through the bushes surrounding their house, one step after the next, not understanding what had driven me there.
I watched them through the windows.
For a year, I saw their life unfold in little bits and pieces, filling in what I didn’t know already. I learned that Miles continued to work at night sometimes, and I wondered who was taking care of Jonah. So I charted Miles’s schedule, knowing when he’d be gone, and one day I followed Jonah’s bus home from school. I learned that he stayed with a neighbor. A peek at the mailbox told me who she was.
Other times, I watched them eating dinner. I learned what Jonah liked to eat, and I learned what shows he liked to watch afterward. I learned that he liked to play soccer but didn’t like reading. I watched him grow.
I saw good things and bad things, and always, I looked for a smile. Something, anything, that might lead me to stop this insanity.
I watched Miles, too.
I saw him pick up around the house, sliding items into drawers. I saw him cook dinner. I watched him drink beer and smoke cigarettes on the back porch, when he thought no one was around. But most of all, I watched him as he sat in the kitchen.
There, concentrating, one hand moving through his hair, he stared at the file. At first I assumed he brought his work home with him, but gradually I came to the conclusion that I was wrong. It wasn’t different cases that he was studying, it was a single case, since the file never seemed to change. It was then, with a sudden jolt of comprehension, that I knew what the file was about. I knew that he was looking for me, this person who watched him through the windows.
Again, after that, I justified what I was doing. I started coming to see him, to study his features as he peered at the file, to look for an “aha,” followed by a frantic phone call that would portend a visit to my home. To know when the end would come.
When I would finally leave the window to return to my car, I would feel weak, completely spent. I would swear that it was over, that I’d never do it again. That I would let them lead their lives without intrusion. The urge to watch them would be satiated and guilt would set in, and on those evenings, I would despise what I had done. I would pray for forgiveness, and there were times I wanted to kill myself.
From someone who once had dreams of proving myself to the world, I now hated who I had become.
But then, no matter how much I wanted to stop, no matter how much I wanted to die, the urge would come again. I’d fight it until I could fight no longer, then I’d say to myself that this would be the last time. The very last.
And then, like a vampire, I would creep out into the night.
Chapter 26
That night, while Miles studied the file in the kitchen, Jonah had his first nightmare in weeks.
It took Miles a moment to register the sound. He’d studied the file until nearly two in the morning; that, coupled with the all-night shift the evening before and everything that had happened during the day, had drained him completely, and his body seemed to rebel when he heard Jonah’s cries. Like being forced to move through a room filled with wet cotton, consciousness returned slowly, and even as he moved toward Jonah’s room, it was more of a Pavlovian response than a desire to comfort his son.
It was early in the morning, a few minutes before dawn. Miles carried Jonah to the porch; by the time his cries finally stopped, the sun was already up. Because it was Saturday and he didn’t have to go to school, Miles carried Jonah back to the bedroom and started a pot of coffee. His head was pounding, so he took two aspirin and washed them down with orange juice.
He felt as if he had a hangover.
While the coffee was brewing, Miles retrieved the file and the notes he’d made the night before; he wanted to go over them one more time before heading into work. Jonah surprised him, however, by returning to the kitchen before he had a chance to do so. He padded in, his eyes puffy as he rubbed them, then sat at the table.