Харлан Кобен: The Boy from the Woods

Matthew had already thanked Tim and gotten out. Hester reached for the door handle, but Tim stopped her with a throat clear. Hester rolled her eyes and waited while Tim, a big slab of a man, rolled his way out of his seat into a standing position and opened the door for her. It was a completely unnecessary gesture, but Tim felt insulted when Hester opened the door on her own, and really, she fought enough battles every day, thank you very much.

“Not sure how long we’ll be,” she said to Tim.

His accent remained thick. “I’ll be here.”

Matthew had opened the front door of the house and left it ajar. Hester shared one more look with Tim before walking up the cobblestone path — the same one she and Ira installed themselves over a weekend thirty-three years ago — and heading inside the home. She closed the door behind her.

“Matthew?”

“In the kitchen.”

She moved to the back of the house. The door of the huge Sub-Zero refrigerator — that hadn’t been there in her day — was open, and again she flashed back to Matthew’s father at that age, to all her boys during their high school years: Jeffrey, Eric, and David, always with their heads in the refrigerator. There were never enough groceries in the house. They ate like trash compactors with feet. If she bought food, it was gone the next day.

“You hungry, Nana?”

“No, I’m good.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure. Tell me what’s going on, Matthew.”

His head came into view. “Do you mind if I just make a little snack first?”

“I’ll take you out to dinner, if you want.”

“I got too much homework.”

“Suit yourself.”

Hester wandered into the den with the TV. She smelled burnt wood. Someone had recently used the fireplace. That was strange. Or maybe it wasn’t. She checked out the coffee table.

It was neat. Too neat , she thought.

Magazines stacked. Coasters stacked. Everything in its proper place.

Hester frowned.

With Matthew busy eating his sandwich, she tiptoed up to the second level. This was none of her business, of course. David had been dead for ten years. Laila deserved to be happy. Hester meant no harm, but she also couldn’t help herself.

She entered the master bedroom.

David, she knew, had slept on the far side of the bed, Laila by the door. The king-sized bed was made. Immaculately.

Too neat , she thought again.

A lump formed in her throat. She crossed the room and checked the bathroom. Immaculate too. Still not able to stop herself, she checked the pillow on David’s side.

David’s side? Your son has been gone for ten years, Hester. Leave it be.

It took a few seconds, but eventually she located a light-brown hair on the pillow.

A long light-brown hair.

Leave it be, Hester.

The bedroom window looked onto the backyard and the mountain beyond. The lawn blurred into the slope and then faded away into a few trees, then more trees, then a full-blown thick forest. Her boys had played there, of course. Ira had helped them build a tree house and forts and Lord knew what. They made sticks into guns and knives. They played hide-and-seek.

One day, when David was six years old and supposedly alone, Hester had overheard him talking to someone in those woods. When she asked him about it, little David tensed up and said, “I was just playing with me.”

“But I heard you talking to someone.”

“Oh,” her young son had said, “that was my invisible friend.”

It had been, as far as Hester knew, the only lie David had ever told her.

From downstairs, Hester heard the front door open.

Matthew’s voice: “Hey, Mom.”

“Where’s your grandmother?”

“Right here,” he said. “Uh, Nana?”

“Coming!”

Feeling both panicked and like a total idiot, Hester quickly slipped out of the bedroom and into the hallway bathroom. She closed the door, flushed the toilet, and even ran the water to make it look good. Then she headed toward the stairs. Laila was at the bottom, staring up at her.

“Hey,” Hester said.

“Hey.”

Laila was gorgeous. There was no way around it. She dazzled in the fitted gray business suit that hugged where it should, which in her case was everywhere. Her blouse was a vibrant white, especially against the darkness of her skin.

“You okay?” Laila asked.

“Oh, sure.”

Hester made it the rest of the way down the stairs. The two women hugged briefly.

“So what brings you out, Hester?”

Matthew came into the room. “Nana was helping me with a school report.”

“Really? On what?”

“The law,” he said.

Laila made a face. “And you couldn’t ask me?”

“And, uh, also being on TV,” Matthew added clumsily. Not a good liar, Hester thought. Again, like his dad. “Uh, like, no offense, Mom, being a famous lawyer.”

“That a fact?”

Laila turned to Hester. Hester shrugged.

“Okay then,” Laila said.

Hester flashed back to David’s funeral. Laila had stood there, holding little Matthew’s hand. Her eyes were dry. She didn’t cry. Not once that day. Not once in front of Hester or anyone else. Later that night, Hester and Ira took Matthew out for a hamburger at ABG’s in Allendale. Hester had left early and come back. She walked into the backyard, into the opening in the woods where she’d seen David disappear countless times to go see Wilde, and even from there, even at that distance with the night wind howling, she could hear the guttural cries of Laila alone in her bedroom. The cries were so raw, so ripping, so pained that Hester thought that maybe Laila would break in a way no one could ever fix.

Laila had not remarried. If there were other men in the past ten years — and there had to have been many, many offers — she had not told Hester about them.

But now, there was this too-neat house and this long brown hair.

Leave it be, Hester.

Without warning, Hester reached out with both arms and pulled Laila in close.

Surprised, Laila said, “Hester?”

Leave it be.

“I love you,” Hester whispered.

“I love you too.”

Hester squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t keep tears back.

“Are you okay?” Laila asked.

Hester gathered herself, took a step back, smoothed her clothes. “I’m fine.” She reached into her purse and grabbed out a tissue. “I just get...”

Laila nodded. Her voice was soft. “I know.”

From over his mother’s shoulder, Hester spotted Matthew shaking his head, reminding her of what she’d promised.

Hester said, “I better go.”

She kissed them both and hurried out the door.

Tim was waiting for her with the door open. He wore a black suit and chauffeur cap to work every day, whatever the weather or season, even though Hester told him he didn’t have to and neither the suit nor the cap ever seemed to fit him right. It could be his bulky frame. It could be that he carried a gun.

As she slid into the backseat, Hester turned for one last look at the house. Matthew stood in the doorway. He looked at her. It hit her yet again:

Her grandson was asking for her help.

He had never done that before. He wasn’t telling her the whole story. Not yet. But as she wallowed in her own pity, in her own misery, in this awful hole in her own life, she reminded herself that it was a much bigger and more awful hole for Matthew, growing up without a father, growing up, especially, without that father, without that good and kind man, who had been the best of Hester and even more Ira — Ira, who died of a heart attack, she was convinced, because he could never get over the heartbreak of losing his son in that crash.

Tim slid back into the driver’s seat.