Page 92 of The Perfect Son
“I thought he might be a journalist at first,” Denise continues. “I didn’t want him harassing you. But then he said he was from the airline and got really upset. I’m sure he told me his name. It was...” Her voice trails off, but I know exactly who she means.
“Richard.” I sigh.
“Yes,” Denise says. “Sorry, has he been in touch? I should’ve just told you about him when I asked, but I thought he might’ve given up.”
“It’s OK. I’d better go. It’s Jamie’s birthday today.” I hang up before Denise can reply.
My mind is whirring. You were setting up a new business. That was the secret project you didn’t tell me about. More answers, but not the ones I was looking for.
I’m about to get my notebook when Jamie slinks into the kitchen in his pjs.
“Happy birthday!” I shout. My voice shakes but I paste a grin on my face and push the questions away. I must focus on Jamie today.
Jamie smiles and slides into the chair, eyeing his presents, then looks up as I launch into your song. All four verses...“squashed tomatoes and stew.”I dance around the kitchen, hopping from foot to foot. Jamie laughs at my silliness and so do I. It’s all wrong without you, but I don’t stop.
CHAPTER 59
After breakfast when the presents were all opened and wrapping paper littered the floor, Jamie ran up to get dressed before going out to play in the tree house like it was any other day.
I stayed in the garden too. Partly to be near to him and partly because the house felt darker today, emptier. Outside the sun was high in the sky and dandelion yellow. Every so often white fluffy clouds would swallow the sun, and the air would cool a notch.
“Are you sure you don’t want to do something special today?” I shouted up at one point, running a hand over the rope ladder and wishing he’d invite me into his world. “It’s not too late.”
“I’m fine” were the words that drifted back.
I leaned against the rough bark and listened for a while to Jamie’s nonsense chatter and the sound of his little metal cars being driven across the wood.
“Is Shelley coming?” he asked later when it was almost time to go in, almost time for cake and a tea of crisps and jam sandwiches.
“Not today, baby.”
Shelley called last night, over and over until I couldn’t escape the buzz of my mobile and the trilling of the home phone. I blocked hernumber and unplugged the landline. I should’ve done it weeks ago. I’m no longer pacing the house waiting to hear it ring.
I don’t know who is threatening us or what they want, but one thing I am sure of is that Shelley wants Jamie.
—
I flick the radio on the moment I step through the side door and into the kitchen. Every few minutes the signal crackles but the murmur of voices and music fills the kitchen with life. I shut the door into the hall as if the radio voices are ghosts that will float away into the bowels of the house and we’ll be left with the stillness again.
Within minutes Jamie and I have eaten our way through a pack of chocolate chip cookies and buried the kitchen table under a dozen clear plastic bags of gray Legos in every shape and size imaginable. The instructions—a two-hundred-page manual—are open in front of us on page one. Jamie’s head is bent in concentration and his tongue is sticking out, wiggling the tooth back and forth like a pendulum.
He’s put his new Batman pajamas on over his clothes. They’re too big and his hands keep disappearing inside the sleeves every time he reaches for the next Lego piece.
“Ah.” I jump up, my chair scraping the tiles. “I left something in the car. You carry on. Ten more minutes and we’ll have cake.” I smile and it doesn’t feel fake like it did this morning.
A pang of pure love digs into my chest. “I love you, Jamie.”
I grab the car key and throw open the side door, ready to dash out in my slippers and retrieve the helium balloon. The sky above the fields is the color of pink cotton candy, and if it wasn’t for Shelley standing right in front of me, with her hand lifted ready to knock, I would’ve beckoned Jamie over to see it.
“Hi. Your phone isn’t working,” she says on the doorstep, peering over my shoulder to look at Jamie.
“I unplugged it. Too many call centers,” I lie.
“Your mobile isn’t working either.” Shelley narrows her eyes at me. There is no dancing joy or laughing grin tonight. Her jaw is tight, her lips a straight line.
I shrug.
“You ran off yesterday in such a hurry, and I wanted to make sure—”
