Reunion at Red Paint Bay - By George Harrar Page 0,66
you hid from me the rather important fact that a girl accused you of raping her.”
“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation again. Apparently in your mind I’m Simon the husband who doesn’t tell his wife he’s a rapist. And now you can add to it that I’m Simon the husband who may have done what? Killed a man? Is that what you think?”
“I didn’t say anything about you killing him, Simon.” She squinted at him, as if to see more clearly. “Tell me you didn’t kill him.”
He would have liked to declare that he hadn’t, make her feel bad for even considering the idea. But there was the nagging possibility that he may have caused the death of another human being. Killed him, at least in some sense of the word. With this possibility in mind, he found it incongruous to be outraged at her suspicions, but he felt outraged nevertheless. She had no good reason to think him guilty. It was her inherent distrust of him that brought her to this conclusion. A failing in her. He said, “If I tell you I didn’t kill the guy or do anything else to him, you still won’t believe me, will you?”
“Try me.”
He turned back to the garden and dug his hands into the hard, dry dirt.
He came inside to a familiar scene: Davey sitting on the hot seat, the leather-covered stool in the family room, his feet still unable to reach the floor, with Amy circling him like a cop in an interrogation room. He wasn’t needed for this performance.
“Dad!” Davey said at the sight of Simon and jumped off the stool.
Amy grabbed the boy’s arm at the thin bicep and squeezed.
“That hurts,” he said, twisting out of her grasp.
“Then get back on the stool. We’re not done here.”
Davey climbed back on.
“What’s going on?” Simon said as he pulled off his work gloves.
Amy turned toward him as if addressing a jury. “It seems that your son was playing with knives at his friend Kenny’s house, and according to Dora Reed, who just called, he threw a knife at her son’s forearm and drew blood. She had to rush him to the emergency room for a tetanus shot. It’s just a day full of good news around here.”
Simon glanced at Davey, sitting behind his mother, and the boy spit on his hand and flashed it in the air. The message was clear.
Amy turned her attention back on their son. “So I’m asking you again, did you throw a knife at Kenny?”
“No, Mom, he threw it at his own stupid arm.”
Amy squinted at him. “Why would he do that?”
“He was showing off how close he could get without hitting it but he missed—I mean he didn’t miss, he hit himself and started bleeding. I’m the one who said he had to tell his mother to take him for a shot so he wouldn’t get lockjaw. He was going to just put on his sweatshirt and not tell her. I saved his life, didn’t I?”
She ignored his plea for praise. “Then why did he tell his mother you threw the knife at him?”
“He always says I do stuff that he did so he won’t get in trouble because his father would kill him for something like that.”
“His father isn’t going to kill him.”
“He’ll hit him for sure, he does that all the time for the littlest little things.”
“You’ve seen Mr. Reed hit Kenny?”
“Not exactly, but he yells a lot, I know that ’cause I heard him lots of times.”
“I imagine Kenny deserves to be yelled at, just as you do more times than I can count. The point is that you and Kenny were playing with knives and he got hurt.”
“No, Mom, cross my heart, I wasn’t playing with knives. Dad told me not to touch them because they’re dangerous. It was just Kenny doing it.”
Simon watched his son’s right hand crisscross his chest, the thin index finger extended, a surprisingly delicate gesture. The boy stared up at Amy, his expression unwavering, so innocent, so convincing. Then he looked toward Simon. “You believe me, don’t you, Dad?”
A clever move, trying to lure him into the scene. But Simon wouldn’t let himself get drawn in. He was just an observer to this little courtroom drama where the savvy interrogator went up against the cunning suspect. Whom would the jury believe? “It doesn’t matter what I think,” he said, heading toward the kitchen. “It’s your mother you have to convince.”
That evening, Simon waited till