The Boy Page 4

  I suppose. Maybe Ray and Daisy called him Bob. Or Bobby.

  Bobby? A Bobby does not bludgeon little children.

  Okay, so he was not Bobby. He was Robert Raymond Cook and he killed his family.

  An entire family. Including his stepmother, half brothers, half sisters.

  So?

  So what about me?

  You are not Daisy. You don’t have any other children.

  Well unless the story stops here, that’s a distinct possibility, isn’t it?

  The Boy

  December 1994

  Christmas, and this year Louise has a new family to circle around the tree. She and Jake were married on December 7 in a civil ceremony, Jake’s cousin and one of Louise’s teaching friends as witnesses. Jake thought it best to leave Danny out of the ceremony, but include him later for the small dinner party at the Italian restaurant where Jake had proposed to Louise. An old-fashioned, candlelit presentation of a diamond.

  “Would you rather,” Jake asked, “have picked it out yourself? Phyllis said I should have let you do that, but I wanted to surprise you.”

  “No,” she said, quickly. “It’s lovely, Jake.” She felt a stab of jealousy. He’d shown the engagement ring to his cousin first? Had he asked her advice about whether or not he should marry Louise? How would Jake’s family—all of them, he’d told her had adored Brenda—look on a new wife? Louise turned herself inside out with questions.

  The day they chose the wedding bands, she questioned the wisdom of excluding Danny from the wedding.

  “Let it go, Louise,” Jake said, with the same authority Louise had heard in his voice when he spoke to Daniel. Louise stared down at the diamond on her left hand, then at the man in the driver’s seat next to her. When she’d told her dad about the engagement, he’d hesitated before congratulating her. Was she absolutely sure, he’d asked, and she’d taken a deep breath and spilled out all of her doubts. But then, he’d patted her hand and told her Jake was a good man, and although the boy was a bit of a concern, when was life ever perfect?

  This was not going to be a perfect union, and that was all the more reason to make herself very clear. “I will not let anything go without a reasonable discussion, Jake. If I’m going to be part of this family, we make decisions together, including decisions about Daniel.”

  “All right.” Jake didn’t take his eyes off the road. “We’ll be a democracy. I have no trouble with that. But Dan gets a say as well, and he’s cast the deciding vote on this one. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings, but he’s already refused to have any part of the wedding. We’ll be lucky to get him to the party afterward.”

  Jake sent Daniel to school the morning of the wedding. Better than leaving him at home, moping, he said, and they’d pick him up after school, go somewhere for a celebratory Slurpee before they took him home and cleaned him up for the reception. At the school, they waited until every last straggling child had exited the building, and then Jake went inside to look for his son. Daniel had gone home at lunch time, the secretary told him, and the neighbour who was the emergency contact on the school records had called to say he wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t be back for the afternoon.

  While Jake went next door to Alice’s to collect Danny, Louise waited in the house. They were a long time returning. At the front door, Dan brushed past her without a word, straight to his bedroom. Jake coaxed him out later, even though this time Louise cast her vote in favour of leaving him at home to sulk.

  At the restaurant, Danny sat with arms folded, head down through the toasts. But when Louise glanced at him later, he was enthusiastically tucking into a plate of pasta. He looked up, twirled a strand of spaghetti around his fork, and sucked it slowly into his mouth, never taking his eyes from hers.

  Now it is Christmas and the three of them are on their way to Louise’s dad’s house with a miniature decorated tree, presents, and a fully-cooked Christmas dinner in several boxes. Jake has roasted the turkey and prepared the mashed potatoes and gravy. He is, Louise discovered, a decent cook when it comes to traditional country cuisine. Every Sunday, he takes over the kitchen and serves up a meat and potatoes meal. Exactly as his mother taught him, he says, but a skill he didn’t practice at all during his first marriage because Brenda was a better cook. Brenda was a sensational cook. Brenda was also a seamstress, Louise has been told, and sewed all her own clothes, the curtains, the cushion covers, and some sweatpants for Danny that he still wears even though they are so small now they fit like tights.

