too, even though it’s in pieces.
No,” I say. “It’s all there – well, what’s left of it. They may have taken some of the jewelry, but it’s hard to tell in all that mess.”
“Hoodlums,” Gran mutters. “Who would do this?”
“I’m not sure, but I’ll get them, don’t you worry,” Mike says and he glowers so fiercely that for a moment he frightens me. “You can’t go back in until forensics has been through. Is there anywhere I can take you to stay for a while? This may take some time to sort out.”
Gran has her condo in the retirement village to go back to, but it only has one bedroom and I don’t want to go there. Neither do I want to go back to the hospital.
“Can I go to Ben’s house?” I ask.
“Where’s he?” Mike asks.
“He lives just around the corner. He’s my best friend,” I explain. “I’ll text him and tell him we’re coming.” I put my hand to my pocket and realize that my phone isn’t there. I’d left it on my bedside table in my rush to get ready in the early hours of the morning.
“Can I get my phone?” I ask Mike. “It’s in my bedroom.”
He nods and I rush back into the house, taking the stairs two at a time – but my phone is not on my bedside table, neither is it on the floor among the mess. I start to move things around so that I can find it.
Mike appears at the door. “I told you not to touch anything, you’re destroying evidence.”
“I can’t find my phone.”
“Did you take it to the hospital?”
I shake my head. “No, I left it on my bedside table. They must have knocked it to the floor. Can you ring it?”
I give him the number, but when he dials it my ringtone doesn’t play. The phone is not in my room.
“Do you think they might have taken it?” Mike asks as he kills the connection.
I shrug, “Why? It wasn’t even the latest model. Why trash the house and only take a cellphone?”
“Maybe for the data on it?”
“What data? My friends’ phone numbers and the dates of the track and field meets? It’s hardly worth stealing for that! My dad’s phone would have more data on it. Where is my dad’s phone, anyway?” I thought maybe I could take that instead of mine.
“It’s bagged as evidence.”
“Evidence?”
“In case the driver was using it while driving.”
“He had hands-free. Besides, you said Mum was driving, so he’d still have been able to use his phone if he’d wanted.”
“I’m sorry, Jason, we have to cover every angle in a case like this. We also have your mother’s phone.”
I know that she wouldn’t have used her phone while driving either. I sigh.
“Come on,” Mike says. “If there’s nothing else that you need, I’ll take you to your friend’s place.” We leave the messed-up room without my cellphone.
“Wait,” I say, as we pass my parents’ room. “I’ve just thought of something.”
Mike follows me in and I wade through the mess to my dad’s bedside table. The power lead is there but the electronic tablet that is usually attached to it is gone. Instead there is just a paperback on the table next to the bed.
“They took dad’s tablet,” I say, holding up the power cord.
“Looks like they took, or smashed, anything that could hold data,” Mike says. “I’ll put that on my report. Let’s go. Crime scene investigators will be here soon.”
We leave, and I give Mike directions to Ben’s house. Ben’s six months older than me; he’s also bigger than me and smarter than me. There isn’t anything about computers he doesn’t know. He’s good at math and science; I’m good at English and social studies and so we help each other with homework. He’s Jewish, I’m Catholic, but that doesn’t mean anything to either of us. We’ve been friends for as long as I can remember.
There’s a comfort in the familiarity of his house as we pull into his driveway, and I jump out of the car and almost run toward the door where I attack the bell, eager to see Ben’s face and restore some normality.
Mike is still helping Gran out of the car as Ben opens the door.
“Jase, what’s up?” he asks, but his grin fades when he sees my face.
“Mum’s dead,” I say and stumble forward.
He catches me before I fall. “I think you’d better come in,” he says.
He leads us into the family room where they’re having breakfast. I feel the emptiness in my stomach when I see the food, remembering that the remains of my dinner landed on the hospital floor a few hours ago.
Ben’s mother stands up as we come in. She knows something is wrong but she makes us sit down and pours us cups of tea and coffee before letting us talk. Mike is the only one capable of speaking, it seems, and he tells her about the accident while sipping his coffee. Her eyes fill with tears as she hears it and she has to take a fistful of tissues out of the tissue box.
