Page 97 of The Coworker
But as I start into the woods, a small figure emerges from between the trees. It takes a second to recognize that it’s Josh. He’s all alone, and he’s sobbing hysterically. But he looks unharmed.
“Mom!” he manages. “Mommy!”
I shove the gun into my coat pocket so he doesn’t see it. He races into my arms and clings to my body for dear life. “Josh, what did he do to you?”
“Mom!” He raises his face, which is streaked with tears. “There was an accident! I think Shane is hurt!”
What?
“A snowdrift fell on him from a tree!” Josh hiccups. “He’s over there!”
My ankle is screaming in pain, but I allow Josh to tug me deeper into the woods. Just when I can’t stand it another second, I spot the snowman in the distance—the one Shane and Josh had been building together. Josh tightens his grip on my arm. “That’s where he is!”
I don’t want to keep walking, and it has nothing to do with the fact that my ankle is killing me. Eleven years ago, Shane Nelson tried to kill me. Five minutes ago, his mother tried to kill me. Even if he is temporally incapacitated, there’s no telling what he might do to me out here, with no witnesses aside from a scared little boy.
What if this is a trick? What if he is lying in wait, and the second I get over there, he’s going to jump up and wrap his fingers around my neck?
“Mom!” Josh is tugging on my arm. “You have to come help him!”
I reach into my pocket and wrap my fingers around the gun. If he tries to attack me, I’m going to be ready for him. I shot his mother. I can shoot him too.
I push on for the last ten yards, my hand gripping the pistol. Just past the snowman, there’s a figure lying in the snow. The figure appears completely still.
And not just that, but there are droplets of crimson around his head, marring the perfect white of the snow.
“Is he okay, Mom?” Josh wipes his nose with the back of his hand. “The ice from that tree over there just all fell on him at once!”
The trees are all covered in frozen icicles that hang down like ornaments on a Christmas tree. It’s actually very beautiful. My hand is shaking around the gun as I tentatively step closer to get a better look at Shane, lying in the snow. His body is half-covered with snow and ice, and his face is bloody. There’s a gash in his forehead much bigger than the one I sewed up all those months ago.
And his eyes are open and not blinking.
“You need to call an ambulance!” Josh tugs on my sleeve again. “He needs to go to the hospital!”
I can’t bear to tell him the truth. I hated this man, but Josh doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know that the icicles from the tree may have saved his life. He doesn’t know that the man lying in front of us in the snow is his father—the one he has been desperate to meet all these years.
He doesn’t even know Shane is dead.
Chapter 54
ONE MONTH LATER
“I saw Tim today.”
Josh drops that little nugget on me at the dinner table. I’m in the middle of chewing a bite of macaroni and cheese. And I’m not talking about gourmet macaroni and cheese made with four different varieties of cheese, with a layer of crispy, buttery breadcrumbs on top like Margie (sorry, I mean,Pamela Nelson) used to make. I’m talking about macaroni and cheese from the box. It came in a six-pack that cost three dollars. It’s flavored with powdered cheese that is labeled cheese number forty-two.
I don’t know what happened to the other forty-one cheeses. I don’t want to know.
“You did?” I ask, wanting desperately to hear the story but not really wanting to hear it at all.
“Yep.” Josh smacks his lips on the “p,” which has become an annoying habit of his. “When I went to the corner to mail that letter for you. He was also mailing a letter.”
A million questions are running through my head.How did he look? Is he okay? Did he mention me? Does he hate my guts?“Did he say anything?”
“He said hi.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said hi back.”
