She resumed picking up the clothes, distraught. She collected a dirty T-shirt, a soiled blue Musketeers Baseball shirt, and another one identical to the first. She had no idea how Raz had accumulated so many Musketeers Baseball T-shirts, maybe he was buying them instead of washing them, or he was getting them from the team. Either way, she stepped from one pile of dirty clothes to the next, cleaning up his room, and when her arms were totally full, she went over to the hamper, which he kept in the closet.
The hamper overflowed, and she set the clothes she’d been holding onto the rug, looked inside, and saw that it was taken up by sheets and a blanket. She pulled the sheets and blanket out, but at the bottom, she felt something hard. Instinctively she withdrew her hand. It could be something crusty with mold, pizza crust, or God-knows-whatever. She had seen enough stiff socks to last a lifetime, mostly because Neil would find them and show them to her to make her laugh. Today, she wasn’t laughing.
She reached her hand into the hamper again, but whatever she felt was hard and solid. She grabbed the object and pulled it out, shocked to see what sat in her palm.
A gun.
Susan felt thunderstruck. Where had he gotten it? Why was it here? Why was he hiding it? How had she lost control of her own home? They didn’t have guns in the house. They didn’t know anything about guns. Neil hadn’t known a damn thing about guns. She didn’t know much about guns, either, but she knew enough to know that this one was a revolver, with a silvery muzzle and a brown handle.
She walked the gun over to the bed and set it down carefully, with the muzzle facing away from her. She didn’t know if it was loaded and she didn’t know if the gun had a safety, or if revolvers even had safeties. She didn’t understand why Raz had it or where he had gotten it. But she was going to find out. She went to the bathroom and heard the shower water still running. She knocked on the door and tried to open it, but it was locked. She didn’t know why Raz had locked the door. Did he always do that? Did he ever do that? And why didn’t she know?
“Raz!” Susan shouted, banging on the door. “Raz, come out!”
“I’ll be out in a minute!”
“Now!” Susan shouted, louder, then got her temper in check. Being angry wouldn’t help, and she wasn’t angry, she was terrified. “Raz, please, right now!”
“All right!” Raz called back, irritably, and the next minute, the shower water went off.
“Hurry, please, I want to talk to you.” Susan tried the knob again. She wanted him out of that bathroom. She wanted to see his face. Panic rose in her chest, for some reason.
“Mom, what’s your problem?”
“Come out!” Susan turned the doorknob and pushed at the same moment that Raz opened the door, and she almost fell inside the bathroom. “Why is there a gun in your hamper?”
“A gun?” Raz’s dark eyes went wide. A towel was wrapped around his waist, and he had barely dried off his chest, slick with water. She hadn’t seen him naked to the waist in a long time, and she realized he wasn’t a kid anymore, but a full-grown adult man, who had secrets.
“Raz, are you telling me you didn’t know there was a gun in your hamper? Where did you get it? What’s it doing there?”
“Oh, jeez.” Raz stepped out of the bathroom, tucking the towel tighter around his waist.
“Is it loaded?” Susan pointed at the bed, but Raz made no move toward the gun.
“Yes, I think.”
“Raz, you had a loaded gun in your room? Where did you get it?”
“From Ryan.”
“Ryan!” Susan couldn’t begin to process the information. Just when she thought it was bad, it went worse. Now both boys were involved. “Where did he get it from? And why do you have it?”
“Are you mad at me? Don’t be mad.”
“I’m not mad, honey,” Susan said, realizing that the words were absolutely true. “I’m just trying to understand what’s going on. You and Ryan have a gun? Why? How?”
“He got it from a guy that he knows.”
“What guy?”
“He didn’t say, I don’t remember.”
“You don’t remember or he didn’t say?” Susan thought he was lying.
“I don’t know, it was, like, awhile ago, and he gave it to me and he asked me to put it in my room, so I did.”
“Did he tell you what he got it for?”
“No.”
“Do you have any idea?”
“No.”
“Oh God.” Susan found herself rubbing her face. She had put on makeup for the therapy session, but her foundation was coming off on her finger pads.
“Don’t be mad,” Raz said again.
“How do you know it’s loaded?”
“He told me.”
“Did it come that way or did he buy bullets?”
Raz smiled his goofy smile. “Bullets are like batteries. They’re not included.”
Susan didn’t laugh. “This isn’t funny.”
Raz looked at her directly, seeming to focus. Then after a moment, he said, “I’m sorry.”
“I am too,” Susan heard herself say, her voice softening.
“What are you sorry for? You’re just the mom.”
Susan felt the words cut through her chest, though Raz hadn’t meant it in a bad way. “I haven’t been acting like a mom, not for a long time, and I’m sorry about that.”
Raz frowned. “It’s all right, I get it. It’s because Dad died.”
“No, it’s because he lived. I stopped being the mom when he was still alive because he was such a good father. But you still needed me. You still needed a mom.”
“It’s not your fault.” Raz swallowed hard.
“Yes, it is. I’m sorry I let you down. I’m sorry I didn’t notice your room was getting this bad. I’m sorry I didn’t know how sad you were.”
Raz blinked, and for a moment he didn’t say anything fresh or come back with a wisecrack. “I am sad.”
“I know, honey. I know that now.” Susan reached out, hugged him, and held him again, the same way she had the other day in the car, and she stopped herself from saying I’m sad too. Because it couldn’t be about her anymore, not for another minute. She held him close, her youngest son, as wet and slick as the day he was born and she had held him in her arms for the first time, and she realized that she had hugged him more in the past two days than she had probably in the past two months, and when she let him go, they both wiped tears from their eyes.