Chương 2
Ryan looked outside.
The storm had swallowed the lake.
Rain moved sideways through the opening, turning the far shore into a gray blur.
“I don’t care.”
“You should.”
Ryan gave him a hard smile. “You hit me five minutes after I got here.”
“You were opening something you weren’t supposed to.”
“It has my name on it.”
“That doesn’t mean you were supposed to open it.”
Ryan stopped.
Walter seemed to hear the mistake in his own words.
Ryan turned slowly toward the case.
“What does that mean?”
Walter said nothing.
“You just said he buried it for me.”
“He did.”
“But I’m not supposed to open it?”
“Not yet.”
Ryan laughed again, this time with no humor at all.
“Not yet. I’m twenty-three. The box says twenty-three.”
“I can read.”
“So what are we waiting for?”
Walter looked at him.
“Your mother.”
Ryan’s anger came so quickly that he had to grip the edge of the workbench.
“You called her?”
“No.”
“You told her I’m here?”
“No.”
“Does she know about this?”
Walter did not answer quickly enough.
Ryan’s hand tightened.
“Does she?”
“She knew the box existed.”
A gust pushed rain several feet across the floor.
Walter walked past Ryan and pulled the heavy sliding door halfway across the opening, leaving enough space for air but cutting the spray. He did it carefully, as if Ryan had not just had his childhood rearranged.
Ryan hated him for that.
He hated the door.
He hated the storm.
He hated the smell of wet wood and motor oil and lake mud.
Most of all he hated that he had come here because his boss told him an old man needed help replacing rotted dock boards before Labor Day rentals.
That was supposed to be the whole day.
A job.
Eight hours.
Twenty-eight dollars an hour.
Maybe Walter would tip him, maybe he wouldn’t.
Ryan had complained about the drive that morning because it was forty minutes north of town and his truck had started making a clicking sound near the passenger-side wheel.
He had stopped for gas and bought bad coffee.
He had texted his mother a photograph of the sunrise over Route 41 because she liked that kind of thing.
She had replied with a heart.
At 8:12 a.m.
Eleven hours ago.
Ryan pulled out his phone.
No signal.
He held it toward the opening.
One bar appeared and vanished.
Walter sat on the edge of the workbench.
“You won’t get much here during a storm.”
Ryan looked at the phone, then at him. “That convenient?”
Walter’s mouth tightened.
“You think I planned the weather?”
“I don’t know what you planned.”
“Fair.”
That answer annoyed Ryan more than denial would have.
He put the phone away.
“How do you know my mother?”
Walter looked down at his boots.
Ryan waited.
The rain hammered the roof.
Finally Walter said, “Her name was Lisa Brennan then.”
Ryan felt a strange embarrassment hearing his mother’s maiden name from him.
“She came here twice.”
“When?”
“The first time? Before you were born.”
“And the second?”
Walter looked up.
“After.”
“How long after?”
“Three weeks.”
Ryan rubbed his thumb over the red mark Walter’s hand had left on his knuckles.
“What did she want?”
“Your father.”
“Obviously.”
“No.” Walter shook his head. “Not obviously.”
Ryan took a step closer.
Walter folded his hands.
“She came the first time because she wanted him to stop calling. She came the second time because she wanted him to see you.”
Ryan said nothing.
The story was already refusing to hold one shape.
He had expected, without realizing it, that there would be a clean villain in the next sentence.
His father left.
His mother lied.
Walter helped.
Simple.
Ugly, but simple.
Now Walter had put a contradiction in the middle.
“She brought me here?”
“No.”
“You just said—”
“She wanted him to see you. She didn’t bring you.”
“Why?”
“Because he refused.”
Ryan looked toward the water.
Something cold moved through his chest.
Walter added, “That’s not the whole story either.”
“Stop saying things like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like there’s always another trapdoor under the sentence.”
Walter almost smiled.
It vanished before it fully formed.
“You sound like him.”
“Don’t.”
Walter nodded once.
Ryan paced along the dock until he reached the loose plank.
The case remained half exposed in the cavity.
Black metal.
Scratched corners.
Two latches.
A keyhole.
His name.
His age.
He could have picked it up before Walter crossed the room.
He did not.
That irritated him too.
“What’s inside?”
“I don’t know everything.”
“What do you know?”
“Photographs. Some letters. A key.”
“To what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Money?”
Walter gave him a flat look.
Ryan shrugged. “You said a key. People put money in boxes.”
“Your father barely had grocery money.”
“Good to know he was consistent.”
Walter’s jaw shifted.
Ryan saw it and felt a small, ugly satisfaction.
There.
Something hurt him.
Good.
He wanted Walter hurt.
He wanted somebody else carrying part of this.
“What else?”
“A cassette tape.”
Ryan stared.
“A cassette?”
“He made it in 2003.”
“Of course he did.”
Walter looked at him.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No, say it.”
Ryan shook his head. “It’s just perfect. Dead-or-not-dead missing father leaves mysterious cassette in a locked box under a boathouse. Real normal family stuff.”
“Your father wasn’t normal.”
“Yeah, I’m getting that.”
“No.” Walter’s voice sharpened. “You’re making jokes because you don’t want to hear me.”
Ryan stepped toward him.
“And you’re seventy-one years old and apparently sat on this for my entire life, so maybe don’t lecture me about avoidance.”
Walter stood.
For the first time, the restraint in his face slipped.
“You think I enjoyed this?”
“I don’t care.”
“I promised him.”
Ryan pointed toward the box.
“Then congratulations. Your promise is twenty-three years old today.”
“Eleven days ago.”
Ryan froze.
Walter immediately looked away.
Ryan stared at him.
“You know my birthday.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Walter’s shoulders lowered.
“Because I was there.”
May you like
Ryan’s skin prickled.
“At the hospital?”
