Thomas Cook - Red Leaves

"Bullshit!" my father grumbled, his voice now a low growl, like a dog driven into a corner.

I started to speak, but his hand shot up, stopping me. "What does a drunk like Warren know? His brain is soaked in alcohol." He lowered his hand, leaned back in his chair, and glared out over the weedy yard. "Nothing," he said bitterly. "When that old woman died, I got nothing."

"That old woman?" I repeated. "Jesus, Dad, she was devoted to—"

"Devoted to me?" my father bawled. His head rotated toward me with an eerie smoothness, and a caustic laugh burst from him. "You have no idea," he said.

"About what?"

My father chuckled to himself. "You don't know a thing about her. Devoted, my ass."

"What are you getting at?"

His laughter took a still more brutal turn, becoming a hard, hellish cackle. "Christ, Eric." He shook his head. "You always put her on a pedestal, but, believe me, she was no fucking saint."

"A saint is exactly what she was," I insisted.

His eyes twinkled with some demonic inner light. "Eric, trust me," he said. "You have no idea."

I was numb when I left him a few minutes later, numb and floating like a feather in the air. After his outburst, my father had refused to say anything more about my mother. It was as if their married life was a brief, unpleasant episode for him, a game of poker he'd lost or a horse he'd bet on that came in last. I remembered the effusive show of love and devotion he'd always put on for the well-heeled business associates who occasionally dropped by for a game of billiards or to sip his expensive scotch while they talked and smoked cigars in the grand house's well-appointed parlor. "And this is my beautiful bride," he'd say of my mother by way of introduction. Then, in an exaggerated gesture of adoration, he'd draw her to his side, cup her narrow waist in his hand ... and smile.

It was just after ten when I arrived at the shop. Neil was already at work, as usual. A less-observant man might not have noticed any change in my demeanor, but Neil had always been quick to gauge even the subtlest alteration of mood. He saw the distress I was laboring to hide, but when he finally addressed the matter, he was miles off the mark.

"Business will pick up," he said. "People are just ... I don't know ... they're strange."

Strange.

The word abruptly swept away all my defenses, all my efforts to keep my fears in check. The dam broke, and I felt myself hurling forward on a rush of boiling dread, every dark aspect of the last few days now rising before me, demanding to be heard.

"Something wrong, boss?" Neil asked.

I looked into his hugely caring eyes and felt that I had no one else to go to. But even then, I had no idea where to begin. There was too much boiling within me now, too much hissing steam. I could barely sort one troubling doubt from another. And so I drew in a quick breath, trying to center myself and concentrate on the most immediate matter before me. Which surely, I decided, was Keith.

"I'd like to ask you something, Neil," I began tentatively.

"Anything," Neil said softly.

I walked to the front of the shop, turned out the CLOSED sign and locked the door.

Neil suddenly looked frightened. "You're going to fire me." His voice edged into panic. "Please don't, Eric. I'll correct whatever it is. I need this job. My mother, you know. Medicine. I—"

"It's not about the job," I assured him. "You do a great job."

He looked as if he were about to faint. "I know it wasn't a great summer, businesswise, but..."

"It has nothing to do with the shop," I said. I stopped and drew in a fortifying breath. "It's about Keith."

Neil's face grew very still.

I could find no alternative to simply leaping in. "What do you know about him?"

"Know about him?" Neil asked, clearly a little baffled by the curious urgency he heard in my voice.

"About his life."

"Not very much, I guess," Neil answered. "He talks about music, sometimes. What bands he likes, that sort of thing."

"Has he ever talked about girls?" I asked.

"No."

"How about friends? He doesn't seem to have any friends."

Neil shrugged. "He's never mentioned anyone."

"Okay," I said. "How about the people he delivers to. Have you ever heard any complaints?"

"What kind of complaints?"

"Anything about him, anything he did that seemed ... strange."

Neil shook his head violently. "Absolutely not, Eric. Never!"

I looked at him pointedly. "You're sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

I nodded. "Okay," I said. "I just thought he might have come to you. I mean if—"

"If what?"

"If he had any ... problems he wouldn't know how to deal with."

"What kind of problems?" Neil asked. He looked genuinely baffled. "I mean, he wouldn't talk to me about girls, right?"

"I guess not."

He looked at me curiously. "It bothers you, doesn't it? That Keith doesn't have a girlfriend?"

I nodded. "Maybe a little. Meredith says it does, but I'm not so sure. I mean, what if he doesn't have a girlfriend. He's just a kid. That doesn't mean he's—"

"Gay?"

"No," I said. "Not just that."

Neil heard the awkwardness in my voice, the sense of trying to weasel out of the truth. "Do you think Keith's gay?"

"I've thought about it," I admitted.

"Why? Has he said anything?"

"No," I answered. "But he seems angry all the time."

"What does that have to do with being gay?" Neil asked.

"Nothing."

No one had ever looked at me the way Neil did now, with a mixture of pain and disappointment. "Yeah, okay," he said softly.

"What?"

He didn't answer.

"What, Neil?"

Neil laughed dryly. "It just seems like you thought maybe if Keith was gay, he'd have to be angry. Hate himself, you know, that sort of thing. A lot of people have that idea. That a gay guy would have to hate himself."

I started to speak, but Neil lifted his hand and silenced me.

"It's okay," he said. "I know you don't believe that."

"No, I don't," I told him. "Really, Neil, I don't."

"It's okay, Eric," Neil repeated. "Really. It is." He smiled gently. "Anyway, I hope everything works out all right for everyone," he said quietly. "Especially for Keith."

He turned back toward the front of the shop.

"Neil," I said. "I didn't mean to..."

He didn't bother to look back. "I'm fine" was all he said.

***

For the rest of the day, customers came and went. Neil kept himself busy and seemed determined to keep his distance from me.

At five the color of the air began to change, and by six, when I prepared to lock up, it had taken on a golden glow.

The phone rang.

"Eric's Frame and Photo."

"Eric, they're coming here again," Meredith told me.

"Who?"

"The police. They're coming to the house again."

"Don't panic," I said. "They were there before, remember?"

I heard the fearful catch in her breath. "This time they have a search warrant," she said. "Come home."

PART III

You stop now. You take a sip of coffee. You are halfway through the story you intend to tell. You realize that you have reached the moment when the lines you thought ran parallel begin to intersect. You know that from hens on the telling will become more difficult. You will need to speak in measured tones, make the right connections. Nothing should blur, and nothing should be avoided. Particularly the responsibilities, the consequences.

You want to describe how the history of one family stained another, as if the colors from one photograph bled onto another in an accidental double exposure. You want to expose this process, but instead you stare out at the rain, watching people as they stand beneath their soaked umbrellas, and consider not what happened, but how it might have been avoided, what you could have done to stop it, or at least to change it in a way that would have allowed lives to go on, find balance, reach the high wisdom that only the fallen know.