The Perfect Son (15 page)

THIRTEEN

Felix sat cross-legged on the bathroom floor with Ella’s green T-shirt in his lap. Did it belong in the light or the dark pile? He held it to his face and inhaled her scent, then created a third pile of clothes he wouldn’t wash—just in case. Eleven o’clock on a Saturday night, and he was sorting laundry, tackling a mindless task that made more sense than Ella handing over her phone chock-full of unanswered texts from Harry.

“Take it home with you,” she’d said.

When he’d asked how Harry would text her, her answer had made less sense than the laundry instructions: “For once, Felix, can we do something my way?”

Then she’d extended the embargo on Harry’s visits. “He’s not to see me like this, Felix. Promise.”

He was handing out a lot of promises these days.

Harry had accepted these developments with quiet stoicism. Felix had even broken his own house rule and allowed TV with dinner—some moronic cartoon called
Family Guy
. An IQ off the charts, and his son still watched rubbish.

“Dad?” Harry’s voice, hesitant and childlike, came from the master bedroom.

“I’m in here. Sorting laundry.” Felix got up and stretched. “Be out in a sec.”

“Does Mom really not want to see me for the next two weeks?”

Felix walked into the bedroom and stared. Harry was wearing slouch pants and a ridiculously small T-shirt with some demonic-eyed little pony on the front. The T-shirt didn’t look familiar, but had he shrunk it in the wash and not realized?

“And why won’t she let me text her? It’s like she’s punishing me. I want to go see her, Dad.”

“Come. Sit.” Felix patted the bed.

Harry slumped down and heaved a sigh of dejection.

“I know it’s hard, Harry, but you and I have to figure this out. Getting home to you is all that matters to Mom. But she’s pretty sick, thanks to the blood clot, and we need her to concentrate on taking care of herself so she can come home in two weeks.” Felix took a deep breath. Two weeks, two more weeks.

“You mean I’m high maintenance and I distract her?”

“I mean she loves you so much that worrying about you can sidetrack her. We need her focused.”

“Was this your idea—to sever communications with me?”

“No.” Felix frowned. Why was he always cast as the bad guy? “This affects me, too, Hazza. We can still call her room anytime, but I think she wants to make phone contact a little less convenient, to encourage us to go to each other, not her.”

“So we can do this for real if she dies?” Harry sniffed.

“Your mother is not dying. This is merely a setback.”

Harry leaped up and bounced on the balls of his feet like a ballerina. Could he not stop moving for two seconds? Even a dog knew when to sit and stay. And there, right there, was the thought that made Felix Fitzwilliam a monster.

“Are you scared?” Harry pirouetted through a tic.

Felix opened his mouth to reprimand Harry for not controlling his own body, but nothing slipped out. The tic didn’t even bother him that much. What really bothered him at this precise moment was the truth. “Terrified. You?”

Harry threw himself back on Ella’s side of the bed, facedown. Then he grabbed one of her pillows and bundled it under his head. “Dad, what did you want from life at my age?”

“To pass my A-levels with all As and sit Oxbridge—the exam that would get me into Oxford or Cambridge.”

“No, I mean big picture.”

“Be the best.”

“That was it? No dreams?”

“I’m not much of a dreamer, Harry.”

“But wasn’t there one thing you wanted more than anything else?”

Escape from my parents.
Felix picked up the silver hallmarked photo frame on his bedside table. Ella on their wedding day, wearing a beautifully understated dress and carrying a bouquet that Mother had criticized openly. No veil, a simple hairdo, and dramatic earrings only Ella could have designed. Even then, Ella knew her heart. She had always known her heart. That was one of the reasons he’d fallen in love with her—her certainty, her confidence. Enough confidence for two. “I wanted to fall in love with the perfect woman.”

“And you did,” Harry said.

Felix smiled. “I did.”

“Sammie’s being really nice to me.” Harry tugged on the hem of his T-shirt. “She gave me this.”

Now the little pony on the very small T-shirt made sense. What a relief. A moment ago, he’d feared his son was regressing.

“She’s cute, your Sammie.”

