Freewill by Chris Lynch

Author:Chris Lynch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

CHARITY

Good morning.

Listen to it, Will. I think you ought to listen to this one. First, you are doing the quasi-school thing again. You promised.

Second. Well, second you ought to listen, is all.

“Two more. The third and fourth of the town’s tragic roster of teenage suicide victims were found last night drowned in the bay. The couple, local high-schoolers, were said to be a popular, sociable pair who had not exhibited signs of the problems normally associated with teenagers in trouble. They were found after a desperate all-night search after they failed to arrive home as expected last evening. Searchers were alerted to the scene by a sort of totem, planted into the sand at the approximate location on the beach where they were thought to have entered the water. Police are investigating whether the couple themselves or someone else had planted the wooden marker.”

Rise and shine.

“No,” you say. “No, no, no, no.”

But that doesn’t help anything, does it? What’s done is done. It is not your fault.

“No.”

That was not what you intended. You cannot allow yourself—

“No!”

Gran rushes into your room, without even knocking. That has never happened before. But she has probably already been up, waiting, for an hour now. Bad enough. Bad enough, the usual reports. Bad enough, the routine day-to-day that she suspects you are not capable of navigating.

But this. Nobody is ready for this. Not on your beach. By your monument.

“It’s all right, Will, it’s all right,” she says, sitting on the side of your bed and trying to get a loving, grandmotherly grip on you.

“How can that be all right?” you demand. You hop off the bed, and point accusingly at the radio. “Gran, how can that be all right? I did that. I did that.”

“You did not—”

“I fucking well did. I did it.”

The phone is ringing. It is barely past 7 A.M. and the phone is ringing. Nobody is answering.

“Do you think . . . do you really think, Will, that you have that kind of control over things? No, you don’t believe that.”

“How do you explain . . . ?” You are still pointing at the radio. As if you really do want an explanation for it. As if you honestly believe there can be one.

But you don’t. You don’t, do you, believe that there can be an explanation? God help you, kid, you haven’t been taught much, but haven’t you learned at least that things cannot be explained away? When people go they take the whole story with them, remember that? They take it and leave nothing behind.

You grab a pair of jeans. “Please, Gran,” you say, indicating she should leave. The phone starts ringing again.

“Are we answering?” Pops calls from his room. Too casual. He is way too casual. This is alarming.

“No,” Gran answers.

“Yes,” you answer. Now why would you say that? That is the last thing you want.

It’s what you get anyway, huh? Most of the time. The last thing you want is what you get.

The ringing continues. They don’t go for answering machines here.

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