, keeping his face expressionless.

“This must have been a very difficult year and a half for you.”

Craig had lost patience with pretence. “Is there a point to this?”

Her expression told him he’d been rude. “I was going to add that it must have been a difficult time for Brett as well.”

He sighed. “I’m sorry. Yes. Of course it has been. As you said, he’s angry.”

“And sad,” she prompted, as if he’d forgotten something important.

Craig grimaced. “That goes without saying. Does he miss his mom? Of course he does. But that’s not at the root of his problems. It’s the whispers, the friends who turned their backs, the cops coming over and over again to interview his father.” He heard how harsh his voice had become. “It’s the fact that we might as well live in a zoo, with people peering into our cage with morbid interest and fear.” He made himself stop. “Does that give you some insight into Brett, Ms. McKinnon?”

She gaped, and Craig realized that he had been leaning toward her, trying with body language to strengthen his description of a life he hoped would horrify her. Would truly let her understand his son.

Letting out a long breath, he leaned back. The chair groaned. Silence swelled.

Her tongue touched her lips. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, voice cracking. “I didn’t realize…”

“Why should you? Unless you hurried your son to the other side of the street because you saw Brett coming.”

There was a fearlessness in her eyes that he hadn’t noticed before. And something else—shame.

“No,” she said, still in that low, husky voice. “I wouldn’t have done that. But I should have encouraged Malcolm to stay in touch with Brett. I let Brett slip from my radar. For that…I really am sorry.”

To his astonishment, he believed her. All he could do was nod. His throat seemed to have closed. He met kindness so damn rarely.

Clearing his throat, he nodded at the folder and spiral binder she had squared on the desk blotter in front of her. “Maybe you’d better tell me what’s going on.”

Blinking, she looked down, then gave her head a small shake. “Yes. Of course.” She bit her lip, then lifted her head to meet his eyes again. “From the first day, Brett’s been…sullen. He stays to himself. He has no friends that I can see.”

“He never did make friends as easily as my younger, Abby. But he had a couple of good friends. One moved away right before…” His jaws tightened. “The other kid pretty much turned his back on Brett. I don’t know if it was by choice, or on his parents’ orders. Or if Brett’s turmoil drove him away.”

“Oh, no,” she murmured. When he said nothing more, Ms. McKinnon seemed to gather herself. “He…attacked another boy one day this week.”

“He was in fights a few times last year.”

“Yes. But this seemed different from the usual elementary school fights. Mrs. Hayes didn’t say anything in her notes about Brett to make me think she’d been alarmed by the incidents last year, beyond the fact that they’re a symptom. But this time…” Her eyes were unfocused as she frowned, apparently searching for words. “He…erupted. I could see such rage on his face. I think, if I hadn’t been here, he’d have really hurt the other boy.”

“But you broke it up.”

“Well, of course!” She glanced down at the spiral binder that lay between her hands, planted palm-down on the desk. “I’ve had concerns from the first day, but I wouldn’t have called you yet, I would have let Brett settle in and seen how it went, except for this.”

Her touch ginger, as if the garden-variety spiral notebook held directions for building a nuclear bomb, she lifted it, turned it around and held it out to him.

Uncomprehending, he took the notebook.

“In my class, everyone has to write a journal. They make entries every day. I do warn them that I’ll be glancing through their journals, mostly just to be sure they’re writing. Sometimes I read more than other times, particularly if I’m concerned about a student. Sometimes they write quite a bit about their home lives.”

What in hell?

Craig looked down at it, strangely reluctant to open the cover. Something had shaken a woman who’d been teaching sixth grade for a number of years. He’d have thought she would have seen—and read—it all by now.

With an abrupt movement, he flipped open the notebook and saw his son’s nearly illegible scrawl filling the page.

Lots of people deserve to die. Not my mom—she’s not dead anyway—but lots of other people. That cop. I want to go, like, burn a cross on his grave. Or something. So people know he’s a son of a bitch.

Actually, “son of a bitch” was preceded by some horrific obscenities. Words Craig hadn’t realized his son knew, far less used.

Heart drumming, he continued to decipher the scrawl.

Like Ryan Durney. I wanted to kill him! I still want to kill him!!! Maybe I will. He says I’m like my dad. He thinks I’m a murderer, so maybe I’ll be one. I’ll just punch him and keep punching…

Feeling sick, Craig read to the bitter end. The appalling stream of consciousness broke off midsentence. Apparently journal-writing time had ended. Hands shaking, he closed the notebook and sat with his head down.

Oh God, oh God. How could this rage, this rot have been filling his son’s head without him knowing?

Craig had read about the stunning tragedies at schools like Columbine without understanding how it could have happened without the parents seeing that their children had turned into monsters.

Now…now he knew.

Eyes burning, he looked up. “I had no idea.”

Voice soft, Robin McKinnon said, “I assumed you didn’t.”

“He says I’m ‘like my dad,’” Craig quoted. He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Does Brett think…” His throat closed.

With clear compassion, his son’s teacher said, “I don’t know. He did defend you to me, but…what a child says isn’t always what he believes, deep in his heart.”

Pushing the spiral notebook away with revulsion, Craig asked, “Have you ever seen anything like this?”

“Not…quite. Hints of it.” She nibbled on her lip. “These kids have all seen slasher movies, you know. Really grisly stuff. So imagining themselves in that world, if you will, isn’t the stretch for them it might have been for us when we were kids.”