I Will Come for You (33 page)

His mother arrived at Doss’ house seeking help. Days later, when she was able to string a
few words together, she said, “Because everyone knows he could make you forget. I think I would get better if I could just forget.”

She’s at Commitment now, a psych hospital that did a pretty good job with his
uncle

Randy--both times. Isaac is in the wait-and-see mode. Where his mother is concerned, too much hope is fatal.

She knew Robert Doss killed his uncle Lance and Steven Forrester. It’s possible that she was even there. She mumbled a few words about them, about the crime scene that made Isaac’s father cringe. He didn’t write them down. He doesn’t talk about them, but he did say to Isaac, “There was mercy. In my brother’s last breath he knew kindness.”

Whatever Isaac’s mother said, it gave his father closure, and Isaac is happy about that.

But that’s all his mother knew, or was able to put together. She didn’t know about the other victims and Isaac knows this is true. He was there and she wasn’t.

“You hungry?”

Isaac turns and looks at his father. Ten weeks ago he shot and killed the King’s Ferry Killer. Natalie died, too. Isaac held her hand as she faded away. He watched her body disappear a few minutes later and though he and his father haven’t talked about it, he thinks they’ll agree:  Natalie Forrester was an angel. His father carries her death as a burden, though. Isaac can see it in his bearing. Everything about his father seems heavier lately.

“I could eat,” Isaac says. Not because he’s hungry, but because it will give them a rest from the road. And because his father will worry less if Isaac eats.
“How about cheese burgers?”

His father nods, and glances at him, “I could do burgers.”

They crossed the California border into Arizona an hour ago and are coming upon the first signs of life that isn’t migratory. In the purple dusk, lights begin popping up against the sky.

His father takes an exit that bottoms out at an intersection with fast food joints competing for space.

“Left or right?” his father asks.

It doesn’t matter which--they all taste the same--so Isaac shrugs and lets his father choose.

They spent a few weeks getting the house ready for sale, then boxed up their things, loaded the truck, and headed for the States. Isaac tried to tell his father that it doesn’t matter where in the world he lives, the gift will stay with him. His father insisted that a climate of dry heat will do him good. It turns out the guy with the illness in his blood is Isaac. Cold Agglutinin Hemolysis. Which has nothing to do with climate, but his father isn’t chancing it. They’re moving to the desert.

The disease isn’t fatal. At worst, he can expect to
die in his seventies. He can take medicine and eat iron-fortified foods. His father takes that to mean red meat. At every meal. And he came up with a list of supplemental foods for Isaac: broccoli, squash, spinach, Brussels sprouts. It’s enough to make Isaac dread eating.

His father blames the illness on Isaac’s gift. ‘
It’s not natural, Isaac. It has to have some side effects
.’ His father hopes they left
that
behind them on Vancouver Island. He believes Isaac’s ability to transcend was a side-effect of the KFK’s hold on the community of King’s Ferry, and on his family. Isaac hasn’t had a shower since that isn’t interrupted by his father’s calling to him through the door. He checks on Isaac, too, in the middle of the night, when he thinks Isaac is sleeping.

And his father often asks him, “Has it happened again?” Has he transitioned? Isaac doesn’t have the heart to tell him the whole truth. So instead he says, “It’ll happen again. It’s who I am.”

The whole truth scares even Isaac. The deeper they travel into the American desert, the more he’s transitioning. And it’s not the same. Isaac is bringing more of himself into that

reality
, and he’s leaving with more, too.

He’s just getting better at hiding it.

             
                                                        THE END

Isaac and Graham return in
Looking for You
, available Summer 2014