The Clearing by Dan Newman Read Free Book Online Page B

ownership of the conversation’s end.
    He glanced at the envelope, and at the corner of a photograph peeking out. He reached down and pulled it out slowly – just enough until he could see it that it was indeed the photograph of Richard, and then he pushed it back in. But it was enough. The thoughts began tumbling in: first it was Richard and Pip and the dense green of the forest, but then it was Cody.
    The memory was Cody as a one year-old, all warm and bundled in a soft, one piece yellow sleeper, and sleeping the impossibly peaceful sleep only afforded to infants. Cody was perfect in that moment, as he was in all Nate’s moments. But there was a pattern here, and the memory would be followed, as it always was, by a crushing reality.
    He tried to steel himself against it, but there was no use. Nate knew exactly what was coming next. In his mind’s eye Cody was six, and their faces were pressed closely together, nose to nose. He could smell Cody’s breath, his hair, the scent of his clothes. And his perfect boy asked the question again, as he always did, in that innocent voice still untouched by the horrors of the world: Will I be OK, Daddy ?
    Fully clothed, Nate reached under the lampshade beside his bed and snapped off the light, rolled onto his side and drew his knees up tight. And then, like so many times before in the quietness of a day’s end, he began to cry.
    His sleep was neither deep nor restful.
    Nate’s dreams were alive with images. He found himself standing at the foot of a set of old concrete steps leading up to a sprawling and dilapidated plantation house. It was set among a thick and encroaching jungle, and the sun broke through occasionally in great shafts of softened yellow that somehow failed to break the sense of mournfulness of the place.
    He could see windows high above in the wooden structure set atop a great concrete foundation of arches, each yawning with darkness in the spans between the uprights. Some of the windows were sealed and closed, some partially covered with old wooden shutters, worn and peeling and hanging at tenuously odd angles, while others were vacant and hollow like dead black eyes. There was peeling paint along the wooden boards and warping sills, and the rusting sheets of corrugated sheet-metal were streaked with red, and all around a sense of bleakness and senescence.
    And with it all went an unexplained sense of threat, something hovering just out of view, and as Nate roused from his troubling dream, the sense of unease stayed with him. Was it the house in the dream? Was it the sense of decay that hung on everything in it? Or was it the figure standing silently at the foot of his bed in the dark?

 
    7
    Â 
    The Recent Past  
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    Kathy swiveled her eyes to follow Nate’s and saw the feet – the slippers – through the bedroom door. She turned back and shifted slightly, obstructing Nate’s line of sight. “I know this is a very difficult time for you, Mr Mason...”
    Nate looked away from the room and into Kathy’s eyes. “You can call me Nate,” he said flatly. He was so tired. Not just sleepy, but body tired. Life tired.
    â€œHave the officers spoken with you yet?” she asked.
    â€œNo – just the guy who said to sit tight.”
    â€œAll right. If you’d like, I can explain the process from here on in.”
    â€œThe process?”
    â€œYes – this can be overwhelming.”
    Nate nodded. He knew all about overwhelming.
    â€œAn officer, or maybe a detective will want to sit and ask you some questions,” continued Kathy. “They’ll get you to make a statement if you’re up to it, but you don’t have to right now if you don’t want to.”
    â€œThat’s fine. That’s OK,” said Nate, looking again at the La-Z-Boy. That blanket... That goddamn blanket really needed to be washed.
    â€œ...and there will be some men here to collect your father.