Каарон Уоррен - The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2018 Edition

She thinks, I want the bullies to go after him. I want them to hurt him. Maybe it’ll knock some sense into him, make him grow up a bit. Is it wrong that I take the side of the bullies over my own child? Of course it is. This is the position he puts me in. He makes me into a bad mother. He makes me into a bad person. The little shit. She says, “He has friends. He has me .”

Mrs. Trent doesn’t seem very convinced by that. That cautious smile looks even more watery. She wonders if Mrs. Trent has children of her own. She guesses that she doesn’t.

What they agree is, they’ll both monitor Max more carefully from now on. In the classroom, and at home. Because maybe there’s nothing to be worried about. But no one wants this to become a situation anyone has to worry about. It all feels rather inconclusive, and she supposes Mrs. Trent thinks the same, and she realizes that Mrs. Trent probably only called this meeting because it was part of her job, she doesn’t really care what happens to her weak little son either. They shake hands.

Max is waiting for his mother on a bench in the corridor outside. He gets up when he sees her. “Well then,” she says. She knows she’ll have to come up with something better than that eventually. But right now it’s the best that she’s got.

“Are you cross with me?” he asks.

“No.”

To prove she’s not cross, on the way home she takes him to MacDonald’s as a treat. She watches him as he joylessly dips French fries into a little tub of barbeque sauce, the sauce drips onto the table. “Any good?” she says, and he nods. Then she takes him home.

“Is there something you want to talk about?” she asks, and it’s right before his bedtime, and she supposes she ought to have asked earlier, but she’s asking him now , isn’t she? He shrugs, and it’s such an ugly little gesture. Then he drags his heels upstairs to his bedroom and closes the door. And she thinks: remember the bike. Remember the wasp. Remember when he came out of you, shiny and brand new.

She recognizes it as the exact same shrug Tom gives her a couple of days later when he comes to pick up Max for the weekend. She thinks she should tell him what had happened at school, about the teacher’s concern their son has no one to play with; and there it is, that shrug, that’s where Max has got it from. She should have known.

“I’m sure he’s okay,” says Tom.

“And that’s it, is it? That you’re sure he’s okay?”

The shrug.

“What will you boys be getting up to this weekend?” She wonders if Tom is trying to grow a moustache or if he simply hasn’t shaved. But there’s no stubble on his chin, so he’s shaving the chin, and that means he’s deliberately not shaving under nose. Probably. She wonders whether it’s to impress some other woman. Probably.

“I don’t think we’ll do anything,” says Tom. “We’ll just hang. We’ll just chill. You know? Hey, superstar”—for Max has now appeared, and Tom has started calling him “superstar,” and she guesses Tom’s picked that up from a TV show—“Hey, you got your bag, you got your things? I was just telling your mum, we’ll just hang and chill this weekend, okay?”

She bends down to give Max a hug. She doesn’t really need to bend, he’s nearly as tall as she is now, she hopes the bending to hug him makes the act look more endearing. “You be a good boy for your dad, yeah?” He grunts, he hugs back. She doesn’t know why they’re hugging, she supposes it’s mostly for Tom’s benefit.

“And, you know, don’t worry,” says Tom. “It’s part of growing up. Being a boy. I know. I was a boy once!”

“Yes,” she says to that.

“And you,” he says suddenly, “You have a good weekend too. You’re okay, you’re doing okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Good,” he says. “Good. Well. Bye, then.” She never knows whether he’s going to try for a hug himself or not. Three months ago he’d knocked on the door, he’d been in tears. His girlfriend had thrown him out, and she could have seen that coming, she was practically half his age. (“Two thirds!” he’d protested. “She’s two thirds my age!”) “I’ve made such a terrible mistake,” he said, “you are the love of my life! I wish you could find some way to forgive me.”

“But I do forgive you,” she’d said, and she did, for the silly affair, at least, she did—“I do forgive you, which is why I’m not punching you in your fucking face.” And she’d closed the door on him. He’s never mentioned the incident since, and sometimes when he comes round to pick up Max he seems hurt and snippy, bristling with passive aggression, sometimes he just bounces about and makes jokes like they’re cool sophisticated adults and it’s easy and it’s fun to ignore all the betrayal and all the waste. In the last three months he’s never tried for a hug, but she knows it’ll happen, one of these days it’s coming.

And that’s it, Max’s gone, now starts her little fortnightly break. She gets Max on Saturday mornings, and he’ll be back for Sunday evening, but otherwise she has practically the whole weekend to herself. She feels lighter already. And she feels guilty too. What will she do with her new won freedom? She doesn’t know. She never knows. Maybe she’ll do some shopping this afternoon, maybe she’ll tidy Max’s room. She goes into the kitchen and has some cold cuts from the fridge, there doesn’t seem much point cooking when it’s only for her.

A week or so later she asks Max, “Are things any better at school?” and Max manages a smile and says thank you, everything now is fine. That’s just two days before he comes home with his face bruised and bleeding. Max insists it’s nothing, but she sees red—she demands to speak to Mrs. Trent about the matter, but for some reason Mrs. Trent is now so much busier and cannot see any parents at all about anything, maybe phone ahead and see if she’s available next week? And for three whole afternoons she pulls a sickie at work, and she sits in her car outside the playground, and watches the children when they are let out to play, and she doesn’t get out of the car for fear that Max will see her, but she sees him—and she watches all the kids, and wonders which of them are hurting her son, and what she will do when she finds out. Will she climb the fence and go and protect her boy? Will she find the bully and track him down and beat him herself? What she won’t do—what she doesn’t need to do—she won’t ask the bully why.

The invitation comes in the post. It’s addressed to Max, but it’s also addressed to her, in parenthesis—it says, “To Maxwell Williamson! (and also to Mrs. Williamson!!)”; either way, she doesn’t feel bad about opening it first. “It’s Nicky’s Birthday!” the card says inside. “Come And Celebrate at Our Swimming Pool Party! (bring trunks).” And there’s a little picture of a smiling fish, presumably because fish can swim, even if they rarely do so in chlorinated water. The envelope is scented, and that’s an odd choice of stationery for a boy, she supposes the invitations were sent out by Nicky’s mother.

She shows Max the invitation when he gets home. “Who’s Nicky?” she asks.

“Just someone at school.”

“Is he a friend of yours?”

“He’s not even in my class.”

“Do you want to go to his party?”

Shrug.

“You’d better go, mister.” Lately she’s been calling him “mister” whenever she wants to sounds stern—she doesn’t know why, maybe she picked it up from a TV show. “The school says you need some friends, mister. You’re going to that party.”

The party is the coming Sunday. That’s a weekend Max is supposed to spend with Tom; she phones Tom and asks him to reschedule. Tom whines about it, he says he’s already got plans the following week. So she says it’s up to him then—Tom can be the one to take their son to his best friend’s birthday party if he wants, she’s more than happy not to have to bother with it. Tom agrees to reschedule after all.