Friday, July 15, 1994

Friday, July 15, 1994

8:36 a.m.

Ethan senses something's wrong even before his eyes snap open. Lying in a tangle of sheets intermittently kicked off and pulled back on in his sleep, he hears Barkley pawing at the bedroom door he's only recently been allowed to close at night. Before this summer, his mother made him leave it open so she could easily check on him during the night, making sure he wasn't staying up too late. Something Ethan swore was no longer necessary. Only after an assist from his father—"He's ten, Joyce. Give the boy some privacy."—did his mother relent. Since the end of the school year, he's been allowed to close his door each night before going to bed.

Now, though, as his beagle continues to sniffle and scratch, begging to be let out, Ethan reconsiders his decision. Maybe, he thinks, leaving the door open another year isn't such a bad idea after all. At least then Barkley could come and go as he pleases, allowing Ethan to sleep in.

As he kicks off the sheets and slides out of bed, Ethan notices the unmistakable scent of pancakes and bacon slipping through the crack beneath the door. No wonder his dog wants to be let out. The smell of his favorite breakfast makes Ethan eager to leave, too.

He opens the door, letting Barkley bolt down the stairs to the kitchen. Ethan's about to do the same when he's stopped by a realization as sudden as it is confusing.

Today is Friday. His mother only makes pancakes and bacon on Saturdays. Why would his father be doing it this morning while his mother's at work?

The answer comes to Ethan when he enters the kitchen, finding not just his father but his mother, too. A rarity for weekdays so far this summer. Since she started working, his mother has been gone by the time he wakes up most mornings during the week. A strange reversal from how it was during the rest of the year, when his father left early. His dad taught a few summer classes, but those weren't until the afternoon, leaving him to fix Ethan's breakfast.

Even more strange was the night before, when Ethan's mother returned to the office two hours after dinner. He and his father had been watching a rerun of The Simpsons when she came into the living room, car keys jangling in her hand, and said, "I need to go to the office real quick. I left something there."

Ethan, only half paying attention, heard his father say something to the effect of "Now? Can't it wait until morning?"

"I'll be just a minute," his mother said before hurrying toward the garage.

It ended up taking more than thirty minutes. Ethan knows because by the time she'd returned, The Simpsons was over, and an episode of The Sinbad Show had started. Now he wonders if her presence here this morning has something to do with her leaving last night.

"Morning, sport," his father says from behind that morning's New York Times. At his elbow sits a steaming mug of coffee and a plate stacked with pancakes.

Standing at the stove, Ethan's mother says nothing.

While it's never been spelled out for him, Ethan knows deep down that he's had a mostly carefree existence. He lives in a nice house surrounded by other nice houses, in a nice neighborhood made up of other nice neighborhoods. He gets whatever toys he wants, even if he's forced to wait until Christmas or his birthday to receive them. His parents buy a new car every two years. They've been to Disney World twice. On the rare occasions he worries, it's either about something trivial—an upcoming math test, getting picked last in gym class—or in the form of vague, abstract fears. Death. War. Quicksand.

But seeing his mother in her apron, spatula in hand, silently cooking like it's Saturday when it definitely is not, fills Ethan with an anxiety he's rarely experienced in his young life.

"What's wrong?" he asks.

"Nothing's wrong, sport," his father says, still hidden behind the newspaper.

"But you're both home."

"Why is that so unusual?" His father at last lowers the Times to give what Ethan has come to know as the Professor Look. Calm face. Probing eyes framed by tortoiseshell glasses. Left eyebrow raised so high it resembles the curve of a question mark. "This is where we live."

"You know what I mean," Ethan says, scooting his chair forward as his mother sets breakfast in front of him.

"He wants to know why I'm not at work," she says to his father, as if Ethan's not there at all.

"Are you sick?" Ethan asks. "Is that why you're home?"

"I don't work there anymore."

"Why not?"

Ethan's mother looks to his father. A wordless exchange in which he knows they're debating how much to tell him. It ends with his father nodding and his mother saying, "They no longer need me."

Even though the strain in her voice makes it clear she doesn't want to talk about it, Ethan needs to know more. She'd started the job in May—forcing an adjustment that was huge for a kid accustomed to his mother being around before and after school and all day during the summer. The first time Ethan came home from school to an empty house was both scary and exhilarating. Sure, he was only alone for an hour. And yes, he'd ended up watching TV and eating Goldfish crackers like he always did. But much like closing his bedroom door each night, that small bit of freedom made him feel more grown up.

Second in his thoughts, but equally important, is the fact that with his mother being home all day now, there'll be no need for his babysitter, Ashley. To Ethan, that is worse than losing his freedom. It means he probably won't get to see Ashley at all for the rest of the summer. And he loves seeing her.

