The Perfect Son Read online

  A herd of travelers split around them and scattered. Everyone was going someplace except him and Dad. Why was Dad standing there not moving? What was he waiting for?

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

  “D-dad!” The stammer vibrated through his chest, through his arms, through his fingers. Pressure built in his throat: an unstoppable urge, an itch that had to be scratched. No. Now was not the time for a new tic. Dad couldn’t deal with, with—

  “G-go!” Harry tried to say more, but the words stuck in his throat.

  Dad’s chest rose and fell like he was panting. Beads of sweat escaped from his hairline like he was melting. He leaned up close, so in-your-face close that Harry almost gagged on the aftershave. Shouldn’t a father know that his son was practically allergic to perfume?

  “Harry, please, don’t do this to me. I can’t cope if you start ticcing.”

  Seriously? Mom needed help and this shit was still pushing Dad’s buttons? Did he ever consider anyone but himself?

  I have Tourette’s, get over it already.

  Harry tried to push against the mudslide of demeaning sound, tried to focus on those years of habit reversal therapy with Mom when she’d refused to quit, refused to let him quit no matter how hard they’d both been crying.

  And where were you, Dad? Always wherever I wasn’t.

  Harry’s head jolted sideways and his jaw made a cracking sound, like a bone breaking. Ow. Then he clucked. Twice. Always in pairs, had to be pairs. Relief—warm, comforting relief. He grabbed his jaw. Yup, still in one piece.

  “I’ve got this,” Harry said. “Go, help Mom.”

  The pressure regrouped, turned around for a second swing. But it was okay, okay because Dad was heading for the Air Florida desk. Finally, he was going to help Mom.

  Harry’s jaw popped in and out, popped in and out with sharp, jarring movements. Shockwaves of pain raced up through his face. A clusterfuck of motor tics, a regular clusterfuck.

  He shoved his fist in his mouth and bit down. Blinding pain—Harry rocked back and forth—he would focus on the blinding pain. A woman grabbed her little boy’s hand and yanked him away. The kid continued to watch over his shoulder, mesmerized. Two girls in skinny jeans giggled. Did they think he cared? He had no inhibitions—how could he? But they were cute girls, popular girls. And their stares hurt worse than the tics.

  If Max were here, he would walk toward them, jab his finger, and say in the loudest voice possible, “Eeew. What’s wrong with you, you fucking weirdos?” Then he would look around to make sure he’d drawn the fire from Harry.

  Without Mom or Max as buffers, Harry was trapped in his own worst nightmare: just him and Dad against the world. He concentrated on walking, not hopping, twirling, or kicking. Most of the time, he didn’t know when he was ticcing. But the complex tics that manifested as demonic possession? Those built up inside like tremors warning of a volcanic explosion.

  Good, that’s good, Harry. Focus on science. Focus on anything other than Mom.

  Dad had reached the desk. He was talking to some airline lady with carrot-colored lipstick. Now they would get answers. Women responded to Dad—to that arrogance everyone mistook for aristocratic Brit, to those razor-blue eyes that could gut you.

  Lipstick Woman watched Harry walk toward them, her eyes huge and white.

  “Sclera!” Harry shouted. “Sclera!” Sclera—the white of the eye. A word he’d learned in biology; a word he’d never used until now. His jaw popped again. Pain ricocheted up into his eyeballs. He clamped both hands over his mouth and tried to hold his jaw still.

  Her jaw, Lipstick Woman’s jaw, kept moving as if she were some actress in a silent movie. For real? Lipstick that color and she thought he was the freak show?

  Tell us about Mom.

  Dad balled up his fists but didn’t turn round.

  “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, sir—” Lipstick Woman leaned over her desk, eyes flicking toward Harry. Her right hand hovered as if waiting to pound on some imaginary panic button. “But your wife collapsed on the flight from Fort Lauderdale.” The woman lowered her voice. “I’ve been told she’s on her way to Raleigh Regional.”

  Collapsed? Raleigh Regional? The pressure built again—hot, bubbling lava.

  “Can you be more specific?” Dad used his monotone voice, the one that gave nothing away.

