Part Two

Three weeks later. The psychiatric ward.

"Get. Me. Out of here."

Julie smiles a slight, sardonic smile. "At least you're talking to me now."

"Yeah, well." Kale looks up at her with a look of pure loathing in his eyes. "I don't think I've got anything that you wanna hear."

"That's fine." She gestures towards the chair opposite his. "Mind if I sit?"

"Suit yourself." He's jiggling his leg, breathing loudly through flared nostrils, like Daniel always used to do when he was mad. "Nice of you to show up. Finally." The cuts and bruises are faint now, though his left arm is still in a sling. Kale stares out the window; Julie was half expecting that the windows would be barred, but they're not. Actually, this unit looks exactly like the rest of the hospital, except that the staff is more alert, and there's more of them. And she had to turn over her shoelaces when she signed in.

"Believe me, I wanted to come sooner. I'm working overtime at the restaurant right now - this place isn't cheap."

"And whose choice was that?" He glances in her direction, only for an instant.

"Actually, since you're under eighteen, it was my decision."

Kale snorts derisively. "So, I'm stuck until November twelfth. Good to know."

"Hopefully not," Julie counters, "but it's kind of up to you. The ball's in your court now."

"You know, I was supposed to start school this week." Julie is a little surprised that he mentions this, since he hasn't exactly been an enthusiastic scholar of late. Maybe it's just the familiarity that he's craving. "Senior year."

"You let me worry about that, 'kay?" She smiles faintly, to herself. "I think the school board is a little bit afraid of me at the moment."

"Whatever." Kale shivers, and Julie realizes how thin he has become. He's always been a wiry kid; now he is downright skinny.

Julie sighs. "Look, it's okay if you hate me right now. I don't blame you. I can take it."

Kale mumbles something.

"What?"

"I said, I don't hate you." He doesn't seem to enjoy speaking the words. "I came looking for you, didn't I?"

"You did a lot more than that." You saved me, Kale, and now I'm saving you right back.

Across the room, a chair scrapes on the floor; Kale looks ready to jump out of his own skin. "You wanna tell me what this is all about? Huh? Was I an embarrassment to you? Didn't want your crazy kid around anymore?"

So that's it, she thinks, he's feeling abandoned. But Julie has plenty to say on the subject of why. "I'll tell you what this is about," she enunciates. "How about the fact that you stopped eating? Maybe it's because you wouldn't say more than two words at a time for, I don't know, weeks? Do you think it could have to do with that?" Her voice is rising, people are beginning to stare, so she checks herself, almost whispering the next words. "Maybe it's because as soon as they let you shave, you tried to open up an artery with your razor. Do you think that could be why?"

Kale is silent for a very long time.

"I'm not crazy, Mom."

"Nobody's saying you are." Already her anger is beginning to ebb.

"You know who's crazy?" Julie thinks he's going to say 'Robert Turner,' and she holds her breath, because it will be the first time he's said anything about it. But he doesn't. "My roommate is crazy, that's who. I mean, this guy is a genuine schizo or something. He spends half the night screaming - I can't even freakin' sleep."

"I'll talk to the nurses. Maybe they can switch you."

"Fine, you do that," Kale retorts. "Did you know they took away my iPod? Apparently I was going to strangle myself with the earbuds."

"Stop being so dramatic," Julie snaps. "This isn't One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest."

"Easy for you to say. You can leave any time you want."

"Jeez, Kale, you think this is easy for me? You think I like it?" Julie can't tell him that every night, she goes and stands in his empty bedroom for at least ten minutes. How for the first week or so, she left everything untouched; how, suddenly realizing how morbid that was, she frantically began picking up the dirty laundry.

"Yeah, I do." His mouth is drawn into an uncooperative line, and Julie thinks: He's too young to be like this. So brittle. So isolated. She wants to put her arms around him, but she knows he wouldn't take it well.

"Look, this is -"

"This is for my own good, right?" Kale interrupts. "Isn't that what you were going to say? Because it's crap. Next you're going to be all, 'This is going to hurt me worse than it hurts you.'"

"No, Kale, I wasn't going to say that." Because I can see that it's hurting you plenty.

"Then why?"

"Because I want you back."

He stares at the floor, swallowing hard. "Then let me out of here."

"No, you don't understand." She places a hand on his face so that he looks in her eyes for once. "I want you back."

"I got you some Red Bull." Julie places a grocery sack on the table. She's wearing slip-on shoes today.

"I thought you don't like me drinking that stuff."

"I don't," she admits. "It rots your teeth. And hey, I brought you this."

