American Boy - Larry Watson [65]
“Okay. We knew that might happen—”
But then Johnny began to sob.
“Hey,” I said, “he had a stroke. You know how serious—”
“—He was dead when they brought him in! My dad brought a dead body to the hospital!”
“Well, Jesus, what were they supposed to do—shove him out in the snow when he died? Leave him by the side of the road?”
“Why didn’t they turn back? If Mr. McDonough was already dead ...”
The thought had occurred to me as well, yet I tried to defend the doctor. “After coming through that storm? I don’t know about you, but I’m sure as hell in no hurry to hit the road again.”
Johnny shook his head and continued to sob. I wanted to say something to comfort him, but couldn’t think of what that might be. I couldn’t believe he cared this deeply about Dale McDonough. I took out my cigarettes, shook one out in his direction, and held it there until he took it. When the car lighter popped out, I held its glowing orange rings toward him. You can’t light a cigarette while you’re crying like a baby. The incongruity alone will bring you up short. Johnny inhaled deeply and instantly calmed down.
“What else did they say in the hospital? Besides the fact that Mr. McDonough is dead.”
“I still can’t believe it. He was alive just this morning. Right there in the hotel.”
“Okay, but believe it or not, it happened. Now what?”
Johnny’s tears had stopped, but he continued to sniffle and wipe his nose on the back of his glove. “You know what this means?” he said. “He died in our car. I wonder if they knew, or if ... Hell, I hope he didn’t suffer too much.”
I gave him another moment to allow his confused feelings to congeal, and then I reached over, grabbed his shoulder, and shook him. “That was your dad’s car back there, you know. He’s here. He and Louisa are here in Bellamy. Mr. McDonough is dead, but your dad’s here.”
He clapped his hand over mine. At first I thought he would push my hand away, but instead—for a second, maybe two—he just covered my hand with his, both of us holding onto Johnny Dunbar. Then he didn’t remove my hand so much as lean away from my grasp.
“I know what’s going on, Matt. I’m not that goddamn stupid. It’s just that I don’t ... I don’t want ...” His voice caught, and he seemed close to tears again. Then suddenly he said, “I don’t want Louisa to be my stepmother!”
We both knew that he hadn’t expressed his misery very well—the issue of maternity wasn’t what was troubling him, after all—but it was close enough. For Johnny to leap from denial to an outright statement of fear that his father was fucking Louisa Lindahl would have been too much.
“Well, hell, you don’t want to be telling me about this—let’s go find your dad and you can tell him how you feel!”
Before Johnny could articulate all that was wrong with that suggestion, I put the car in drive and sped away from the hospital, the Valiant’s tires slipping on the packed snow and the car’s back end swishing from side to side like a horse’s tail.
I pulled into the Wagon Wheel’s lot, and as I drove slowly down the line of cabins I noticed that the units were log constructions, but they’d been painted white to look less rustic. In every cabin the curtains were drawn, and no light glowed behind them. I parked next to the doctor’s Imperial, leaving the Dunbar vehicles arranged exactly as they would have been in the family’s garage.
“How do you want to do this?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You want me to come in with you, or should I wait in the car again?”
Any enthusiasm he might have had for this undertaking had melted away. “How do I know he’s here?”
“There’s his goddamn car. It’s the only one in the lot. If he’s not in cabin eight, he’s in number nine. Just go knock on the door. If he doesn’t answer, knock on the other one.”
But Johnny still didn’t get out. He reached over and hit the horn ring. A scream couldn’t have done a better