Kevin O'Brien - Disturbed

She didn’t want him browbeating the kids on her account. That was no way to win them over. “It’s no biggie,” Molly murmured, moving to the counter, and topping off her own cup of coffee.

On the television, they showed an ambulance and several police cars encircling a small parking lot. Yellow police tape was wrapped around some trees at the edge of the lot. It fluttered in the breeze. Paramedics loaded a blanket-covered corpse into the back of the ambulance. “The victim, according to early reports, was robbed and then shot execution-style after his car broke down along Lake Washington Boulevard,” the anchorwoman explained with a somber voiceover. “He has been identified as forty-two-year-old, Raymond Corson, a former guidance counselor at James Monroe High School. .”

“Oh, God, no,” Molly murmured, stunned. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe.

She forgot she was holding the quarter-full coffeepot. It slipped out of her hand and crashed against the tiled floor. Glass shattered, and hot coffee splashed the front of her sweatpants. But it didn’t burn her. Molly glanced down at the mess for only a moment. Then she went right back to staring at the TV — and that covered-up thing they were shoving into the back of an ambulance.

Ray Corson had been Chris’s guidance counselor at the high school — until he’d been forced to leave last December. Chris still blamed himself for that. He blamed her, too.

She was barely aware of Jeff asking if she was all right or of Erin fussing about the glass and coffee on the floor. All Molly really heard was the anchorwoman on TV: “Ray Corson left behind a wife and two children. . ”

“God, no,” Molly whispered again, shaking her head.

“. . Corson telephoned Triple-A, reporting car trouble shortly after one o’clock Monday morning,” the handsome blond-haired TV news correspondent said into his microphone. He was in his mid-thirties and wore a Windbreaker. He stood in front of a parked police car; its red strobe swirled in the early morning light.

On the TV in Chris’s bedroom, another local station covered the same news story Molly had viewed down in the kitchen just two minutes before. She recognized the crime scene, a small parking lot by the Arboretum.

Molly stood in his doorway. With the curtains still closed, Chris’s bedroom was dark. Swimming trophies, graphic novels, and waggle-headed Family Guy figurines occupied his bookcase. On his walls were movie posters for Old School and Inglourious Basterds . One wall panel was corkboard — on which he’d tacked college pennants, pictures of him with his swim team buddies, and about a dozen family photos. Of course, while his mother was in several of the snapshots, Molly wasn’t in any. She often had to remind herself this was his bedroom, and he was free to decorate it any way he wanted. Still, would it kill him to put up one lousy little photo of her? It didn’t even have to be one of her alone, either. She’d be happy if he tacked up a photo of her and Jeff, or her with Erin, or even one with her in the background, for pity’s sake. Throw me a bone here, Chris, she wanted to tell him. Then again, she wasn’t in his bedroom much — except briefly, to put his folded laundry on the end of his bed every few days. Molly told herself that he was a nice kid and certainly polite enough to her.

The TV glowed in one corner of the room, where Chris had a beanbag chair close enough to the set to ensure he’d go blind by age fifty. But he wasn’t sitting in that chair right now. He stood barefoot by his unmade bed, his eyes riveted to the TV screen. He was tall and lean, with unruly brown hair and a sweet, handsome face. His rumpled, half-buttoned blue striped shirt wasn’t tucked into his jeans. He didn’t seem to notice Molly in his doorway.

On TV, they showed a station wagon — with the driver’s door open. Two cops lingered nearby, discussing something. “According to Brad Reece, the Triple-A responder, he pulled into the parking lot here off Lake Washington Boulevard at the Arboretum at 1: 45,” the reporter was saying. “He found this empty station wagon. Reece tried to call Ray Corson’s cell phone, but didn’t get an answer. Then he noticed something down this trail. . ” The camera tracked along a crooked pathway, through some foliage until it reached a strip of yellow police tape stretched across the bushes. In bold black letters, the tape carried a printed warning: CRIME SCENE — DO NOT PASS BEYOND THIS POINT. The image froze on that police barrier — and the darkness that lay beyond it. “Reece discovered the victim a few feet past this point. Ray Corson had been shot. I’m told the police found his wallet in a field just north of this spot. The cash and credit cards were missing. Investigators are still searching for the cell phone Corson used to call Triple-A.” The solemn-faced reporter came back on the screen again. “Reporting from Seattle’s Arboretum, I’m John Flick, KOMO News.”

At that moment, Chris seemed to realize someone else was there. He turned and gazed at her.

“Are you okay, Chris?” she asked, still hesitating in his doorway.

“I’m fine,” he said, his voice raspy. He started making his bed.

“Listen, if you don’t feel like going to school today, I can call and tell them you’re sick,” Molly offered.

“It’s okay, I’m fine,” he murmured, straightening the bed sheets. He looked at her again and blinked. “What happened to you?”

She glanced down at the coffee stains on the front of her gray sweatpants. “I dropped the coffeepot. Your dad’s still cleaning up the mess. There might still be some glass on the floor. So — ah, put your shoes on before you come down to the kitchen, okay?”

He just nodded, then pulled the quilted spread over his bed. He stopped for a moment to wipe his eyes again.

“I made waffles,” she said, suddenly feeling stupid for mentioning it.

“Thanks, Molly, but I’m not really hungry,” he murmured.

She wanted to hug him, and assure him that what happened to Mr. Corson last night had nothing to do with him — and it had nothing to do with the messy business at school five months ago. But the front of her was soaked with cold coffee, and besides, Chris wasn’t big on doling out hugs — at least, not with her. So Molly just tentatively stood in his doorway with her arms folded.

He finished making the bed, then sank down on the end of it, his back to her. “I’ll be down in a minute,” he said, his voice strained. “Could you — could you close the door?”

Molly nodded, even though he couldn’t see her. Stepping back, she shut the door and listened for a moment. She thought he might be crying. But she only heard the TV, and the weatherman, predicting dark skies and rain for the day ahead.

In a stupor, Chris wandered downstairs to the kitchen.

Molly was still up in the master bedroom, changing her clothes. Erin sat at the breakfast table, finishing a bowl of cereal and staring at the TV. Chris’s dad was cleaning up the broken glass and spilt coffee. He had his suit jacket off, sleeves rolled up, and tie tucked inside his shirt to keep it from getting soiled. One faint streak of brown liquid remained on the tiled floor. You missed a spot , Chris wanted to say, as his dad straightened up and set a soaked paper towel on the counter.

He wiped his hands and gave Chris a hug. “Molly said you were watching the news about Ray Corson,” he whispered. Obviously, he didn’t want Erin to hear. “How are you holding up? Are you doing okay?”

“I’m fine, thanks, Dad,” he muttered, starting to back away.

But his father held on to him and looked him in the eye. “You know I wasn’t a big fan of his, but still, I’m — I’m sorry this happened. Do you want to talk about it?”