Billy's Bones (20 page)

“Do you have any hamburger?” Kevin asked, eyeing the grill.

“In the fridge. But I wouldn’t recommend eating it. It’s been sitting there since you left.”

“Well,” Kevin said cheerfully, “it looks like it’s time to go shopping.”

T
HE
hot tub water turned a disconcerting piss-yellow when Kevin added the chlorine, but he assured Tom it would all settle out. They just needed to leave the cover off and let the sun evaporate the extra chlorine for the rest of the day.

In the meantime, they picked up groceries, grilled cheeseburgers—much to Shadow’s delight, as well as Kevin’s, because he always got a burger for himself—and generally spent a relaxing Sunday hanging out on the deck.

O
N
M
ONDAY
,
Tom had the daunting task of informing Sue that he and Kevin were back together again. He waited until they were walking down Main Street on the way to Wang’s to break the news.

“I knew it,” she responded with a sour expression. “Whenever I tell someone that he’s better off without his ex, he always manages to patch things up.”

“Does that technique work well in your couples counseling?” Tom asked.

She ignored the question. “Don’t get me wrong. I don’t dislike Kevin. I just have reservations about someone with such severe emotional issues—completely
understandable
issues, mind you, under the circumstances—dating someone who is, let’s be blunt, a bit of a mother hen.”

Tom bristled a bit at that, even though he knew it was true, but Sue held up a hand to stave him off before he could interrupt her. “Yes, yes, I know. It’s none of my concern. I’m not your therapist.”

“But you are my best friend,” Tom said, “and it would be nice if you didn’t hate my boyfriend.”

Sue offered him a conciliatory smile. “I don’t hate your boyfriend. He seems like a nice enough man, he’s gainfully employed, and I think he does genuinely care for you.”

“Then be happy for me!”

She didn’t respond to that, and Tom felt sure she was remembering the black eye Kevin had given him weeks ago. Instead, Sue asked, “I don’t suppose he’ll be coming back for therapy?”

Tom shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think he needs time to integrate the memories that are flooding back to him now. The last thing he wants is for you or me to keep ‘poking at him’, as he puts it.”

They arrived at the restaurant, and the conversation broke off long enough for them to find a table and order from the waiter. Then Sue said, “Normally, I refuse to see a client who stops attending sessions without having the courtesy to call me about it. But as a favor to you, I’d be willing to work with Kevin again if he decides he needs my help.”

Tom was tempted to make a snide comment about that being big of her, but he actually thought Kevin might need Sue on his side again in the future. It was probably best not to piss her off about it. Abrasive as she could be, she was a good therapist, and Tom wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle things on his own if Kevin’s PTSD started spiraling out of control.

H
E
CAME
home to find Shadow at the top of the basement stairs—the normal ones, as opposed to the spiral staircase—his stuffed duck in his mouth, whimpering as he looked down into the basement.

“What are you looking at?” he asked, but he’d already seen Kevin’s truck in the driveway. He called down the stairs, “Are you down there?”

“Yeah,” Kevin’s voice called back, so Tom gave Shadow a quick scratch on the head and left the dog at the top of the stairs as he descended into the basement. Shadow whimpered even louder, but there didn’t seem much point in hauling the pooch down the stairs until he found out what Kevin was up to.

Apparently, he was setting up a TV room. He’d brought in a beat-up old couch, a short table, and a small flat-screen television to set on top of it—from his own trailer, Tom was certain, because he recognized that ratty couch, even without its piles of dirty clothing. Kevin was arranging them in one corner of the finished basement and hooking it all up.

Tom hated television. He found it noisy and distracting, and he was much happier curling up with a good book. For this reason, he’d fought with his local service provider to just give him Internet and phone,
without
television, thank you very much. He didn’t care what kind of stupendous—and temporary—savings he could get by bundling them together. So what Kevin was going to hook a television up to, Tom couldn’t imagine.

“You do realize I don’t have cable?” Tom asked, having a difficult time disguising his annoyance. “Television, I mean.”

“I figured that out,” Kevin replied. “Who the fuck doesn’t have cable in this century?”

“Me.”

Kevin was searching through the channels, but it was hopeless. Everything was static.

“You might have asked me before bringing all this stuff over,” Tom said.

“I thought I’d surprise you.”

And just like that, all Tom’s annoyance vaporized, and he felt like a prime asshole. It still seemed inappropriate for Kevin to move a bunch of his furniture into Tom’s house—Thank God he put it in the cellar!—but if Kevin had been thinking Tom really wanted a TV but hadn’t gotten around to picking one up… well, that made this a gift. Didn’t it? “Oh. Thanks. I’m sorry, but I never had the television cable hooked up. I don’t generally watch it.”

“Can we get it hooked up?”

Tom raised his eyebrows at him. “We? Are you moving in?”

Kevin gave him a cute, embarrassed smile and actually blushed a bit, which Tom found adorable. That was something they’d need to work out soon. Kevin had practically moved in already, but he still had his own place. He still had someplace else to go if they got into a fight or broke up.

Before Kevin could think of a response, they both heard a tentative
honk?
coming from the direction of the stairs. They turned and saw Shadow about halfway down the stairs, looking at them nervously. Apparently, he’d gotten lonely enough to venture down but not quite all the way.

“Hey, Pup!” Kevin exclaimed. “You want to come down here with us?”

Shadow whimpered again and wagged his tailed at them.

“Come on, boy,” Tom said in the singsong voice he’d picked up from watching Kevin with the dog, “You can do it! You’re already halfway there.”

Shadow wagged his tail harder, but he clearly had no intention of going any farther. Both men walked to the bottom of the stairs and started clapping their hands and calling to him.

