Page 82 of The Perfect Son
“Jamie?” I call up the stairs.
“Yeah?” he calls back.
“Stay in your room, OK? Don’t come out until I tell you.”
I grab my phone from the side and press 999 on the keypad.
When I step back into the bright daylight, Richard is exactly where I left him on the grass. He has stopped crying and is staring into the distance.
I think about sitting down too, but think better of it and remain standing, just in case I need to run.
“Why have you been following me?”
He clears his throat. “It might be easier if I tell you about myself and then we’ll get to that. You see, I worked for the airline, in the human resources department. I was midlevel management, so I made some decisions myself, but not many. One of my jobs was to handle the paperwork and the interviews for employees when they returned from sick leave.” The words come out like a well-practiced speech, like I’m not the first person he’s said this to. “It was my job to talk to Philip Curtis—the pilot—”
“I know who he is.” I will never forget the name.
“You’ve probably heard on the news by now that Philip was signedoff work for four weeks with stress and depression. The flight to Frankfurt was his first flight back. I was supposed to interview Philip the day before he returned to work. He came up to my office for the meeting at five p.m....” Richard’s voice cracks and he shakes his head.
“We were supposed to talk for thirty minutes at least. We have an established protocol for supporting employees who are experiencing mental health issues. I had a checklist to go through. It had things like ‘Is the employee exhibiting signs he may not be ready to return to work?’”
The sun is pressing down on my head and I feel suddenly weak. I don’t know what this man wants, why he is here, but I don’t feel scared anymore. I feel sad. I drop to the grass and sit down.
“And I didn’t do it,” Richard says.
“What? Why not?”
He blows out a puff of air. “There is no reason. I just didn’t. I looked at Philip and he seemed fine to me. He was smiling, and we joked about the weather. So I patted him on the shoulder and said something along the lines of ‘We’re short-staffed for a flight tomorrow. It’s yours if you want it,’ and Philip looked at me. I’ll never forget that look. It was like I’d given him a gift, and I remember congratulating myself on how I’d handled it. Like he’d been dreading the interview and I’d just made it easy for him.
“I left the checklist on my desk and I was going to tick through it the next day. But—” Tears form in his eyes again, and when he speaks, his voice is squeaking with emotion. “I’d given him a gift, all right. I’d given him a way out, you see. I’ve thought about it a thousand times, and I think when I offered him the flight to Frankfurt he knew then what he was going to do and it’s my fault. I didn’t clear him properly and I gave him that flight.”
Cold runs over my skin. Oh, Mark. You really really shouldn’t have died.
“Why have you been following me?” I ask.
“I was fired, of course. There has been talk of criminal charges being brought. No less than I deserve. Philip sent me his suicide note, thanking me for my help. I’d gone by then so the letter sat unopened on my desk for a while. Before I left I stole a copy of the passenger manifest, and I’ve been visiting all the families and apologizing the best I can and owning up to my part in it. The crash was preventable. It should never have happened, and that’s something I will live with for the rest of my life.”
“But—”
“You were hardest, Mrs. Clarke,” Richard continues, preempting my question. “Every time I came to do it, well, I saw you and I... I couldn’t.”
I think of Jamie with his bright blue eyes and crazy blond hair. Our baby boy who will grow up without his father.
“The first time I came here, you were just pulling out of the drive and I followed you in my car to a town.”
“Manningtree.” I nod.
“I was going to talk to you, but then you ran away.”
“And you waited on the lane that day, when the cyclist knocked into you.”
“Yes,” Richard says.
I look past Richard to the garden and the trees. This is Denise all over again. The handing over of guilt, the confession. I can’t tell him it’s OK, because it’s not. And it never will be.
“Was it you in the garden that evening a few weeks ago?”
His face falls and I have my answer. “I... I was only there for a minute. I didn’t know you’d seen me. I wanted to see if you were inand I was going to knock on the door, but I chickened out and tried to call you instead. I really didn’t mean to scare you.”
