The Perfect Son Read online

  Harry, who was sprawled on the wood floor, puckered his nose and blinked repeatedly. “Don’t you mean”—he stuttered through a series of short, shallow breaths—“ergonomic?”

  “No. I don’t. Ergonomic plus aerodynamic equals ergodynamic.” Felix swallowed the okay? tickling the back of his throat. Harry never challenged him, but still, his son had a touch of smart aleck that could scratch the most even-tempered person raw.

  Hair flopping forward, Harry fumbled with the laces of his Converse. Sixteen, with an above-perfect GPA, and still Harry struggled to tie his shoes. To stop himself from lunging across the hall and saying, “Oh for goodness’ sake, let me,” Felix shoved his hands into the pockets of his old donkey jacket—a classic bought on London’s Carnaby Street in 1984.

  Every day for the last sixteen years—Felix frowned; nearly seventeen—he’d prayed fatherhood would get easier. It hadn’t. When he looked at this person who’d stolen his heart with the first gummy smile, Felix saw nothing that made sense. Harry’s mind could leap from one subject to the next at chaotic speed while his body sparked through a rapid succession of spasms. He was a vortex of energy, the disruptive force of the kindergarten class, the only kid in first grade without the rosette that proved he had mastered the art of shoe tying. The boy who never blended in.

  Before hopes and expectations had vanished, before the endless reports of inappropriate behavior had come home from school daily, Felix had imagined a future of parental bragging filled with father-son bonding. Of standing on the edge of a chilly soccer field saying, “That’s my son who scored the winning goal.” Of an annual father-son critique of the cricket at Lord’s. But Harry hated soccer and denounced cricket as boring. Of course, he had no attention span for sports unless the Tar Heels were on the basketball court. Felix didn’t understand basketball, nor did he want to. What he did understand was parental disappointment.

  Had the SAT scores, combined with his connection to the president of Harvard, another Oxford man, brought a second chance for fatherly pride? Felix had always deferred to Ella on matters of Harry, and she’d been adamant that Harry couldn’t cope with the pressure of an Ivy League school. And yet . . . and yet there was that grain of hope for redemption: Oh yes, my son’s at Harvard.

  He and Harry were night and day, yin and yang. No shared interests, no connection beyond name, and a bond neither of them seemed able to comprehend. Because if Harry understood one thing about his father, he would know to put his Dr. Martens where they belonged. It was an inarguable fact: the sky is blue; shoes go in the shoe cabinet.

  Felix counted backward from ten, a calming technique he used at work when nothing was going in the right direction, and focused on his fiftieth birthday present. Stylish and functional, the cabinet had proved an adequate solution to the hazardous clutter of shoes in the hall, but as a gift it had been overly extravagant. When he’d pointed this out to Ella, she had pursed her lips, then walked away. That reminded him, he needed to ask her about the fifty-dollar charge on her last credit card statement from somewhere called hankypanky.com.

  And still she hadn’t replied to his text, even though his phone had marked the message as read. Ella knew he liked messages acknowledged immediately, but these days everything he did seemed to provoke her disapproval. Was it because of Harvard, or was a darker force at work, one that undoubtedly involved Katherine, the wine-drinking, marijuana-smoking, divorced she-devil?

  “Harry, could you please hurry up?” Felix pulled his hands from his pockets and tapped his palm.

  Harry glanced through the screen of blond hair that was reminiscent of Ella’s hair twenty-three years ago. Or rather, it was until Harry had returned from Mad Max’s with a purple streak and matching sparkly nail polish. Was his son trying to make a statement about sexuality, or was this merely the behavior of the socially challenged? With Mad Max involved, anything was possible. Supposedly a math genius, Harry’s BFF dressed like a yobbo, stenciled on his arms with Sharpies, and burped far too loudly. Where was Max on the autism spectrum?

  Felix pulled out his to-do list and checked. Yes, he had written buy nail polish remover at the bottom. He could have asked Harry to take care of this, but what was the point? Harry would forget and end up going to school tomorrow looking like a performer in the Ringling Bros. Circus. Given Harry’s taste in clothes, that was entirely possible even without the nail polish.

  “Harry, have you brushed your hair today?”

  “Nope.”

