Founder

Chapter 2

2

“Adam! Adam, wake up!” Iris’s voice was firm as she grabbed him.

Adam jerked into consciousness, unsure of where or when he was, of whose hands were on his arm. He scrambled backwards, slamming into something and feeling it in his ribs. The headboard. The headboard of the bed in his old bedroom at Iris’s.

Iris stood next to the bed, hands up in a sign of surrender, easing closer. “It’s okay, kiddo. It’s just me. You’re okay.”

Adam nodded, but his heart was pounding, and his stomach—

He lurched to the other side of the bed and vomited in the trashcan he kept there. Heaved, anyway, but he didn’t have much to show for it. Remnants of a bowl of cereal? He’d forgotten to eat lunch.

Please, let me be done. Adam hung over the mattress, gripping the sides of the trashcan, waiting long enough to be sure and for his breathing to even out. He closed his eyes and rolled over onto his back, clutching an arm to his chest before he could stop himself.

“Those ribs still bothering you?” Iris asked, and he felt a cool, damp washcloth come to rest on his forehead.

“Thanks,” Adam said. “A little.”

He didn’t like to remind his grandmother of the lingering pain, a souvenir of a particularly bad day nearly two weeks ago when JJ had performed CPR on him a few hours after he’d suffered a beating at Otto Nicholson’s hands. He heard Iris sigh, and his fingers fumbled over mattress and through air until they found her hand. Her skin felt slightly loose, sliding over the knuckles and finger bones, and he had to restrain the urge to squeeze too hard, just to keep her there. He lay there for a minute or two, breathing and holding her hand, then released her and peeled the washcloth from his head. It took a conscious effort not to groan when he sat up. That sound is a force of habit, not a reflection of how you actually feel. He almost smiled at the lie.

“Did you have the dream again?” Iris asked.

Dream. Yeah, that’s what it was. “Yes,” he said.

“I heard you screaming from downstairs,” she said.

Iris was a master at hiding her emotions—neither tone nor expression changed—but she couldn’t control everything. In the weeks since he’d returned to Cold Springs, the wrinkles on her face were a little deeper. Her white blonde hair reflected more white than blonde and appeared brittle, its natural wave reduced to the occasional unruly bump. It was as though Iris were drying out inside. Had he done this to her?

“I’m sorry.” He grabbed the trashcan and pushed off the bed too fast, becoming light-headed as he stepped past her to the bathroom. After dumping and rinsing the vomit, he brushed his teeth quickly, avoiding his reflection in the mirror. Adam could feel his jeans hang loosely on his hips, and he didn’t really care to see the rest.

Iris waited outside the door, ready to interrogate him. He pretended not to notice, keeping a hand on the rail as he descended the stairs slowly, trying to look casual.

Iris followed. “Is that why you’re not sleeping at night?”

Adam headed toward the kitchen. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you sit in a chair in the living room at night and just stare at the windows, as if you’re avoiding lying down.”

Adam opened the refrigerator. He didn’t want food—he seemed to have lost his sense of taste lately—but he knew he needed it. “What are you doing up at night?”

“I’m old. I’m not supposed to sleep. But you, you’re barely thirty and the only time you ever sleep is napping, usually in the afternoon.”

He looked at her, unsure if he’d ever heard Iris admit to being old. “I’m fine,” he lied. “It’s just habit, from spending so many years bartending. I can’t remember the last time I slept normal hours. It takes some getting used to.”

Adam turned back to the refrigerator and found a ham sandwich in cellophane from a convenience store. That would do. He unwrapped the plastic and took a bite. The taste seemed a little off, but everything tasted funny lately. He gave it a sniff. It was probably fine.

“When did you get that?” Iris asked, fiddling with her purse where it sat on the counter.

Adam shrugged and took another bite. “Couple of days ago, maybe.”

Her eyes widened before turning her attention back to digging in her bag. “Then throw it away! I doubt if it was worth eating the day they put it out. I swear, they’re lucky—”

“You look nice,” Adam said, still chewing but wanting to head off her rant. Iris was wearing a pair of gray slacks and a matching, thin sweater with a geometric pattern. “Why are you dressed up?”

