These letters were cause for general hilarity at the Clements-Rabbitt household, as they were so stiff, and so clearly unapologetic: “I wish to tell you again that I am sorry for scratching your back with my pocket knife.”
In the end, the wound wasn’t life threatening—although it was also more than a “scratch.” The nickname had been an attempt to make the kind of light of it Remco had made—as if by calling him Scar they could pretend that what had happened wasn’t much worse than having a tooth knocked out by a Frisbee.
But to Craig, it had seemed much worse; for months afterward he’d woken from dreams in which he was wrestling his little brother’s limp body away from some winged black thing he recognized as Remco. Still, if it bothered Scar, he never said so.
“You better talk to Mom or Dad about that,” Scar said on the phone. “It’s not really any of my business if they’re splitting up.”
“Not any of your business? Huh? Last time I checked, they were your parents too, pal.”
“Don’t call me pal when you’re yelling at me. It’s just like Dad.”
“What? What are you talking about? Since when does Dad yell at you?”
There was a silence on the other end of the line. Craig couldn’t figure out whether that was a validation of his point that their father never yelled at Scar (never yelled at any of them), or something else—some hint that there was a new family dynamic now, that their father was yelling, that their father had something to yell about.
“Just don’t ask me about Mom and Dad,” Scar finally said. “Ask them if you have to—but personally I think you should just forget it.”
“Forget it? Just, like, forget that my parents are getting divorced?”
“Come on, Craig,” Scar said, still sounding dopey, far away. “You’re a big boy now, get—”
Craig hung up on his brother then, and didn’t speak to him again until he was brought back to New Hampshire in March, with only a vague idea of who the boy with the shaggy hair in his eyes was. And then it was weeks before Craig could spontaneously remember the kid’s name, and another week before he really understood what it meant that Scar was his brother.
26
“Lucas!”
Perry recognized the ponytail and the long lopsided gait from a block away, and he jogged up behind Lucas on the sidewalk, and then next to him. “Hey.”
Lucas jumped and spun around. He had apparently not heard Perry calling his name until he was right next to him. “Jesus Christ, Perry,” he said. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry. I thought you heard me.”
“I didn’t,” Lucas said. He was panting. His face, in the bright autumn sunlight, looked strangely haggard, much paler than it had even the week before, when Perry had last seen him. He looked like he’d been stoned for days, and maybe like he hadn’t slept more than a few hours the night before, and maybe like he was losing weight, rapidly.
“I wanted to tell you something,” Perry said.
Lucas stopped. He turned to Perry, although he was glancing to his left and right at the same time, as if looking for someone, or wondering who might be nearby to overhear them. But there was no one on their side of the street. All the students were flooding in the direction of Main Campus, hurrying to make their morning classes on time.
Lucas was carrying a bag. It looked like maybe he’d just come out to go to the store and buy a six-pack, and was headed back to his apartment.
“Is it about her?” he asked.
“Not exactly,” Perry said. “It’s about my professor. Professor Polson. I’m taking her seminar.”
“The Death one?”
“Yes.”
“I thought that was for freshmen.”
“Yeah, well, she let me in.”
“Why?” Lucas asked. He looked expressionless and suspicious at the same time.
“Because I asked her to make an exception. I wanted—”
“Because of her?”
“Partly,” Perry said. Lucas had made it sound like some kind of accusation, and Perry felt defensive. “Also, Professor Polson is working on a book about—”
“Why are you talking to me about this?” Lucas asked, suddenly animated, waving his free hand as if to shoo Perry away. “I don’t want to hear about this.”
“Because she wants to talk to you, Lucas. Professor Polson wants to ask you some questions. About Nicole. I told her what you told me. And about Patrick, too. And what I’ve seen. She’ll believe you. She needs to interview you, though.”
“You talked to a professor about this? Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“Lucas, it’s important. She can help.”
“Help? What’s she going to do to help?”
Perry opened his mouth to answer, but could think of nothing to say.
It was raining when Perry and Professor Polson had met, after class, at Espresso Royale. They sat at a table near the back, far from the windows that faced the street, but Perry could hear rain on the roof—hard, fast rain, like a lot of small feet running furiously overhead—and Professor Polson’s dark hair was curled in damp ringlets that clung to her neck and the sides of her face. She looked cold, wearing only a silk dress and a cardigan, and she’d gotten soaked, it seemed, on her walk over from Godwin Honors Hall. Perry had gone ahead when she’d told him she had to stop by the library and drop off a book before meeting him. Now, looking across the table at her, he felt bad. He’d had an umbrella. If he’d known she didn’t, he would have given her his own, or walked with her to the library and then to the café. She wrapped her hands around the white paper cup and brought it to her mouth to breathe in the steam before she sipped from it. It was the kind of thing Perry had seen women do in movies—drink a cup of coffee like this, with both hands, sipping and peering up over the rims of their cups at the same time, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen anyone do it in real life. Professor Polson’s hands were very white and thin, with a few pale blue veins crisscrossing them.
“I’d like to interview Lucas,” she said. “Have you told him that you shared his information with me?”
“No,” Perry said. “But he never told me I couldn’t tell anyone. I’ll find him. I’ll bring him to your office. I think he’d be willing.”
“Maybe not the office,” Professor Polson said. “I’d like to record it. I don’t want him to be inhibited by the office. Let’s meet off campus. Perhaps you could bring him to my apartment.”
“Sure,” Perry said.
“After that, we’ll see. Maybe Patrick Wright, too. What do you think?”
Patrick had been, it seemed, avoiding Perry since the night he’d spoken about Nicole. He’d been drinking when he called Perry. They barely knew each other—Patrick had been a sophomore on Perry’s and Craig’s hall at Godwin the year before—but he knew that Perry had gone to high school with Nicole, and he knew that Perry’s roommate had been the one who’d had the accident that had killed her. (“I just wondered,” Patrick had slurred, “you know. Have you seen her? Am I losing my mind, Perry? Whass happening here?”) Perry’d had no idea what to say to Patrick, so he had stammered something about sobering up and calling back in the morning, but Patrick never called, and Perry didn’t run into him. He’d heard the details from Lucas.