  “Don’t you have any self-respect?”

  “Tons, Dad.” Harry blew sideways out of his mouth, and what had once passed for a neat fringe ruffled. “Just none related to my hair.”

  A blast of ugly, harsh music blared from Harry’s phone. “Hey, dude,” he said in the singsong voice he used with his friends, but not his father.

  “Harry!” Felix didn’t mean to yell. Hustling Harry never ended happily, but late wasn’t an option.

  Harry swiveled round to face the wall, his upper body convulsing through a bout of tics that contained the power to strain muscles and joints. A complex tic was never a good sign. What would Ella do? She would give Felix the look—eyebrows raised, corner of her mouth dimpled—that either meant I’ve got this covered or Really? You think you can help? Then she would turn her back on Felix and exile him with an elegant wave. It was impossible not to feel irrelevant around those two, but he and Ella had made an agreement when Harry was first diagnosed: Ella, as the full-time parent, would take sole responsibility for Harry’s therapy and treatment; Felix would follow her lead and never countermand that agreement. When he felt the urge to interfere, Felix would force himself to retreat into the havoc-free den he had designed and built at the far end of their 1950s bungalow. Ella and young Harry had a separate den, where there was always at least one toy in the middle of the sofa. Felix had rarely ventured inside.

  If only Ella were here right now, taking care of this—of them. Yes, she babied Harry and pushed him to consider colleges that were an insult to his academic abilities, but Felix had missed her. Really missed her. Ella was always here, in their home, making sure their lives ran smoothly. Without her or Harry, the house had been cold and quiet, an abandoned shell. Loneliness, a forgotten emotion, had been Felix’s only companion.

  “Harry. We have to park, go inside the terminal, and get to baggage claim. If we don’t leave right this minute, we will have failed to pick up your mother on time and she will be stranded like Orphan Annie.”

  “Gotta go, dude.” Harry giggled. “Yeah. Dad’s waiting.”

  Something about the way he said Dad’s waiting niggled. At least Harry had a father who wanted the best for him. What was Harry thinking, agreeing to look at UNC Asheville? What was Ella thinking, suggesting it?

  Harry pocketed his phone and headed for the front door. “You’re wrong”—he paused with his hand on the doorknob—“Mom’s hardly Orphan Annie. Annie Oakley, maybe.”

  Struggling to pay attention to anything after the word wrong, Felix followed Harry outside, slammed the front door, and snapped the key round in the lock.

  Let it go, Felix. Let it go.

  He pulled a small bottle of Pepto-Bismol caplets from his pocket, dumped two pink pills into his palm, and swallowed them dry. When had his stomach not been a dicky mess? Did he have an ulcer?

  Walking down the steps of their freshly painted porch, Felix frowned at the combination of hot-tin-roof red against Westchester gray. All those hours spent agonizing over paint chips and still he’d chosen the wrong colors. However, the brushed-steel pots Ella had found at a going-out-of-business sale were close to perfect. She had stuffed them with ornamental cabbages and budded red pansies, as he had requested. Thankfully, his wife understood the importance of detail and never questioned his decisions regarding the house, which he had been rebuilding cabinet by cabinet, window by window, door by door since the day they’d moved in.

  A pair of tiny, black-capped birds rose from the empty metal feeder, also paint
ed in hot-tin-roof red. Ella would, no doubt, tut and ask why he hadn’t filled it. But why would he? He had his domestic jobs; Ella had hers. He pictured her raised on tiptoe, pouring sunflower seeds into the feeder, her huge hoop earrings dancing at her neck. When they met, he used to say no one designed earrings like Ella. Now he said no one wore earrings like Ella. Ella Bella.

  A herd of white-tailed deer sauntered in and out of his sight line. The wildlife of Durham, dubbed the “flower of the Carolinas” by English explorer John Lawson, still amazed and thrilled the city boy in him.

  With a backward glance, Felix headed for the street. As always, part of him yearned to stay in their shady house, his very own castle hidden on the edge of Duke Forest and connected to the city cul-de-sac by a narrow wooden bridge. Such memories he had of kite flying on Hampstead Heath with his big brother, Tom; but tame London parks could never compare to the primal wonder of Duke Forest. During their first year in the house, back when Harry had been a giggling baby and Ella a picture of motherhood, Felix had longed for the world beyond their half acre to disappear. He’d wished they could cross the bridge, close their front door, and never leave.

