The Boy (10 page)

The Boy

Louise knows as soon as she hears the slam of truck doors in the driveway that the idyllic Sunday morning she and Jake are enjoying with the babies—strong coffee, scrambled eggs and thick toast Jake put on the table while she was feeding Lauren, sunlight flickering through the gold leaves on the poplar, framed in the wavy glass of the kitchen window—is just another illusion of the peaceful family life they will never have.

Jake opens the back door, and they watch Marvin march Daniel across the grass, Hilda following behind.

“Well now, Jake,” Marvin begins before his feet touch the first step on the porch. “This boy of yours seems to think riding into town with me a few times is enough of a lesson that he can drive a truck.” They are crowded in the doorway now, all three of them. “He might have got away with it, too, except for a little black and white striped cat that ended up in a mess on the bumper.”

Jake moves aside and ushers them into the kitchen. A strong whiff of skunk follows them in. When Jon catches sight of his big brother he squeals and holds out his arms, but it's Hilda who steps forward and lifts him out of the high chair. “I think the little one doesn't need to be here,” she says. She touches Louise's arm as they pass, and jerks her chin toward the living room before she bumps the kitchen door open with her hip.

Louise looks down at the sleeping baby in her arms, and sits back in her chair. No. She is not going to follow Hilda, leaving this to “the men,” even though the smell is sickening.

“Sorry about the stink, Louise,” Marvin says. “That was what tipped us off this morning. Hilda got a whiff as soon as she walked by Dan's bedroom. He threw his clothes in the trash barrel. I wondered why that thing was smoking this morning. But it takes more than a bath to get the stench off your skin when you been that close.”

Danny's gaze has not risen from the floor. Jake grabs his arm. “Look at me, Daniel.” Slowly the boy's head tilts sideways, and he squints up at his dad.

“I'm sorry,” he mumbles.

“Sorry?” Jake's voice booms and Lauren twists in Louise's arms. Still, Louise is determined to stay in the room. “Sorry doesn't cut it. You know that. What the heck were you thinking, stealing a truck?”

“I wasn't stealing.” Danny stands up straighter now, defiant. “I just borrowed it. I figured there wouldn't be anyone driving around at night so it was a good time to practice.” He jerks his head in Marvin's direction. “He told me he'd teach me but he keeps changing his mind. How long am I supposed to wait? I hate it out there.”

“Apologize,” Jake says.

“I just did.”

“Not to me, to Marvin.”

Marvin shakes his head. “It's okay, Jake. He already said he was sorry. Let him go now.”

Daniel has already twisted loose from his dad's grasp and charges for the door, head down, arms swinging, and with a sound so wounded coming from deep in his throat, that Louise is tempted to go after him, he escapes to his room.

Louise stands and passes Lauren to Jake. “I'll make fresh coffee,” she says. She's relieved when Marvin nods, and takes a chair at the table. Suddenly Hilda and Jon are in the doorway, Jon's eyes huge, his small hands clasped over his ears. He is upset by loud voices, their little son. Hilda sits, holds him on her lap, patting his back.

Louise wishes this were one of the social calls Jake has been yearning for. Sunday morning, Marvin and Hilda dropping in for coffee after church. She wishes she had something freshly baked to feed these two, and that her husband could sit down now, chat about the weather, the harvest, while she arranges cinnamon buns on a plate, brings butter and paper napkins. The tray of the high chair is littered with toast crusts. She wipes it clean, takes Jon from Hilda's lap, settles him in the chair and refills his sippy cup with milk. She brings two more mugs to the table. Everyone, it seems, is listening to the burbling coffee maker, waiting to have something to occupy their hands and lips.

“You know, it's not the pranks, or the mischief,” Marvin finally says apologetically. “Hell, we all cut up a bit when we're young guys. It's the lying I can't abide. We're standing out there at the truck with skunk guts all over the wheel well and he tells me he doesn't know how it got there. I'm sorry, Jake. If I can't trust him, I can't keep him.” He stares down at his heavy socks and shuffles his feet under the kitchen chair.

