Free Finding Jake by Bryan Reardon

of the moving car. The brightness of the fabric grasps me like a monster’s claws, pulling my soul away. I do not understand this, but I feel the tugging deep inside. Looking up at his face, I recognize him as a parent I’ve seen around school. Then the man sees me. His face transforms into a caricature of grotesque hatred.
    “You killed my son!” A hand slaps the side of the car. “I’ll—”
    The rest is lost as he passes out of sight. I crane my neck and see another officer from outside subduing him. I realize I have the same shirt in my closet and my vision wavers. I slump over in the seat, bringing my head down between my knees.
    “Are you okay, sir?” the officer asks from the front seat.
    “Yeah,” I mutter, not looking up.
    The officer pauses. My vision clears but I do not lift my head. On the drive over, I have called Jake’s number at least ten more times. Each time, the voice mail picks up after barely one ring. The rational side of my brain tells me that if Jake had his phone (God knew he forgot it often enough) he’d have called me or his mom by now. At the same time, he picked up earlier, or at least someone did. The rest of my brain knows that there is nothing at all rational about this situation.
    The car door opens. A hand rests on my shoulder.
    “Mr. Connolly,” a man’s voice says. “I’m Detective Rose. Your wife is waiting for you.”
    I don’t recall getting out of the police car, nor do I remember walking over to where Rachel sits in the wrought-iron café chair on the patio behind our garage. Instead, I rise from the fog shrouding my being and find myself sitting beside her, my elbows on the mosaic surface of the small round table between the two chairs. Neither of us speaks for some time. This nook becomes an eerie eye of the storm.
    “He’s dead,” Rachel whispers.
    This makes me angry. My skin burns and beads of sweat burst on my forehead.
    “You don’t know that,” I hiss back at her. “He answered his phone. I think he did.”
    “Did you talk to him? Did you hear him?”
    She shakes her head. It is a motion that, in the past, frustrated me. It belies the true gravity of a situation by seeming overly accusatory. It is the type of nit-picking that only a married couple who survived child rearing can have and it fills me with guilt.
    “I’m calling him.”
    She dials his number. I watch. With every ounce of my soul, I pray he will answer, that Rachel will be able to get my son on the phone. I watch for any sign on her face that would tell me he answered. When I see the tears, I know we’ve failed.
    “I know,” she says, dropping her phone, not looking at me.
    I am unsure of what she means until I realize she is answering my original response. She is saying that she knows our son is dead. My teeth grind. I want to slap her. This is the first (and only) time I have felt this way. In fact, I have been known to be a judgmental prick when it comes to nongentlemanly behaviors. This reaction emboldens the guilt and my anger dissipates as quickly as it flared. I bend over and carefully pick Rachel’s phone up off the asphalt.
    “Why are they here?” I ask.
    I know, at least in a cerebral manner, why they are here. I think the question comes from a deeper place. It is the first time that the thought— What did I do —enters my mind.
    Rachel does not understand. The question clearly annoys her.
    “I told you on the phone. They think he shot those kids.”
    “He didn’t,” I say.
    It dawns on me that I have just done exactly what Rachel did to start the conversation. I state as fact something that is nothing more than a gut belief. Doubt is already creeping into the seams, but when I say that, I mean it. When I say it, I am 100 percent sure that Jakedid not shoot anyone, but isn’t that what every parent would think?
    “That kid did it,” she says.
    I know she means Doug.
    “I think—”
    She cuts me off. “No, I mean I know he did it. I heard police talking.