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Sol knelt beside the armchair she’d almost stumbled into. “What’s wrong?”
Her hand shook as she drank a little of the whiskey. “Twenty years that boy’s been dead, and she’d kept everything, y’know? All his clothes, his books, his toys, even the ones from when he was a little kid. But she wasn’t upset. Like I said, it was twenty years. She’d done her grieving.”
“It might look like that,” Sol told her quietly. “But you can’t know what’s going on inside her head. Some people never stop grieving—they just get better at learning to live with it. The memories are always there.”
Mom stroked his cheek. “And there’s the counselor talking.”
He sat on the floor beside her chair, wanting to stay close. “Something happened, didn’t it?”
She nodded. “We were packing up Scott’s things, and she was talking about sending the clothes, books, and toys to Goodwill. And then… she found something.” Mom swallowed hard. “It was wrapped up in an old T-shirt, squirreled away at the bottom of a drawer. She said she hadn’t looked in there in years.”
“Whatwas squirreled away?”
She met his gaze, and he winced to see the pain there.
“A journal.”
Sol’s heart lurched. “Scott kept a journal?”
She nodded. “And clearly he didn’t want anyone reading it. So anyway, Melissa sat there on the bed, opened it, and started reading. She said the first entry was written in 1985, and that had to have been around the time his dad died, so I understood why he might have kept a journal. I left her to it while I folded clothes and put them in boxes. I figured this was important. She cried a little, wiping her eyes now and then, and I didn’t make a big thing of it, I let her be.” She shivered. “Then she went so quiet. It was eerie how all the sound seemed to die. I swear, I couldn’t even hear her breathing.” A hard swallow. “And then she just… lost it. I mean, completely. She broke down, and she made such a noise that Errol came running in to see what the hell had happened. Well, Melissa picked up a lamp, a real heavy one, and she threw it at him. He sidestepped it, and the whole thing hit the wall behind him and shattered.” Mom’s voice quavered. “Then she told him to get out, that she didn’t want to see him ever again. He got angry about the lamp, and when it didn’t look as if he was going to leave, Melissa glared at him, and… I’ll never forget her expression when she said this. She looked him in the eye, her face red, her cheeks streaked with tears, and she said ‘Iknow, okay? I know everything. Because Scott wrote it all down.Allof it, you hear? So you’d better start packing, because I’m goin’ downstairs to call the police. They might tell me it all happened too long ago for them to do a damn thing about it, but I’m gonna tell ’em anyway.’”
Sunday, September 25, 2022
Cold spread out from Butch’s core, reaching his extremities within seconds.
“I think I know what’s coming. Because for her to say all that, it can really only mean one thing.”
Sol gave a nod. “As soon as Mom said that, I froze. She tried to get Melissa to calm down, but it was as if she couldn’t hear her anymore. Then she thrust the journal into Mom’s hands and told her to read it.” He sighed. “She said it made for horrific reading. It turns out Scott’s Uncle Errol—you know, the kind man who moved in to be near his poor grieving sister? —had been sexually abusing him since not long after his dad died. The last entry was the night Scott killed himself.” He scowled. “Remember you told me his uncle had tried for hours to calm Scott down when he came home so upset?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that wasn’t true. His uncle had taken him into the barn—where they could talk freely, he said, but Scott didn’t buy that—and then he’d fucked him. And that night, something inside him just… broke, I guess. He couldn’t take it anymore.”
Butch frowned. “Now wait a minute. There’d have been an autopsy, right? Wouldn’t it have picked up on the fact that he’d had sex recently?”
“Possibly—if therewasan autopsy. I don’t know for sure. But what if the uncle told the authorities Scott had a boyfriend, only he never told the uncle who it was? That’d sound plausible enough.”
“Did his mom say if he’d ever tried to tell her about the abuse?”
“If he did, she either missed it entirely, or she didn’t mention it to my mom. But his journal made it clear he couldn’t go on.” There was an ache in Sol’s chest. “So now we know. Scott’s home life was a shitshow, and yes, everything we did at school didn’t help, but we weren’t the reason he killed himself. That rat bastard of an uncle abused him sexually—and probably psychologically too—while his mom was busy trying to keep things together. No wonder she didn’t notice what was happening.”
Butch’s throat tightened. “I’ve thought a lot about Scott over the years, about what kind of guy he was. You know what I remembered? He always had a smile—except when we were around, of course. It was like he was always trying to please everyone, help everyone.”
“He probably was,” Sol remarked. “It could be he was desperate for positive recognition, to maintain what was left of his self-esteem. But I don’t want to talk about Scott right now—I want to talk about you.” He cupped Butch’s chin. “Nowdo you see why I wanted to share this with you? You’ve been torturing yourself all these years. You’ve been haunted by the memory of his death—and don’t deny it because I’ve been there, okay? I know how it feels to be haunted.” His fingers were gentle on Butch’s cheek. “But it’s time to exorcise those ghosts. It’s time to be kind to yourself, to allow yourself to be happy.” He stroked Butch’s arm. “That isn’t going to go away, nor do I think it should. It’s a reminder of the person you used to be.” Sol looked him in the eyes, and Butch’s stomach quivered at the intensity of that gaze. “But that isn’t you anymore, Butch Buchanan. As of right now, you are a new man.”
Butch stared at him, hardly daring to breathe.
And then the dam burst.
Sol held him as he wept, his tears soaking into the pillow, Sol’s tee, his body shaking, trembling, unable to hold back the tide of emotions sweeping through him,crashedthrough him, raw, fierce and liberating. And through it all, Sol’s strong arms enveloped him, and he leaned into that strength, needing it with every cell and fiber of his being. He knew the tears were for Scott, for all he’d suffered, but they were for him too, a cleansing, cathartic release that had been a long time coming.
The tears dried up, the emotional waves receded, and he lay in Sol’s arms.
He felt safe. Cared for. Wanted.
“You okay?” Sol asked.
Butch’s head was on Sol’s chest, and his ear was filled with Sol’s heartbeat. “Better than okay.” He couldn’t recall the last time he’d felt so at peace.
