Finding Jake (18 page)

“Yeah, but he doesn’t even play with Karen’s kid. He refuses to, no matter how much I try to make him. I mean, he’s so shy sometimes. What if he ends up all by himself? I—”

“Stop,” she commanded.

I looked at her. She met my eyes without a flinch.

“I know, I’m worrying again,” I grunted. “I’ll try to act more
manly
.”

“Maybe you should.”

“Maybe you should . . .” I stop myself, snorting. When I continue, my voice is soft, probably icy. “I know we have problems. In fact, our problems are more the norm now. It’s like our good times are becoming the outliers.”

“I don’t disagree,” she said.

Rachel rose and walked out of the room. She never even looked over her shoulder. Instead, I listened to her footsteps as she went up the stairs. Soon, laughter echoed through the halls, my son’s, my daughter’s, and my wife’s. I remained on the couch.

I could have walked upstairs. They would have welcomed me into the fun. At the same time, I could have made less of the discussion with Rachel. I might have even had those thoughts while I sat there. Yet the evening played out, warts and all, like someone else wrote our story, someone I’m not even sure I liked all that much.

A scattering of parents sat in the elementary school gym, watching the makeshift stage in the back. Jake, with his friend Max, along with about a hundred fourth- and fifth-graders were trying out for the annual talent show. I did not have to be there. A lot of the parents weren’t. But I really wanted to see the boys perform.

When their turn came and the two walked onto the stage, I slid to the edge of my seat. Both wore black suits, the kind boys their
age might have worn for a wedding, and black wide-rimmed sunglasses. They carried the guitars Jake and Laney had gotten for Christmas a couple of years before to the front center of the stage. A track of the theme song from
Rawhide
began and they mouthed the words, air-strumming on the guitars along to the music. Halfway through, the music screeched to a halt. The two looked at each other, befuddled. Suddenly, Natasha Bedingfield’s “Pocketful of Sunshine” started up. They slid the guitars away and began to do something that looked a little like the Cabbage Patch. To be honest, the act lost focus at that point and the two just went nuts. I could hear the other students in the wings of the stage laughing and calling out. The teachers, however, didn’t appear to get the juxtaposition of the country-western bar scene from
The Blues Brothers
with today’s pop culture phenom.

For my part, I tried not to laugh. Although this may sound unbelievable, I had nothing to do with their choice of act. In fact, I had no idea where they got the idea from. Their creativity, however, amazed me. Whether they made the show or not, I was impressed.

When their act finished, I meandered into the lobby and waited for them to come out. While standing there, staring at an antibullying poster next to a posting of the school’s strict visitors policy, I got to thinking. I glanced out to the parking lot and saw the steady flow of parents coming and going, picking kids up from after-school activities. With the change in parenting style of my generation, organic play had been replaced by hyperorganization. The school had a running club, a chess club, a Lego club, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, rec sports, acting class, and after-school language enrichment.

Watching the swarm of parents picking up their young from the “hive,” I wondered how this all happened. My mind slipped back to my own elementary years. My mother went back to her teaching job and I went to a neighbor’s house in the mornings to wait for the bus. They plopped me in front of the television but
never taught me how to change the channel. Instead of
Tom and Jerry
or
Looney Tunes
, I watched the
Today
show every morning. I vividly recalled the tally of days during the Iran hostage crisis. I watched the hunt for the Atlanta serial killer, Wayne Williams. Most important, the story of Adam Walsh swept the nation, if not the world.

I remember it being right around my tenth birthday when I first heard the news. Adam Walsh, only a couple of years younger than me at the time, had gone missing. Still summer, I only heard tidbits, but I recall a change in my parents’ demeanor almost immediately. My mom stopped letting me linger behind or wander ahead in stores. My father eyeballed strange men nearby, something the usually docile man would not have considered polite before that. These were small changes, nothing drastic. All the kids still roamed the neighborhood. I walked to the pool with my older sister. After a couple of days, I stopped noticing.

