Page 40 of Kill Your Darlings

“Oh God,” Wendy said, checking her watch, even though she knew it was almost six thirty.

“Look, Bob’s here now and he’s going to help me look.”

“We should call the police, I think.”

“Yes, okay. Let’s do it. You’ll call?”

“I’ll call.”

It was a police officer named Sean Berry who finally found Jason in Brimbal Woods. It was just after eight, the sun having set. The officer had taken his flashlight and gone off the trails when he heard Jason yelling out a feeble-sounding call for help. It turned out that their nine-year-old son had climbed one of the larger boulders in the woods, then had fallen off its side and lodged himself down into a crevice between two rocks. His ankle was badly sprained and his head was bleeding. He’d been shouting for help so much that his voice had gone hoarse.

Jason was taken to New Essex Memorial, had his ankle wrapped, and was given a cognition test. Wendy couldn’t take her eyes off of him. He looked the same as he had that morning, but somehow completely different. In the two hours he’d been missing she’d somehow already said goodbye to him, convincing herself that he was gone and that the remainder of her life was going to be empty and terrible. She’d even prayed, briefly, something she’d decided to keep to herself. She hadn’t been raised with any kind of religion, but in the fifth grade her father had moved the family to Sweetgum, Florida, for a year, and the only friend she’d made had been a girl named Kristi, who convinced her that since she hadn’t been baptized she was going straight to hell when she died. Kristi’s family had taken Wendy to church, and for about a month after that Wendy had decided that prayer was her only chance at avoiding eternal damnation. It had been a habit that lasted a month, and yet Wendy had prayed that night, begging a god she didn’t believe in for a miracle.

After Jason had hobbled off to bed, she and Thom walked back downstairs, holding hands. Thom went out to the front porch and Wendy asked him if he wanted a drink.

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m going to quit drinking.”

“I would argue that your timing is off. I’m pouring myself a gigantic glass of wine.”

“I’ll have some wine, I guess. A small glass.”

They sat together and stared out toward the cove. On some nights, if there was fog and no starlight, it was like staring out into the abyss, the edge of the world.

“I thought we lost him,” Wendy said.

“I knew we lost him,” Thom said. “No, that’s not true. I didn’tknow, but I felt in my heart that he was gone. That someone had come along with a van and kidnapped him, and we were never going to see him again, never going to know what happened.”

“That’s what I thought too.”

They were quiet for a moment, Wendy trying to savor the fact that the world had returned to normality.

“I thought we were being punished,” Thom said.

It took her a moment to realize what he was saying, then Wendy replied, “Even if something horrible had happened, it still wouldn’t have been punishment.”

“What do you mean?”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“How do you know?”

They hadn’t had this particular conversation for a long time, and Wendy searched in her mind for a way to end it quickly without getting into a fight. “It’s possible, of course, but you know I don’t think about the world like that.”

“Some people are punished for what they do. And some people are rewarded for being good. That’s a fact.”

“Of course it is,” Wendy said. “I just don’t think those things happen for a reason, or not for the reason you think they do. There’s no guiding hand in the universe dealing out karma and rewarding humans for their good behavior.”

“Lots of people think there is.”

“Well, yeah. Religious people. Look, I don’t want to fight, but I think you’re being argumentative for the sake of it. You believe exactly what I believe.”

“Why? Because I’m not religious?” Thom said. “Don’t forget I used to go to church.”

“Did you pray?”

Thom said nothing, and Wendy continued. “The reason I know you believe what I believe is because you’re a logical human being. You know that people do terrible things all the time and get away with them. And you know that terrible things happen to good people. It’s random.”

“It’s notcompletelyrandom, though, is it? If I work hard at being a good neighbor, when I need help then my neighbors will help me. And... let me finish... if I’m law-abiding, if I don’t commit crimes, then I won’t go to prison.”

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