Read Online Beneath the Weight of Sadness by Gerald L. Dodge - Free Book Online Page B

but it will help.”
    “I watched Carly and Truman grow up together, always together. They used to go up above the garage in a room we have up there. They’d be there for hours alone—just the two of them.”
    Like I wasn’t even there.
    “It was like that until Carly started high school—always together, always laughing, kissing, holding hands.” She closed her eyes and there was a long moment of remembering. “Ethan and I would joke about how they would eventually marry, spend the rest of their lives together. Truman and Carly’s children, our grandchildren. But then it all changed. Truman began spending more time alone in his room, less time with Carly. By that time Carly had begun to hang around with a boy a year older than she, Tommy or Timmy Beck? I don’t remember.”
    She looked past me again and at the photos.
    “He is an awful boy, like his parents. I could never, ever see what Carly sees in him.”
    “How is he awful?”
    She was suddenly conversant.
    “Oh, he’s like his parents, I suppose. A star athlete. A jock, I guess they call boys like that. He isn’t terribly bright.” She laughed and covered her mouth with her hand. “Truman said his brains were probably in his ass, because he’s such an asshole.”
    “Was Truman jealous of him?”
    “Good Lord, no. Truman was Truman. He wasn’t jealous. He didn’t have to be, Mr. Parachuk. My God, please.”
    “I’m trying to understand, Mrs. Engroff. You tell me that Truman and Carly Rodenbaugh were inseparable for as long as you and your husband can remember, and then when they reached high school they weren’t any longer, and that may or may not have been brought on by a boy named Tommy Beck. And then you tell me Truman wasn’t jealous, wasn’t resentful.” I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know, Mrs. Engroff.”
    “He’s gay!” she said, frustrated.
    “I understand that, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that they were inseparable.”
    She put the wine glass down. “Look, you don’t understand. Truman is different. He loved Carly, but Truman didn’t always need people. He could live inside his own head. He could move on to something else.”
    She suddenly put her hands to her face and began to sob. Her whole body shook and I had the urge to go to her, comfort her, but I sat still. When it passed she looked down at the floor.
    “I don’t know who did this awful thing to my son, Mr. Parachuk. I don’t have even a clue. Not even a thought of it. I know you came here looking for some insight, and you thought I could help you, but I can’t. I don’t even want to. I want Truman there,” she pointed toward where the stairs were leading to his room. “I want him to walk down here right now. I want him to come up to me with his Truman smell and I want him to kiss me on the top of the head. Beyond that truth there isn’t anything I can help you with. Not one single thing.”
    She picked up her wine glass, walked to the table and filled it from the decanter, and then walked from the room.
    From the hallway I heard her say, “You can let yourself out, Mr. Parachuk.”
    As I got into my car and started it, I realized she had never once called me detective or officer or lieutenant. To her I was but an intruder into a world occupied only by her dead son.

Ethan
    Four days after Truman’s death
    We buried Truman in a cold April rain. Only Amy wanted the service private. The rest of the family, including me, wanted it to be open. I wanted people to come and see what had happened to a boy who never hurt anyone, never tormented anyone, never pried into anyone’s business. I wanted Persia to watch my only son, my grandfather’s namesake, be lowered into the ground.
    “How dare you allow those people there,” Amy spit at me with a venom I’d never felt from her before. “How dare you allow those people to see Truman leave our lives as if it were some kind of sideshow where they can all go home later and sit at their tables and