Page 10 of Luke

Lucy and Edmund come running.I place their food in the usual spot by a huge bookshelf crammed with knickknacks. As I straightened up, I spy something I hadn’t noticed before.

It’s a photo from ages ago at a school event. I must’ve been around ten years old. Marie is in the photo, too. So are Alice and my mother. The face I’m not expecting to see is my father’s. He didn’t get to come to school events often. Work took him all over the place. This must’ve been the last school event he came to before he…

The front door slides open. Marie has her arm around Alice for support.

“How’d it go?” I ask, unable to take my eyes off the photo.

“The doctors get more hopeful every day,” Marie says.

She installs Alice in her favorite chair in the office. It looks out onto the rolling hills and the mountains beyond. Alice will probably fall asleep within a few minutes.

“Whatcha lookin’ at?” Marie asks when she enters the room. Then she lets out a soft gasp. “I’m so sorry, Luke. I forgot we even had that photo. Do you want me to put it away?”

“No,” I say slowly. “Mom doesn’t keep any photos of dad in the house. It upsets her too much. She wouldn’t even let me keep them.”

“I know,” Marie says softly. Her hand comes to rest on my shoulder. Her touch sends soothing waves of calm through me. She’s always been able to do that. I don’t know how. “Are you okay?”

“Sometimes, I forget how screwed up it was, you know?” I shrug. “Then I feel horrible for forgetting.”

“You haven’t forgotten. You’ve just healed.” Marie takes my hand and makes me sit down on the couch.

I don’t think about my dad enough, but when I do think about him, I get so angry I want to hurt someone. Marie used to help me keep my temper under control. She’s the only one who knows how much my dad’s death messed me up.

When I was ten, he picked me up from school one day. We had to stop and get gas on the way home. While he was filling the tank, a nervous kid that couldn’t have been more than seventeen, held my dad at knifepoint. Now that I know more about this sort of thing, he was obviously having intense withdrawals, probably from meth.

When my dad refused to give him anything, the guy got mad. I don’t think he realized he stabbed my dad until he fell tothe floor. The junkie took off. I used my dad’s cell to call 911 but by the time the ambulance arrived, he was gone.

“I don’t think I have,” I say. I stand up. I can’t sit still. I need to walk. I need to run. I need to dosomething.

When I was offered a position with the rangers, I thought that was my chance to catch the guy. A lack of witness reports and the spotty memory of my traumatized ten-year-old brain wasn’t enough to go on. I’ve never found so much as a lead. I doubt I ever will.

“The oven is pre-heated. The chicken is all ready to go. I don’t think I can stay tonight.”

I make my way to the door, but Marie catches my hand.

“If you need a landing spot, I’m here.”

Landing spot was one of our little code words. It’s our way of saying we’re here for each other.

“You are?”

She smiles, nods, and gives my hand a squeeze.

I believe her.

Chapter Seven

Marie

It’s been a few days since Luke found the photo of his dad. I miss having him around. My mom tells me I don’t make smoothies as well as he does, which is completely true.

He gets like this every so often. There was a time where one day finding the monster who killed his father was the only thing that got him up in the morning. Sometimes, we talked on the phone all night because he couldn’t stand the idea of sleeping. He felt like he was wrong to sleep when that guy was still out there. I had no idea it still bothered him this much.

The fourth morning without Luke, I finish making my mother her breakfast smoothie and make my way into her room to give it to her. She’s exhausted all the time, now. She usually only leaves her bed for a few hours in the late afternoon.

It’s worrying. She’s losing weight. Despite all of that, her doctors in Denver say she’s doing well. I just can’t wait until it’s over.

“Mom?” I knock on the door. No answer. She’s probably asleep.

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