  This Christmas morning, though, Danny emerged from his room dressed in jeans and the Edmonton Oilers hockey jersey Jake bought for him. They opened their gifts last night and after the hockey shirt, Daniel didn’t seem to care about anything else, not even the Nintendo game and the skater shoes the price of which made Louise gasp. The whole pile of gifts frankly appalled her. She’d asked Daniel for a wish list. He rattled off electronic games, phones, items that were beyond her concept of gifts, and into the realm of adult toys that one should earn rather than expect to be given. Finally, she picked two movies on his list that sounded reasonable. She was, Jake told her gently, pretty hard-nosed on this stuff and it wasn’t as though they couldn’t afford it. Was she going to be this tight with their kids?

  “Yes,” she said. “I’ve waited a long time for kids, I’ve had the chance to watch a lot of parents, and I’m warning you, Jake, that I’m going to be tough.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “About everything? We haven’t seen a tough side of you, I don’t think. Are you just breaking in here slowly? Dan and I should be very careful?”

  She laughed finally. “Hey, I’m tough, but I’m fair. If I do my job right, you shouldn’t even notice.”

  In fact, in these first weeks things had gone far more smoothly than she expected. But she knew all about honeymoon periods with kids, and when she opened Daniel’s present she had confirmation that what was happening at home was probably no indicator at all of what he was doing outside.

  The perfume was one she didn’t know, but she could tell this wasn’t the variety found on the open shelves at the drugstore. Daniel watched her face while she opened the package and she likely didn’t disappoint him, because she was genuinely touched that he would choose something feminine and personal. She’d expected a box of candy, or a coffee mug. A teacher gift.

  Later, she asked Jake how much money he’d given Daniel for his Christmas shopping.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Because that Lancôme perfume he bought for me has to have cost at least forty, maybe even fifty dollars. It must have broken the budget.”

  “Nah, he said it was under twenty, Louise. No offense, but I can’t see him spending fifty dollars on a present for anyone, especially something like perfume.”

  Danny’s present to Jake was a can of cashews. Tradition, he said. When Danny was about six, his mom had told him that cashews were the perfect gift for his dad, and ever since that had been the stock gift. It was a joke between them by now, Jake said, and he and Danny would eat the nuts together while they watched the next Oilers game on television.

  “How much did you give him?” she asked again.

  “Sixty bucks,” he said. “Ten dollars each for the five people he was buying for and an extra ten if he went a bit over. As we agreed, small gifts, it’s the thought that counts.”

  Daniel bought gifts for Louise, Jake, Jake’s mother, Alice next door, and Louise’s dad. Nothing for his friends? Louise quietly asked Jake when she saw the list.

  “No,” he said abruptly. “He doesn’t have anyone that close.”

  Last night, Danny took a box of Turtles over to Alice. They were, he claimed, her favourite candy. Considering that Alice wore top dentures that slipped onto her lower lip when she allowed herself a stern smile, Louise doubted that, but chocolates seemed a suitable gift for a ne
ighbour. For his grandmother, who Louise still hadn’t met, Dan bought a package of notepaper which was wrapped and sent away a week before Christmas. Grandma Peters had sent a cheque made out to Jake that was to go directly into an educational fund, and a pair of cowboy patterned pyjamas, size sixteen. Danny had put them on last night and clowned around, flapping the long sleeves, yodeling. Funny at first, but finally Jake asked him to cut it, and to make sure he wrote a thank you note on Boxing Day. Another family tradition courtesy of Brenda, all presents were acknowledged with handwritten notes on Boxing Day.

  And is she, Louise can’t help wondering, expected to keep up all the traditions? Is that the stepmother’s job? It would be different if Jake was divorced, and there was a real mother across town, upholding tradition. Louise, awake early this morning with an unsettled stomach, stood at the window waiting for dawn, and thought she could see Brenda’s footsteps in the deep snow around the house.