“Yeah, she is, isn’t she?”

The heating kicked on and a rush of hot air filled the room.

“Are you two officially going out?”

“Doesn’t really work like that these days.” Harry gave a lopsided grin.

“You like her, though.”

Harry messed with the pillow. “I think I’m in love with her.” Then he flipped over and lay on his back. “And the timing sucks. I feel horribly guilty, like I should be worrying about Mom, not thinking about being in love.”

“I’m sure your mother is thrilled. Falling in love for the first time is a rite of passage.”

“Mom doesn’t really know about Sammie. I mean, she knows I have a crush on her, but we haven’t talked—I mean,
really talked
—recently.”

Harry had told him something before telling Ella?

Harry’s arm flopped over the edge of the bed and swung back and forth as if he were lying in a boat, trailing his arm through the water. When they went back to England this summer, he would take Ella and Harry to Oxford, and they would punt on the River Cherwell. Maybe they’d have a meal at the Cherwell Boathouse. Or they could pack a picnic of cucumber sandwiches and fresh strawberries with clotted cream and champagne. He might even let Harry have a half glass of Moët, since he would be close enough to the English drinking age of eighteen.

“I want to be with Sammie forever. She’s perfect.”

“That may change. First love is a fickle monster.”

“Do you remember your first kiss?”

Did he ever. “Playground.” Felix ran his hands over the stubble on his chin. He hadn’t shaved since Friday morning. “She kicked me in the shin, and it bloody well hurt. Have you and your mother talked about . . .” His voice dried up. He’d learned the facts of life from Tom. He’d learned everything useful from Tom.

“Talked about what, Dad?”

“Sex, drugs, rock ’n’ roll—condoms.”

“Yeah. Mom told me everything when I was little. And then I told Max and he got into trouble, and Max’s mom had words with Mom in the school parking lot.”

“Really?” It was as if his family had lived a whole life he knew nothing about. Felix jiggled his wedding ring. Actually—they had.

Harry smiled. “Thanks, Dad.”

“For what?”

“Being honest with me about Mom. About how sick she is. It’s worse when people won’t tell you the truth, because your mind fills in the gaps. And”—Harry wriggled to get under the duvet, then molded Ella’s pillow round his head—“it’s reassuring. To know you’re scared, too.”

“Solidarity in fear?” Was this the big, amorphous
it
of the father-son relationship? Being honest even if it stripped you bare?

“I guess. This pillow smells of Mom.”

I know.

Harry nestled deeper. “Does Gramps know about Mom?”

“No. It’s not a decision I agree with, but your mother’s very protective of your grandfather. Again, she’s doing what she feels is right. We have to respect that.”

“Dad, why don’t you ever talk about your father?”

“I prefer to forget him.”
If only I could
.

“Why?”

“He’s not worth remembering.”

The room seemed to shrink. Felix wasn’t sure he could breathe. Would Harry have the identical conversation with his own son one day?
My father’s not worth remembering.

“I need to tell you something.” Felix sat on the foot of the bed, his back to Harry. “On the day you were born, I vowed I would never raise a hand against you. But when you were a toddler, I broke that vow. I smacked you across the back of the knees. It only happened once, but that’s not an excuse. I’ve never forgiven myself.”

“I probably deserved it,” Harry said, the tone of his voice suggesting a smile. “I was a lot to deal with, even then.”

“Never say that. No one deserves to be hit. It was wrong and I knew better. But sometimes anger is the only emotion I understand.”

“I nearly hit Mom once.” Harry crackled his knuckles, and Felix turned sharply. “I mean, I don’t think she realized. It was during the rage attacks, and I had my softball bat in my hand. The rage was burning me up. And I-I nearly took a swing at her.”

Felix put his hands on the bed for support; they sank into the duvet. “But you didn’t.”

“No, and the rage attacks stopped soon after. But the knowledge of what I might have done was terrifying. I was this close to complete loss of control.” Harry sat up and pinched his thumb and index finger together.

“Those rage attacks,” Felix said. “I always thought they came from me, from my DNA.”