It's his favorite USC sweatshirt - the one that used to be his dad's. "Why don't you put it on?" Julie suggests, and he does, wincing as he raises his arm over his head. As he is enveloped by the familiar scent of Mountain Breeze fabric softener, Kale slides his hand into the pocket, where his fingers encounter a familiar object. His iPod.

"Thanks," he says, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.

Julie gives him a conspiratorial wink. "Don't get caught, okay?"

"I won't." Kale's good at not getting caught.

"So."

"So," he repeats. "Is this the part where we talk about our feelings?"

"Maybe. Why, you got something you wanna share?"

"I dunno." Kale shrugs with his right shoulder only. It's a habit that will persist for the rest of his life, long after the injuries have healed. "You first."

Julie is slightly taken aback - she had only been teasing, but she's not going to miss this window of opportunity, rare as it is. "Okay." She rubs her palms against the knees of her skirt. "Okay, I've been seeing Dr. Phillips every week."

"Really? You have Irritated Ankle Disorder too?"

"Very funny. You know, you don't have the family monopoly on issues."

"Yeah, but you're my mom," Kale contends. "Mothers don't have issues."

"You know, it was scary for me too," she explains. "Scary in a different way. Scary in a way that you probably won't understand until you're a parent."

"So, what did you do?"

"I got a home security system," Julie admits. She doesn't tell him that when she finally made it home, the next morning, and saw the wreck inside the house - the aftermath of Kale's fight with Turner - that's when she really lost it.

"Finally," Kale adds. Dad had been pestering her for years about that.

"You know, a home security system wouldn't have stopped Robert Turner." Julie hates saying the man's name aloud. "But it makes me feel safer. And... I'm kind of embarrassed to admit this, but I've been sleeping with all the lights on. I'm a little afraid to get the electric bill."

"You should put in some of those energy saver bulbs," Kale suggests with perfect seriousness.

"So, now you know." Julie leans forward, elbows on her knees. "There's my issues, all laid bare for your scrutiny. I'm still scared to death of... that man. I still keep seeing him when I close my eyes. I keep seeing what he did to you, and it just about kills me that I wasn't able to do more."

"Hey," Kale says, and suddenly he's comforting her. "Hey, you did enough. We got out of that basement, didn't we?"

"Yeah. Yeah, we did," Julie agrees, although it's debatable whether they've really left it behind. "You know, everyone's been worried about you. Your grandparents, your Aunt Paula, they keep calling, wanting to know when they can see you. I've sort of been holding them off. As far as anyone knows, you're still recovering from the stabbing."

"Hey, thanks for not telling the whole family that I experienced a psychotic break. No, really, thank you."

"Any time."

"Maybe in the Christmas newsletter?" Kale suggests slyly.

"You know, Kale," she continues, "I don't want to live through another year like the last one."

"I don't either."

"All right," Julie says, sitting up straighter, "your turn."

"That's how it works? You bribe me with Red Bull, you open up to me just so you can... what, plumb the hidden recesses of Kale Brecht's psyche?" But he doesn't seem angry. He's almost smiling.

"That's how it works."

"Okay." He leans back, crosses his ankle over his knee. "Okay, I got one. So, the other night the janitor was out in the hall, and he had like a little portable radio. And it was playing that song, you know? I can't remember what it's called. Is there gas in the car... yes there's gas in the car..."

"'Kid Charlemagne.'" Julie sees where he's going with this. "Your dad loved Steely Dan. I think it was because his name was Dan too."

"Yeah." Kale stares at his feet. "You know, this shrink they've got me with, she... she keeps wanting to talk about 'survivor's guilt.'"

"Well, what do you think? Is she a quack?"

"I dunno, I think she's onto something."

"I figured as much."

"I know you always said that it wasn't my fault. But let's face it, I did more or less kill my dad. That's what I do, right? Kill people?"

He's seen way too much death for seventeen, Julie thinks for the hundredth time. Once again she curses her inability to protect him. "What if had been the other way around? If your dad had been driving, and you were the one that died. Do you think I would hate him?"

"Probably not."

"Definitely not. It was an accident. I hate it, but accidents happen sometimes. And just so you know... Walking into that hospital, finding out you survived the crash, it was... it was like getting a piece of my life back that I thought I'd lost forever." She always gets choked up when she remembers that moment.

"But you don't know what he said." Kale's face is open, needy. "Turner. Robert Turner. I don't think I told you about this. He was going to kill you and set me up for it." Julie shudders. "He said I was going to kill you because you wouldn't stop blaming me. For Dad. And you know everybody would have believed it."