  Louise’s dad is in good spirits when they arrive. As Louise could have predicted, he likes Jake, and he and Danny have discovered a mutual love of hockey. The boy, he told Louise a few days ago, will be fine. Nothing there that a little kindness can’t cure. Danny’s gift to his new step-grandfather is a hockey puck emblazoned with the Oilers logo. Danny, to his credit, convincingly fakes some enthusiasm for the gift-wrapped collection of old Tom Swift books.

  “Really, Dad,” Louise says, when Dan has gone into the kitchen to help Jake unload the food. “You couldn’t get me interested in those dated old stories. What makes you think a kid in the electronic age will find them remotely interesting?”

  He looks hurt. Louise knows that if her mother were here, she would stand beside him, and gently chide Louise. A gift is a gift, she would say. And the look on her face would say, I thought we taught you this.

  “Do you think he’d rather have cash?”

  Yes, she’s positive of that, but she shakes her head. “I’m sorry. It was a generous gesture.” Maybe she can explain to Danny how much her dad loved those books and how he kept them for his own children, but ungrateful little girl that she was, she didn’t appreciate them. A boy, she will tell him, would probably not have disappointed him. “Much better than cash. What are you going to do with your hockey puck?”

  He picks the puck up from the coffee table and tosses it in the air, catches it with a grin. “I’m enjoying that a young fellow thought an old guy like me would like this. And I thought he seemed pretty pleased with the books. He’s a good boy at heart, Louise.”

  She’s told her dad briefly of Danny’s problems at school, his lack of friends. Nothing about the shoplifting. Theft and lying were two things her parents would never abide. They would be sympathetic to a child with problems, but if the law were ever involved there would serious questions about character and responsibility, the good-heartedness notwithstanding.

  Louise has told her mother, as clearly and gently as possible, about her marriage, about this boy who will be her stepson, but there is no way of knowing if she understood. Jake has visited at the nursing home with her a half dozen times, but they agreed after the one time Danny came along, that there was no point in taking him again. Louise’s mom is beyond having a relationship with her new grandson. The place stunk, Danny said as soon as they entered the building and he thought it was hilarious that a bingo game was going on in the lounge. Bingo for zombies. When they found Louise’s mom in the rows of wheelchairs and pushed her down to the lounge so they could have privacy for the visit, Danny sat silently through the laboured conversation, staring at his feet.

  Louise looks around this room with the tiny artificial tree twinkling on the piano next to her mom and dad’s wedding picture. There is scant resemblance between the radiant young woman in the photo and the mother she visits at the nursing home. She sits down and runs her fingers over the furry keys. Her dad has given the cleaning woman two weeks off with pay for Christmas, but Louise doubts the living room has been dusted since Hallowe’en.

  “All right then. The gravy’s bubbling, and the potatoes and the turkey will be fine for another fifteen minutes in the oven. Do you want me to do the salad?” Behind her, Jake puts his hands on her shoulders. “Serenade us and we’ll do your bidding.”

  Louise twirls round on the piano stool and lifts her face for a kiss. Even though Danny has his back to them, eyes glued to the television, Jake still glances his son’s way before he brushes Louise’s lips. “Too rusty to do any serenading,” she says. “Why don’t you pour wine for you and Dad, and I’ll get out the serving bowls and set the table.”

  “Get Danny to do the table,” he says. “He knows how.”

  Dan surprises Louise by coming willingly to do the job when Jake asks. With a great flourish, he spreads the linen cloth on the dining room table and clumps down the rose-patterned china. Louise keeps her back to him, bites her tongue to keep from telling him to be careful, be careful, be careful, as the silverware clatters against the rims of the old plates. She busies herself spooning cranberry sauce into the rose-coloured glass bowl that to her knowledge has never been used for any other purpose, trying not to glance across the kitchen, through the archway that leads to the dining room. The kitchen is muggy with steaming food. She swallows hard, her stomach churning suddenly instead of hungry for the feast. When she finally turns around, Danny is standing with arms folded, everything in its proper place.

  “See,” he says. “I’m not as stupid as you think.”

