Shattered Lives (20 page)

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

West Bend, Wisconsin

             
Tim sat at the kitchen table eating his fourth strip of bacon, swishing it around his plate to soak up the syrup that had run off the four pancakes he had eaten.  Breakfast had always been his favorite meal.  He loved the smell and taste of bacon.  He loved French toast and pancakes with butter and syrup dripping off the edges.  He was proud of the fact that he could almost eat his weight in anything his mother cooked for breakfast.   At least, he could before he was held captive in Chicago.
             

             
Since then, it had taken him several days to get his appetite back.  He still slept lightly and in patches, waking up several times a night.  Noises at night that before went unheard, now sounded like crescendos from timpani.  Like the other boys, he’d wake up, wander around the house, only to sit in the silence of the backyard gazing up at the stars, the moon and the clouds and if lucky, doze until the sun had replaced them.

              Tim picked up and rolled the Truvada between his thumb and forefinger.  His mother must have gotten it from the prescription bottle in the cupboard and set it down next to his plate.  The doctor at the hospital explained to him and to the other boys that it was for those at high risk to help avoid infection with the AIDS virus, and because of what the boys had been through over the past year or two or more, they were all at risk.  Even Stephen and Mike.  Though they had only been held for less than twenty-four hours, they had been forced to do most everything the others had been forced to do.  The doctor explained that the precautions were necessary regardless of the length of time they were in captivity.

The boys didn’t talk much about the possibility of getting HIV and AIDS.  Actually, they tried not to think about it.

Ian had summed up their feelings when he said, “Fuck it!  We either get it or we don’t.  Not much we can do about it.”

The doctor had also explained that Truvada was newly approved by the FDA and very expensive.  He remembered how his parents stood with arms around each other’s shoulders when the doctor told them about it.  It was Stephen’s father who had asked what the cost was.  The doctor explained that it was $1100 a month, but that an anonymous donor had paid for each of the boys to have a two-year supply.  He watched his parents blink and his father nod and his mother bring her hand up to her mouth as tears sprung to her eyes.  The boys didn’t understand the significance until later when Mike had overheard a group of parents discussing what their health insurance would and wouldn’t pay for.  This anonymous donor, whoever he or she was, must have known that none of the parents could have afforded it, even with the best of insurance.

He popped the Truvada into his mouth and finished off his cranberry juice.  He tipped back on his chair and stretched both arms high above his head.

              “Tim, did you get enough to eat?”

              Laura Pruett was thirty-four when she had had Tim.  Now, her blond hair had a mousy look, and her body had a more rounded shape than before Tim had been taken.  During his captivity, she hadn’t taken care of herself as she used to.  Her shoulders slumped and instead of walking, she shuffled.  Tim felt guilty about that, but didn’t know what he could do to fix it. She had always been soft-spoken and reserved, but was more so since Tim’s abduction.  She was a head shorter than her boy and though she’d deny it, Tim had always been her favorite. 

Oh, she loved Thad and her daughter, Christi, Tim’s younger sister.  She loved them fiercely.  But it was Tim she felt the closest to.  The two of them had always talked.  Whenever there was a question, a decision, Tim always sought her out.  He’d confide in her.  Mostly, they just talked about this and that. 

Christi, who was three years younger than Tim, gravitated towards Thad.  Christi would bake and cook with her, but it was Thad she preferred.

Laura would tease her saying, “You have your dad wrapped around your finger.”

Christi would laugh and blush and Thad would protest, but not too strenuously because they all knew it was true.  They were a happy family.  There was energy.  There was life.

When Tim was taken, the energy and life went with him.  Laura had hoped that now that Tim was back, the energy and life would come back. 

The thumping of the basketball in the driveway brought Tim out of his reverie. 

Déjà vu. It was as if the two plus years in captivity had melted away into never happened.

Laura peered out the window by the sink as she was finishing up the breakfast dishes, watched as she rinsed the plate she had used and then smiled to herself without turning around.

Tim carried his plate and glass to the sink and set them on the counter.  He looked out the window to confirm what he already knew, kissed his mom on the cheek, gave her a little hug and then disappeared. 

He climbed the stairs two at a time and went into his bedroom to the closet and selected a pair of basketball shoes, hoping they wouldn’t be too small.  His toes were cramped, but what the hell, he’d make them work because he had some basketball to play.  He stopped in the hallway bathroom outside his bedroom, brushed his teeth and smeared on some deodorant.  He decided he’d skip the shower, because if he played two or three games of one on one or two on two, he’d be sweaty and gross and he’d have to shower again before the party.  The deodorant was a compromise.

He took the stairs back down two at a time, quick-walked to the kitchen, gave his mother a kiss on the cheek, and walked to the backdoor that led to the driveway, took a deep breath, and then stepped through and stood on the back porch after closing the screen door softly.

The tall boy with longish curly black hair wore a light blue Nike tank top, dark blue gym shorts with two thin white stripes running down each thigh, and expensive looking basketball shoes.  He dribbled the basketball in a figure eight around and through his legs, concentrating so intently that he didn’t notice Tim watching him.  When he did, he stood up straight with the basketball on his right hip and stared at his friend.

“You’ve gotten better,” Tim said with a smile.

The boy didn’t say anything, but slow-dribbled the basketball using just his right hand.

              Finally he said, “So . . . you’re back.”

              Tim nodded, smiled and said, “So I am.”

              “Your hair is kinda long.”

              Tim laughed and said, “And yours isn’t?”

              “You look just like Cody on
Suite Life On Deck
.”

That was the second or third time Tim had heard the comparison, so as he walked down the end of the driveway, he decided he’d have to check out the show to see if they were right. 

