Free Remember Me Like This by Bret Anthony Johnston Page A

as if she’d lost something vital on the drive from Marine Lab. He wondered when she’d last eaten. When they’d entered the police station, he’d spied a vending machine in a lounge area. He wondered if he had time to backtrack and buy her some candy. She liked M&M’s and Milky Ways, but not Snickers. Knowing this, at that moment, in that room, was a comfort.
    “How long before we see him?” Eric asked.
    “Not long, I wouldn’t think. An officer will escort him over after the exam.”
    “Okay, sure,” he said. His voice was timid, disappointing. He said, “Thank you for bringing us in.”
    “This is great news,” the deputy said. He’d already said it once, closing the door behind them. Eric nodded. His pulse throbbed. He was clasping and unclasping his hands, as if molding a ball of clay.
    No one spoke. Eric could hear muffled voices on the other side of the closed door, shoes on the polished linoleum, approaching and passing.
    “We broke a hundred today, but came up short on the record,” the deputy said. “Next week we’ll start giving out the free fans.”
    Again such banality was vexing. Eric understood the deputy was biding time, but it seemed obscene to mention anything that didn’t relate to Justin. He could feel Laura growing morose. She was staring at her knees, and then the wall, trying to stay composed. He wondered if the dolphin still had a fever, wondered if talking about it would calm her. He wondered how it was that their lives had led them to a day where he spent the afternoon with another woman and his wife spent it with a sick dolphin and now they sat in a cloistered room, waiting for some reckoning.
    “And if we’re already this high in the mercury,” the deputy continued, “I’d say we’re looking at a pretty exciting hurricane season.”
    “It’s been a while since we’ve had one. I guess we’re about due,” Eric said, trying to sound casual, engaged. Childishly, he wanted to mind his manners in hopes that they’d be rewarded with some fairness.
    “The last named storm was—”
    “What kind of vendor?” Laura interrupted. Her voice sounded weak, as if she’d gone days without speaking. In the last four years, she’d done exactly that; she’d done it more than once.
    The deputy glanced at Eric, then back to Laura.
    “At the flea market,” she said. “You said a vendor recognized him.”
    “Yes, a woman who sells little critters—gerbils, hamsters. He was buying mice to feed to his snake.”
    “His snake?” Eric said.
    “It’s not him,” she said, and immediately Eric realized he’d been thinking the same thing for hours. He’d been dreading meeting another runaway that wasn’t Justin. He’d been dreading how it would undo Laura and how he’d have to resuscitate her spirits; he’d been dreading how he’d fail. He reached for her hand. Since the call had come, he’d wanted to be touching her.
    “Ma’am?” The deputy cut his eyes to Eric again, a look that asked
What is your wife doing?
    “It’s not Justin,” she said. “Justin’s afraid of snakes.”
    “You’re right to be cautious, but let’s—”
    “Haven’t we been through enough?” she said, rising abruptly. Her chair knocked into Eric’s, slid, and clattered against the wall. In the small room, the noise was shrill. She said, “I’m leaving.”
    “Laura,” Eric said and stood, “let’s be—”
    “No. They can’t keep doing this to us,” she said. She turned to the deputy. “Do you know how many times someone has matched his description?”
    “Mrs. Campbell.”
    “Do you know that we’ve come in to ID bodies? Do you know that we’ve seen dead children, other people’s dead children, in those bags? Those bags that are too big for their bodies. Do you know what it does to a person to hope your son is—”
    “Laura, let’s just wait—”
    “Mrs. Campbell, ma’am, I do understand—”
    “To hope your son is
dead
?” Laura continued. Her face was blotched red.