“A lot of Tourette’s kids have them, Dad.”

“Do you remember much from back then?”

Harry hugged his knees. “Bits. It was like a different me. I was angry all the time, and when I wasn’t angry, I was a hot mess of guilt. I would hear Mom crying and think I was the worst kid. You never cried, though. That made me feel better.”

“Seriously?”

“You didn’t get sucked in. It’s like you were this force of control. Everything I wasn’t, but needed. Does that make sense?”

Felix didn’t dare say anything, couldn’t risk ruining the moment.

“I would come out of my room after I’d trashed it and be totally freaked out by what I’d done, but the rest of the house would be, you know, orderly and predictable. Everything as it should be.”

“Part of me understood that rage, Harry. I have blind anger. So did your grandfather.”

“Dad, did your father ever hit you?”

Felix turned away from Harry and faced his reflection in Ella’s full-length mirror. His father’s eyes stared back. Cold. Hateful.

He whipped me. Like a dog.

Once, Ella had asked about the scars hidden low beneath the waistband of his jeans. He couldn’t remember what he’d told her. Certainly not the truth, too shameful to admit to the woman he loved. Only two people knew the real story, and they were both dead.

“I can’t talk about it, Harry.”

“That’s okay. I understand. But if you wanted to, you know, I’d listen.”

“Are you good at that—listening?”

“My friends think so. Besides, when your best friend’s Max, you have to listen a lot. Tension at home and all that.”

“I imagine it’s not easy having an autistic younger brother.” Maybe he’d been too hard on Max. After all, not every big brother could be Tom.

“Oh, no, he and Dylan are fine.” Harry flopped back, pulling the duvet up to his chin. “It’s with the parentals, as Max calls them.”

“Really? His mother and father seem so normal.”

“Exactly. And, like, Max lives in a parallel universe.” Harry paused. “Dad—why didn’t you and Mom have more kids?”

We didn’t plan for
any
kids.
“We never really discussed it. You came into our world as a fireball, and our family was forged in nuclear energy.”

“Right. Who’d want two of me?”

Harry snuggled under the duvet, and Felix tried to think of a comment other than “Yes. One of you was more than enough.” Instead, Felix walked around to Ella’s side of the bed and tucked their son in.

“It’s nearly your birthday.”

“Yeah, how about that?” Harry gave a big yawn.

“Your mother, of course, bought and wrapped your presents months ago.”

Harry smiled. “Dad, I’m pretty comfy. You mind if I stay here for a while?”

“No. Happy seventeenth birthday, Harry Felix Fitzwilliam. Sweet dreams of Sammie.”

Harry closed his eyes. “Thanks.”

Felix turned off the lights and went back into the bathroom to finish sorting the laundry. Even on a Saturday night, an incomplete task had to be finished.

When he reemerged, Harry was asleep. Felix sank into the big club chair, Ella’s reading chair. Ella used to watch baby Harry sleep, but Felix had always been too scared, because if he’d started watching over their son, how would he ever have found the strength to stop?

The terror had been constant: terror of touching the baby, terror of doing something wrong. And then Harry grew into a walking, talking whirligig of impulsivity who toddled into Felix’s den one day when Ella was out and dumped the contents of Felix’s files across the carpet. Felix smacked him hard enough to leave a handprint on the back of Harry’s legs. By the time Ella came home, Harry had been bribed with ice cream and an expensive trip to the toy shop on Ninth Street. The next day, he had begun the process of retreating from Harry’s life, because after that, he no longer trusted himself to be alone with Harry.

Felix hadn’t planned to tell Harry about smacking him, but Harry had handled the revelation well. And yet, it had been little more than a pinpoint in time for Harry. The moment had held meaning only for Felix.

Midnight, and he was sleep deprived, yet wide awake, which made about as much sense as the rest of his life. He went into the living room, turned on Ella’s phone, and started moving everything from her calendar to his: birthdays, anniversaries, a dentist appointment for Harry, and an alert to turn the compost. (He made a note to research that on the Internet.)