“Come on, Pup!”

“Good boy!”

“You can do it!”

“You’re almost there!”

“It’s one small step for a dog—”

“—one giant leap for dogkind!”

Clearly Shadow was a fan of Neil Armstrong because that did it. In one epic, heroic moment that was somewhat less than graceful, the Lab pup came barreling down the stairs at full speed, as if the lower stairs were made out of hot coals and a moment’s hesitation might prove disastrous.

Honk! Honk! Honk! Honk!

Tom and Kevin showered the pup with pets and kisses and let him bump his saliva-covered duck against their faces in paroxysms of puppy ecstasy. He’d done it! He was The Best Dog in the World! Poets would sing his praises, and the President would probably give him an award!

He was so excited, he peed a little on the tile floor, but that hardly detracted from his stupendous victory.

Honk! Honk! Honk!

Unfortunately, it soon became clear that going
down
the stairs was completely different from going
up
the stairs. When Tom and Kevin went up to the main floor, Shadow went back to whimpering and pacing at the bottom of the stairs, and no amount of coaxing would get him to come up. Finally, Tom fetched the dog’s leash and went down to the cellar.

While Kevin cleaned up the spatters of excited puppy pee on the tile, Tom took Shadow outside through the cellar door. Thanks to the fact the house was built into a low hill, the back wall of the cellar was actually above ground, so the door didn’t have any stairs. Tom let Shadow do his business and brought him around to the front of the house, up the low porch steps, and into the front hall.

Kevin passed them to go into the hall half bath and wash his hands. He came out just as Tom finished removing Shadow’s harness, and the two men watched in surprise as Shadow immediately bolted for the cellar door and scampered down the stairs again.

“What the fuck?” Tom asked irritably.

Kevin laughed. “It’s
fun
to go down stairs!”

“Just not back up them.”

“Let me have the leash. I’ll get him this time.”

From the depths of the cellar came a distant
Honk?
as if to ask,
Are you coming or not?

“Fine,” Tom said, “but I’m blocking the cellar door, for now. We don’t need to keep playing this game all night.”

Making a mental note to pick up a “baby gate” the next time he got a chance, Tom pushed a box of books into the doorway to block it and stacked another one on top to make it harder to move. When Kevin brought Shadow in the front door, the dog headed for the stairs again and was disappointed to find his way blocked, but it was dinnertime anyway. A bowl of dog kibble was enough to distract him from his new game.

T
HAT
night, Shadow had to be carried upstairs as usual, but in the morning, he gleefully barreled down them like a child on a waterslide. Tom took him out to do his business and came back inside to find Kevin whipping up some pancakes. It was an idyllic scene to Tom: an adorable pup scampering around the legs of a gorgeous naked man who was cooking Tom breakfast. He grabbed a cup of coffee from the carafe Kevin had set to brew and sat at the kitchen table to watch.

I’ve never been happier
, he realized. It was everything he’d ever wanted.

There were still things that worried him, though. Shadow’s inability to go
up
stairs would probably sort itself out eventually. But Kevin’s issues were much more deep-seated and couldn’t be overcome by a sheer act of will, despite the fact Kevin seemed to think so. Tom had promised he wouldn’t try to “fix” Kevin anymore, and he intended to stick by that promise, at least until Kevin asked for help. But it wasn’t going to be easy.

Over the next several nights, Kevin awoke screaming only once, but it was still upsetting. Poor Shadow was terrified. And again Kevin claimed to have no idea what he’d been dreaming about.

On the other hand, there were signs Kevin was coming to terms with things he was remembering. He seemed to take as much delight in kissing Tom as Shadow did in running down stairs. He was clearly still anxious about it, but proud of himself whenever he managed it without panicking. Tom was proud of him, too, and never pressed for fear of undoing Kevin’s progress. He just let it happen when Kevin was in the mood for it.

Then there was the evening Tom found Kevin in the bathroom, taking tentative sniffs of the open rubbing alcohol bottle. Kevin noticed him and gave him an embarrassed smile as he recapped the bottle.

“Have you figured out why it made you panic last time?” Tom asked.

“Um… yeah,” Kevin replied. He seemed reluctant to say anything further, and Tom thought that would be the end of it, but Kevin cleared his throat and said, “My dad… used to like giving me massages with it.”

So that was it. Tom had never known anyone to use rubbing alcohol for massages, but he supposed it had been common at one time, or it wouldn’t be called “rubbing” alcohol. And apparently Mr. Derocher had liked to use it on his son, which meant Kevin hadn’t been able to smell it without memories of those inappropriately sexual massages struggling to surface in his mind—memories he was terrified to recall. But now they were being recalled, and the panic had lessened as a result.

“Are you all right?” was all Tom asked.

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

But was he? It seemed unlikely. People didn’t go from the kind of breakdown Kevin had experienced to “fine” in a matter of a couple of weeks, Tom knew. It could take years of work to integrate the repressed memories in such a way they no longer had power over him. And judging from the continued nightmares and the fact Kevin could never remember what they were about, it seemed likely he was still unable to recall some of the abuse.

Could Kevin work all this out on his own? Perhaps. Tom was skeptical, but then he would be. He’d made a career out of helping people who couldn’t do it on their own, so of course he would be convinced most people needed help. He might be wrong where Kevin was concerned. On the other hand, Kevin could be headed for another crisis.

It was worrisome, to put it mildly, but Tom had promised to let Kevin do things his way. And Kevin was definitely right about one thing: they couldn’t be in a romantic relationship if Tom couldn’t treat Kevin like an adult. Only Kevin could decide if he needed help. And so far it looked as if he was making progress.

Then came the night of the storm.

Nineteen