“He hasn’t been in school in a week,” Henry said. “I e-mailed you.”
“Did you?” she asked, opening her e-mail for the first time that day. She scrolled through a flock of waiting messages and found Henry’s, sent late yesterday afternoon. She wasn’t much for e-mail, hated the impersonal distance of it. People used it to hide from one another. It stripped communication of expression and tone, essential markers for meaning. She avoided it when possible, preferring to pick up the phone.
“Something’s changed, Henry,” she said. “We’re losing him.”
“What happened?”
She recounted the session in broad strokes, avoiding specific things he’d said to protect Marshall’s privacy and her oath. She focused instead on his mood, the air of malice, and his abrupt departure from her office.
Henry was silent for a moment after she finished. If she’d been talking to Jones, that silence would have annoyed her. She’d have rightly assumed that he was multitasking, not quite listening to her. But with Henry, her friend since high school, she knew he was processing her words, turning the possibilities of the incident over in his mind.
“Maybe I’ll stop over there on my way home,” he said finally. “Check in with Marshall.”
That was the problem with The Hollows-though maybe it wasn’t always a problem. Everyone’s relationship was complicated-your doctor was also your neighbor, maybe she’d gone to the prom with your brother. The cop at your door had been the burnout always in trouble when you were in high school. In this case, when Henry stopped by to check in on Marshall, Travis might not see his kid’s teacher dropping in to check on a student. Travis might see the boy he’d mercilessly bullied for years, the one who’d finally-after a summer growth spurt-beat him down in front of the whole high school at a homecoming game. Beat him so badly that Travis had actually cried. No one was quite as intimidated by Travis Crosby after that-until he’d started wearing a badge and carrying a gun.
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” she asked.
“I think it’s my job.” She detected a note of defensiveness, which reminded her of a question she’d held at bay for a while. How much of Henry Ivy’s interest in Marshall had to do with Travis?
“You’re a teacher, not a truant officer.”
He blew out a breath. “Do you have a better idea?”
“Let’s call Leila. She can send the boys over to connect with Marshall. It’s less confrontational.”
Another silence; in the background she heard the bell that announced the end of class, a sudden wave of voices and footfalls.
“Okay,” he said. “You’ll call her?”
“I will.”
But she hadn’t called right away. Her next patient had arrived early. There was a court-ordered evaluation she had to complete after that. And the next thing she knew, she was sitting in the dark of her office, the space lit only by the glow of her computer screen. She picked up the phone without bothering to turn on the light. Leila answered after just two rings.
“It’s Maggie.”
Leila expelled a tired breath. “I’ve been expecting your call.”
Maggie told her about her last session with Marshall, suggested that she send Tim and Ryan over to reach out. But she didn’t get the reaction she expected.
“I don’t think so, Maggie. I’m sorry. We’re overextended in this area to begin with. The boys-they haven’t said much, but they’ve been keeping their distance from Marshall.”
“But, Leila…,” Maggie began. When Leila didn’t let her finish, Maggie felt a rush of something desperate. When you feel that, Dr. Willough warned, you know you’re over the line internally. Maggie could almost see Leila lifting a hand and closing her eyes. Over the years, they’d been friends, rivals, and then friends again.
“You know Travis, Maggie,” Leila said. “He’s toxic. Like, you can’t touch him-it burns. And Marshall. He’s just different when his father’s around. I hate to say it. I’m afraid of him. Of both of them. My own brother and nephew.” She paused here, seemed to collect herself with a deep inhale. “I need to protect my boys from their… poison.”
Maggie was quiet now. The thing was, she did know Travis and other men like him. Leila was right to protect herself and her sons. Maggie stopped short of saying so.
“I think my family has done everything we can for Marshall,” said Leila when Maggie stayed silent. “He’s almost an adult. We have to save ourselves sometimes, Maggie. You should know that.”
“A boy like Marshall might not have the tools to save himself.”
“I’m sorry,” Leila said. Maggie felt as much as she heard Leila hang up the phone.
After that, Maggie called Marshall’s mother and got her voice mail. She left a message, thinking that she heard doors closing, windows latching all around Marshall. This was what happened. Abused boys became dangerous men. Those around them with a self-preservation instinct-even the people who loved them-started to move away.
• • •
Maggie was thinking about all of this, staring at but not seeing or hearing the television, when the front door opened and then shut hard. She heard heavy footfalls on the staircase. By the time she got to the foyer, she saw only her son’s feet at the top, turning the corner to his room.
“I ordered pizza,” she called.
“Not hungry,” he yelled back and slammed his door.
A moment later angry waves of thrash metal washed down the stairs-high-speed riffing and aggressive bass beats. Sometimes Maggie felt separated from her son by a wave of noise, harsh, ugly music she didn’t like and couldn’t understand. Even when he was down in the basement, pounding on his drum set, the sound kept her at bay. She remembered the music she used to listen to when she was his age, finding herself-The Smiths, The Cure, Joy Division-characterized by the typical angst and yearning, maybe even a bit of anger. Ricky’s music seemed so full of rage; she wondered what that said about him, if there was a whole universe inside him that she just couldn’t visit.
Jones had been an angry young man-furious at a father who’d neglected and eventually abandoned him, resentful of a mother who smothered and clung to him in the absence of her husband. Maggie remembered bar fights and road rage, a few on-the-job complaints, one even making it as far as civilian review. But he’d mellowed over time, even though she could still see that younger man when Jones and Ricky went at it. Maybe it was hereditary, anger. Maybe it lay dormant in boyhood, the disease taking hold in late adolescence. Then it either burned out before any damage was done, or took control.
She walked up the stairs, stood at the door, and put her hand on the wall, feeling the textured sunshine yellow paint with her fingertips. The wall vibrated with the sound coming from inside her son’s room. She offered a tentative knock on his door. No response. She knocked louder.
“What?” he called from inside.
“Want to talk about it?”
“No. I don’t.”
The volume of the music increased. She could push inside or walk away. She could force a conversation, which might turn into a fight. Or just let him come to her when he was ready. She hesitated a moment, conflicted. Then she opted for the latter, moving quietly down the stairs, feeling that strange loneliness again. Uselessness, she thought, was the permanent condition of parenthood. In her office, with her patients, she always knew what do to, what to say. Why, then, with her own family did she so often feel at a complete loss?
For a while, she’d held on to some illusion of control. And then, right about the time Ricky gave up his afternoon nap, she finally understood that for all the schedules and consistency, the rewards and reprimands, ultimately it’s the child who chooses how to behave. It’s the parent’s responsibility to provide the safe environment, the predictable rules, the loving discipline, and the healthy meals, but ultimately the child has to be the one to put the broccoli in his mouth, chew, and swallow. Jones still labored under the delusion that he could bend Ricky to his way of thinking, that with anger, hard words, and harsh punishment he could force their son to do and be what he wanted-in spite of all evidence to the contrary.