“And Hilda…” He looks up at his wife, and when she shakes her head sternly, he puts up his hand. “No, now, we need to be honest here too. You want to tell, or should I?” Hilda purses her lips, head still shaking. “Okay, then. The fact is the boy seems to be spying on her. She's caught him at the window, and…not just the kitchen window either.” Hilda's face has gone red.

“Listen,” she says. “He's a good boy. I wouldn't speak bad about your son, Jake. First Brenda…my God, what a sad story all of this turns out.” She holds her hands open as though in an offering. “No offense intended to you, Louise. You have your hands full with the babies and it's not so easy becoming a mother to a boy this age.”

It doesn't get any easier. Later that Sunday afternoon Danny pleads with his dad to please never send him away again. The reason he took the truck, he says, was that he desperately needed to learn to drive so that he could get home. The two of them go for a long walk after supper, and Louise, watching from the kitchen window notes the slump of Jake's shoulders and the swagger that seems to have returned to Danny's step. Then she takes her two babies to her bed and naps with them, waking briefly to the sound of movement in the kitchen, the sky through the frosted painted bedroom window a deep indigo. She closes her eyes again, and sleeps until Lauren begins to fuss for a feeding. Jon wriggles up, rubbing his eyes. The door opens, and Jake tiptoes in.

“Come on, little man,” he says quietly, and lifts Jon from the tangle of quilt. “Your big brother needs some company.”

When Louise carries Lauren downstairs to the kitchen, Jake has bundled into his parka, and is caught in the circle of back porch light at the barbecue. He almost disappears in the smoke and ice fog when he lifts the lid. The table is set with mustard, pickles, ketchup, a bowl of raw onion slices. Danny watches her from the corner of his eye while he slaps down plates, knives, clumps a litre of Coke next to his place. They seem to be celebrating. What? His homecoming?

While they chew their way through the burgers, the three of them focus on Jon and Lauren, both fresh from sleep and chirping their delight when Danny pulls faces and pretends to snitch the bits of meat and bread on Jon's tray. No mention of trucks or skunks or spying.

Louise is brushing her teeth, staring back at the violet shadows under her eyes, when Jake puts his arms around her, his face pressed to her shoulder. Her flannel nightgown, she knows, is crusty with milk from feeding and burping but the only clean ones in her drawer are summer cotton. This is no night for Victoria's Secret, even if she owned such flimsy garments.

She rinses her toothbrush and turns to Jake.

“How was the walk and talk?”

“Pretty good. He says he doesn't know why he does these things, he doesn't think about it, he just acts.”

Not exactly news that Daniel has no impulse control. “What's he going to do about it? What are we going to do about it? Pretty clear that we can't ask anyone else to take on the problem, Jake.”

He bends over the sink to splash water on his face, then straightens, drops falling from his chin to the grey hair on his chest. Finally, he shakes his head and buries his face in the towel.

So often in bed, the two of them talk away the day's business, plan the next one, then come together in the perfect fit that keeps reminding Louise that in spite of her feeling that she'll never have more than visitor status in this town, she belongs in the house, in the bed. Tonight, though, Jake turns on his side, away from her. When she presses herself to his back, he sighs.

There is never a good time to ask the questions. “Did you talk to him about spying on Hilda?”

He growls. “Isn't there enough with stealing the truck? That's the big one, stealing. The other, that's just a symptom that the boy is bored stiff out there. I was bored on the farm at his age too, you know? That's why I'm a car salesman, not a farmer.”

Louise pulls away and faces her own wall. “Fine,” she says. “I guess you'll work it out on your own.” She'll get on with some interior decorating and order blinds for all the windows.

Within two weeks, Daniel is caught shoplifting again, this time cigarettes. It turns out that one of the things Marvin didn't mention, thinking Jake already had enough to deal with, is that Danny swiped his smokes during his month at the farm. The woman who owns the coffee shop shook her head when Jake offered to make good the loss and get Daniel to come in at the end of every day to empty garbage cans, wash floors, do anything at all she wants done. Too late. She called the police before she called Jake. Another talk with the probation officer, and while the court hearing is
still pending, Dan steals a bike from outside school one afternoon and plays hooky. After a five mile joyride, he dumps the bike, and hitches back to town, arriving home just in time for supper, just after the call from the principal who says the janitor saw him pedaling away.