  He had a haircut last week, and his face looks exposed, vulnerable without the thick swath across his forehead. He stares at her, rare eye contact, and she shakes her head, walks across the room to him, but touches the tablecloth with her fingertips rather than touching him. She and Daniel have not exchanged a single physical touch. They walk carefully around one another, never even brushing sleeves. One night she sat down beside him on the sofa while he was watching television, and he picked up a pillow and stood it on end between them.

  “Danny, no. I don’t think you’re stupid. Not at all.”

  The kitchen door opens then, and Jake and her dad come into the room. “Lovely!” Jake said. “Looks like a celebration. Does the bird need to sit a while before I carve, or can we get right to it?”

  Danny flops down onto one of the dining room chairs and puts his elbows on the table, his chin in his hands. “Let’s just eat. I’m hungry.”

  On Boxing Day Jake and Daniel are up early to check out the big sale at Future Shop. Not a chance, Louise says, when Jake asks if she wants to come along. Push through crowds for more things she doesn’t need or want? She tries not to sound self-righteous or critical. She adds the extra excuse that she’s a bit queasy this morning. Too much turkey.

  She’s relieved when they’re out the door and she has the house to herself. She feels like a visitor here. She’s put most of her furniture into storage, not wanting to crowd this space, waiting for Jake to let go of the idea of small town life so that she can convince him that the best plan is to buy another house in the city, one that they will all choose, where they can start fresh. A house without Brenda’s curtains, Brenda’s cushions, Brenda’s books and records, Brenda’s sewing machine. These are the things that should be stored.

  An hour later, Jake and Daniel are back, empty-handed, Jake white-faced, Daniel rushing past her to his room. While he was looking at the VCRs, thinking they could use a new one, Jake tells her, Danny went off on his own. He told Jake he’d meet him at the car, because he wanted to go to Sport Chek as well. No more than ten minutes later, a security guard tapped Jake on the shoulder. His son had just tried to slip out the door with a CD in each pocket of his jacket.

  Daniel has been let off with a warning once again. Jake paces up and down the kitchen, punching his fist into the palm of the other hand. “You know what’s even worse than his stealing those CDs?” From her chair at the table where she’s been sipping gingerale, eating dry soda crac
kers, Louise just nods. She knows he isn’t looking for a dialogue, and now is not the time to tell him that she suspects that what she has is not the flu after all. Half of her class was away with flu the last few days of school, but this morning, she is sure that hers is not a viral problem. “He lied. He told me he didn’t know how they got there. Said some kids he knows from school who are always picking on him were in the store and he thinks they slipped the CDs into his pockets.”

  Louise stands finally, and steps into Jake’s path in the middle of the kitchen. She holds out her arms. “Is that possible?”

  He leans on her, shakes his head, his chin bristling against her hair. “I don’t know. Do other kids hate him? Is he being bullied? Brenda used to say he was a victim, that he let himself get set up over and over again. But I’ve never really seen it.”

  “Jake, we need to get help for Danny. I know a good psychologist.”

  “Would we all have to go? I hate that kind of stuff, Louise.”

  Me, too, she thinks, but I’ve never had to consider seriously the possibility before. “I think we can start with just Danny.”

  “Okay,” he says, “but this clinches it. I want to move back to the country. We know people there, Danny will have friends, and it’s close enough for the two of us to commute to work together for the rest of the year.”

  “And who will look after Danny while we’re commuting and working in the city?”

  “No problem,” he says vaguely. “I have a couple of cousins right in town with kids that age. I’m sure we can find someone for before and after school. And it’ll only be until June.”

  They’ve decided that Louise will take a year off teaching, help her dad sell the house and move into a seniors’ complex next door to the nursing home, and with luck, she’d be pregnant before it was time to decide whether or not to go back to work in the fall. As much as she wants another house, she’s not sure about small town life. She’s been charmed by the friendliness of the people she’s met on the couple of visits to Jake’s family in Valmer. But she’s a city girl, and the thought of having to plan her life around trips to Edmonton is not appealing. She’s been hoping Jake isn’t really serious. What about the library, the German deli, the Greek bakery, the restaurants when nothing in the fridge looks appealing at 6:00? What about the friends who phone for a spur of the moment coffee or lunch?