Stray Fears - Gregory Ashe Page 0,6

whatever she was doing. “Sweetheart, you will not believe who called me. Donna Comeaux. Can you believe that? Sobbing. Did you know they are making her boy go back to work?”

“Of course I know. He’s my partner.”

“He was shot, Dagobert,” Mom said like she was announcing the end of the world. “He should be taking care of himself.”

“I’m fine, Mrs. LeBlanc,” Mason said. “Honestly, I’m fine. Back at work and feeling great.”

“Mason, sweetheart? Is that you?”

“Mason,” my dad said, “do you remember Jackson?”

“Goodbye,” I said, grabbing the phone. “Please find yourself a new son.”

As I disconnected the call, I threw a wary look at Mason.

“What?” he finally said.

“I’m just waiting for it.”

“You’re such a weirdo sometimes.” He munched a few fries. Then he said, “Ketchup.”

I ran my thumb at the corners of my mouth, but Mason shook his head and gestured higher on his jawline. I tried again, got a good bit of it with the heel of my hand, and then picked up the rest with a napkin.

“Seriously,” I said. “Just get it out of your system.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I gestured to the dash, where the phone had sat.

“It’s nice,” he said. “They care about you. They want you to be happy.”

“Great. I’m going to be so happy that they’ll have to lock me in padded room.”

“You know what?” Mason said through a mouthful of fries. He swallowed. “Sometimes, you’re a drama queen.”

“This is why we’re still friends,” I said. “This, right here. What would I do without this?”

“That’s right,” Mason said, throwing a fry like a mini spear. It barely missed my eye.

“I’m going to tell Sarge to put you with Martinez. I’m going to ask if I can work alone.”

“Great,” Mason said. “I’ll do great with Martinez.”

Shifting into reverse, I eased the car out of the parking stall behind the Zaxby’s, and then we pulled out onto the street.

“Seriously, man,” Mason said, squeezing the back of my neck. “I’m fine. I’m ready to be back. It feels good to be back, you know, just normal stuff like this. Doing the job. You know that, right?”

“I know.”

He squeezed once more, and then his arm dropped back at his side. “And if this guy looks like Jackson fucking Sanders, we are sure as fuck getting you a diamond-studded jock.”

I sighed as I signaled to turn right. “And there it is.”

ELIEN (5)

The truly humiliating part was I had to stand on the porch and wait for my Uber. The house was a good twenty minutes northeast of Bragg. I liked to joke that Richard had bought a bipolar house to match all his patients: the front of the house was carefully manicured, with St. Augustine grass trimmed like it had its own barber, as well as magnolia trees, sugar maples, oaks, and pines, all of them draped in Spanish moss. Behind the house, though, we controlled a few hundred feet of land, just as carefully groomed as the front of the house, before everything ended at the Okhlili, a tributary of the Tangipahoa. Beyond the Okhlili was dense Louisiana old growth, which I had absolutely no interest in getting any closer to. Less than a mile north of us, the Okhlili emerged from Bayou Pere Rigaud, where fan boats and alligators drew a cheaper class of tourists out of New Orleans for the ‘real Cajun experience.’

I didn’t drive anymore, so unless I, too, wanted the ‘real Cajun experience,’ which in my imagination mostly consisted of falling into a pit of cottonmouths, I was stuck at home. I had to rely on Ubers, Richard, and Muriel, who was technically a nurse but filled some sort of administrative role at DuPage Behavioral. Her job apparently consisted of doing whatever the doctors in the practice needed her to do—including driving me around.

So I stood on the porch. Richard made a few casual passes by the window, holding two glasses of iced tea, but every time he veered away. He was Being Thoughtful again and Giving Me Space. Sometimes I missed fighting, just the really nasty, say-every-hateful-thing kind of fights I used to have. Sometimes, these days, I had so much space I felt like I needed one of those astronaut suits.

When I was five, I had run away from home. I had made it approximately as far as the porch, and on that day, just like today, I’d walked back and forth, ignoring the midges that buzzed in the air. I remembered my parents helicoptering through the front room,