The police keep me at Tim’s house for over an hour, questioning me over and over again. I tell them about how I found the body in the basement, that Tim wouldn’t let me leave, and I mentioned my suspicions about that night at the farmhouse over a decade earlier. They want me to come down to the station with them, but I explain to them I’ve got to get home to my son, and I’m not going anywhere with them unless they want to arrest me. They reluctantly let me leave.
When I get back to my house, Margie and Josh are in the kitchen. They’re sitting at the kitchen table, painting decorations on sugar cookies shaped like Christmas trees. The scene is so sweet, I almost burst into tears. “Hi, Mom!” Josh excitedly holds up one of the finished products. The
tree has been painted with green icing with red trimming. “Look at what we’re making!”
He takes a bite out of the cookie. I’m afraid to ask how many of those he’s eaten. Margie is great with him, but she’s not good at enforcing moderation. On any other night, it would’ve upset me. But tonight, I can’t make myself care about my son eating too many cookies.
“Where’s Tim?” Josh asks.
There’s a hard lump in my throat. “Um…”
Margie’s wrinkled forehead crinkles deeper. “Is everything okay, Brooke? I… I heard the sirens…”
“It’s fine.” My voice sounds unnaturally high. “Margie, thank you so much for coming tonight. We’ll see you on Monday, okay?”
Margie looks at me curiously as she tucks a strand of gray hair behind her ear, but she obediently collects her coat and her purse. I walk her to the door, and before she leaves, she gives me one last look. “Are you sure everything is okay?”
I nod, barely trusting myself to speak. “Uh-huh.”
With Margie gone, I return to the kitchen, where Josh is polishing off the rest of the tree-shaped sugar cookie. He frowns when he sees me. “Where’s Tim?” he asks again.
“Tim…” Oh God, how am I supposed to talk to my son about what just happened? The reason I never told him about his father was to spare him this. “He isn’t coming over tonight.”
“What?” Josh juts out his lower lip. “But he said that we could play Nintendo together if I got a hundred on my test, and I did!”
“Something came up…”
“But that’s not fair! I got a perfect score! He said he would play with me. He promised…”
“I know, but…” I slide into a seat next to Josh. “He wanted to come, but something happened. He did something bad, and the police found out and had to take him away.”
Josh stares at me. “What did he do?”
It’s the most obvious question he possibly could have asked, and I am utterly unprepared for it. “He committed a crime.”
“Did he steal something?” “No…”
“Then what did he do?” “He… he hurt somebody.”
Josh scrunches his face up. “Tim wouldn’t hurt anybody on purpose.”
He has no idea…
“He did, honey,” I say. “And… he’s probably going to go to jail. For a long time.”
“You mean he’s not coming back here?”
I shake my head slowly. Tim will never set foot in this house again. Not over my dead body. It makes me sick the way I allowed him into our lives.
Josh leans back in his chair. His face turns pink, and I don’t realize he’s crying until he swipes at his eyes with the back of his hand. It’s so hard to watch him cry quietly. I miss those loud, dramatic tears from when he was little. This is so much more heartbreaking.
“Josh,” I say, “please don’t cry.” “You’re crying.”
I touch my eyes and realize he’s right. My entire face is wet with tears. Josh climbs into my lap like he used to when he was a toddler, and I hold him close to me while we both mourn the loss of yet another person from our lives.
