David Wiltse - The Edge of Sleep

“I was just joking. Mom.”

“I am aware of that.”

“She’s laughing on the inside,” Becker said.

“I’m trying to impress certain notions of safe behavior on Jack. You’re not much help.”

Becker hung his head, chastened. He looked at Jack under his brows and winked. Jack rolled his eyes in playful conspiracy against his mother.

Karen saw it all. “I think you’re both a pair of baboons,” she declared.

It was a cue too obvious to overlook. Becker made a monkey face at Jack, who responded in kind. They were quickly walking like apes, scratching themselves, making hooting sounds. In the middle of their display Karen walked out of the room and slammed herself shut in the bedroom.

“She’s mad,” said Jack.

“She’s sad,” said Becker. “But she doesn’t want you to know it because she doesn’t want you to be sad, too. She wants you to have a wonderful time at camp.”

“Okay,” Jack said, uncertainly.

“Okay what?”

“I’ll have a wonderful time at camp.”

“Good idea,” said Becker. ‘That will make her very happy. The better time you have, the better she will feel.”

“She doesn’t act that way.”

“That’s because she’s conflicted.”

“What’s that?”

“Conflicted? Screwed up. It’s a grown-up thing, don’t worry about it.”

In the bedroom Becker, tried to comfort Karen, who was holding herself just on the teetering edge of crying without actually falling over into sobs and weeping. Her face would periodically turn bright red and puffy as if surely tears must flow, but then, with a physiological control Becker didn’t understand but admired, she would step back from the precipice, her face would clear, and the only residue would be a brighter, moister sheen to her eyes. It was as if she was reabsorbing the tears and having a really good cry inside.

“He’s going to be fine,” Becker said.

“How do you know?”

“He’ll be perfectly safe.”

“I know that.”

“It will be a good experience for him.”

“I know that.”

“It was your idea that he should go to camp.”

“Christ, I know that, Becker.”

She had been calling him Becker rather than John more frequently following the incident with the gun in Jack’s bedroom. They continued to make love with passion and tenderness, but outside of the bed they circled each other warily.

“You want me to tell you something you don’t know?” Becker asked.

“Only if it’s something good.”

“I don’t know anything about this that you don’t already know yourself.”

“I know that,” she said.

“Are you crying because you don’t want him to go… ”

“I’m not crying.”

“Or are you crying because you do want him to go?”

“I’m crying because I’m a mother,” she said.

She allowed him to hold her, but she held herself more tightly. His embrace offered comfort to neither of them.

Now, as they rode north on 1-91 into Massachusetts, Karen seesawed back and forth between a steely efficiency that concerned itself with time and distance and other details of the trip, and a moist sentimentality. If she had been in the backseat rather than behind the steering wheel, Becker felt certain she would have had Jack on her lap. It was probably why she had steadfastly refused Becker’s offers to drive.

The car telephone emitted its muted ring.

“I should have turned it off,” Karen said, reaching for it. “I’m on my way to Jack’s camp, Malva,” she said, annoyed. She listened for a moment, then said wearily to Becker. “There’s another man in a motel with a boy.”

Since Karen had enlisted the aid of the state and local police, the Bureau had been alerted to possible suspects at the rate of six per day. At her request. Karen had been informed of all of them, and after they were investigated she had been immediately informed of the results. On several occasions she had gone to the motels herself. They had discovered fathers and sons, fathers and daughters who were mistaken for boys, men and men, high-school students up to mischief, lovers up to privacy, even a mannish-looking woman and her small dog. The effort had come to seem like an embarrassing waste of man-hours.

“Where is it?” Becker asked.

“Spencer.”

Becker glanced at the map, which had their route to camp highlighted in red ink.

“It’s on the way, about fifteen minutes from here,” he said.

Karen sighed. “I’m on my way to camp,” she said.

“We’re forty-five minutes ahead of schedule,” Becker said indifferently. “We can spend the time at a motel talking to a man and a midget…”

“Or a ventriloquist and his dummy, or a woman with a small pony

…”

“Who has a pony?” Jack asked from the backseat, lifting his head from his book.

“I was just joking, sweetheart,” Karen said.

“Or we can spend the time waiting at camp for permission to leave,” Becker said.

“Hang on,” Karen said into the telephone. She looked at Becker with raised eyebrows.

“Whatever you want,” Becker said. “It’s your trip.”

“My job, too,” she said, then, into the phone, “Malva, give me directions to the motel. I’ll take this one myself.”

“Guess what,” Becker said, turning to look at Jack in the backseat.

“What?”

“Not only do you get to go to camp today. You also get to watch a pair of supersleuths in action.”

“Hey!”

“It’s actually very boring.” Karen warned.

“It’s usually very boring,” Becker said. “But then, you never know.”

“Is there a pony involved?”

“No,” said Karen. “Just a jackass.” She thought a moment. “Or two,” she added.

Another car followed them off the highway into the Restawhile driveway, going rather too fast for the situation. As Karen came to a stop in front of the office, the other car moved quickly past and skidded to a halt in front of the farthest cabin. An elderly couple stepped out of the office, looking past Becker and Karen to the car in the distance. Becker saw a woman hurry from the car to the cabin door. She tried a key, but the door would not open. She put her head to the crack of the door, said something, then stepped inside quickly as the door opened all the way.

Karen was trying to get the attention of the elderly couple but having no luck. They seemed as engrossed in the distant scene as if it were the stuff of high drama. It was not until Karen produced her identification and announced that she was with the FBI that the woman seemed to notice her.

“You see,” Reggie said to George triumphantly. “The FBI. I told you it was important.”

“You really the FBI?” George asked.

Karen held her identification toward him but spoke to the woman. She could tell already that the woman was in charge.

“I understand that you responded to a state police request for information.”

“Right there,” Reggie said, pointing toward cabin six. “In six. Just what you’re looking for.”

“What did you understand we were looking for?” Karen asked.

“A man and a boy,” Reggie said. “A big man, the trooper said. Isn’t that right, George?”

George was studying the attractive young woman who claimed to be an FBI agent, trying not to stare while still getting an eyeful. He seemed surprised to have been consulted.

“Ah, yeah. That’s what the trooper said. A big man with a boy.”

“Well, he’s in there,” Reggie said, pointing.

“In the bungalow where the woman just went?” Karen asked.

“She claims he’s her husband, but don’t you believe it,” Reggie said. “He believes it, but don’t pay any attention to him.” She nodded her head contemptuously at George, who was drifting toward the car in an effort to disassociate himself from his wife. He had hoped he could study the woman agent from that perspective without being noticed. Jack had rolled down the rear window to hear the conversation and George winked at the boy, pretending not to hear the reference to himself.