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she pulled her legs up to make room, not taking her eyes off the television.
    “I’ll be out in the garage,” Jeff said.
    Eric watched him walk out with disgust; he remembered when his father had built that garage. He did it in one summer. Eric was eight at the time and he remembered the smell of sawdust and the taste of lemonade as he helped his father, carrying tools and helping hammer nails. James had even let him use a nail gun a couple times but the sound had scared him and his father put it away, even though it increased the work that needed to be put in.
    “How you doing, Mom?” She didn’t say anything. “Are they sure?” Eric said hopefully. “I mean mistakes happen. It could be someone else, right?”
    His mother watched television as if she hadn’t heard him. She took a moment and then turned to him, her eyes red and puffy. “He was a good man, Eric; I don’t want you to ever be mad at him for going on those trips. They kept him alive.”
    “I know,” he said. From this close he could smell the sweet aroma of peach Schnapps emanating from her. “This is the way he would’ve wanted to go,” he lied. He knew his father would’ve rather went in a comfortable bed with a beautiful woman next to him, as any man would.
    “I don’t think I ever stopped loving him,” she said, turning back to the television. “I hated him too though. I loved him and hated him. He could make me feel like the most important person in the world one day and a piece of shit the next. But I still loved him, I never stopped.”
    Eric rubbed her calf; it was soft; fragile. “I know, Mom. He loved you too.” Eric could see the dining table from where he was sitting and an old photo of his father in a Navy uniform, a box with his medals open next to it.”How did you find out?”
“His sister called me.”
“Kathy?”
His mother nodded.
“Where is she now?”
“Borneo I think. She’s married to some spiritual guru or some crazy shit like that. That whole family’s fucked up.”
    Eric looked at her and a flash of anger filled him and then flowed away. Leaving only pity in its place. He stood up, leaned down and gave his mother a kiss on the cheek, and went off to his bedroom.
    His old room had been kept the same as when he had moved out, even though Jeff wanted to put a pool table and a bar in. But his mother refused and never explained why. Jeff eventually gave up the fight when he saw she was serious. Eric thought that deep down Jeff knew his mother didn’t need or even particularly like him. He was around for convenience and because she didn’t like being alone.
    Eric collapsed on his bed and found he couldn’t hold back any longer, emotion choking him. He put his face in a pillow and began to cry.

 
     
CHAPTER
7
     
     
    Eric woke to the claustrophobic tightness of a dark room. It took some time for his eyes to adjust and he stared out the window at the sky, moon covered with slow moving gray-black clouds.
    The alarm clock said 7:27 pm and he rose and walked out of the room. His mother was still lying on the couch, an empty bottle of Schnapps on the coffee table in front of her. Eric tip-toed out of the house and slowly shut the door behind him before making his way to the sidewalk, looking back to the house one more time before moving on.
    The night air was cool, smell of fern and mountain air fresh in his nostrils. His cell phone had three messages but he turned it off without listening. After a few minutes of walking he stopped at the nearest bus stop and sat on the bench, watching the cars drive by like white-eyed demons through the night. They appeared sinister. It was funny how the most innocuous things could appear wicked when you had wickedness done to you.
    There was a convenience store across the street and the clerk was eating a burrito and watching a small television behind the counter, not paying attention to the two older men that were shoving donuts into their jackets. Eventually the men bought a