Here After

epilogue

October 20, 2008

ROGER MULLEN SAID, “THIS IS the man who saved your life,” but Jason showed no reaction. He’d filled out some in the weeks since they found him, but he was still pale, his gaze somehow vague and unfocused. The new clothes Roger had bought him hung on his brittle frame.

“He hasn’t spoken yet,” Roger said, a fretting sadness in his eyes, “but I believe he knows who we are, Ellen and me. We’ve been showing him pictures, telling him about his life…before, but it’s difficult to say if we’re getting through.

“Ellen’s been staying at the house. We’ve talked about trying again, but I don’t know. Even with Jason back, I’m not sure she can ever forgive me. It’s hard.”

Shivering a little in the autumn breeze, Roger said, “I never got a chance to thank you for finding my son, so I’m doing it now. It breaks my heart that doing it cost you so much, but to have him back…there just aren’t any words.”

Roger took something out of his pocket now, the toy boxcar Peter had stolen. Shaking his head, he said, “I wanted you to have this. Erika told me how you got it. Sneaky bastard. I told her what you said, about being sorry, and she was glad. She said she’d come visit you soon.”

Roger rested the tiny boxcar on the base of Peter Croft’s headstone, gleaming black marble to match his son’s. Straightening, he stepped off the damp sod quickly, not liking the spongy feel of it under his feet. A gust sent autumn leaves cartwheeling across the triple gravesite and Roger shivered again, his broad shoulders hunching under his jacket. He felt something cool touch his hand and realized it was Jason’s slender fingers lacing through his own. This was the first time since finding him that Jason had touched Roger on his own.

Looking down at Peter’s headstone, Jason said, “Dad?”

Roger felt the word vibrate in his son’s hand. Biting back tears, he said, “Yeah, Jase?”

“This man saved me?”

“Yes,” Roger said, “he did.”

He tightened his grip on Jason’s hand and turned away from the Crofts laid out all in a row in the earth. He’d already decided he’d never come back.

On their way out through the iron gate, cold spits of October rain struck the cobblestones around them. Quickening their pace, Roger and his son made their way back to the Suburban, the only vehicle in the small dirt lot. Roger opened the door for his son and lifted him inside. When he reached for the boy’s seatbelt Jason said, “I can do it,” and Roger ran his hand through his son’s curly hair.

He walked around the hood and got in behind the wheel, resting his hand on Jason’s knee as they drove out of the lot, thunder grumbling in the low autumn sky.