Guilt pierced his chest. When Slade looked into his father’s eyes that last time, he’d had no hint of what was coming. Failure drove the shard deeper. Slade rubbed a spot over his heart and tried not to feel anything. “I should never have left. I could have saved him.”
“How? By arguing with his certainty that he was going to die soon? Or that civilization was going to collapse? Or that whatever you loved or were excited about was short-lived?” Takata scoffed.
“But I—”
“You couldn’t have done anything,” Takata spat. And then his tone softened. “You might have fallen under his spell eventually. He had charisma, even when his life drifted off the rails. Your father could convince a tiger he didn’t need his stripes.”
Slade took an instinctive step back.
How much does Takata know?
“It still bothers you, doesn’t it?” Takata’s eyes were in shadow, but Slade felt the man’s gaze upon him. “That your father checked out the way he did.”
Slade looked at his house, but said nothing, because the house ate away at him, like an angry ulcer. Even now, his gut was churning.
“I expected you to sell the house after it happened. Sell or set the place on fire.” He paused for a quick puff-puff. “I didn’t expect you to hold on to it. Or move back in.”
“I can’t sell.” The words were wrenched out of him against his better judgment.
“Means there’s unfinished business there.” He took a long drag from the cigar, then another. The end faded in and out like a beacon on a remote airport runway. “Never see the light on in his room at night.”
As if hypnotized, Slade’s gaze went to the master-bedroom windows. He clenched his fists. “I don’t go in there. No one goes in there.”
“I was a mortician for sixty years. I’ve seen grief in all its stages. And guilt in several more.” The hand holding the cigar drifted downward, hanging over the arm of his chair. “You’re still grieving. And you’ve got an unhealthy dose of guilt, as well.”
Slade’s hand drifted up to the knot at his throat, but he said nothing.
Takata’s eyes were dark, shadowy holes that sunk deep into his scowling face. “I was there that day, you know, working in the yard. I heard the screams. One of grief. One of horror.”
How much does the old man know?
Slade wanted to cover his ears with his hands, but it wouldn’t have done any good. His voice, Evy’s cry. He couldn’t erase them. Even if he closed his eyes, he couldn’t shut out the image of what he’d seen, of what he’d done afterward. But some wounds never healed.
He had to swallow twice before he could speak. And then the words sounded so inane. “Are you bowling tomorrow?”
Takata didn’t answer right away. He played on the mayor’s league team, which also had a weekly bowling date with Slade, his partners, and whoever they could pick up to round out their team. Slade’s preference was Will’s fiancée, Emma. That woman bowled near-perfect games every time. But she didn’t always have someone to stay with her grandmother at night.
“I expect I will play. It’s our turn to wipe the floor with you.” Takata chuckled. “You’d be a lot harder to beat if you opened that door upstairs. Just once. Downstairs windows don’t count.”