  “The crew thinks”—more eye flicking in Harry’s direction. What is her problem?—“it may have been a heart attack, sir. Obviously we don’t know for sure.”

  Heart attack? How was that possible? But his grandmother had died of a heart attack at forty-seven. Mom had just turned forty-seven. But Mom couldn’t have a heart attack. Mom couldn’t die.

  The volcano erupted and Harry started spinning.

  “Sir, I realize this is a difficult time for you, but I need you to control your son.”

  “Control my son?” Dad’s voice was jagged ice. “And how do you propose I control a young man with Tourette’s after you just informed him that his mother may have had a heart attack?”

  Did Dad have to repeat the words heart attack?

  “There’s no need to take that tone.” The woman picked at her tightly fastened top button. “You need to calm down. Sir.”

  “I’m perfectly calm. Ma’am.”

  Spinning around and around. Spinning, clucking. Repeat, repeat.

  “If you can’t control your son, I’ll have to call my supervisor.”

  Shit, no. Dad would go ballistic and make the situation a thousand times worse. Could it—Harry strummed his fingers, pranced on his toes—get any worse?

  The tics ended like a twister hauling ass back into the sky. Exhaustion replaced chaos.

  “Harry.” Dad stalked past him without making eye contact. “Ignore this woman. We’re leaving.”

  Poker players had tells; so did Dad. No other way to read him. Dad did quiet anger, suppressed anger, with his fingernails digging into his palm. Until he blew. What to say that wouldn’t set Dad off? Not the truth. Not, Are you as scared as I am? Because this was Dad, not Mom. Dad didn’t believe in trading emotions.

  “Dad?”

  “Mom’s tougher than a marauding Celt in a kilt. She’ll be fine.”

  “You really believe that?”

  Dad slowed to a normal pace, but he didn’t answer, not even as they walked back out into the gray Carolina afternoon. Drizzle fell from the sky; pinheads of rain marked the lenses of Dad’s glasses. Dad, who wiped his glasses so frequently that Harry often wondered if it was a compulsion, seemed not to notice.

  The cop on traffic duty blew his whistle, and Harry imitated the sound. Sometimes it was easier to give in and release the tic before it transformed into a full-blown hurricane. The tic lasted only a few seconds; the stare from the cop, longer.

  “I have to go to the hospital.” Dad stepped into the crosswalk without looking. “Can you handle this, or do we need Max to pick you up?”

  Mom had taught him to ignore critics, but how did that line of thinking work when your toughest critic was your own dad?

  “You remember about me and hospitals?”

  Dad sighed. “I’m your father. I know that you’re phobic about hospitals, being behind the wheel of a car, spiders, and flying.”

  Right, like Dad knew much about that last one.

  “But you never sit with us on a plane. How do you know?”

  “I don’t sit with you because Mom—” Dad swallowed a sob.

  Can’t fool me. I’ve been disguising vocal sounds for years.

  “I don’t sit with you because your mother insists I don’t. She can focus better on you that way. She knows I don’t like to fly, either.”

  “But you fly all the time for work.”

  “It’s part of my job, Harry. Failure isn’t an option.”

  For a moment, Harry had almost believed they were having a father-son confidence. But Dad wa
s wrong. Failure was always an option, because the knowledge that you couldn’t win every time gave you the courage to try. Effort should always be enough to earn gold stars. Ask anyone with a shitload of defective brain wiring.

  Dad fumbled in his pocket, took out his car keys, dropped them, picked them up. His hand shook. “Can you do this, Hazza—come to the hospital?”

  There it was again, Hazza. A name once spoken with affection.

  “Yes,” Harry said, leading the way to the car.

  He would force himself to go to the hospital for Mom—the ultimate exposure to his phobia; she would be so proud. But he would also do this with the hope—a hope he’d never been able to ditch—that one day Dad would be proud of him, too. For something other than fucking SAT scores.

  FOUR

  Felix pulled onto the freeway off-ramp and headed into Raleigh. Navigating narrow London streets might be a nail-biting exercise, but these grid-planned divided highways with rows of town houses and interchangeable strip malls were so contrived. So falsely happy. He and Harry could have been skirting the center of any city in America—trapped in a suburban prison with Ella beyond the razor wire.