“Why!” Louise can hear Jake shouting out in the garage even with the windows closed and the blinds drawn. His own dad, he told her as he stormed through the house waiting for his son to appear, would have taken him out to the barn and licked him but good. What is he supposed to do? Louise puts Lauren into her crib, hands Jonathan a plastic cup full of Cheerios to keep him busy and leads Jake to the sofa. They don't know the answers, she tells him. There was no way to figure this out for themselves. Some intervention is absolutely necessary. She doesn't tell him that she wishes that if Danny is intent on being a two-bit criminal he'd at least become good enough at it that he isn't caught every single time. They need a break.

Two days later, when Daniel sets fire to Henry Schultz's garage, the newspaper and matches so close to the jerry can of gas beside the lawn mower that it couldn't have been a coincidence, the matter is out of their hands. The child, the probation officer tells them, is obviously asking for help himself, and help is what he'll get at the juvenile treatment centre they'll be recommending at his court appearance.

During Daniel's two year stay at a Youth Treatment Centre in Calgary, by default, she being the teacher, the one most available for day-to-day contact, the one not only willing, but anxious to acknowledge that the boy is far from ready to return home, Louise has the most contact. But only with the staff. When Danny is allowed to phone home, he talks only with his dad. The gist of all of those conversations, Louise is sure though Jake never admits it, is the plea to come home. Every three months there is an assessment meeting to which parents are invited, encouraged to attend, but always there is some reason that it is not convenient for Jake. He would rather, he says, go in his own time, not at the bidding of these jail-keepers. And so he does. Once a month, he makes the four hour drive to Calgary, takes Danny out for lunch, delivers the clothes and books and CDs he's requested, and comes home silent and angry.

“He doesn't belong there,” he says, on one of the rare occasions Louise is able to draw him out. “He's just a boy who's acted up a bit, not a criminal. My God, Louise, you wouldn't believe what some of those kids have come from. And what goes on inside those
supervised
walls. Dan knows more about drugs and …deviant behaviour than I do. He's sixteen years old next month. They say he's ready for a group home. But what does that mean? Less supervision, older kids, and back on the streets.”

She is afraid, so afraid that Jake is going to suggest that they push to have Danny come home. So she offers up a visit instead. His birthday and Jon's and Lauren's are all in August. “Why doesn't he come home for the birthday party?” she says. Last year Danny was scheduled to come home for that joint celebration, but went AWOL the week before and had his privileges revoked. In fact, every time he has a visit pending, he manages to shoot himself in the foot. And every time, feeling so guilty she's sure Jake can smell it on her, Louise quietly rejoices.

To Louise and Jake's amazement, the August day that Danny strides into the house ahead of his dad, their serious little Jonathan looks up from his Lego and launches himself across the room. Louise has been telling him all morning that his big brother is coming, but she's expected his usual reticence. Whenever anyone visits, Jon retreats to a special place behind the sofa. Now he holds up his arms, and Danny reaches down to pick him up, still juggling his backpack on one shoulder.

“Danny's home,” Jon declares solemnly from his precarious balance on his brother's hip.

“Hey,” Dan says, “is he ever big. Yo, Bro! I think it's time for a skateboard.”

“No school?” Jon asks. “Why you get to come home?”

“It's my birthday,” Dan says. “Yours too.” Then he looks at his dad, shrugs.

“We told him you're at school there in Calgary,” Jake says. “He's got a picture of you on his dresser.” Picture notwithstanding, Louise is amazed that Jon has recognized his brother. It's well over a year since anyone but Jake has seen Dan, and he's grown, in that time, from a scrawny kid to a teenager. He's still shorter than his dad, but looks more like Jake than ever. His face so much heavier than when she last she saw him, and she stares at the definite shadow of beard on his cheeks. But his eyes are the same, darting around the room, avoiding hers, except for a split second of intense scrutiny that makes her skin tighten.