Page 54 of The Perfect Son

ES: This is a complicated situation we’re in here, Tess. I think it would be prudent to start from the beginning with the plane crash.

TC:(Mumbles)

ES: Pardon?

TC:(Sigh) The beginning wasn’t the plane crash, it was the day Shelley knocked on my door. She has Jamie. I’m sure of it.

ES: Humor me. What was the reason for Mark’s trip to Frankfurt?

TC:(pause) It was nothing important. Some kind of away-day team-building thing. Mark moved from software programming into the sales team just before Jamie was born. There were a lot of motivational events. It was canceled. Have I told you that already?

ES: What was?

TC: The event Mark was going to. The people in Frankfurt had the flu. Mark didn’t even need to get on the plane.

ES: There wasn’t a special reason for this particular trip?

TC: I made a Batman cake.

ES: Excuse me?

TC: You wanted to know about Jamie’s birthday, so I’m telling you. I made a chocolate sponge. Jamie hates plain sponge with jam, so I made chocolate. I cheated and bought slabs of black and yellow icing that you roll out. The yellow bat wings were a bit wonky but he loved it. I bought him theMillennium FalconLego set. It’s huge. It will take weeks to build.

ES: What happened that day?

TC: Please find Jamie. He isn’t safe. I can feel it.

ES: Who stabbed you, Tess?

TC:(Silence)

ES: Let’s take another break.

CHAPTER 33

Monday, March 19

20 DAYS TO JAMIE’S BIRTHDAY

Idon’t know where the weekend has gone. Only that it has gone—a blur of playing in the garden, sleepless nights, and dozing on the sofa in the afternoons while Jamie watched TV.

We’ve not seen Shelley since the night she stayed over, but she’s called me every evening.

The more we’ve spoken, the more certain I am that I was dreaming that night when I thought Shelley was in Jamie’s room. She’s our friend, Mark. She has no reason to sing to Jamie like that, no reason to stare at me with hateful eyes.

I only heard Jamie hum the lullaby once. In my dizzy exhausted state I could’ve imagined that too. Or maybe he heard the tune from me.

You’ve always been a bit of a hummer, Tessie.

Exactly. Most of the time I don’t know I’m doing it.

I know. It drove me up the wall.

Sometimes when Shelley calls it’s just for a quick “hi,” a rundown of our days, and other times it’s something more. Last night she told me about Dylan’s cancer. How they’d had every diagnosis imaginable before the real one. Growing pains, anemia, rickets, flu. Weeks of doctors’ appointments before X-rays were offered and the cancer found, the battle started. I could tell she was crying on the other end of the phone, and it made me cry too.

“I miss him so much some days, Tess. I’m supposed to help people who are grieving, but sometimes I want to tell them it won’t get easier, it’ll get harder, because you’ll start to forget what they smelled like and the sound of their voice.”

“Oh, Shelley,” I said, because what words of comfort could I possibly offer?