Chapter 1 - The red truck
My name is Gideon Fairmont.
I was forty years old when I watched my mother shove my six-year-old son into a puddle at a public playground.
The first thing I remember is the truck.
Small.
Red.
Plastic.
One side scratched from being driven down our staircase more times than I could count.
Silas carried it almost everywhere.
My late wife Amanda had bought it for him during a family trip to Boston when he was three.
There was nothing valuable about it except memory.
Which, I eventually learned, can make an object more vulnerable than money.
Riverside Commons sat twelve minutes from our house in a quiet Connecticut suburb.
Two playground structures.
A basketball court.
A recreation building.
Wide grass field.
Six benches beneath maple trees.
Nothing about the place suggested danger.
That afternoon, Millicent had picked Silas up from school because I had a late client meeting.
She was sixty-five.
Silver hair cut neatly above her shoulders.
Elegant blouse.
Dark trousers.
Earrings.
Low heels.
My mother had never understood sneakers unless a doctor specifically required them.
I arrived at 4:46.
Sixteen minutes later than planned.
I came around the paved path beside the basketball court.
Silas stood near a shallow muddy depression beside the playground.
His backpack was still on.
Millicent held his truck.
He was reaching toward her.
“Give it back.”
“Stop whining.”
“I want to go home.”
“You have asked me fifteen times.”
“Dad’s coming.”
“And he will arrive when he arrives.”
“Can I call him?”
“No.”
“Grandma.”
She looked at the truck.
Then at him.
“You are going to learn that repeating yourself does not make adults obey you.”
She threw the truck into the puddle.
Silas gasped.
Then ran.
I started running too.
He stepped into the mud.
Millicent caught the top of his backpack.
For one second, from where I was, it looked as if she were stopping him from falling.
Then her arm extended.
She shoved him.
Silas went forward.
Hands first.
Then shoulder.
Then half his face struck the muddy water.
The backpack zipper tore open.
Toys spilled everywhere.
A green race car.
A plastic astronaut.
Two dinosaurs.
Colored pencils.
A little wooden train.
A comic book.
Everything landed in mud.
“What are you doing to my son, you cruel woman?”
Millicent spun around.
“Gideon.”
I reached Silas and lifted him.
Mud covered his cheek.
His shirt.
His palms.
He was crying so quietly it frightened me.
Silas was not a quiet child when hurt.
Normally the entire neighborhood would know.
I checked his face.
“No blood?”
He shook his head.
“Did you hit your head hard?”
“No.”
“Can you move your arm?”
“Yes.”
Millicent pointed toward the puddle.
“Someone has to teach that naughty child a lesson.”
I stared at her.
“What lesson?”
“He has been impossible since school.”
“He’s six.”
“He keeps demanding to go home as though the world stops because he wants his father.”
Silas clutched my shirt.
I knelt to retrieve the toys.
The green car’s back wheel was crushed.
The astronaut was missing its right arm.
A blue dinosaur had been snapped across the tail.
I looked at the backpack.
Then at Silas.
“These didn’t all break when they fell.”
He picked up the astronaut.
His lower lip trembled.
“Silas?”
He looked at Millicent.
Then leaned closer to me.
“She breaks one every time I ask to go home.”
The world went strangely quiet.
“What?”
“She says if I ask again, another one goes.”
Millicent stepped forward.
“That is not what happened.”
Silas flinched.
“No.”
“Silas.”
“Don’t,” I said.
Her eyes snapped to mine.
“You do not tell me how to speak to my grandson.”
“I just did.”
She pointed toward the backpack.
“He threw a tantrum. He needs consequences.”
“You broke his toys?”
“I took away privileges.”
“Did you break them?”
“He needs to stop worshiping objects.”
I stood.
Before I could say anything else, Millicent reached past me toward Silas’s backpack.
“I’ll take that.”
Silas pulled away.
I moved.
I caught the side of my mother’s head and shoulder and shoved her away from him.
Too hard.
She lost her footing on the muddy edge.
One knee went down.
Then both hands.
Her cheek hit wet ground.
Someone shouted.
I released her immediately.
A woman who had been sitting on the nearest bench suddenly stood.
She was around thirty.
Brown hair tied back.
Comfortable park clothes.
Sneakers.
Large canvas tote bag.
She pointed straight at Millicent.
“I’ve been watching her do this to the boy all afternoon.”
Millicent pushed herself upright.
Mud covered one sleeve.
“You stay out of family business.”
The woman ignored her.
“I saw you break two toys before his father got here.”
Silas grabbed my hand.
“Dad.”
“What?”
He pointed toward the parking area.
Millicent’s dark SUV stood near the curb.
The rear hatch was open.
At first I saw black garbage bags.
Then a blue blanket hanging from one.
Then dinosaur pajamas.
A stack of children’s books.
Silas’s bedside lamp.
His sneakers.
A framed photograph from his dresser.
His pillow.
The gray stuffed wolf he slept with.
My heart started pounding.
I walked several steps toward the vehicle.
More bags.
Clothes.
Bedding.
Toys.
His small framed solar-system poster rolled into a tube.
The wooden box where I kept birthday cards Amanda had written before she died.
Things that belonged inside my son’s bedroom.
May you like
I slowly turned toward Millicent.
“Why are all of my son’s bedroom belongings in your trunk?”