  He needed to meet with the cardiologist, investigate the man’s credentials, start the process of transferring Ella to Duke. Or Memorial in Chapel Hill. Or he could look into taking her back to England, to Papworth Hospital in Cambridge. Wasn’t that the best of the best? And phone calls—there were phone calls to be made: to Mother; Ella’s father; Katherine, who always looked at him sideways as if to say, I know more about your marriage than you do. And Robert; he should call his partner and say, what—I need a day off? He never took a day off. And what about Harry’s school?

  “Could you slow down, Dad? I’m feeling carsick.”

  “I thought you outgrew that when you hit double digits.”

  “So did I,” Harry said.

  Felix eased his foot off the accelerator, and the needle dipped from sixty miles per hour to forty-five. The last thing he needed was vomit inside his clean car. Or a speeding ticket. His right leg began to shake, making it almost impossible to keep pressure on the pedal. Should he be driving? Probably not. He glanced around. Where in God’s name were they? Had he taken the wrong exit? He knew how to get to Raleigh Regional. How could he be so incompetent? How could he fail his wife so abominably?

  “You do know where we’re going, right?” Harry said.

  Be quiet, Harry. I need to think.

  “Want me to figure it out?”

  “No.” How had he managed to screw this up and get them lost?

  Harry was messing with his phone. “I see what you did.” He bounced in his seat—kinetic energy barely contained by a seat belt. “Easy to fix. Turn right here. Here, Dad. Here!”

  “I’m turning round, Harry.”

  “No, you don’t have to. We’re so close. Look!”

  Harry waved his phone in front of Felix.

  “Harry, I’m driving.”

  “But we’re super close and we can be there in like two minutes. It’s a shortcut!”

  “I don’t want to take a shortcut, Harry. I want to turn round and put us back on the road we’re meant to be on.”

  Harry jolted forward, nose almost touching the windshield. “Hospital Drive! Turn right—the next right. Please?” He cleared his throat multiple times. “For once, Dad, can you just trust me?”

  But Harry didn’t understand. This wasn’t about trust; this was about making the best decision. Decisions flew out of Harry’s mouth the second they entered his brain. He didn’t agonize, didn’t edit, didn’t weigh pros and cons to reach a responsible, informed course of action. He did whatever his mother suggested he do, which was the real reason Felix had to take control of the college applications.

  If he could just read the damn street signs . . . Traffic shot past, cars driven by people who knew where they were going. Felix slowed to thirty miles per hour, and the person behind blared a horn. They should be on their way to Raleigh Regional, and instead they were stuck on some never-ending dual carriageway. Felix glanced in the rearview mirror. The huge pickup truck behind moved up almost to the Mini’s bumper, flashed its lights, and tore past.

  Felix felt nothing, not even a flicker of his usual road rage.

  “There’s nowhere for a U-turn.” Felix dug around in his pocket and located the Pepto-Bismol. Wait. He’d already taken two, hadn’t he? Focus, he must focus. His stomach gurgled.

  “We don’t need to retrace our steps, Dad.” Harry’s voice was quiet and flat. “Take the next right. I can get us there.”

  What the hell? It wasn’t as if they had many options right now. Besides, there was a BP gas station up ahead. He could turn around in there. BP, British Petroleum. If he believed in omens, which he most definitely did not, that would mean something.

  Felix flicked on the indicator and maneuvered.

  “There it is, Dad. On the left—Raleigh Regional!”

  Dammit, Harry’d been right.

  “Should I spot signs for the ER? Is that where we go? You think Mom’s in the ER?”

  “I don’t know, Harry. I swear, I don’t know.”

  “I think we need the ER, Dad.”

  This time, Felix listened to his son.

  A gust of January wind roared in their faces as they trekked across the hospital car park.

  “I’m calling Max,” Harry said.

  Felix nodded. The rain had turned into hard nuggets of frozen precipitation that battered the tips of his ears. Should he call someone? If Tom were still alive, he would have called Tom. Even when they were children, his brother knew what to say, knew how to comfort.