“I just can’t believe it, I just can’t,” she says. “It’s awful. And to have everything destroyed in your home on top of it all, well …” She blows her nose hard.
“Is it all right if Jason stays here, Mrs Rosenberg?” Mike asks.
“Of course he can,” she says. “What about you, Mrs Shaw? You’re welcome to stay here too.”
“No, I must get back to my condo,” she says, putting down her empty teacup. “I have phone calls to make. Then I’ll have to go back to the hospital.”
I think of Mum’s family in Hawaii. I’m glad I’m not the one who has to tell them; in fact, I don’t think I could.
“I’ll take you home, Mrs Shaw,” he says and draws out some business cards from inside his jacket pocket. “I’ll leave a few cards here. It’s got my cellphone number on so you can call me at any time, Jason.”
I walk with Gran and Mike to the front door where Gran gives me a hug before getting into the car. It’s a relief when she leaves – it’s as if her grief is a burden on me, a burden that lifts as she drives away. I know I should be giving her comfort, and yet it is too hard to handle my own grief, never mind hers, and I turn and walk back into the house with a heavy heart.
Ben’s mum asks if I want breakfast. I nod and she places a plate in front of me, and I eat what’s on it, although I can’t seem to taste it. It’s like I’m in this altered reality and nothing makes sense. I start to panic. The tingling breathlessness starts again, just like it did in the hospital, but Mrs Rosenberg makes me a cup of hot chocolate and this I can taste, so my panic subsides.
Ben wants to stay home from school but his mother won’t let him. She gives him his lunch and his school bag, and, together with his older brother, Joseph, sends him out the door. His father had left before I arrived so now it’s just the two of us in the quiet house.
“You need to sleep,” she says
I nod. My eyelids want to close, even though, when they do so, images of the hospital flash past on the insides of my eyelids – Dad lying on the bed with all the tubes and IV lines, and my mother’s dead face.
“You can have Ben’s bed.”
I stumble down the passageway with Mrs Rosenberg behind me. The room is cluttered, as always; there are at least three computers in various stages of deconstruction or reconstruction, I am never sure which, lying on the floor. I think Mrs Rosenberg has given up getting Ben to clean it.
“Do you want me to bring you anything?” she asks as I sit on the edge of Ben’s bed and slip off my shoes.
“No,” I say, swaying slightly.
She lifts up the duvet and covers me with it as I lie down. The bed’s still warm from when Ben left it, probably about the same time I was leaving the hospital.
Mrs Rosenberg runs her hand over my head, just the way my mother does – I mean, did – and I stifle the rising hurt within me, then she exits the room, leaving the door slightly ajar. I turn toward the wall and close my eyes, but all I can see is my dead mother’s face. When I try to blot that out of my thoughts, I see the destruction of the house; al
l destroyed, like my life. I bury my head in the pillow and let the tears flow.
Salvage
I wake to the smell of baking. I don’t know where I am; it doesn’t feel like my bed, nor does it look like my room, and I briefly wonder what happened in the night. Did I walk in my sleep and end up in Gran’s room instead?
Then I see the computers on the floor and memories of the night’s events engulf me all at once and I stifle a sudden sob. It isn’t a dream.
I throw back the covers and get out of the bed, stumbling along the passage heading toward the smell of fresh cookies.
“Hello Jason,” Mrs Rosenberg says I sit down at the table. “Would you like a cookie?”
“Thanks.” I take one and bite into it. “Mum never makes cookies,” I add without thinking, and the mixture sticks in my mouth as I remember that Mum never will. I struggle to swallow the sweet mixture in my mouth until Mrs Rosenberg gives me a glass of milk to wash it down.
“Ben will be home soon,” she says.
I glance at the clock and see that it’s almost four o’clock in the afternoon, but I’m struggling to kick myself awake, I want to slip back into the oblivion of sleep. I sip at the milk to clear the cookie crumbs in my throat and ask, “Have you heard from my gran?”
“She phoned earlier to see how you are, and she said to let you sleep. Your father’s condition is unchanged and she’ll call you back later.”
At that moment Ben rushes in through the door and cries, “It’s on the news!”
“Ben, please,” his mother says. “I’m sure Jason doesn’t want to hear it.”
“It’s all right,” I say, and