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Cindy had gone blond, an expensive color job and cut parted on one side and swept over her head. She was about as far as she could get from the twenty-year-old brunette bank teller he had met as a young patrolman. There had been a bank robbery. He impulsively asked her out. She had a baby son, had been abandoned by his father. Will and Cindy married too young. They weren’t the people they would become, and they became those people largely apart. He helped her finish her B.A., then later an M.B.A., as she rose in the bank. Sometimes she slept with her bosses. But she didn’t have to. She was smart as hell.
She led him past the expansive entry hall with its dark, hardwood floor, and into a living room that appeared as if no ordinary humans had ever been inside it, only interior designers. It was flawless. It was larger than his entire townhouse.
He sat in a broad cushioned chair, keeping his Lazarus tasselled loafers off the vast Persian rug, and she settled across from him on a cream-colored sofa, draping one aerobicized leg over the other. She had become a stick person with breasts.
“About our son,” Will prompted, moving quickly past the uncomfortable small talk.
“Something’s wrong with him,” she said, sitting upright with her hands carefully folded in her lap, as if she were talking to a client.
“He’s a young man,” Will said. “I’ve always thought you should lock up the young men until they were thirty. The young women you can let out at twenty.”
Not even a smile.
“He’s so aimless,” she went on. “He wanted to go to Portland State, for god’s sake. So, okay. He ended up dropping almost every class so he wouldn’t get a failing grade.”
Will was tempted to say something about Cindy continuing to give him money, letting him live at home. He held the head of his cane tighter.
“He was out all Saturday night,” she went on. “Dragged himself in at eight the next morning. Thought I wouldn’t even notice! Wouldn’t say where he was. But I knew. I got a call around midnight from Heather Bridges’ mother. She had a date with him. We talked later, on Sunday, after Heather came home. Her mother said they were out on the river all night with some other kids from Summit.”
Atomic particles in Will’s brain wished he didn’t know this information. But hundreds of young people were on the river this time of year.
He said, “What does he do with his time?”
“He still reads all the time. He rides his bike.”
“Does he have a job?”
She shook her head.
“I had to work my way through college.”
“Kids are different now,” Cindy said. “They take longer to grow up. You can read it anywhere. Anyway, he doesn’t need money.”
“That’s part of the problem.”
Her voice rose. “You have no right to judge!”
“Okay.”
“Will, I’m afraid he’s into drugs again.” She leaned forward. “I want you to talk to him.”
“He came to see me the other night,” Will said.
“Did he say anything?”
Will shook his head. “We only had a beer and watched the city. If he had something to tell me, he kept it to himself.”
“William!” It was that familiar voice, harsh and frustrated.
“What do you want me to do, Cindy?” Everything was transactional with her. He felt the old toxic feelings returning. “Why haven’t you talked to him? Have Brad talk to him. What about his real father?”
She stood. “You are so…so much the same.”
He stood and left without another word. The walkway was slanted down. He was extra aware of it and wished he hadn’t enjoyed that second beer with Cheryl Beth. Next came the steps. Those would be more dangerous: Not even a shrub to hold onto. He did all the things he had been taught to steady himself and made the first step down.
Then he was down on the sidewalk, a sudden, scary vertical rollercoaster dip that was over before he even knew what was happening. He reflexively put his hands out and avoided mashing his face in the concrete. His blood was pumping too fast to feel any pain. One second he was upright
, now he was down. For a long time, he took in the quiet of the street and the plain black tires on his car. A small bug walked beneath his gaze. He got to his knees and then the agony seared through him. Somehow the rewiring of his spinal cord made being on his knees especially painful. He couldn’t stand the normal way. He thought about turning around and using the steps to get up. But he was in too much pain, and too angry. He used his strength to crabwalk until his body bent in the middle, and then he could push himself up with his hands until he could use the cane to help lift the rest of the way. It hurt like hell. Then he was upright again. His pant legs looked in good shape. His hands weren’t bleeding. He felt his phone vibrating and let it alone.