At two o’clock, knackered almost to oblivion with a mind that continued to churn, he went into her messages and scrolled through the barrage of texts Harry had sent in the last week. No wonder Ella had relinquished her phone. Felix went farther and farther back, through their never-ending conversation, through the intimacy and understanding that he could never hope to achieve with his son. His name rarely appeared. It was as if he’d been a footnote in their lives.

FOURTEEN

“Dad, Dad. Wake up!”

Felix shot off the sofa and reached for his glasses. Why was it light outside, and why was Harry standing over him wrapped up in the white duvet, looking like the Michelin Man with a full head of hair?

“What are you doing out here?” Harry grimaced and blinked, grimaced and blinked.

Good question.
Felix swept his tongue round his mouth, which was dry and fuzzy and had a sour taste. “I was sorting through your mother’s calendar, and I must have conked out.” He massaged the crick in his neck. “Happy birthday.”

“Yeah, thanks. Listen—” Harry lowered his voice. “We have a problem. Mice. Or maybe rats. I don’t know.”

“What?”

“Shhh.”
Harry grabbed his hand. “Quick, come now before they stop. They’re in the walls.”

The doorbell rang.

“Oh, that’s probably Eudora. I saw her in the garden with flower clippy thingies.”

“Who the hell’s Eudora?”

“Our neighbor.”

“We have a neighbor called Eudora?”

“You know.” Harry mimed out something that could have been interpreted as power walking. Or maybe he was constipated. “She walks with Mom?”

“I thought her name was Eleanor.”

“Dad.” Harry rolled his eyes and then skidded toward the door, the duvet—Felix’s duvet—dragging behind him. Trailing on the floor.
Wash the sheets
was definitely going on today’s to-do list.

Harry flung the front door open and pulled a little old lady inside. She was wearing a hat with earflaps, a huge puffy jacket, what appeared to be denim overalls (he would have called them dungarees two decades ago), and men’s work boots. And she was carrying purple gardening gloves and a pair of secateurs.

“Hey, Eudora,” Harry said in a stage whisper as he eased the front door closed. “We’ve got a rodent infestation. Wanna come hear?”

“Harry,” Felix said through gritted teeth.

“Lovely to meet you. You must be Felix. Eudora Jenkens.” She took a step toward him in her boots, her muddy boots. Her very muddy boots. On his pale oak hall floor. She held out her hand and Felix shook it. A leftie, and she didn’t wear a wedding band. “I sure am sorry to hear about your charming wife. Another two weeks in the hospital? My, my.” She shook her head.

How did this unknown person find out about Ella—the jungle telegraph?

“Now, I don’t want y’all worrying about the garden”—Felix hadn’t been—“I’ll keep an eye on it. I was fixing to cut back your hellebores, but I see they’re quite fine.”

“My hellebores?” Felix said.

“How silly of me. You probably know them as Christmas roses. Should you need references, I’d be more than happy to provide them, although I am an ambassador for the Blomquist Garden at Duke Gardens and a former president of the Chapel Hill gardening club.” Her voice was slightly breathy and her
r
’s soft; her tone dripped with old-fashioned southern hospitality. She gave a slow, genteel smile that said,
I bite.

“But Lord have mercy, did you mention rodents? It sounds as if you need my expertise in other areas.” She took off her jacket—not her boots—and rolled up her shirtsleeves. “Now. How can I help?”

Brilliant.
Not merely a nosey parker, but a nosey parker do-gooder. Felix ranked do-gooders at the same level as Jehovah’s Witnesses. “Thank you, but we don’t need any—”

“To hear them, we have to go into the bedroom.” Harry looked from Felix to Eudora with a shaky smile. “You might want to take your boots off first.”

“Of course, child.” Then she put the secateurs on top of the shoe cabinet and sat on the floor like an agile twenty-year-old. Her socks were neon orange.