Then school started back up. Again I found myself plopped before the screen, watching the “news” every morning. The awful details, repeated over and over again, seeped into my soul. The boy’s head had been removed (after death, the anchor assured us). At one point, I remember a reporter talking about cannibalism. A shocking reality, but one seen very differently through ten-year-old eyes.

Over the course of months, maybe years, the media picked at the story like jackals. Adam had been left to watch some boys play video games at a Sears when his mom continued to shop a couple of aisles away. Total time, they say, away from his mom was six minutes. Although it came out that a security guard dispersed the boys, kicking them out of the store, I believe
that
six minutes changed the world. The thought of losing a child that quickly became a scar on the minds of all parents. A scar that, unlike a physical wound, did not fade over time. Instead, it gaped.

Abductions surely occurred before Adam Walsh. There is no doubt about it. But no case had ever been so nationally televised, so
morbidly dissected, at least not that I knew of. It set the stage for first monthly, then weekly, then daily stories of abduction, torture, rape, beating, starving, even cannibalism. The dark corner of humanity, the formerly silent minority, changed over time, becoming a vocal majority when it came to hours covered by the media. Previously unfathomable nightmares assaulted parents and kids alike every day. The parents absorbed the horror, but kept on living. The kids, however, grew up to be parents, parents with a pale, jagged scar in their minds that changed their parenting style forever. All it takes is six minutes out of your sight. I believe that this awareness doomed the days of childhood freedom, replacing the dinner bell with the car pool.

This was what I thought when Jake appeared at the far end of the hallway, head together with Max, both smiling. I watched them, feeling content for the moment. Then my heart jumped. Doug Martin-Klein walked out of a stairway right in front of the two. I watched the scene unfold.

Jake looked up and saw Doug. My son stutter-stepped and said something, still smiling. Doug responded through thin lips, his eyes trailing toward Max. Max spoke next and the tension became obvious. Jake spun on Max. I saw anger flare in my son’s eyes. Doug walked away, his body language cold. Max shook his head and said something to Jake. The two boys separated and Jake, head bowed, walked toward the lobby. Max followed close behind.

My short-lived sense of well-being crashed so suddenly that I choked up. Fighting it back, I waited for the boys. The walk out to the car and the ride to Max’s house was silent. When we dropped him off, I hoped Jake would say something, but he did not. Instead, I had to ask.

“What was that all about?”

Jake pulled at the strings of his hood. “Nothing.”

“Just tell me. I won’t get mad.”

“It was nothing.”

“Jake, you know it’s better to tell me. I just want to help.”

He sighed. “Do I have to?”

“I would.” I laughed.

Jake did not appreciate the awkward attempt at humor.

“Max just said something to Doug. Now Doug’s mad at me.”

“What did Max say?” I asked.

“He called Doug
weird
.” Jake paused. Maybe it was just me, but he seemed to be trying to convince himself when he continued. “He’s not weird. He’s just quiet.”

I had to find the right thing to say. This was one of those watershed moments. I took a second and looked out the window.

“Did Doug get upset?” I asked.

“I think so. It’s kinda hard to tell with him.”

“What did you say to Max?”

“I told him he wasn’t being very nice. That what he said was
impolite
.”

“Impolite” was Jake’s favorite word, at least to describe what he considered misbehavior. A teacher once called him hypercorrect in a conference. I felt proud. Rachel did not. She talked to me afterward, saying maybe we should loosen the reins a little. I tried after that. Probably not hard enough.

“Did Max get upset?”

Jake gravely nodded. “He did. But he should not have called Doug weird . . .” He paused. I could tell he thought deeply before continuing. “Even if he thought that.”

The crack in the door appeared before me. I thrust my foot through without thinking.

“Do you think that?”

Jake squirmed. “I don’t know, Dad. He’s quiet, I guess. But everyone says I am, too.”

“You’re not quiet,” I protested.

He did not respond. When I looked at Jake again, he held a book in his lap. I doubted my handling of the situation, but I had no idea
what to say to salvage it. I started the engine and pointed the car toward home. After a minute, I added my final say.