  A hawk gave a single, haunting cry; its mate answered. Passing through shadows cast by towering, ivy-wrapped pines, Felix stepped onto the bridge. The water in the creek beneath was still and clear, but reflected nothing. He wobbled the railing that needed replacing. Maybe this spring, after the toads and the bullfrogs returned, and the dogwoods and redbuds brought color back to the forest, maybe then he would take the time to rebuild this bridge.

  Felix aimed the key fob at his cream and black Mini Cooper, which bleeped to unlock. After yesterday’s washing, waxing, and interior cleaning, it sparkled. A four-hour job well done.

  Harry bounced up and down with one hand on the passenger door, a human pogo stick set to hyperdrive. Plaid shirttails flapped from under his black leather biker jacket. How hard was it to tuck your shirt inside your jeans?

  Felix stared at a discarded Christmas tree on the curb, with a solitary strand of tinsel bobbing like a snared snake. No, he would not comment.

  “I’ve decided we’re both . . . incorrect about your mother.” See, Ella? I’m trying. “She’s more like Annie Lennox.”

  Harry cracked his knuckles. Twice. Felix sucked on his bottom lip. Of his son’s many irritating behaviors, this, surely, was the worst. And one, surely, that he could control.

  “Harry. Please stop doing that.”

  “Doing what?” Harry jiggled worse than a squirrel planning an attack on the bird feeder. “And Annie Lennox? No idea who that is, Dad.” Harry’s face twitched, again and again.

  How many tics in five seconds? The first trip back to England after Harry had been diagnosed—after they’d lost a year to misdiagnoses—Felix counted and charted the tics every day, seeking nonexistent triggers that could solve the mystery of where the Tourette’s came from. He stopped when Ella pointed out that his hovering made the tics worse. The holiday had been ruined then, lost to the knowledge that he’d inflicted pain on his child.

  In the power lines above, a murder of crows cackled.

  Felix cleared his throat. “Annie Lennox is an English rock star. Cropped peroxide hair like your mother’s. Drop-dead gorgeous.”

  “Gross,” Harry said. “Next you’ll be telling me Mom’s sexy. Don’t you think I spend enough of my life in therapy?”

  An image formed of Ella wearing nothing but lacy red knickers. Felix eased his jeans away from his groin, but the sensation coiling in his gut was not desire.

  How long since they’d had sex? She was in bed by ten thirty, and he never finished work before midnight. Her alarm went off at six so she could go on a power walk with some retired neighbor; his alarm went off at eight, when she was weaving through Durham’s historic tobacco district, driving Harry to school. Could he blame conflicting circadian rhythms for their dwindling passion, or had something fundamental shifted in recent months? And if so, why was his gut hinting that the failure was his, that he was the one at fault?

  The Coheed and Cambria song from Harry’s iPod continued playing through the car stereo as Felix slowed down for the exit ramp off I-40. Music had always been problematic—so many wrong notes and bad lyrics. He’d faked an interest in punk and new wave as a teenager because doing so seemed appropriate, but until New Order’s “Blue Monday” hit the charts in the early eighties—with its orderly, repetitive pulse—no song had resonated. Music, however, was a sedative for Harry. Although that screamo stuff Harry and Mad Max blared through the house could hardly be classified as music.

  In the passenger seat, Harry was folded in half. What a gift to sleep that way, as if his constantly flailing body were finally unplugged. Once he’d become mobile, young Harry had stopped napping, and the broken nights had lasted through most of middle school. This new ability to conk out anywhere seemed to have coincided with Harry’s starting high school. On random nights, however, he still shuffled into their bedroom, whimpering, “Mom, I had a nightmare. I need a hug.”

  Felix’s own mother had stopped hugging him when he’d turned five. Mother. She had never been the easiest of people. Since turning eighty, she had become downright unpleasant. Harry had nicknamed her Moaning Myrtle, which was kinder than her cleaning lady’s mumbled miserable old trout.

