The Boy by Betty Jane Hegerat Page B

resident pervert who collects panties. So don’t hang yours out to dry. You’d think everyone would have figured that out by now.” When he picks up the folded newspaper, she taps him on the shoulder.
    â€œCome with me,” she says. Without another word, she leads the way into Dan’s room, relieved that the evidence is still there but also sick inside when she lifts the pillow. Jake looks down at the garment, draws two long breaths before he gathers the wrinkled silk with his fingers.
    â€œIt’s his mother’s,” he says. “This was Brenda’s.” He is good enough to keep his eyes on the nightgown while she composes herself.
    â€œOh,” she says, “oh, I’m sorry, Jake.”
    She waits for him to reach for her. He doesn’t. Brenda may as well be standing between them.
    â€œHow would you know, Lou? I wonder when he salvaged it. A couple of Brenda’s friends came over and cleaned out the closet for me because I didn’t have the guts to do it myself.” He crumples the nightgown in his fist and returns it as they found it before he steers her out of the room.
    â€œI shouldn’t have snooped,” she says, “but when I heard about that clothesline thing at the shower I had this horrible feeling. I had to know.”
    â€œForget it. I’ve snooped through his stuff too. It’s the only way I know to make sure he’s staying out of trouble. But for God’s sake, Lou, stopping thinking the worst. The kid is miserable. I took him back into town for a movie last night because he said this place is driving him crazy. Nothing to do, no friends.”
    Would there be a point to reminding him that Danny didn’t have any friends to speak of before they moved?
    â€œHe’s at a tough age for a big move like this,” Jakes says.
    Originally her argument, but Jake seems to have forgotten that. She shrugs, not willing to sympathize. They moved. It’s too late.
    â€œMaybe I’ll take him out for a drive to Phyllis and Paul’s this afternoon if they’re home. Doesn’t hurt to remind him he’s got a family that cares about him.”
    Danny will refuse, but it hurts Louise that Jake thinks he needs to go to Phyllis to find family. And it troubles her even more that while there is an explanation for the nightgown—an explanation so sad she felt limp with despair for the boy when she looked at the pillow after Jake gently returned it to its place—she cannot let go of the possibility that Dan is the clothesline thief. All those hours riding his bike, cruising town. Alone.
    Should I have made a big deal of this? Sneaking around clotheslines stealing underwear is a few rungs down, and not even on the same ladder as crashing through road blocks in a stolen car.
    Who says for sure he stole the lingerie? Or that he’s going to stick with small stuff.
    Not me. I’m only the stepmother, remember. What do I know of what goes on in the mind of a teenage boy?
    Plenty.

Roads Back
    September, 2006
    Stefan, my eighteen-year-old son, wandered into my office to ask me a question, and idly picked up a book from my desk. Sole Survivor, Children Who Murder Their Families.
    Was this a good book? he asked. No, I said, it was an ugly book. Then why was I reading it? When I shrugged, he floated calmly on to ask when I would be finished with this project because there was seriously nothing to eat in the house. He turned the book over in his hands and skimmed the synopses of the case studies on the back. Could he borrow it?
    When I was done with it, I told him. But I knew I would never put it in his hands. The thought of my own boy reading about other boys, other girls, killing their parents was more than I could handle.
    I was mired down in the huge question of how such monstrous affairs unfold. What are the warning signs? Or is there no prevention, just the heavy hand of fate. Was it a trajectory that led to Robert