He swept the pages off the table and tucked them into a file. “It was just work. It wasn’t going very well.”
“If it’s anything I can help with . . .” I began.
He shook his head. “It’s not.”
“Okay, well, let me go take that bath. I know you were expecting an evening of peace and quiet—”
“I’m quite happy to abandon it, given how poorly it was progressing.” He closed his laptop with a decisive click, dumped his coffee in the kitchen sink, and when he came back, he was more himself, his movements smoother, words more precise. “If you want a bath, you’re quite welcome to one, but given that your evening with Ricky was lost, I’m guessing you haven’t had dinner yet.”
“No, but—”
“Nor have I. There’s a place nearby. We’ll walk.”
DOWNWARD SPIRAL
Gabriel was six when he learned that other people dreamed at night. He was in first grade, and the teacher had asked them to draw a picture of something from their dreams. While the other children settled in, crayons in hand, bent over their construction paper, he asked the teacher for an explanation. As she gave one, he could tell that she expected him to nod in understanding. He was the best student in reading and spelling and third-best in math. He was not stupid, but he felt like it then, watching her wait for comprehension he didn’t feel.
“I don’t have those,” he finally said.
She smiled and shook her head. “Everyone dreams, Gabriel. You just don’t remember them.”
“No, I’ve never had one.”
“So you see nothing when you sleep?”
He considered it and then said, “Sometimes I remember things that happened to me.”
She patted his shoulder, and he struggled not to tense at her touch. His kindergarten teacher had noticed that he flinched at physical contact, which had led to a talk about abuse. It was a concept he was familiar with, but that was none of his teacher’s business. So he let her pat his shoulder and only gritted his teeth against it.
“That’s a dream, Gabriel,” she said. “Sometimes it’s stories we make up in our heads, and sometimes it’s memories, good and bad, all jumbled up and strange.”
Which was not what he experienced at all. He saw exact replays of memories, as if he was reliving them. And they were never good ones.
As he got older, he hid the fact that he did not dream, as he hid the fact that he’d rather not be touched. Anything that called attention to himself was dangerous. By the time he reached college, he was too old to be put in foster care, too big for anyone to harass. Standing out then was good. It was how you got noticed and got ahead.
So when the topic of dreams arose in a freshmen psych group project, he’d been honest.
“I don’t dream.”
One of the girls had leaned toward him—too close, and he’d had to brace himself not to pull back. “Come on, Gabriel. Everyone dreams.”
“I don’t.”
“Let’s look at it another way,” she said. “Dreams in general. Hopes and wishes. What do you dream of?”
“Nothing.”
They’d gotten annoyed with him then. Clearly he was being an ass, and they’d likely already started drawing that conclusion, which was fine—one could get further being hated than being liked. But in this case, he was telling the truth. Dreams implied wispy, ephemeral things that floated somewhere beyond reach. Gabriel had goals and ambitions.
By now, even the replaying of memories was a rare occurrence. But that night, after he had dinner with Olivia and went to bed, the memories came. Of all the ones from his youth, these were, perhaps, the most terrifying.
His mother—Seanna—had men. They weren’t boyfriends. Technically, they weren’t clients, either. They were men who came by for sex and gave her something in return—drugs, rent, groceries, goods to pawn. There were men. Suffice it to say that.
The problem began when one of them accused eight-year-old Gabriel of relieving him of the hundred dollars in his wallet. Which was ludicrous. Not that Gabriel was incapable of picking a pocket. He’d inherited his mother’s light fingers, and by eight he was an expert. But he knew better than to steal from his mother’s friends. That lesson had come from his aunt Rose. The Walshes were a family of con artists and thieves, and so the lesson was as valid as teaching another child to wear a bicycle helmet. Family, friends, and friends of the family are not marks.
Gabriel suspected that the perpetrator was Seanna, who wasn’t picky about the rules if they stood between her and a fix. Not that she came to his defense. It had been something of a shock, as he grew up, to realize that other mothers defended and cared for their children. Seanna was like a feral bitch, grudgingly sharing her territory with her half-grown pup, doing whatever it took to ensure her own survival, even if it meant snatching dinner from her offspring’s mouth.
Gabriel had denied stealing the money, but the man—Doug—had been determined to teach him a lesson. Thus began a regimen of abuse that lasted three months, until Gabriel scraped up a hundred dollars and gave it to him. That had been almost more painful than the persecution itself. To plead guilty to a crime he hadn’t committed? Humiliating. To turn over money—his own money—was even worse. But he had, because he’d reached the point where he’d do anything to stop the torment.
In the memory, he was walking to school. He seemed safe, but about halfway there he realized Doug had simply gone ahead to cut him off. Now Gabriel was flying down alleys and back roads, zipping between cars, running for his life, because that’s what Doug had threatened: that he’d kill him. And from what Gabriel had heard, it would not be Doug’s first murder.