was functioning on four hours’ sleep. After the ER docs had evaluated and admitted his father last night, Paul had rented a room at the Cabot Lodge, just across Woodrow Wilson Drive, to have a place for Kevin and Jet to crash if they decided to stay over. They had stayed about six hours, but his father had been sleeping a lot, and Kevin had baseball practice, so they’d headed back to Bienville in her Volvo. Paul hated to miss the practice, especially since his father would also be absent, but the other dads would just have to handle it.
From what the doctors said, Max was lucky to be alive. If Warren Lacey hadn’t managed to get him to a hospital when he did, his vital functions would have shut down on Parnassus Hill. Max had a depressed skull fracture, a subdural hematoma, and a bruised cerebral cortex. Surgeons had drilled a small hole in his skull to relieve the pressure on his brain, and now he was doing as well as could be expected. The neurosurgeon who’d informed Max about his close call during his post-op visit was surprised to hear his patient answer: “Doc, I walked out of an army hospital in Chu Lai and returned to my unit six hours after suffering worse than this.” That was Max all over. Had to show the doc he was the toughest SOB he’d ever operated on.
But maybe Max was. For when Paul turned into room 437, he was shocked to find his father sitting up in bed—or at least he’d raised the bed to where he appeared to be sitting up. Max had his cell phone in his hand, and he appeared to be texting with somebody.
“What’s going on, Pop?” Paul asked. “You trying to kill yourself already?”
Max looked up. “Duncan McEwan just died.”
Paul felt a momentary dislocation in time.
“Seems Marshall drove him out to the cemetery, to Adam’s statue. He had a heart attack out there.”
“Mr. McEwan never got over losing Adam,” Paul said. “Not even after, what, thirty years?”
“Thirty-one.” Max was looking at his phone. “I remember it like yesterday. I put my boat in the river and spent two days searching for that boy. Damn shame. Adam was the best natural athlete to ever come out of this town. Best white one, anyway.”
Paul nodded. “Them trying to swim the river that morning was the stupidest thing I ever saw.”
“And it was Marshall’s idea, you said. At least you were smart enough not to try it. Shows your sense. It’s a miracle Trey and Dooley didn’t drown, too. Idiots.”
Paul went silent at the mention of his cousins. There was something about that morning he’d never shared with a soul.
“What’s the matter?” asked his father. “You look like you saw a ghost.”
“I’m just tired.”
“Bullshit. Spill it, boy.”
Paul wished he hadn’t said anything about the river. “Two weeks after Adam drowned, I was over in Jackson with Dooley and Trey, staying at Uncle Richard’s house. I heard them talking about that morning. They were high as hell, really out of it. Apparently while Marshall and Adam were separated out there, Dooley and Trey swam around and messed with Adam in the fog. Pulled him underwater eight or ten times. He eventually got away, but Trey was pretty sure they wore him out doing that.”
Max stared at his son as though he’d rather not hear the rest, but Paul couldn’t stop himself. “Marshall said it was Adam cramping up that killed him. But Trey felt like him and Dooley had murdered him, pretty much.”
Max’s gaze drifted off Paul to the window blinds letting in shafts of late-afternoon light.
“Pop?”
“Things happen,” Max said. “High school boys do stupid things. Best keep quiet about that from now on. Adam McEwan is still remembered as a saint in Bienville.”
“I’m not stupid,” Paul said angrily. “I was just telling you. And at least Duncan can never know about it now.”
“That’s right.”
“How’s your head feeling?” Paul asked, wanting to change the subject.
“Miniature jackhammer going off in my skull. Kevin gonna make it to practice in time?”
“Yeah. And I talked to Jack Bates. He’ll practice the pitchers today.”
“What Jack Bates knows about pitching would fit in my mother’s thimble.”
Paul gave his father an obligatory laugh.
“Sit down a minute, son. We need to talk about something.”
“I can’t hear standing up?”
Max sighed heavily. “You’ll want to sit down for this.”
Paul sat on the arm of a vinyl chair that folded out into a twin bed.