Harry, jiggling from foot to foot and still mummified in the duvet, turned his back to Eudora and gave Felix a wide-eyed look that made less sense than a semaphore. Felix couldn’t think of a response. Quite simply, his life was no longer his own. There were rodents in his bedroom, a pair of rusty clippers on his ash shoe cabinet, and some mad old biddy with hideous socks sitting on his floor like a limber yoga master. He’d heard a news report once about frozen waste from a transatlantic jet hurtling down through the sky and crashing into someone’s house. Had frozen shit fallen on him right at that moment, it wouldn’t have surprised him. At all.

Harry waved for them both to follow. Wordlessly, they did.

As they filed into the bedroom—his bedroom—Felix remembered something from the night of Harry’s birthday sleepover.
Scrabbling.
Scrabbling was coming from the linen closet in the master bathroom.

“What do you think it is?” Harry’s voice squeaked with excitement.

“Since there are no holes in the walls of our house and we have bird-proof cages over the outside vents”—Felix paused to inhale—“I can only assume the creature or creatures responsible chewed through the cedar siding.”

“Squirrels,” Eudora said.

“In my linen closet?”

“Nesting, if I had to guess.”

Squirrels making babies in his clean linen. And he needed to change the sheets. “I hate squirrels.”

“He does,” Harry said helpfully. “Loathes them. They ate the back of one of our outside chairs in the fall, and they dug the plants out of Mom’s pots. Made a terrible mess on the porch. Dad’s at war with them.”

“Have you tried sprinkling chili powder in the pots?” Eudora said.

Felix stared at her. “You don’t make authentic Brunswick stew, do you?”

Eudora gave a deep laugh that made him think of dark, paneled bars and, for some reason, flappers smoking cigars. “We’re going to become good friends, Felix.”

“Really.”

“Dad! We’re not killing anything and we’re not cooking it, either. And we’re not eating squirrel.”

“Squirrel is delicious,” Eudora said. “Tastes like rabbit.”

“Yuck, that’s gross,” Harry said.

Eudora made a move toward the bathroom. “Would you like me to have a look? I had squirrels in the attic last year.”

“No. I can’t let you do that.” Felix flinched. Every now and again, he heard the ghost of Pater’s voice in his own.
I can’t let you do that.
Pater dragged out
can’t
with a long imaginary
r
. So British and always a precursor to something bad.

“I’m not a fan of chivalry,” Eudora said, her voice sweet as strychnine.

“Neither am I. But no one’s going in there except for me.” He’d seen
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
. He was not having a squirrel tearing through his house on a rodent rampage. “You’re both staying in the bedroom.”

“Whatever you say, hon.” Eudora put her arm around Harry. “Holler if you need us.”

“Don’t hurt them, Dad.”

“I wasn’t planning a squirrel carnage, Harry.” What he was planning, he had no clue.

“Wait! I know. I know! Max’s dad has a wet vac they used when the basement flooded. We can, like, suck them up in the wet vac and release them in the forest. What do you think, Eudora?”

“Well, child—”

Felix closed the bathroom door on the conversation, and the scrabbling got louder. Suppose Eudora was wrong, and it was a bat? Bats carried rabies. He really, really didn’t want a rabies shot. He hated needles even more than he hated squirrels.

He rummaged under the sink for Ella’s bathroom cleaning supplies. Rubber gloves seemed a good idea if you were going anywhere near squirrel afterbirth. He snapped on the purple gloves. A bit small, but they’d work. Were mother squirrels aggressive? He should grab a weapon, too, in case the situation called for self-defense. He picked up the loo brush, and the scrabbling stopped.

“Dad? Dad? What are you doing in there? Should we call in reinforcements? One-eight-hundred-come-get-my-squirrels?” Harry sounded as if he were choking on a giggle.

Felix pressed his ear against the closet door. All quiet on the Western Front. Time to channel Macbeth and be bloody, bold, and resolute. He eased open the door and immediately gagged on the stench of squalid zoo cage. After this, he was taking a long, hot shower in Harry’s bathroom. He wasn’t coming back in here until the entire place had been hosed down with industrial-strength antibacterial cleaner.