  He could call Saint John, his friend from Eton days. God, I hate having to explain his name is pronounced Sinjun. Will I ever stop feeling like an alien in this country? Should he call Saint John? No, no, it was nine English time. Far too late to disturb on a Sunday evening. There was no one else.

  “’S me.” Harry sniffed into his phone. Felix glanced round to see if anyone was listening. “Mom’s in the hospital. She got sick on the plane.” Harry paused to tic. “They think it’s her heart. Yeah, I’m really scared. Shitting myself. Doesn’t sound good.” Another sniff, this one louder. “Would you? Okay. I’ll call when I know what’s going on. Love you, man.”

  Harry pocketed his phone. “Max is coming over when we get home.” He continued snuffling as they walked toward the brightly lit “EMERGENCY” sign.

  “Would you like a tissue, Harry?”

  Harry shook his head, then wiped his nose on the back of his hand. He stopped as the door whooshed open. “I-I don’t know if I can do this.”

  I don’t know if I can, either. Felix hadn’t been inside a hospital since Tom’s last months.

  Felix was six; he was standing in Pater’s study with his legs crossed. (He really, really needed the loo.) Pater was grilling him on capital cities, making sure Felix was ready for his school interview, ready to follow in the footsteps of four generations of Fitzwilliam men: Shrewsbury House until he was old enough for Eton. Mother had already bought the tuck box and the trunk with his initials on the top. Failure was not a possibility. He had to succeed—had to—because if he didn’t, he couldn’t be with Tom for his final year before Eton. If only Tom were here now. Tom had magical powers. He always knew when Felix was alone in Pater’s study. Always knew when to burst in. Pater couldn’t get mad at Tom because Tom was Mother’s favorite. And strong. He had big muscles from those weights he lifted.

  Who cared that Tom was Mother’s favorite? Not Felix. He was Tom’s favorite, and that was all that mattered. When he was grown up at twelve—double digits!—he was going to be just like Tom. Tom was always laughing about being in detention. Nothing scared Tom. Nothing! Not even Pater. If Tom were here, Felix could be as brave as a World War I soldier in the Battle of the Somme.

  He really needed the loo.

  The curtains were drawn; it was dim and stuffy. Pater’s green leather chair looked black. Ever
ything looked black. How could Pater work in here with so little light and the gas fire turned up high? The room stank of stale cigars; the overhead light flickered. Felix shivered. The boys in his class were always making up scary stories about hell, but Felix didn’t have to use his imagination. He knew what hell looked like.

  He stared at Pater’s blotter, covered in splodges of black ink like dried bloodstains, and backed up into the bookcase. He didn’t want to think about the last time he’d been in here alone.

  Pater raised his voice; Felix’s tummy felt all growly. His fingers were slippery, too. He tapped his palm, which he always did when he was anxious. Pater called it his annoying habit, but it always made Felix feel better and reminded him to not suck his thumb, which no one but Tom knew he still did. Sometimes he dug his fingernails into his palm hard. Hurt loads, but it stopped him from raising his thumb to his mouth.

  The capital of Finland? Pater slammed his hand down on the blotter.

  Felix knew this! Too hard, though, to remember everything: the sequence of his annoying habit, the capital of Finland . . . Too late. Thumb at his mouth. Quick! Think, Felix. Chew nail! Yes, chew nail. See. I’m not a baby!

  I’ve told you a thousand times, Felix. Keep those bloody hands still. You’re not some nervous little girl. Or are you? Are you another fairy, like your brother?

  What did Pater mean? Tom was a boy, not a fairy.

  Take that thumb out of your mouth! Pater’s face was red.

  Felix screwed his eyes shut. Capital of Finland, capital of Finland.

  Helsinki! he called out, but it was too late. He was always too late. Pater was going into the locked drawer at the bottom of his desk.

  No. Daddy, no.

  Bend over.

  Helsinki, Daddy, Helsinki!

  You know the routine.

  He was crying and tapping his palm and all he wanted was to suck his thumb. He couldn’t run away. He was jammed up against the bookcase. Trapped.

  Pater moved out from behind the desk. He tightened his grip on the riding crop.