"That's ridiculous," Julie says automatically.

"Is it?"

She takes his cold hand between her own. "As if anything you did could make me stop loving you. Ridiculous. And if Robert Turner knew the first thing about that, he wouldn't have turned out like he did."

"Yeah, but..."

"Who are you going to believe?" She smiles wryly. "A deranged serial killer, or your own mother?"

"You know," Kale says slowly, "if it wasn't for you I think I would have just let him kill me."

"I could say the same about you." She releases his hand. "Are you still seeing him, like I do?"

"Nah," Kale says, "it's the girls. In the basement. And... you. What he was going to do to you..."

"Hey, you did a great job," Julie insists. "You did. I am so, so proud of you."

"I killed a man, Mom."

"You did what you had to do, honey."

"I don't want to end up like him." Kale wipes at his eyes, looking very scared. Julie finally enfolds him in a motherly embrace.

"You won't," she says. "You won't."

Kale, deeply engrossed in a book, doesn't even notice his mother until she's right beside him. "Mom!" he says, surprised, but seeming genuinely glad to see her. He stands up and actually voluntarily hugs her. "Jeez, Ma, you smell fantastic. I thought you had to work tonight?"

"You won't believe this," Julie says, tugging off her jacket, "but the water main broke and we had to shut down the restaurant."

"Time off for good behavior, huh?"

Julie smiles. "I guess you could say that." She's brought a sack full of takeout containers which she spreads out before him. "And we all had to take the leftovers so they wouldn't go to waste. Want some?"

Kale rolls his eyes dramatically. "I dunno, I guess I could choke some down." He pries the lid off the nearest container; it isn't even hot anymore, but he digs in with the gusto only a teenage boy can accomplish. "Ohh, this is transcendent. Did I tell you the food here sucks?"

"Yeah, I think you mentioned it once or twice." Julie sits down opposite her son, craning her neck to see the title on the spine of the book. "What're you reading? Oh, one of Dad's. That's nice."

"So, what else you got? I swear, I'd kill for a piece of garlic bread."

Julie raises her hands in mock horror. "Easy, there. Yeah, there's bread in here somewhere." She rifles through the foil packages. "I got some tiramisu. That's your favorite, right?" She sits back and watches him eating for a while; if not for the setting, this could be a totally normal evening in their lives. She likes it.

"Hey, kiddo," Julie says after a while. "So, I talked to Dr. Crane this afternoon. She says you're doing really well."

"Fantastic," Kale mumbles around a mouthful of quattro formaggio. To his credit, though, he only sounds about fifty percent sarcastic.

"And, well, I was thinking we could talk about when you come home."

Kale stiffens, automatically hunching over his dinner. "Which will be when?"

"Soon."

"Now, how did I know you were going to say that."

"Look." She passes him a napkin, which he uses to wipe some alfredo sauce off the corner of his mouth. "I was thinking about... maybe selling the house. It's really too big for just the two of us, and you'll be off to college soon. And let's face it, real estate values have gone up dramatically since we bought it. I could get a nice apartment and the rest would go a long way in getting you through school."

"Really?" Kale looks at her quizzically. "But you love that house."

"I do," Julie admits. "But, it's not really the same without your dad, is it? And, I thought you might not like looking out your window every day and seeing Turner's house next door."

"That's not a bad idea," Kale concedes. "I'll think about it."

"You do that." Julie tears off a crust of garlic bread for herself. She doesn't actually eat it, only crumbles it into smaller and smaller pieces. "About the dating thing, too. I am going to have to start dating... that hasn't changed. But I can wait until you're in college. It isn't that much longer."

"Do me a favor, 'kay? Get, like, a full background check on any guy you're even thinking about going out with."

"Fair enough." Julie laughs. "That's not all. Look, there's some... there's a lot going on, with him. I've kind of kept it from you but there's things you'll have to know sooner or later."

"What kind of things?"

"Like his house, for example. It's been a... well, the term 'media circus' is completely overused, but that's what it is. This is a big story. Bigger than Bundy. And every news organization in the world has been doing interviews in front of his house, 'man-on-the-street' stuff, all that. And the cops. Actually, as soon as the cops figured out what they had on their hands, they called in the FBI. Which means that the men in the black suits have been coming and going, pretty much every hour of the day. It's like something from 'C.S.I.' Just about every darn thing in that house is a piece of evidence."

"I used to love 'C.S.I.'" Kale cracks open a Coke. "What are they going to do with the place?"

