That day in the forest with Bernard came to mind. Had something happened out there? Had Bernard done something to Julie Henderson in those woods? Had Rick helped him? Would Rick do something like that—could he have done something like that even then, even at thirteen? I closed my eyes, tried to remember back through the years. As far as I knew, Julie had gone off to college that September, but she’d been a lot older than we were and I’d hardly known her. I couldn’t recall seeing her around town after that summer, and my friendship with her brother had waned so I’d no longer been privy to even casual information on Julie’s life. But had something happened, it would’ve been big news in Potter’s Cove. Everyone would’ve known about it, charges would’ve been pressed, assuming she’d told anyone.
They never tell.
I ran my hands through my hair and focused on the ceiling.
Things I’d been certain of no longer seemed absolute. Was Bernard right about a lot more on that tape than any of us wanted to admit? Were any of us what we seemed? Was I just an asshole for thinking Rick capable of such a thing or naïve for never before realizing Bernard was?
I tried to picture in my mind what Rick was doing at that very moment, but my thoughts drifted to Donald instead.
In many ways I’d always felt closer to Donald than I did to Rick, but like Bernard, he could be terribly aloof at times. The difference was that unlike the occasional mystery associated with Bernard, there was never anything along those lines evident in Donald’s behavior. When he distanced himself I’d always believed it had more to do with a desire for basic privacy than it did with anything suspect. In fact, he was the absolute antithesis of Rick in that he was the most nonviolent person I’d ever known. I couldn’t remember a single instance when Donald had raised a hand in anger against anyone. His mind had always been his weapon. A weapon he’d used often, until Tommy died. None of us had been quite the same since his death, but Donald shut down for more than a year after the incident, and any child-like essence or shred of wide-eyed wonderment that had still resided in him was instantaneously snuffed out.
I remembered walking the beach with him the day of Tommy’s funeral. We walked the same stretch of deserted sand again and again, only speaking occasionally, and even then only in clipped phrases. On one pass, Donald spotted a rotting grapefruit resting in the tall grass along the edge of the beach. He picked it up and held it out for me with an awkward expression somewhere between tears and rage. I looked at him questioningly. “Just take it,” he’d said quietly, his voice barely perceptible. “Nothing should ever go to waste.”
Although it was rotten garbage, although it already had gone to waste, I took it anyway, carried it with me until we’d left the beach and returned home. Only when Donald had gone and I knew he wouldn’t see, did I throw the grapefruit away, and even then I’d felt guilty for having done so, because he’d been right. Nothing should ever go to waste. Not a grapefruit, not a teenage boy.
Donald had gone on to college as planned, but his heart was no longer in it, and his excitement and hopes for the future became memories; dreams unfulfilled, dead and buried along with Tommy. He began to drink more, and I suspected his problem had been festering for a number of years now, though only recently had it clearly gotten away from him.
Like Rick he hadn’t had many serious relationships, but unlike Rick, he was not promiscuous. Unless he was with us, he was usually alone. I had only heard him mention a couple of people over the years, and those were more casual acquaintances—occasional dates or friends—not meaningful partners.
As Bernard said on the tape, there had been someone in high school, but that had apparently ended badly and only deepened Donald’s cynicism and depression. He’d been hiding, in a sense, ever since. Even in a room full of people he seemed hopelessly alone, more purposely detached than shunned, as if he and he alone understood how futile and senseless existence could be.
Donald had thrown away a lot, but the list included neither his wit nor his sense of compassion. Though he’d tempered his humor over the years, it remained an enormous part of who he was, as did his genuine concern for others. He was a deeply complex man, and as well as I knew him, some days I wondered if he’d always be there on the other end of the phone, the other side of the door. Like Rick, and to a degree, like me, he was a survivor to be sure, but a survivor in spite of his actions, not because of them.
But maybe Donald wasn’t exempt either. Did he know something else about what was happening? Did he share some secret with Bernard like perhaps Rick did? Could it have been to blame for his downward spiral escalating in recent months?
I sat up and slowly swung my feet around onto the floor. A brief dizzy spell replaced my shameless paranoia. I closed my eyes; saw the faces of the young boy and his mother glaring at me.
My eyes opened. The room had stopped spinning.
I had thought about the others, suspected and betrayed them in thought, but what about myself? Was there something I knew, something I shared with Bernard in all this without realizing it?
Before I could further search my mind I heard the kitchen phone returned to its cradle, followed by the sound of Toni padding toward the bedroom.
As the door opened she balked but quickly regained her composure. “I thought you’d be asleep,” she said through a meager smile. “You startled me.”
“Just woke up. Those pills knock me out.”
“That’s why Gene prescribed them. It’s an anti-anxiety,” she told me. “He said they’d help you sleep.”
“He’s right.” I rubbed at the stiffness along the back of my neck. “What time is it?”
“A little after ten.”
“At night, right?”
“Yes, sweetie, at night.” Toni strode to the window, raised the shade.
I glanced at the moonlight, then back at her. I could almost feel her discomfort. “Look, I’m sorry about the job.”
“You can always get another job.”
“I had it coming, but Nino only fired me because Petey made him. After a few weeks he’ll be begging me to come back. Where are they going to find anyone as reliable and loyal as me? Besides, I got that nice check, that’ll help hold us over for a while.”
Toni moved toward me with an air of caution I’d never seen her display, and sat next to me on the bed. “We need to talk, Alan.”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing?”
“I mean about what happened the other night.”
I nodded. She’d been smoking heavily; I could smell it on her. “Look, I told you everything that happened as best as—”
“I spoke with Gene about all this, and—”
“What? Why did you do that without talking to me first?”
“Honey, he’s a psychiatrist, this is what he does.”
I stood up, legs shaky. “It’s none of his fucking business. Jesus Christ, Toni, why does Gene have to know every goddamn tidbit of what happens in our personal lives? You work for him, it’s not like he’s a member of the family—I don’t even consider him a friend.”
“Well, I do.” Her hair, thick but styled short, was mussed. She combed a renegade strand away from tired, mascara-smudged eyes. “He’s concerned about you, Alan, and so am I.”
I stood there clad only in a pair of boxers, not certain what to do with myself. “I freaked out, OK? I’m fine.”
“I don’t think—”
“That’s it, end of story.”
She looked at the floor. “I’m afraid, Alan.”
“So am I.”