Chapter 1
Gordon
“Gordon.”
I glanced up from my computer at the office secretary, Glenna who poked her head through the door she had cracked open. I indicated to her that I was on the phone.
“It’s an emergency,” she said in hushed tones. “Lacovia Academy is on the line.”
“Shit,” I muttered.
“Excuse me?” my client asked from the other end of the line.
“Uh, Mr. Roberts, sorry about that,” I said, closing my eyes. “An emergency just came up, and I have to go. I’ll ring you as soon as I can.”
“Alright then. Don’t disappoint, Gordon. I’ll be waiting for your call.”
I hung up and sighed in frustration. “What did Ollie do this time?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t ask. The principal just asked for you directly.”
“Okay. You can transfer the call.”
She nodded, her eyes full of compassion and I glanced away. Ten months after Barbara killed herself, people still gave me a pitying look. At least it was better than the way her mother and sister leveled accusing eyes at me. They insisted I had done something to drive their daughter to take her own life.
The phone on my desk rang, and I snatched it up. “This is Gordon, speaking.”
“Gordon, this is Principal McLean.”
“How are you doing, Jackson?” I asked the man who had been in high school with me, though he had been a year ahead. My kids couldn’t catch a break at that school. Each time they did something wrong, I received a call from the principal’s office, as was the case in such a small town like Lacovia, where everybody knew everybody’s business. Before their mother’s death, our kids had been well-behaved within reason, certainly no worse than other kids. Now Ollie was breaking rules I didn’t even know the school had.
“Trying to run a school over here,” Jackson answered. “But, your boy’s making it increasingly difficult to do so.”
“What’d he do this time?”
“He showed up at school this morning, but he decided to skip out.”
Again. He had skipped school for the fourth time since the month started. “This is a difficult time for him—”
“I know. I know.” He cut me off. “His mother killed herself, and he’s going through a tough time. I get it, but he needs to understand that life will not wait for him to catch up. You have him back here in my office in an hour, or I’m going to have to suspend him for five days.”
“Five days! He’s almost at the end of high school. He’s been a great kid up until this moment.”
“Hardly great but given his situation, I’m giving you an hour to bring him in.” A click sounded in my ear as he hung up.
“Son of a bitch,” I gritted out. I swore when I got my hands on Ollie I’d— I lost my steam when I thought about him and all he had endured these past months. I worried about him, my beautiful boy who had been deprived of a mother in a devastating manner. He never talked about it, and to the best of my knowledge, he had not cried since the day we found Barbara’s body. Charlie had been the opposite, crying every minute. She had become withdrawn, creating a shell that kept even her friends at bay. At one point, I had to send her away for a week to stay with my mother who lived an hour and a half away in Baton Rouge, so she didn’t have to be around the memories every minute.
Grabbing my denim jacket, I shrugged into it, checking the pockets that I had my cellphone and wallet on me. I palmed my car keys from the desk and stormed from the office. Maybe I had been too easy on Ollie, making excuses for him because his mother died. His behavior was becoming too much to handle, and we had to do something about it once and for all.
“Glenna, I’ll be out probably for the rest of the evening,” I said, stopping by her desk. “Ensure the guys complete their logs before they leave, will you? Especially Red.”
“Okay, boss.”
“I’ll send them a reminder in our group chat just to be on the safe side. Now let’s hope I find this kid within an hour.”
“Good luck.”
I smiled at her even though I didn’t feel like it, but because she had been a rock for me after Barb’s death. I didn’t regret taking on the fifty-year-old woman since I started this business five years ago. I’d taken a chance on her at that age, and she hadn’t disappointed. She was exactly what the office needed when the men got a little carried away with their sexist conversations. She acted more like a mother to everyone than just a secretary.
Once I was out the office, I headed for my Dodge. I racked my brain to think of where I could find Ollie at this time of the day. It was just some minutes after twelve. Who knew how long he had ditched classes? I reached into my pocket, withdrew my phone and dialed my best friend’s number as I drove out of the company’s parking lot.
“Gordon, what’s up?” Eric answered on the second ring. “Everybody okay?” Since I’d called him that day we found Barbara, he asked that question each time I rang him. I hated that he was anticipating something else going wrong.
“Ollie is missing from school again,” I answered. “Jackson wants to suspend him if we don’t show up at his office within the next hour. Make that fifty minutes. I don’t even have a clue where to look.”
“I can’t report him missing,” Eric responded. “But I’ll have the guys keep a lookout for him. I’ll also take a tour through the mall. Have any other idea where he might be?”
“I wish to God I did.”
“Did you try his phone?”
“Fuck. I didn’t even think about that. I’ll call him now although I doubt he’ll answer if he’s skipping class.”
“Try. You never know. Let’s hope he’s alright.”
“I don’t know, Eric. The kid’s not been the same since his mother died. I worry about him.”
“He’ll be fine. He’s a good kid at heart. Just a little fucked up at the moment. We’ll get him back.”
“Okay. Keep me updated.”
I hung up and at the stoplight punched in the speed dial number to call Ollie. His phone rang to voicemail. I kept calling him but had no luck reaching him. Frustrated, I threw the phone onto the dashboard and began my search.
