The Stranger Within (33 page)

              Dillon sleeps until after ten and I am sitting at the kitchen table when he comes downstairs, my course books spread out and my laptop in front of me. The new Word document I opened two hours ago is still blank and the cursor flashes at me, reminding me what a mess I have made of things.

              It is obvious he hasn’t showered yet; his hair is still greasy, his arms grubby, and I can smell him from across the room. “Can I have some toast?”

              His eyes narrow, as if he is unsure how I will answer his question, and I remember the last time we were alone. How cruel my words were, cutting into him like knives. Perhaps he thinks I am still angry with him. “Course. Sit down. I’ll make you some sweet tea, as well. It will be good for you.”

              He screws up his face but then shrugs and pulls out a chair. All the while I am getting his breakfast, he watches me through cautious eyes.

              When I place a plate of buttered toast in front of him, he picks up a slice but doesn’t eat it. And in that moment my heart aches for this boy I have spent so much time fighting and hating, and regret surges through me again, for what I have done to him and Luke, as well as James.

              “I’m sorry…about your cat,” he says, his eyes flicking to the table. “He’s not…you know…I gave him to someone to look after. Esme’s friend. He’s okay.” Dillon’s words float around me and I breathe them in. Again, this is more than I deserve.

              “Thank you for telling me. Look, Dillon, I’m sorry about our fight. About everything.”

              He doesn’t say anything and doesn’t look at me, making me wonder if I have pushed too hard. Perhaps to make amends is not what he wants at all, and I have misread everything. “Can I ask you something?”

              Dillon shrugs again but remains silent.

              “Did something…anything happen to you…you know, while you weren’t here? I won’t ask you for details. I just need to know you’re okay.”

              The silence feels heavy and I am sure I can hear my heart thumping in my chest. Eventually he nods and stares straight at me. And then he begins to speak, the words pouring freely from his mouth. It is so strange to hear him talking so much that I almost don’t recognise his voice. But I listen. I listen while he tells me how cold the nights got while he was sleeping under bridges and in doorways. How half the time he couldn’t sleep for fear of other people, because there was always someone hovering around. People like him who didn’t want to go home or who had no home. Or others, who he didn’t want to wonder about. And how he cried himself to sleep each night but couldn’t drag himself home.

              “But why didn’t you go to a friend’s? Esme’s? Anyone’s?

              He bites his lip and stares at the table once more. “Because Dad would have found me straightaway. I wanted to punish you, make Dad blame you for driving me away. For making me suffer. So I figured it was worth it.”

              “It’s okay,” I say, grabbing his hand. It must have been exhausting for him to carry around so much hate. Hatred borne from nothing except grief: the unforgivable fact that I’m not Lauren.

Dillon flinches slightly but doesn’t pull away. This is an unfamiliar feeling for both of us. He begins to recount more details and there are tears in my eyes as he speaks, but not in Dillon’s. He remains impassive, putting in place the defence mechanism I am all too familiar with. And then he tells me what happened to him on his last night, and there are no words to describe how I feel hearing it. His voice becomes muffled through his sudden flood of tears, and my hand stiffens around his as I sit here, stunned, sicker than I have ever felt.

“Please don’t tell Dad,” he says. “Please don’t.”

An hour later, Dillon is asleep on the sofa. I sit by him on the floor, watching over him, even though it is too late to protect him. I have failed him as a mother. He, and everyone else, was right about me. He looks even younger with his eyes closed, and I wonder how I ever hated him so much. The phone rings but I don’t rush to answer it. I have to think about Dillon. He is what matters now. Whoever is calling doesn’t leave a message, and I let out a breath of relief. The time has not yet come.

              Sometime later my mobile rings and that familiar feeling of dread cuts off my breath. But it is only Max, calling to see if I’m okay. I am touched by his concern, even if it is years too late. But I cannot blame him for any of this. It was never his job to save me from myself. I tell him I’m fine and I’ll call him later, hanging up on his protests. There will be no later.

              When Luke gets home from school he hurries to see his brother. Dillon is still in the living room, lying on the sofa, but is awake now, watching television. At least on the surface it appears he is watching; I doubt he is taking in anything he sees. I tell Luke to stay there while I prepare dinner.

Dillon sighs. “I’m not ill.”

              “Can we have pizza and chips, Callie?” Luke asks, his wide eyes pleading.             

But this would mean a trip to the shop and I can’t leave the house in case the phone rings. Unplugging it again is too risky. And what if the police pay a visit? There is no way I can let Dillon and Luke deal with that. No, I will have to stay here.

“How about a Chinese takeaway instead?” I suggest, and both the boys smile their agreement.

              It is nearly seven o’clock when James gets home, and the boys are starving. “It will be quicker if I go and collect it,” he says, and we all nod our agreement. I call in the order, glad to see Dillon’s appetite has recovered. At least for now.

              While we eat, Luke chatters away about Harry getting into trouble at school today, but even this cannot distract me. I glance at the clock above the door, at the second hand ticking away, the sound amplified in warning. The food sticks in my throat.

              Beside me, Dillon is shovelling down his food. I’m relieved to see his appetite has recovered; perhaps he is making up for those days when he barely ate. I know he is not okay, though. He can’t be after what’s happened.

              James is in the middle of telling us about his photo shoot today when the doorbell rings. I have been expecting this moment to come but still I am unprepared for it, my hand so damp with sweat that I can barely grip my fork. I can’t look at anyone. In a second I have to decide who should answer the door. It should be me but I can’t face it. But neither can I let James do it. “I’ll get it,” I say, jumping up. Behind me I hear forks once again clinking against plates.

