Beneath the Weight of Sadness by Gerald L. Dodge Read Free Book Online

For the second time in as many days a police officer put a hand on my shoulder.
    “I will do my best, Mr. Engroff.”
    I knew he couldn’t make promises, but I also knew police in small, affluent towns usually found murderers. As I walked him to my son’s room I made a vow that if they didn’t find who did it, I would. I figured it was the only way I could ever get Amy to forgive me for what I hadn’t done as a father.

Amy
    Four days after Truman’s death
    I wanted to swat them away like those nasty gnats that hover around the face. Everyone was, of course, dressed in black, with expressions of sadness fixed on their faces. I did the obligatory thing: I let them hug me, let them rub my back as if I were ailing, or hold my face in their two hands or kiss me on the cheek, all the time with Truman or non-Truman just to the right of me and behind Ethan. Closed casket! If only I hadn’t had to leave the house, but Ethan had started to cry and of course I couldn’t have him do that.
    They had me on Klonopin and the doctor had told me sternly, “Under no conditions are you to drink, Amy.”
    Who was he to say what I was to do or not to do? I never liked Dr. Bowstock. He had a white, very trimmed mustache and I never, ever trusted men with mustaches. Why would they grow hair in that tiny spot above the lip and below their nose unless they wanted you to concentrate on that rather than what they were saying, or what they were doing or thinking? And naturally I didn’t tell him I had to drink or else I would float away like those men on the moon but for their secure lines. I would be gone for good, never to see my darling Truman again. I didn’t tell the doctor because he would have put me in the hospital. I’ve lived long enough in this town to know exactly how they think.
    “Can I trust you to tell me you’re okay? Do you need to be watched?” he’d asked.
    I nodded my head resolutely.
    “Only take these three times a day. Don’t take more than what I’ve prescribed.”
    The long line of people kept coming past and touching my hands, kissing me on the cheek, pulling me into them until I could smell their deceit, their concerned faces like masks they would take off as soon as they walked from Truman’s casket. But then I saw Carly far down the line. I could see her crying, her face pale, her eyes lowered, looking at her trembling hands, twisting a handkerchief, and it was as if she and I were the only ones in the room, as if the other people had been erased. She would look at me, then put her face down into her handkerchief and cry into it. Someone’s hand occasionally appeared on her shoulder. I assumed it was her father’s, but she ignored it the way I ignored the faces looming in front of me, their voices all faint, hollow echoes in an empty room.
    She had loved Truman from the very beginning: For as long as I can remember it was always the two of them. They would experiment with sex above the garage as they became older. She loved him, and it was only in the past year or so that she didn’t come over as often, mostly because of that Beck boy. What was his name? Terry or Tommy or something. They were awful people. Ethan and I had seen the father, Rich, at a party, with a too-loud voice and the ersatz confidence that probably made him successful as a businessman and popular at the Persia Country Club. Ethan and I laughed later about how Beck’s sycophantic wife kept running to get him drinks and laughing as his voice boomed through the house. As we walked out to our car we saw his black Porsche SUV, the sticker on the back bumper reading SOCIALIST in the colors and font of Obama’s own stickers. I suspected his son was the same kind of person, and heard he’d made some headlines as an athlete. I asked Truman once or twice what the boy was like.
    “He’s an asshole,” he’d said.
    “Is this because Carly is spending time with him and not with you?”
    Truman had been heading for the stairs, and he