After Before and After

Phase 4: Chapter 1

Two months and sixteen days earlier...

Fourteen-year-old Ralph Langley was hesitant about getting on the school bus. It was a Monday, and he had initially made plans to go over to his friend Henry's house after school to work on their big science project that was due at the end of the week. But about an hour after the lunch break, Ralph was called down to the office. When he got there, the secretary held the phone out to him. He stared at her, a confused and reluctant look on his face.

"It's your father, kid" the woman practically rolled her eyes as she said. She watched boredly as Ralph walked the few remaining steps to her desk and took the corded phone from her.

"Hello?" Ralph spoke into the receiver. He was nervous, and pretty bad at hiding it.

"Ralph? How's it going, kiddo?" Jeffery's muffled voice came through the phone.

"Uh, good, fine" Ralph nervously answered. "What's going on? Aren't you supposed to be at work?"

"I am at work. I'm calling from my cellphone. I wanted to let you know that you need to come home right after school today" Jeffery informed him.

"Why? What's wrong?" the tension in the boy's cracking, pubescent voice rose.

"We'll talk about it when you're home, alright? Just focus on getting through the rest of the school day for now" he answered, which did nothing to help minimize his son's anxiety.

"Dad" Ralph spoke forcefully, "is everything okay? Is it Mom? Or Jack? Is someone hurt or sick?"

"No no, nothing like that" Jeffery insisted. "Don't make it a big deal, buddy, I just need you to be home after school please. I can maybe drop you off at Henry's later. You head back to class now, okay?"

"Okay" Ralph reluctantly agreed before handing the receiver back to the secretary. The woman shot him a forced, insincere smile before shooing him back to class with the flick of her wrist.

A few hours later, Ralph hurried through the front door of the Langley house, sweating more from anxiety than from the mid-September heat.

"Dad?" he called out into the seemingly empty house.

A moment later, Jeffery appeared from the hallway, his wife in tow behind him.

"Come sit, baby" Laurie said as she stretched a hand out to her son. The family came together in the center of the living room.

Ralph hesitantly took his mother's hand and let her guide him to the couch in the middle of the room, across from the TV that wasn't playing the basketball game like it usually was this time of day. Jeffery sat down on his son's other side. For the first time in his life, their closeness made Ralph uneasy.

"What's going on?" Ralph demanded to know.

At first, nobody answered him. He looked back and forth between his parents as the two wordlessly spoke in code, trying to determine who's responsibility it was to drop the bomb that was surely about to knock Ralph off his feet.

"Is it Jack? Is he hurt? Is he in trouble? What? Someone just tell me, please" Ralph broke the painfully tense silence.

"It isn't Jack, honey" Laurie insisted as she gently stroked his back for a moment. "Jack's fine."

"Then what?" Ralph's patience was clearly thinning.

Ralph turned to his father as the man sighed heavily. He pulled a small stack of papers from behind or beside him, reluctantly handing them to Ralph. The boy had no idea where the papers had come from. He hadn't noticed his father holding them when he first came in the door. Still, he glanced down to read the top of the first page.