Barbara White - The In-Between Hour

His dad was cussing again. One obscenity, two obscenities, three obscenities...four.

All those years in the family shack, neither of them had sworn. Wouldn’t have dared. Four foot ten, magical and mad, Angeline Shepard had ruled the house with more mood swings than a teenage despot. There had been no room for anyone else to flex temper muscles. Raising a voice in his mother’s domain would have been akin to standing in front of the biggest fucking bonfire and pouring on enough gasoline to fuel an Airbus. Great, now he was swearing. Will never swore (batshit didn’t count). But since his dad had started calling to unleash rage ten, fifteen times a day, Will’s psyche had slipped into battle-fatigue mode.

Will sighed. “There are rules about drinking in your room. You know that.”

“I’m eighty years old, son. I reckon I’m old enough to partake, if I so choose.”

“But you’re a loud drunk, Dad.”

“So I pick my banjo—”

“And tell people they’re dickheads.”

“That’s why I don’t talk to no one ’cept you. Half them folks in here is dickheads, son. Half them is.”

“And the other half?” Will didn’t mean to smile.

“Old-timers who get to complainin’ about bladder control. At least I don’t need no adult diapers, and my health is still good, pretty good. Why you at home of an evenin’, son? You need to be out dancin’ with an angel like your mama.”

“I write at night. You know that, Dad.”

Darkness keeps me alive, keeps me on the edge. Keeps me sharp. There was always a moment, in the middle of the night, when the world hardly breathed. When he could write safe in the knowledge that no one would intrude, that he had nothing to fear. But New York Times bestselling author Will Shepard wasn’t writing. Wasn’t sleeping in his institutional white bedroom, either. These days he catnapped fully clothed on his leather sofa—as if he were a millionaire hobo.

Even when he managed to close his eyes, there was no peace. His favorite dream in which he glided like an owl above the forest had contorted into a nightmare. In his subconscious state, Will didn’t drift on air currents anymore—he stumbled through the woods on Occoneechee Mountain. Searching for, but never finding, escape.

“So when you goin’ to start livin’ that dream of yours, son? Find a woodland property with a driveway that’s impassable after a real heavy snowfall?”

“That was a kid’s fantasy. I’m never moving back to North Carolina, you know that.”

You know that. Why keep bashing his dad over the head with all that he’d forgotten?

A gust of wind whipped through the chocolate mimosa in the huge glazed pot. Buffeted, the delicate leaflets held on and bounced back. You can do this, Will. You can do this.

“The new guy, Bernie, who just moved in down the hall, his grandkids took him to that fancy diner on Main Street last Sunday. You know how long it’s been since I’ve had blueberry pancakes?”

When did the old man start caring about pancakes?

“You know what they give us for breakfast? Little boxes of cereal fit for kids. You know how long it’s been since I’ve eaten anywhere real nice? I want blueberry pancakes. And I want to see my grandbaby, goddamn it. When you bringin’ Freddie to visit?”

Time slowed or maybe stopped. Will was at the end of a tunnel, his dad’s voice muffled as it said, over and over, “Willie?”

Will’s arm shot across the wrought-iron table, smashing an empty water glass to the concrete. A spill of shards spread.

Unwanted memories multiplied, images tumbled: Frederick and Cassandra in the car moments before it crashed; Will driving through the night to Hawk’s Ridge with news no grandfather should ever have to hear; his dad flailing and screaming before the security men pinned him down, before a nurse sedated him. And in the months that followed, a never-ending cycle of short-term memory loss and anger. The old man vented, forgot, repeated. Alcohol didn’t help.

“Freddie with his mama this week?”

Will ground his knuckle into his temple. “Yeah. He’s with his mama.” A half-truth that kicked him in the chest like a full lie.

Was this his dad’s new reality—living with a mind so broken that it found fault with the breakfast menu and yet erased family trauma? Would Will have to constantly torture his dad with the news that had felled them both? Certain sentences, no matter how brief, should never be repeated. Never. If his dad could forget the crash, could he, one day, forget Freddie?

“You tell Freddie’s mama to have him call his granddaddy.”

“I can’t!” Will didn’t mean to yell, really, really didn’t mean to yell, but he could hear Cassandra taunting him: So, William. You’re a father. She always called him William, pronouncing it Willi-amm, treating his name the way she treated life—with a wild exaggeration that had led only to tragedy. A scene flashed—an illusion. A little boy and his mother caught between realms of life and death. Traveling from the plane of existence to a blank page of nothing. “I can’t because...they’re traveling.”

Shallow, jagged breaths stabbed his throat. Blood thundered around his skull; a frenzy of lights exploded across his vision. Airway closing; heart fluttering; pulse yo-yoing.

Will sucked in oxygen with a whooshing sound, then exhaled quietly. He would reduce everything to the skills that enabled him to scale a rock face with his hands and his feet and his mind. He would focus on nothing but finding balance in this moment in time, on finding a good, solid hold.

“I...I don’t remember, Willie. I...I can’t remember stuff.”

This, too, was part of the daily roller coaster. The realization that his grizzly bear of a dad had become a featherless fledgling fallen from the nest. Will could end the conversation right now. Make some excuse and get off the phone. But what was the chance his dad would remember any of this? Zero. Tomorrow would bring a fresh memory wipe. Tomorrow, Will’s computer screen would still swirl with patterns, not words. Tomorrow, his five-year-old son would still be dead.

“Where, Willie? Where they travelin’?”

Will stared up at the blinking lights of a jet floating across the black sky, carrying families toward new memories. He’d never taken Freddie on a plane, but he’d planned their first trip in his mind. Europe, they were going to Europe as soon as Freddie was old enough to appreciate the art, the architecture, the history.

“Europe.” Will swallowed hard. “Listen, I’ve gotta go. Get some sleep and we’ll talk tomorrow.”

“Okay, son. Okay.”

Will whispered, “Good night, old man.”

But the line was dead.

* * *

Will scooped up his laptop and walked back into his empty apartment. Out in the hallway, the elevator dinged. A couple passed his front door, stabbing each other with words. The woman would win the fight. She was the one setting the tempo, as Cassandra had done. He’d never figured out why, eighteen months after their affair fizzled, Cass contacted him to suggest he meet the son he hadn’t known existed until that very moment. As an heiress she didn’t need child support, and the ground rules were set from the beginning: Freddie’s my son; you’re not listed on the birth certificate; you see him if and when I decide.

He should have fought for his son.

“Munchkin, I’m sorry,” Will said.

Sorry for not keeping you safe. Sorry for being a coward.

His cowardice slid out as easily as the fast and furious plots that had made him a thirty-four-year-old literary powerhouse. Corporation Will Shepard careened from success to success, despite the fact that its CEO had been writing-by-numbers for years. When fans looked at him, they saw nothing but the glitter of achievement, which was the way his staff tweeted and scripted his life. Everything was about creating the cardboard cutout.