In the wall behind the third shelf, half-hidden by sheets, there appeared to be a serious hole with jagged, gnawed edges. The hole at the back of the top shelf was bigger—approximately eight inches wide with twigs jammed across the opening. Rising up on tiptoe, Felix tugged gently on the pile of thankfully older towels. They were shredded and bloodied, and in the middle was a potpourri of leaves and grasses, sticks and insulation, and two baby squirrels.

Squirrels had eaten through the siding, eaten through the drywall, and carried twigs and leaves inside his house. To go forth and multiply.

He looked heavenward.
Don’t I have enough burdens? You had to send me squirrels?

A flash of fur shot at him, screeching like a demented Squirrel Nutkin. Felix swatted with the loo brush, missed, and slammed the closet door shut.

“Dad? Dad? Are you okay in there?”

“Not now, Harry—” Where was that little bastard? It had to be in the bathroom. He’d heard it plop to the floor.

The door to the bedroom opened.

“Stop mucking about, Harry, and—”

Too late. The squirrel legged it into the bedroom and began tearing round in circles, squawking like a hellcat. Then it shot under the bed skirt.

Eudora had the sense to slam the bedroom door shut; Harry stood there gawping.

“We have to drive her back in here,” Felix said. “I’m not having a rabid mother squirrel loose in my bedroom.”

“Squirrels don’t carry rabies, son,” Eudora said with another smile.

“It was a figure of speech.” She might be next for the loo brush. Swear to God.

“Let’s chase it back in,” Harry said. “I’ll go get a broom!”

“No!” Felix and Eudora shouted.

“Child, that bedroom door needs to stay closed.” Eudora sucked in her lips and gave Felix a nod.

“This is a great way to spend my birthday!” Harry said.

“Your birthday? My, my. Is anyone baking you a cake?” Eudora said.

“He’s celebrated already with his friends,” Felix said.

“Nonsense. I’ll bake for you this afternoon. What’s your favorite flavor?”

“Carrot cake. I love carrot cake.” Harry grimaced and blinked, grimaced and blinked.

“How many candles?”

“Seventeen.”

Felix held up his rubber-gloved hands. “The squirrel, chaps?”

“On it, Dad.” Harry tossed the duvet onto the bed.

“Working on the assumption that this mother is determined to get back to her babies, here’s what we’re going to do—” Felix turned on all the lights in the bathroom and slowly opened the closet door. “Harry, shut off the lights in here. Eudora”—she shot him a look—“if you wouldn’t mind closing the curtains so we can darken the room? Let’s hope her instincts call her home.” Felix chose not to think about irony.

Harry started giggling again. Felix stood behind the bathroom door and held a finger to his lips. “
Shhh.
We need to be quiet and still.”

Eudora dropped to her knees and disappeared behind the bed. Was she deaf, senile, or unable to follow basic instructions?

A hand reached up and removed the red glass from his bedside table. A bump and a flurry of squawking came from under the bed, and the squirrel—which Felix noticed for the first time was covered in bald patches and seriously manky—shot from under the bed and tore into the bathroom. Felix slammed the door and dusted off his hands.

“My,” Eudora said, “all that excitement has left me tuckered out. At the risk of ethnic profiling, I’m assuming you’re a tea drinker, Felix? How about a cup of Earl Grey? With lots of sugar to calm the nerves.”

“You’re in luck, Eudora. That’s Dad’s favorite.”

She smiled as if she’d known all along. Had she gained access to their house, snooped in their cabinets, examined the contents of the tea caddy? Felix dragged Ella’s bedside table across the bathroom door.

“Dad, you do know squirrels can’t open doors?”

“I’m not taking any chances. Did you see her bald patches? She’s probably a mutant.”

Harry cupped his hand over his mouth and started shaking.

“Now what’s so funny?” Felix frowned.

“You’re, you’re”—Harry hiccuped with laugher—“still wearing rubber gloves.”

“Would you like me to go fetch Daddy’s hunting rifle, Felix?”

“You’re offering to shoot my son?”

Harry collapsed on the bed, hysterical.

“In case the squirrel escapes again. Daddy used to take me to the range on Sundays. I can hit a squirrel at fifty yards.”

Brilliant.
They were living next door to a squirrel sniper.