Ben Cheetham - Blood Guilt

Harlan’s lips curled into a sneer. “Aw, fuck Garrett.”

A few flakes of snow hung in the air. Several of them turned to droplets of water on Harlan’s bottle as he took a hit from it. “Jesus, Harlan,” said Jim, “put that away before someone sees it.”

Harlan returned the bottle to his pocket, then started back towards the house.

Jim placed his hand on his partner’s chest. “I can’t let you go back in there.”

“Are you saying I’m not fit for duty?”

“I don’t want to get into an argument. We’ll talk about this later.”

“The fuck we will. We’re gonna talk about this right now.”

“Look, Harlan,” sighed Jim, “I don’t know what’s going on with you today, but this isn’t the time or place to get into this. So here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to go home and sleep this off and when you wake up you’re going to phone this number.” He scribbled down a number on a notepad, tore out the sheet and handed it to Harlan.

“What’s this?”

“The number of a therapist.”

“A therapist.” Harlan said the word as if he had a nasty taste in his mouth. “What do I need a therapist for?”

“Because Garrett might go easy on you if he knows you’re trying to get your head straightened out. Her name’s Linda Harris. She helped me get through my divorce.”

Harlan stared at the number, forehead rutted into lines as deep as the sadness in his eyes. “There’s no getting through this, Jim.” Crumpling the sheet of paper into a ball and tossing it aside, he stepped around Jim.

“Where are you going?” Jim asked, as Harlan headed down the side of the house.

“Where do you think? Home.”

“One of the uniforms will give you a lift.”

“I’d rather walk.”

Shoulders hunched, breath steaming the air, Harlan made his way along the street. Tears misted his eyes. He swiped them away savagely before they could fall. He finished his whisky in one long swallow, and the pain retreated to lurk like a stalker in the shadows at the back of his mind. He thought about the dead man. What was his name? Lee Burke. Yes, that was it. He’d got it in the back. No defensive wounds. Probably died instantly without pain. “You’re one of the lucky ones,” he murmured, as the snow came down in larger powdery flakes. By the time he got home, the pavement was white.

Harlan stared at the house — a semi, nothing spectacular, a family home. He’d used to love its solid, suburban comfort, its large child-friendly gardens. Now he hated it for the same reasons.

Heaving a breath, Harlan entered the house. He made his way upstairs, pulled down the loft ladder and climbed it. The box was in a far recess of the attic. His thoughts flashed back to the day he’d put it there. That day, like so many other days during the first year after Tom’s death, he’d spent hours in his son’s shrine of a bedroom, crying. Eventually, Eve had come into the room and said, “Enough is enough, Harlan, Tom’s gone and it was no one’s fault and there’s nothing we can do about it except get on with our lives.”

Her words had felt like a betrayal. Harlan remembered how he’d bitten his lip to keep from speaking, afraid that if he opened his mouth all the things he’d wanted to say so many times before might come spilling out. Things that he knew were unfair, yet which he couldn’t help but think. Things like: you were his mother, you were supposed to be watching him, making sure he came to no harm. Things that, if voiced, would destroy what little was left of their relationship.

“I love you, but you’re killing me,” Eve had continued. “If you carry on like this, it’ll be the end of us.”

Harlan had known she meant it, and suddenly his anger had disappeared and panic had risen in him at the thought of losing the only thing left for him to love. “You’re right,” he’d said. “I’ve got to stop doing this.”

That same day Harlan had cleared out Tom’s bedroom and taken down every photo of him in the house. “You don’t need to go that far,” Eve had said, shocked.

“Yes I do,” he’d replied. “If I’m going to put this behind me, I can’t be surrounded by things that remind me of him.”

So Harlan had pushed the memories down. Down and deep. He’d locked them away and swallowed the key, and for a while it’d worked. They’d got on with their lives, even trying for a baby. Trying and trying but not succeeding. After a year, Harlan had started to get scared. “Maybe we should see a doctor,” he’d suggested to Eve. She’d agreed.

Harlan didn’t want to look inside the box, but somehow he couldn’t stop himself. With hands that would’ve trembled but for the alcohol flooding his veins, he pulled away the masking-tape and opened it. Thomas’s rosy-cheeked face beamed up at him from a photo-frame. He had Harlan’s intense dark eyes and thick brown hair, and Eve’s full lips and cute snub-nose.

Harlan’s breath came out in a sudden gasp, as if he’d been punched in the stomach. The tears welled again. This time he couldn’t stop them. They fell onto the photo, onto Thomas’s favourite teddy-bear, onto his lucky pyjamas. He slumped forward, pressing his face into the box’s contents, inhaling deeply, smelling the remnants of his son. He was still in the same position an hour later when Eve poked her head into the attic. “Harlan?” she said.

His mouth twitching with resentment, Harlan raised his tear-stained face to glare at Eve. His anger was almost tangible, filling the space between them like invisible tentacles ready to strike. “Go on, say it,” said Eve, her voice flat, emotionally drained. “Say what you’re thinking. It was my fault, right? I should’ve been watching him more closely.”

“Yes!” The word came out in a loud hiss, like a release of pent up steam.

They stared at each other. Harlan was struck suddenly by how much Eve’s face had changed since Tom’s death. Everything about it — skin, smile, eyes — had once been soft. There was no softness now. Her face was thinner, worn into hollows beneath the cheekbones, her eyes were sharp, and lately her mouth had assumed what seemed to be an almost permanently downturned position. She looked older — not old, but not young anymore either — and very tired. Like that day in Tom’s bedroom, the tentacles of Harlan’s anger suddenly withered and sucked back in on themselves. He made to speak, to apologise, but before he could do so Eve ducked out of sight. He hurried after her into their bedroom.

“I’m sor-” Harlan started to say, but he broke off as Eve pulled a suitcase down from the top of the wardrobe. “What are you doing?”

Eve didn’t reply. She started flinging clothes into the suitcase. When Harlan caught hold of her arm, she jerked around to glare at him with such implacable fury that he released her and took a step backward. She stormed past him into the bathroom, returning with an armful of cosmetics to dump into the suitcase. As she hauled the suitcase downstairs, Harlan said, “Please, Eve, don’t do this. I’m sorry. I should never have said what I did.”

Eve paused at the front door, turning to Harlan. “Why not? It’s what you think, isn’t it?”

He dropped his gaze from hers, his broad shoulders slumping like a defeated boxer’s. Sighing, Eve continued a shade more softly, “I should’ve done this months ago, but I stupidly kept telling myself there was still a chance we could make it in time. Now I know what you really think. And no amount of time will be enough to change that. It’s over, Harlan.”

As Eve turned to head for her car, Harlan’s mind reeled with conflicting desires. Part of him desperately wanted to try and stop her. Another part told him to let her go. After all, whether or not she was right, what future did she have to look forward to with him? Maybe in time he could come to terms with Tom’s death. But he’d always be sterile. And as far as he was concerned, a childless future was no future at all. No, better to let her go while she was still young enough to start a family with someone else.