"Are you going to get another job?"

"I don't know." His mother picks up a piece of bacon, considers eating it, gives it to Barkley instead. "We'll see."

In Ethan's experience, that almost always means no. But he's not ready to drop the subject.

"I think you should," he says. "Or maybe ask for your old job back. Maybe you can do something else there."

"This is for the best," Ethan's mother says, using another favorite euphemism for no. "Besides, I don't want to go back there."

"Why not?"

"I can't really talk about it."

Ethan's father lowers the newspaper again. "Can't or won't?"

"It's complicated," his mother says as she carries the skillet to the sink and fills it with water. A stalling tactic even Ethan knows won't work out. Fred Marsh is persistence personified.

Sure enough, his father waits until the faucet stops running before saying, "You told me you were let go because of budget cuts. What's so complicated about that?"

Rather than answer, Ethan's mother grabs a Brillo pad and starts to scrub.

"Joyce, what aren't you telling me?" his father says. "Did something happen last night?"

At the sink, Ethan's mother nods toward Barkley, who's at the sliding door to the patio, snout against the glass. "Take him outside," she tells Ethan. "He probably needs to pee."

Ethan, staring at the half-full plate in front of him, starts to argue but thinks better of it. Something weird is going on with his parents.

"Go on, sport," his father adds. "Just for a minute. Breakfast will still be here when you get back."

Ethan opens the door and Barkley zooms outside, his tail bouncing as he tears through the yard, scattering birds. Ethan follows, the patio's sun-warmed paving stones hot beneath his bare feet. In the cooler grass of the lawn, he finds the stick he and Barkley played with the day before.

"Here, boy," he says, immediately drawing Barkley's attention. "Fetch!"

He tosses the stick high into the air, watching it spin as it arcs across the lawn and lands on the edge of the woods that border the backyard. Barkley romps after it as Ethan glances toward the house. Inside, his parents sit at the breakfast table, caught in mid-argument. Seeing them like that tightens the knot of worry in Ethan's stomach.

Divorce is another one of his vague fears, although less abstract than the others. He's seen what happens when parents split. Three years earlier, the house next door had been occupied by Ethan's former best friend, Shawn. When his parents got divorced, their house was put on the market and Shawn was forced to move to Texas with his mother. Ethan hasn't heard from him since.

He worries the same thing could soon happen to him, even though neither of his parents seems too angry as he watches them through the patio door. His father's sporting the Professor Look again, which Ethan knows comes with many meanings. Curiosity. Impatience. Frustration.

His mother's expression is easier to read. She simply looks sad.

Ethan turns away, facing the rest of the yard. He spots Barkley still at the edge of the woods, the game of fetch forgotten. Instead, his dog peers into the trees, body rigid. When he growls, it sounds so unlike Barkley that it sends a chill down Ethan's spine.

"What's wrong, boy?" he says. "What do you see?"

It must be a squirrel, he thinks. Or one of the other animals that emerge from the woods at all hours of the day. Ethan can only remember one other time when his dog growled—at Fritz Van de Veer during the Fourth of July picnic, for reasons no one could understand.

"Come here, boy," Ethan says, trying to coax his dog away from whatever's in the woods. When that doesn't work, he goes to Barkley, crossing the yard to the point where freshly mowed grass meets the forest's edge. A clear line of demarcation. Past it, the woods stretch for miles, interrupted only by an access road that cuts through it.

Recently, Ethan's been allowed to venture with Billy to the road, about a mile away, but no farther. Which is fine by him. He has no desire to go beyond it. It's not that he's scared, exactly. He's just never felt the need to explore the woods any farther, mostly because he already knows what's there. Lots of trees. Lots of rocks. Oh, and the Hawthorne Institute, which Ethan knows nothing about beyond the fact that it exists and that he's not allowed to go there.

"Stay away from that place," his mother once told him during an autumn walk in the woods.

"Why?"

"Because it's private property and it would be trespassing, which is illegal."

"But what's there?" Ethan asked.

"Nothing you'd be interested in."

Ethan took her word for it and continues to stay away. Unlike other kids his age, he doesn't find the forbidden tantalizing. He suspects the institute is just like where his dad works, only stuffier.

A noise sounds behind them, startling Ethan and Barkley both. They whirl around in unison, the empty woods suddenly forgotten, focusing now on the emerald lawn stretching between them and the house.

Sitting in the grass a few yards from the hedge that separates Ethan's lawn from Billy's is a baseball.

Ethan picks it up, noting the grass stains and Barkley's bite marks from dozens of previous times the ball has been thrown into his yard. So far this summer, it's been an everyday occurrence. A secret code, passed between Ethan and his neighbor.

And the message is always the same.

Billy wants to play.