Something Missing_ A Novel - Matthew Dicks [120]
Ten minutes later, Martin was sitting in the front seat of his father’s truck, crossing through the Frog Hollow section of Hartford and into West Hartford. Even with the medication that he had already been given, every bump in the road caused Martin’s chest and knee to flare up in pain.
The two men had been silent for most of the ride, but as the truck crossed over the Hartford–West Hartford town line, Martin’s father finally broke the silence.
“This has something to do with your friend, right? The one in trouble?”
“Yes,” Martin answered, feeling like a little boy for the second time today.
“You didn’t call the police, did you?”
“No. I planned on calling but things happened faster than I thought.”
“They always do,” his father said with a sigh. “Is your friend still in trouble?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“You took care of it yourself?” his father asked, taking his eyes off the road to look his son in the eye.
Martin nodded.
“Do you foresee any problems for yourself? Legally, I mean.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Okay,” his father said. “Then that’s that.”
The two men drove the rest of the way to Martin’s house in silence. Rather than parking in the empty driveway, Martin’s father pulled along the curb in front of the house, leaving the engine running. “If you can get inside on your own, I’d rather drop you off here. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this place, and I’m not ready to go inside.”
“Sure, Dad,” Martin answered, feeling relieved. The tension between the two men had become more than he could bear. “I can manage.”
“You need a ride to the hospital tomorrow? To pick up your car? To get your prescriptions?”
“I don’t know,” Martin answered, shrugging his shoulders. “Maybe.”
“If you do, call me.”
Martin gathered his crutches and the plastic bag containing enough pain medication to get him through the night, and gingerly climbed out of the truck. He didn’t know what else to say to his father, so, without any pleasantries, he turned up the cobbled walk and began hobbling.
“Son!” Martin’s father shouted through the descending passenger-side window.
Martin turned and waited. It seemed as if his father was debating whether or not to say anything at all. After a moment, he began. “Listen. I don’t know exactly what happened tonight, but I’ve dealt with enough criminals to know you ain’t one. At least not tonight. You got pretty banged up, but if your friend is out of danger, I’m guessing that you were some kind of a hero tonight. And there’s probably some other guy out there looking worse than you. If that’s the case, son, I’m proud of you.”
Before Martin had a chance to reply, the passenger-side window had returned to its closed position and his father was gone.
The phone woke Martin at nine the following morning. As he rose to answer it, his knee and ribs flashed brutal reminders of their current condition, causing him to cry out in pain. Moving more gingerly, Martin reached out and plucked the phone off the receiver on the bedside table on the third ring despite his difficulty in getting to it.
“Hello?”
“It’s me. Are you excited about tonight?”
It took a moment for Martin to process the voice and the question that had been asked. After a few seconds, he managed to respond. “Laura, how are you?”
In order to combat her tendency to launch herself into a conversation absent pleasantries, Martin had been using the strategy of answering Laura’s questions with questions of his own, thus providing him with the time to formulate an answer to her original question in the event Laura returned to it, which she usually did.
“I’m fine,” she answered, not missing a beat. “I’m excited about tonight. You?”
Martin had no idea what to say. Though he wanted to be excited about a party that he should have never planned on attending, he doubted that he could go in his current condition. “Can I call you back in a minute?”
“Is something wrong?”