  As Felix turned right onto Airport Boulevard, sirens advanced toward him like an approaching thunderstorm. He pulled over and stopped, and a bright-orange ambulance shot past, heading back toward the highway, lights flashing, siren howling.

  Some poor bloke was probably strapped to the gurney inside. A wiped-out businessman who’d stayed over the Saturday night to save his firm money—an honorable thing to do—then risen early, showered and shaved, unaware that this flight would not be the carbon copy of every other trip home. Hopefully, the poor bastard would survive. Rotten luck to be taken ill at an airport.

  Looking over his shoulder, Felix inched back onto the road and continued two miles an hour below the speed limit. He began spotting signs for Terminal 2 hourly parking. It was easy to get distracted by the traffic flow and end up in the wrong lane heading for the wrong car park. And when that happened? You had no choice but to exit the airport, circle back to the beginning, and start over. Another ten minutes would be wasted.

  Five minutes later he found the ideal parking space adjacent to the pedestrian walkway and lined up the car perfectly between the parallel white lines. Brilliant. The car juddered into silence, and Harry slept on. Ella always woke him gently, easing him through the transition. Even so, Harry often woke up with fists clenched as if ready to box his way through another day.

  Felix took a deep breath and squeezed Harry’s knee. “Time to wake up.”

  Harry shot awake. “Mom?”

  “It’s Dad. You need to wake up now so we can—”

  “Where’s Mom?” Harry’s head jerked from side to side. “She was calling my name. Something’s wrong, very wrong—”

  “Just a bad dream. You’ve been asleep since we left Durham. Come on.” Felix unbuckled Harry’s seat belt, but his son cowered.

  “Harry. Shake off the dream. We need to find your mother.”

  Eyes glassed over with fear, Harry stared at Felix as if he were a stranger. Had Ella ever talked to the psychologist about these nightmares? Felix glanced at his watch. Ella’s plane had landed ten minutes ago. The luggage would already be spewing down onto the carousel.

  “Hazza—time to go.”

  Harry blinked, the spell broken. “You haven’t called me Hazza in years.”

  “Because you’re a little old for nicknames.”

  “You really believe that?” Harry cleared his throat. Part of his original tic repertoire, this vocal tic had been the one constant in the ever-changing world of Tourette syndrome.

  “Harry, you’re—”

  “Nearly seventeen, I know.” Harry opened the car door. “Old enough to start mapping out the rest of my life. So you keep reminding me.
”

  What? Felix got out of the car. What had he said? Now he was the bad guy for trying to prepare his son for the future? Fatherhood was an active minefield.

  A plane roared overhead, zooming up into the heavy blanket of gray clouds. Felix shivered and snuggled into the cashmere scarf knotted around his neck. For a nanosecond he was back in London, trapped in one of those gloomy January days when summer was an unattainable dream and you believed sunlight would never again warm your skin.

  Heads ducked against the glacial wind, they crossed the road and entered Terminal 2. Felix patted Harry’s arm to signal a change of direction, and they headed for the down escalator. People buzzed around them while an announcement drummed from invisible overhead speakers. Harry winced, then stopped to listen.

  “Dad?” He grabbed Felix’s arm, nails digging in as his elbow started to flap.

  No. Not now. Not in public. Could Harry not hold in the tic for two more minutes so Ella could deal with it?

  “Dad, why are they talking about Mom? Something’s wrong, I told you. I told you. Something’s wrong!”

  “Harry. Stop this nonsense right now and—”

  “Would the family of Ella Fitzwilliam please go to the Air Florida desk? Would the family of Ella Fitzwilliam please go to the Air Florida desk?”

  Felix stood still and tried not to let his mind tumble through a series of worst-case scenarios as Harry’s always did, but the thought trickled out like slow-working poison: Who was in the ambulance?

  THREE

  Mom was in trouble. Even without the nightmare, Harry knew, he knew. This wasn’t the wacky part of his brain flashing through catastrophe. No, this was tangible fear; this was certainty. Mom was big on constant contact: Text me when you and Max get there so I know you’re safe; text me as you’re leaving; just text me, okay? Truthfully, it could get a bit annoying, but that was her way: to worry about him. All the time. And now he was worrying about her. She hadn’t texted him when her plane landed. She wasn’t safe.