Iris avoided his eyes, finally pulling her keys free with a metallic jangle. Adam finished his sandwich at the counter while she puttered around, rinsing a teacup and putting it in the dish drainer. When he crumpled the plastic in his hands, she still hadn’t spoken, so he did. “Are you going to see Harlan?”

“No,” she said. “Do you need a ride somewhere?”

Adam glanced at the kitchen clock. “Crap, yes. Thanks for the reminder. I’m supposed to meet the tow truck guy to finally get my car. Let me grab my jacket.”

Iris was right; Adam wasn’t sleeping, not since he’d left the hospital, and he was exhausted. He stared out the window at the world blurring by. This was the route the car had followed in his dream (and in my life). Adam tried to ignore a persistent overlay of the landscape at night by concentrating on the fuzzy brightness of the late afternoon sky (although it hurt his eyes) and on the details it illuminated, details that were absent in the darkness of his dreams. The deciduous trees were now nearly naked. The rest of the leaves had fallen over the past weeks, except for a few brown stragglers (the multi-fingered oak leaves seemed particularly tenacious) that would hang on until their replacements pushed them out in the spring.

A bleached field fell away on the left, and soon the road was flanked by leaf-strewn, forested banks on either side. The land rose and fell haphazardly. A dry creek bed emerged from the crease between two slopes on the right, then continued parallel to the road. Remnants of a rusted plow peeked from the leaves in a low spot next to the creek. Adam wondered how long it had been there, who had left it behind.

“Harlan wants to speak with you,” Iris said.

“I know.” Adam picked at a spot of something (paint?) on the window with his fingernail, but it held fast. “Do you blame him?”

Her hands gripped the wheel more tightly, but she didn’t look at him. “Who?” she asked.

“Harlan.”

“For what?”

“For me doing what I did.”

“Why?” she asked. “I could just as easily blame JJ for what you got up to.”

“No, you couldn’t,” he said. “You couldn’t blame her for the how, for the… the way I opened my mind to Rachel.”

“You mean the way you almost died,” she said, finally glancing at him.

He waited, but she didn’t say any more. She didn’t have to. He knew she blamed Harlan; he just wanted to see if she’d admit it. There’d been a distance between the couple over the past week or so since Adam had gotten out of the hospital. Harlan had called a few times from his neighbor Jim’s phone, but he’d never been to Iris’s house, and so far as Adam knew, Iris had never been to Harlan’s. At least, if she had, she’d never stayed the night.

Iris made the turn onto JJ’s road, the turn Adam had missed in his own car. And there was the hatchback, sitting with half its front end in the ditch. Iris drove past the car and pulled over, but left hers in Drive, engine idling.

“What time’s the tow truck guy supposed to be here?” she asked.

“Soon. I don’t mind waiting in my car,” Adam said, but made no move toward the door. “Tell me. When you screw things up with Harlan enough that he finally lets you push him away, who will you blame for that? Me?”

He watched his grandmother’s pale face flush. She was either speechless, or taking a deep breath before tearing into him. He risked a grin, the way he couldn’t remember grinning since he’d left the hospital. It felt good, like the warmth spread from his face throughout his body. Iris shook her head, and slowly her lips curled in a smile.

“You think you’re so damned smart,” she said.

Adam threw a hand over his mouth in mock horror at her uncharacteristic choice of even mild profanity. “Iris, language.”

The phrase (Harlan’s response the first time Iris unexpectedly discovered Adam in his kitchen) struck a chord. Iris plucked a scarf from between the seats and threw it at Adam’s head. He laughed, and once he’d untangled the fabric, leaned over and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Oh, stop it,” she said, but when Adam pulled away to leave, she held his arm. “Wait. You’re right; I might visit Harlan later. But right now… I’m going to see him.”

“Who?” Adam asked, even though he knew.

Iris seemed as reluctant to say his father’s name as Adam was. “His lawyer asked me to. Do you want to come with me?” she asked.

“No,” Adam said, careful not to raise his voice in the enclosed space. It wasn’t so long ago (ten days? twelve?), lying in a hospital bed, that he’d asked her about seeing the man. How had he built up so much anger in such a short period of time?

“Are you sure? I can wait with you and we can go together, if you want to see Virgil.”

A sound like a laugh’s bitter cousin escaped Adam as he shoved the door open. “Remember, I’ve seen him already. And he almost killed me.”