              I can’t make out who is behind the glass but there are two people, one taller than the other. Perhaps one male and one female officer. They always come in pairs, don’t they?

This is it.

On autopilot, I turn the latch and pull open the door, but a few seconds pass before I recognise who is standing in front of me.

              Not the police.

              Rhys’ parents.

Chapter Thirty-Five

I stare at Mr and Mrs Marshall, my chest tight, waiting for them to speak. But neither  says a word, and they cling to each other as if they will topple over if they let go. Perhaps they will. I know why they are here, but my mouth won’t open to speak either. We are all trapped in this silent scene.

              James appears behind me. “Hey, how are you both? You must have heard the good news? We’re so…” And then he realises something is wrong. That they are not here to check on Dillon. That Rhys is not standing on the doorstep with them.

              Confirming this, Mrs Marshall sinks to the ground, like a sack emptied of its contents. Her husband kneels to help her but can’t manage it on his own. James steps forward to assist him and they help her into the living room. After they’ve settled her on the sofa, James pokes his head into the kitchen, telling the boys to go upstairs.

              They sit opposite us, Mr Marshall speaking while his wife sobs beside him. She is wearing casual, loose trousers and a long cardigan – comfortable clothes – and I assume they’re what she wore on the plane. There will have been no time, or inclination, for her to change once they arrived home. She looks a different woman than the one I saw unloading Sainsbury’s bags from her car that day.

Mr Marshall, through stuttered sentences, explains how they came home from Dubai this morning and found Rhys’ body in the living room, his head concave from where it had been smashed against the marble coffee table.

              I let out a gasp, even though I know this already, and beside me James’ mouth hangs open. “I…I…shit…fuck. I’m so sorry, I can’t believe it.” He looks at me and I try to meet his eye, try to match his surprise, even though I have replayed the scene in my head a million times. I should do something. Go over and hug them? There is no right thing to do. Instead, I stay where I am and tell them I’m so sorry. Futile words.

              “We’d planned a surprise birthday party for him,” Mrs Marshall manages to say. “And now he’ll never know…” The heavy sobs drown out the rest of her words and she stares at her shoes.

              “We wanted to tell Dillon before he heard it from someone else,” Mr Marshall continues. I have forgotten his name, or perhaps never knew it. “We heard he was back and…” His voice trails off. “It needs to come from us. They were so close.” I want to scream out that it should be me who talks to Dillon, not them. I am the one whose fault this is.

              James speaks now. “I’ll go and get him. What have the police said? What do they think happened?”

              Now Mrs Marshall looks up, rubbing her eyes so hard they make a squelching sound. “They don’t know yet, but the back door was smashed and some things have been taken so they think he surprised a burglar. Everything in the living room was smashed up, as if there’d been a fight. He must have tried to stop them…” She bursts into loud, gut-wrenching sobs again and I can no longer watch her.

              “I’ll go and get Dillon,” I say, standing up before James offers to do it. But when I step into the hallway, he is already coming down the stairs.

              James tells Dillon to sit down and he does, a frown on his face. He glances at Rhys’ parents, then back to James. “What’s going on?” he asks, his voice faint.

James places his hand on Dillon’s arm. He breaks the news, sparing him the extra details Mr Marshall gave us only moments ago. Dillon stares at him for a moment, as if he hasn’t heard what’s been said. He pulls his arm away. “What? Why are you saying this?” Sinking to the floor, he grabs his hair, yanking it on both sides of his head until I think he will pull clumps out. “No…No!” He is shrieking now and sounds like a dying animal.

              I drop to my knees and put my arm around him, trying to coax him up so I can get him upstairs. I half expect him to shrug me off and back away, but he falls limp and lets me guide him. “I’ll take him up,” I say.

              For a while I stay with him in his bedroom, trying to ignore how similar it is to Rhys’. He slumps on his bed, resting his head in his hands. Several times he looks across at me, opening his mouth slightly as if he wants to say something, but nothing comes out. I sit at his desk until eventually he lies down and drifts off. At least sleep will bring him some respite.

              Closing his door behind me, I step onto the landing, feeling as if my legs will collapse beneath me. I manage to make it to the bathroom and splash cold water on my face, watching the droplets trickle down my cheeks like tears.

              Sitting on the side of the bath, I allow myself to think about Rhys. How different things would be if I had pushed him away when he first tried to kiss me. He wouldn’t be dead.

              I try to work out how I feel about him but there is nothing solid I can grasp. One minute I hate him still, then I miss him, then I pity him. But I have to think about my family now. Something good has to come out of this. It is not callousness that makes me feel this way; it is the need to protect James and the boys, and put right what I have done.

              By the time I have summoned the energy to go back downstairs, the living room is empty, the lights turned off. I find James in the kitchen, sitting in semi-darkness, with only the cooker light switched on. The plates from our interrupted dinner are still on the table and the smell of old food lingers in the air.

              I head to the table but don’t sit down. There is too much to think of and I don’t want to be still.

“I just keep thinking…what if it was Dillon who’d been found dead?” James says. “I mean, it could have been, couldn’t it? He was out there on the streets. For almost a week. Anything could have happened to him.”

              James has offered me the perfect opening; I could tell him everything now and unload the burden, but I need more time. I want to relish every second we have left together. “Don’t think that way. It’s not healthy. Dillon’s fine. We’re all fine.”

And Rhys’ body is lying stiff and cold in a mortuary.              

“Has Dillon said anything to you?” he says. “About what he did all those days he was missing?”

              “No. I mean, why would he talk to me?” I bite my lip. There are some things a boy can never tell his father.