Free Drawn Into Darkness by Nancy Springer Page A

earned the right to say I love you, but goddamn, Charles, I care about you. Now, are you going to get back to work?”
    After a long pause, Chad mumbled, “I guess.”
    â€œGood. And after work, you going home to your family?”
    â€œWhatever.”
    â€œWhatever yes or whatever no?”
    Chad raised his voice, peevish now. “Yes, I’ll go home. Today.”
    â€œGood. Call me again tomorrow if you need to. One day at a time is the best anybody can do, ever. I promise I will not pray for you, son.”
    Chad actually laughed out loud. Damned if his father didn’t share something in common with him besides a set of chromosomes. Both of them felt the same way about religion. Being prayed over was a bitch.

SEVEN
    T he rain pounded against the windows now and ran down in water snakes.
    Rain like that would wash out tire tracks on a dirt road, footprints at the end of the dirt road, even blood. Even lots of blood.
    Stoat, the obsessively tidy pedophile, had chosen his time to be a cautious, methodical murderer.
    It made sense. It made so much sense that I sweated and clenched my hands and not quite voluntarily peed my pants, flooding the bed I hated with my own watery relief and revenge.
    Feeling both worse and better, I wondered where Justin was, and what he was doing or thinking.
    I badly wanted to talk with him, to coax him or persuade him or manipulate him or shame him, whatever it took, and somehow force him to rescue me. And himself.
    I could have called, “Justin!” and he would have come into the bedroom to see what I wanted.
    But I clenched my teeth against calling him and I did not do it.
    Stoat had made him a victim. I would not, could not, must not victimize him yet more.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    I cried a little, cursed under my breath, stared at the ceiling, and thought about Susan Sontag finding metaphor in fashionable forms of death, then of Socrates, examiner of the good life, hefting his cup of hemlock. How had he lived that legendary last day? How could I best live my last day, disregarding the outcome, thinking only in terms of doing a good job of it? Lying in urine put me at a disadvantage. I thought of my sons and hoped they would never find out that detail of my final hours, then worked out a tentative plan to make sure. Thinking of my children made me think of my ex-husband, and I found myself mildly pleased to discover that I no longer cared about him one way or the other. The opposite of love, quoth Confucius or somebody, is not hatred but indifference. With Stoat’s help I’d gotten over my divorce in record time.
    Big whoop, because now how much time did I have left?
    Like unbleached muslin, time started pleating for me, moments stretching far too long yet passing far too soon.
    After what seemed forever and was probably a couple of hours, Justin came into my room on his own, looking like a sleepwalker, as if his feet had brought him there involuntarily. He struggled to look at me and could not quite manage. He struggled to speak and hauled the words out, low and wretched. “Um, do you want some lunch?”
    I considered carefully before responding. “I guess not. I’m hungry yet I don’t think I could eat. Does that make any sense?”
    â€œOh, yeah. Been there.”
    â€œIt’s not a good place, but I’m from Missouri, you know?”
    â€œHuh? I thought you were from Pennsylvania.”
    â€œNope. Missouri, because Missouri loves company.” Giving up on my weird sense of humor, I softened my voice. “Please stay awhile, Justin, if you can stand the smell of pee.”
    â€œDoes it bother you? I could bring the spray from the bathroom.”
    â€œNo. Don’t go away.”
    He sat on a dry edge of the mattress near my head, looking not at me but at his hands lying curled and dormant on his cutoffs. His classically perfect hands had long oval fingernails; my fingernails grew wider