He stood in front of the deeply tanned boy.  The boy had grown to at least a half a head taller than Tim, and his shoulders and chest had gotten broader.  Self-consciously, Tim glanced at his own skinny arms and legs, a shell of what they were before he was taken.  He felt embarrassed at how he looked, but determined he’d do something about it. 

Usually if Cal was around, so was his brother Kaiden, younger by a year.

              “Where’s Kaid?”

              Cal stopped dribbling, held the ball on his right hip, and stared down at his shoes before answering.

              “He’s mowing the lawn.  He’ll be here in a little while,” Cal said not looking at Tim.

              “What’s wrong?” Tim asked, squinting at his friend.

              Tim lived at the end of a cul de sac, and Cal and Kaid lived just around the corner on Silverbrook Drive.  Cal turned around and looked off in the direction of his house.  Off in the distance, they could hear the mower, or at least
a
mower.  It could have been Kaid.

“Listen . . .” Cal started.  He stopped dribbling, shook his head and said, “Before he gets here, I have to tell you something.”

Tim waited.  Cal and Kaid were unusually close for brothers.  They shared the same friends and were seldom away from each other.  The fact that Cal stood in front of Tim without Kaid was unusual because one would generally wait for the other before going anywhere.

“When you were . . .” Cal searched for the right word and settled on, “. . .
gone
, Kaid had a really tough time.”

“How so?”

“When you were gone, Kaid . . .” Cal stopped and shook his head and glanced towards his house again.

“What?” Tim said impatiently.

Cal wandered to the curb and sat down, his long legs stretched out in front of him.

Tim followed and sat down next to him.

“When you were gone, for the first couple of days, Kaid would come to your house, ring the doorbell and ask your parents if you were home.  Then after a couple days, he wouldn’t ring the doorbell, but would sit on your front porch and wait for you.  That lasted about a week, maybe a couple days more.  When Mom didn’t see him around the house, she would send me to go find him and I always found him here, sitting on your front steps,” he said jerking a thumb over his shoulder.  “I’d get him and bring him home.  I think he’d sit there all day and all night if he could.”

Cal didn’t, maybe couldn’t, look at Tim.  Instead he stared towards Silverbrook Drive as if he were waiting for Kaid to appear.

He paused and shrugged before continuing. “There’s other stuff.  He sleeps with a light on, and if mom or dad turn it off after he falls asleep, he
loses
it.  You know his temper, right?”

Tim nodded.

“He has nightmares and screams at night.  That really freaks me out,” Cal said with emphasis.

Cal paused once more, looked off in the distance and sighed.

“He got in a fight with Gavin.”

“With Gavin?” Tim asked.  “Why?”

Cal glanced at Tim, shrugged and said, “Just after you were gone, Gavin said something stupid.”

“What did he say?” Tim frowned not understanding what Gavin might have said that would be stupid enough to cause a fight between him and Kaid.

Cal turned slightly, faced Tim and stared at him.

“What?” Tim asked again.

“I forget exactly.  We were at baseball practice, and the guys were talking about . . . you know, what might have happened to you and stuff.”

Tim figured that would happen.  He also knew it would probably happen again.

“Somebody said something and somebody else said something, and I could tell Kaid was getting worked up.” Cal looked at him intently and said, “You know you mean a lot to Kaid, right?”

Tim nodded. 

“Well, Gavin said that maybe if you . . . you know, had to do stuff, maybe you’d end up gay or something.  And Kaid punched Gavin and when Gavin went down, Kaid jumped on him and beat the shit out of him.”

“Seriously?  Kaid beat Gavin up over that?”

Cal opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it.

“Didn’t you try to stop him?”

Cal blinked in disbelief, thinking that Tim would be pissed at Gavin.

He said, “It happened really fast.  Before I could pull him off, he beat the shit out of him.  Hell, when I grabbed him, he swung at
me
.  Finally Coach Schlicht came over, yelled at us, and called Gavin’s mom and Gavin went home and that was the last we saw him.”

Tim leaned back on his elbows stretching his legs out in front of him.

“You said that was the last you saw him,” Tim said puzzled.

“Yeah.”

“What about games or practice?”

Cal shook his head.

“He quit the team.”

Tim sat up and ran his hands through his hair, and said, “He quit?”

“Yeah.”

“But . . . gees, Cal.  We played basketball almost every day.  Didn’t you guys play after I was taken?”

Cal shook his head.

“Didn’t you make Kaid apologize?”

Stunned, Cal said, “Kaid was sticking up for you.  He was pissed at Gavin for saying you were gay.”

Patiently, Tim said, “The four of us are friends, Cal.  I like Gavin.  I like you, and I like Kaid.  The four of us are friends.”

Cal shrugged and looked away.

The two sat for a bit and finally Tim said, “Come on.  Let’s go get Kaid.”

“He’s mowing the lawn.”

“It can wait.”

Tim ran back into the house to change into the shoes his parents bought him when he was in the hospital.  The basketball shoes he had on were too small and uncomfortable.  He also wanted to let his mother know that he and Cal were going to go to Cal’s house to get Kaiden.  His mom protested, but he promised he’d be safe and that he’d return in an hour to help set up for the party.  So the two boys walked back to the Mattenauer house side by side in silence.  Cal wasn’t sure what Tim was thinking, and Tim was so deeply intent on figuring out how to fix things between Kaid and Gavin that he didn’t catch Cal sneaking glances at him.

              “Are you pissed?” Cal asked when they reached Silverbrook and made the right turn towards Decorah Avenue and the Mattenauer house.