"Well, eventually the city's going to tear it down. The abattoir isn't exactly up to code, you know?" Grimly, Julie smiles. "But it could take months or even years. There's a lot of open cases that need to get closed, first. You should know, they're calling him the 'Blue Mustang Killer.'"

"The Blue Mustang Killer," Kale repeats, trying out the words in his mouth. He hadn't even thought of his neighbor as one of those historic bad guys, like Jack The Ripper. "It's definitely one for the ages. And I bet all the auto body shops are getting good business, painting every 1960s Mustang in the country red?"

Julie laughs. "Something like that. Anyway, there's more. Because it's such a big story, everyone wants to know who it was that caught the killer."

"Which was me."

"Which was you. Because you're a minor, Kale, the police can't release your name to the media without my permission. As of right now, that's something I've declined to do." What she'd said to the cop was, He's not a hero, he's not some kind of vigilante for justice. He's just a kid, and right now he's freaked out and he needs his space. After that, she'd said nothing. "You want to come forward, later, it's totally your call. But if it's up to me, I'd say wait a while, like until you're out of school. Might make things weird."

"Probably don't need any more 'weird' for a while."

"Probably not," Julie agrees. "The cops wanted to do a whole... thing... but I talked them out of it. I struck a bargain instead. I got your juvenile record expunged, so you'd better stay on the straight and narrow from here on out, okay?"

"Okay."

Julie pulls a rubber-banded stack of envelopes out of her jacket pocket and tosses it on the table. "What's that?" Kale inquires, another forkful of pasta approaching his lips.

"Do you remember how he had all those souvenirs? There was a whole wall of drivers' licenses, IDs, keys and things from the women he'd killed."

"I remember," Kale says very quietly.

"They go back years. The irony is, because he was so meticulous, the families of all those girls are finally getting some closure."

"So those are letters."

"Yeah, the FBI gets them and forwards them to me. After the first couple, I couldn't even read them anymore. The letters from mothers are the ones that really get me."

"It's a mom thing, huh?" Kale teases gently. "Like you bringing me all this food?"

"I can't shut it off," Julie says apologetically. "You don't have to read these now. Or ever. I just wanted you to know that they're out there." She glances at the clock on the wall. "Well, bud, time's up. I'd better go; it's going to be a heck of a day tomorrow."

"Hey, Mom?" he says. "Thanks." It sounds like he's thanking her for the food, but it's more than that.

"No, Kale," Julie responds, "thank you."

"Wow, that took forever," Julie says when they are finally free. "Seriously, Kale, there's less paperwork when you close on a house."

"I feel like I should have a button or a T shirt or something. 'I Am Officially Sane.'"

"Sane as you're going to be." Her tone, like her heart, is light. It's an impeccably beautiful day in late September. Kale, who has been indoors too long, squints as they step through the sliding doors and into the perfect autumn sunshine. "Hey, I've been meaning to tell you, I'm sorry about Ashley."

He does the one-shouldered shrug again. "It's all right. I mean... it sucked, but I'm kinda over it."

"I was going to say, I know it's one of those normal teenager things, but the timing was pretty bad."

Kale is strangely philosophical. "Nah, she's right. It's not like we really had anything in common. Anyway, I'm not worried about it 'cause I've got this." Without breaking his stride he rolls up the sleeve of his Ramones t-shirt, displaying the web of scars on his left shoulder. "Chicks dig scars, Mom. Go on, ask me how I got 'em."

"Umm... I was there?"

"I've been practicing, Mom. Just do it."

"Okay, how'd you get the scars?"

"I was in a knife fight," Kale says with an air of practiced nonchalance. "Pretty cool, huh?"

"Yes, that's very manly, son." Julie chuckles. "You want to go get some breakfast?"

He pats his stomach. "I already had my Rice Krispies."

"Brunch, then? Better enjoy it while you can, mister; you're going back to school on Monday."

"How about omelets at Salt Shaker? Since you're buying."

"Sounds good." She knows he'll probably have a chocolate milkshake with it; he usually does.

Impulsively, Kale slings an arm around his mother's shoulders. "I need a fedora," Julie muses.

Kale looks at her oddly. "You going crazy, Mom? Because I know a guy..."

"No," she says, "I was thinking of 'Casablanca.' You know, at the end, when they're going off into the fog?" That had been one of Dan's favorite movies. "I don't know, you just reminded me of that."

Kale doesn't say anything, only shakes his head in mock horror.

"Okay, I'm going crazy."

Briefly, he laughs. She thinks it's the most beautiful sound she's heard in a long time.

the end.

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