Through the haze he could see his father picking him up out of the snow and carrying him away in his arms. His teeth were chattering from the cold, his bones shaking like sticks rubbing together in search of heat, fire. As Teddy considered the image, he thought maybe he’d punched his ticket out, and this was the view from the slow train ridden by the dead.
His father lowered him onto his bed, touched the wound on his forehead and left the room. Time was rushing back and forth, and Teddy found himself caught in the wind. He was twenty-seven, then twenty. When he jumped off the bed and ran to the window, he could see the cops taking his father away and knew that he was fourteen again.
They never found the money.
The accountant had murdered his father’s business partner when he was caught embezzling huge sums of money from the company. After Teddy’s father was arrested for the murder and later died in prison, the accountant finally came forward overcome with guilt. Still, he never told anyone what he did with the money. Facing a guilty verdict for murder and a life behind bars, he knew he didn’t have to.
Money had been a major issue in Teddy’s life ever since his father’s arrest. Every time he picked up the phone, it was another rude stranger with a harsh voice asking to speak to his mom. He could hear her answering questions with a worried expression on her face. Her answers were usually the same, even when she started working. “Next week,” she would say. “Next month.” Or even, “I don’t have it right now. Feeding my family comes first. You’ll just have to wait.”
She was a remarkable woman. It would take a few minutes after each call, but she always had a warm smile lying around. Always a good hug for Teddy and his little sister after one of those phone calls. Sometimes her hugs were too good, like maybe she was hanging on. He didn’t really mind though. Her cheeks were soft and he loved her long brown hair and the light, clean smell of her perfume.
They seemed to be eating spaghetti more often, Teddy noticed. And when he or his sister’s clothes wore out, his mom sewed them back together or ironed on patches instead of buying something new. At night, Teddy would often sneak out to the barn and watch her paint through the window. She could only paint at night and on weekends because of her new job. He knew painting was her favorite thing in the world, the thing she called her mission. But she looked tired, and often times when he peeked through the window he found her crying. He knew she was lonely, the whole thing getting to her.
Still, everything at home was a lot better than school. Teddy was no longer the son of a man who built worlds. According to his classmates, Teddy was the son of a murderer and would probably grow up to be one, too. The wrath started out as teasing and occasional wisecracks. After a few weeks, he was no longer allowed to play with certain friends. Their parents wouldn’t have it. When he caught his best friend taunting his little sister at recess, calling her a stupid cunt and a convict in waiting, Teddy knocked four teeth out of the kid’s mouth before a teacher could pull him off.
His suspension lasted three days-without a lecture or admonishment from his mother, he remembered. After that, everyone pretty much left him and his sister alone. His friend’s face was the reminder. The false teeth and the hook in his lip had come from Teddy’s fist, and both remained even as they had their pictures taken for the yearbook as seniors.
Curiously, the accountant had two kids in the same school who never seemed to suffer anything at all. Even when their father was convicted of the murder and carted off to jail, everyone still seemed to think Teddy’s father was the one. Teddy couldn’t figure it out. After a few months, he thought maybe it was because they were girls. He shared three classes with one of them. Janice Sawyer acted like nothing had happened or ever would. Teddy knew it was an act because she never once looked at him after her father went to jail. Still, with everything that had gone down, he was fascinated by her performance and found it hard to keep his eyes off her.
She had natural blond hair and a certain sophistication beyond her years. She’d also matured more quickly than most of the other girls. He could remember seeing her on the first day of class in ninth grade. It looked like she’d spent the summer growing huge breasts and turning herself into a woman. Teddy found his attraction for her confusing because deep inside he hated her. Even more troubling, he noticed she wore something new every day and her clothes looked expensive. When he asked around and found out the girl’s mother didn’t have to work, it got underneath his skin.
Teddy thought about the money her father had stolen a lot. The money that had ruined all their lives. Sometimes it worked him over so hard he couldn’t even get to sleep at night. He had his theories-the most likely being that the Sawyers had buried the cash in their backyard. He often fantasized about digging it up and stealing it while they were asleep. Giving it to his mom and watching the Sawyers suffer the way his family had. One Saturday he walked over to their house and saw Janice’s mother gardening in the backyard. Teddy hid in the bushes behind a tree for two hours keeping an eye on her, but it turned out all she was doing was planting flowers.
When he came home, he found his mother in the kitchen rooting through some of his father’s old papers. She’d spent the afternoon cleaning out closets, not spying on people, and found a life insurance policy his dad had never talked about. Things changed after that and became easier. Not at first because the insurance company tried to deny that the policy was valid. Teddy was sixteen at the time and guessed the insurance company was hoping that after two years no one would bother to call and they could keep the money for themselves. But his mom called and kept calling. And when that didn’t work, she asked a friend she often painted with, Quint Adler, to see what he could do. Quint had been a family friend and owned a farm just up Sanctuary Road. His brother worked for their congressman, and Teddy guessed the call from Washington had been the real breakthrough. Still, Teddy always looked at Quint as the one person in their lives who tried to right at least part of the big wrong. Teddy was forever grateful to the man. Years later, when Quint started seeing his mother more often, Teddy was delighted. He hadn’t replaced his dad. He’d just become another member of the family.
The money hadn’t been enough to make them rich, Teddy remembered. There wasn’t enough to pay for either him or his sister’s college tuition. It wasn’t even enough so that his mother could paint during the day-she couldn’t give up her job. But it ended the rude phone calls from all those bill collectors. No one with a harsh voice ever called asking for his mother again. And if they did, Teddy had permission to hang up.
Of course, Teddy had thought the money would do more than that at the time. He’d hoped it would. But at night, sneaking out to the barn and watching his mom paint through the window, there were times when he still found her crying. The money didn’t change that. It couldn’t raise the dead or rebuild a dream that had been chopped down by the greedy. It couldn’t bring back a husband or even a father. It was just money.
TWENTY-EIGHT
He could hear her crying. The sound of his mother moved from the barn, across the snow and into the house until it reached the other side of her bedroom door. The hour seemed so late. When he opened his eyes, he saw Sally Barnett’s face moving away from his and realized she’d just kissed him on the cheek.
He was lying beneath a heavy blanket on the couch in the Barnett’s den. His shoes were off, his collar and tie loosened. Sally held a washcloth in her hand, rinsing it in a bowl of warm water and returning it to his forehead. He looked at the fire burning in the hearth, then back at her face. It had been Sally’s tears he’d heard, not his mother’s, and she looked more than just upset.