***
I spent almost thirty minutes driving all over town and working myself into a frenzy. I went from keeping back tears of desperation to swearing I’d knock some sense into Ollie when I found him. He couldn’t be gone forever. I was never one to spank the kids, but as those minutes ticked by and drew closer to the hour, I understood why some parents found it easy.
I was out of ideas where next to look. I’d stopped by all the kids’ favorite jaunting spots. There wasn’t much to do in Lacovia anyway. It was just a small town with around five hundred citizens. I’d been disturbed at the number of kids who skipped classes. I never thought one of my own would be in the mix.
I was heading for the school alone, to plead with Jackson not to suspend Ollie, when my phone rang. I grabbed it from the dashboard, believing it was Ollie returning my call. It was Eric.
“Did you find him?” I asked on a rush. “I hope you did because I didn’t. I’m heading over to the school now to talk to Jackson.”
“I’ve got him,” Eric replied.
“Thank God!” I almost let go the steering wheel in relief. “Put him on the phone.”
“Not yet,” he answered. “I’ll give you two some time to cool off. I’m close to the school, so I’ll meet you there.”
“Fine.” When he didn’t hang up, I had the feeling that something else was wrong. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“I found him because we received a complaint about a kid shoplifting,” he answered. “Turned out to be Ollie and some girl he skipped class with.”
“He did what?” I shouted into the phone, my face turning red. “Why would he do something so stupid? He’s not in need of anything.”
“Kids shoplift to stay cool more than because they can’t afford it,” he replied. “I thought you’d want that information to sink in before we meet up with you. Go easy on him, Gordon.”
I hung up the phone and threw the phone to the dashboard. Disappointment took root inside me. I resented Barbara at that moment. I never understood why she took her own life, but the kids were suffering so much from it. She had to have known how much they loved her and how much pain they would be left to deal with.
Ollie had never been the golden angel, even as a child. He was always precocious, but in the way normal kids were. He would break curfew a time or two, but he didn’t do things like shoplifting. I had to get to the bottom of this. Otherwise, he would probably end up in prison. He wasn’t too young for them to try him as an adult if he continued making these stupid mistakes. Maybe I should have never allowed him to miss those grief counseling sessions, but I hadn’t wanted to push.
When I drove up to the school, I lost my steam when I saw Ollie standing with Eric who was dressed in his police uniform. Eric had his hand placed on Ollie’s shoulder, and the boy had his head bowed. I stared at him and remembered him at eighteen months, waddling his way to me with his toothy, drooling grin. My heart squeezed, and as I parked, I closed my eyes briefly to calm down. Railing at him would solve nothing. I’d done that the last time he skipped school, and it had just spurred an argument between us. Maybe this time I should try the softer approach, although I believed I’d exhausted that too.
I parked and climbed out of the truck, slamming the door shut with a little bit more force than necessary. Whatever Eric said to Ollie, the boy nodded but still hung his head. I stopped before the two and didn’t know what to say. So many thoughts had run through my mind while I combed the streets looking for him, but now that I saw him, not one made sense.
“Thanks for the help,” I told Eric because it was easier to talk to him than my own son, and that fucking killed me.
“No problem.” Eric slapped me on the shoulder and squeezed tightly. “Remember, go easy on him. I took care of the owner of the store, but everyone won’t be so quick not to press charges the next time.”
“There won’t be a next time.” I thanked him and watched him swagger to his squad car. He drove away, honking his horn at us.
“Listen to your father, son,” he said in parting.
Left alone, I turned to Ollie, passing a hand over my face and behind my neck. “Why?” I asked him. “Why would you do something so stupid and reckless, Ollie?”
He shuffled his feet around without a response. That only made me angry. For the first time in my life, I had the urge to strike my son, and it scared me because if he didn’t change his attitude, I indeed might. I had no intention of hitting him, but a man could only take so much. It hurt to see my son turning into a stranger, a loner on a highway to self-destruction. It hurt more that I didn’t know how to stop it. I felt powerless and weak.
“I’m trying my best here,” I told him, choking out the words beyond the lump in my throat. When he still refused to look at me, I grabbed him by the shoulders. “Look at me when I’m talking to you.” He glanced up then, his eyes full of unshed tears— tears I wished he would cry for his mother. A second after, his head lowered again. “I’m trying my goddamn best here. I know you’re hurting. I swear I do. Every day I have to live with the knowledge that I couldn’t protect you or Charlie from seeing your mother just-just...” I trailed off, blinking rapidly to keep the tears at bay. “I don’t know what else to do, Ollie so if there’s something I’m doing that’s wrong, if I am failing you, if there’s something else that you would respond better to, let me know, but I can’t help you if you don’t speak to me.”
Silence stretched between us but then he raised his head, and I was relieved. He was responding. Thank God he was responding.
“Can we just go in?” he asked, staring me in the eyes. “You’re making this weird.”
I cleared my throat, hurt and disappointed, two emotions I was beginning to associate with him.
“Okay, then. Let’s go.” He walked ahead of me and every step he took widened the gap between us in more ways than just the physical. At that moment, I wasn’t sure if I would ever be able to get him back.