“It’ll be okay. Don’t worry too much about it.”

We drove the rest of the way home without speaking. The entire time, I found it hard to believe that Jake could take those words seriously considering the source.

DAY TWO

Laney sits in the backseat on the driver’s side, alone. I feel the tentative control I have over my emotions falter. Since the time they were both in car seats, Jake and Laney always sat on their side of the backseat. When Jake reached “front seat” age, he took shotgun, but when we were all together, Laney sat behind the driver, Jake behind the passenger. His seat looks so empty.

Rachel stares out the window. She has not spoken to me since we left the hotel. Jonathan drove ahead to scout out the house. We are returning home. The police have given us the okay. All three of us have been crying most of the morning. At this point, I have nothing left. I feel empty, numb, and confused. When I look at Laney, I just want to scoop her up and run away from this world, keep her safe, make her whole again. I know that’s not possible. It is simply what I want more than anything I have ever wanted before.

About a mile away from our neighborhood my cell rings. I glance at the clock on the dashboard display. It is 10:25
AM
. The hours lost at the station weigh on me.

“Hello.”

“It’s Jonathan. Be prepared.”

“For what?”

“Look, these kinds of . . . situations bring out the worst in people. They assume they know just because they heard ‘allegedly’ on the television.”

“What are you saying, Jonathan?”

“There are people outside your house. Media, but also people from the community. There are some signs, stuff Laney shouldn’t see. Maybe you should think about going somewhere else.”

I speak to Rachel. “There are people at the house. Reporters, and maybe others. Jonathan thinks we should go somewhere else.”

“We are going home,” Rachel says.

I turn to look at Laney. Her expression is vacant and her body is twisted away from the center of the car, as if avoiding a ghost. I hang up the phone and drive. Rachel turns away again, looking out the window.

“Sweetie,” I whisper.

Laney does not answer.

“When we get close to the house, duck down, okay? There will be cameras there, people trying to take your picture.”

“No,” she says.

My head jerks back, startled. “What?”

“No, Dad,” she repeats in a calm, shockingly mature voice. “I won’t hide. They don’t know Jake. They’re stupid, every one of them. If they knew him, they wouldn’t be saying stuff like they are. He didn’t do it. I know he didn’t. And I won’t hide from any of them.”

I look at Rachel, my head feeling heavy. She looks back at me, maybe for the first time since leaving the police station. She knows what we will see. We have seen news reports about other shootings. An understanding passes between us. This is a moment where we must decide. Do we allow Laney to continue to think everything will turn out okay, or do we make her face reality, accept that Jake is
gone, that he’s left us in the most horrible way possible? None of us, not anyone who knew Jake well can understand this. Maybe Douglas Martin-Klein brainwashed my son. For the first time, I wonder if maybe it is . . . was drugs. I just don’t know, but I note that my mind is finally accepting it and looking for the
whys
. Now we must understand if Laney’s should, too.

Rachel, again reading my mind like only she can, shakes her head. I nod. We go back to ignoring each other. I assume her stomach twists and turns like mine as we near our shattered home. Is it still home? I don’t know how to know. I simply drive.

It hits me how little time has passed, at least from a normal perspective. I received the initial text about the shooting less than twenty-eight hours before. Nothing is normal now, though.

As we turn in to the neighborhood, Rachel climbs from her seat into the back. She sits in the middle and I realize that she, too, must fear the ghost in the car, the ghost that follows us everywhere. She wraps around Laney, who lets her mother take care of her while she stares defiantly out the window. Even in my grief, I feel a stab of intense pride in my daughter. She is stronger than I could ever imagine.

Cars line both sides of the street when we are still five houses down from ours. Through the sentry-straight trunks of two pin oaks, I see a throng of people in our front yard. I swallow, fighting not to turn the car around and flee. The decision is made. We will face it now.

A man with a camera, the first to see us, sprints down the rise in front of the house. A well-dressed woman in her forties tries to keep up, her heels sinking into the dewy turf. Others realize what is happening. Their mouths salivate (I am sure) as they sense the arrival of their prey.