White Space Season 1

the last hour she’d been trying to get his attention and draw him from his room. He almost felt bad since she seemed uncharacteristically genuine, at a time when he expected to see her at her worst.
    Beatrice didn’t like it when things didn’t go according to plan, especially when her plans included leaving the island for yet another weekend getaway. She and his father were scheduled for a weekend at The Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa in California Wine Country. They were booked and ready to leave Friday afternoon as soon as his dad came home early from work. But they had to cancel everything when they heard about the shooting at school.
    The quiet house had heard maybe 500 words the entire weekend. His dad, the only one who even tried to make conversation, had to fly to New York for another conference on Tuesday.
    Beatrice’s plastic personality made it pretty easy to see through her shallow attempts to mimic emotions. She could give a shit about Milo, and was probably marking red X’s on a calendar somewhere, waiting for him to graduate and leave the house.
    She’d been trying to get him to go to Jessica’s funeral service all weekend, but Milo didn’t want to talk about it. Now she was trying to lure him out of his room with lasagna, which he loved. Hers was admittedly good, and Milo could smell the scent traveling up the stairs and into his bedroom.
    Milo was tempted to leave the room, just long enough to get some lasagna, when his cell phone rang. He hoped it wasn’t Alex again. He’d been ignoring Alex’s messages, not even bothering to listen to them. He couldn’t hear Alex’s voice right now. It was too soon, the horror still raw. How could he possibly remain friends with the son of the man who murdered his friends and classmates?
    It was bad enough that he saw Jessica’s dying eyes every time he went to sleep.
    He grabbed the phone off his nightstand and saw that it wasn’t Alex. It was Jesus, Manny’s older brother, who’d come back from Stanford University in California to be with his family. They’d talked briefly Saturday when he learned that Manny was in a coma.
    “Hey Milosauraus,” Jesus said, “How’s it hanging over at Casa la Anderson? Other Mom still being a bitch?”
    Milo felt a slight flush of shame as the scent of lasagna bled beneath the door. “Nah, she’s being alright, for the moment anyway. How’s Manny.”
    “Wish I knew,” Jesus said. “The doctors aren’t saying shit. He’s still in a coma. Might make it, might not. Changes every hour. Dad’s stopped asking, Mom can’t keep from crying. We’re taking turns hanging out at the hospital, just in case he wakes. Right now is my shift.”
    “I’m sorry, man,” Milo said.
    Jesus sighed, “Yeah.”
    There was a long, awkward silence. Milo wasn’t sure what to say, but Jesus didn’t seem like he was in a hurry to hang up. After a while, Milo gathered enough courage to say what he had wanted to say on Saturday. “Hey, Jesus, can you call me as soon Manny wakes up?”
    “Of course, man.”
    “I mean immediately, I want to be there as soon as I can see him.” After a pause, Milo added, “Before other people start talking to him.”
    An edge of concern crept into Jesus’s throat. “What’s going on? What aren’t you saying?”
    “It’s probably nothing,” Milo said. “But I can’t stop wondering something. Right before Mr. Heller blew his brains out, he knelt down next to Manny. He looked like he was sorry he shot him. Like he didn’t know what he was doing, or perhaps hadn’t meant to hit Manny, I’m not sure. But the weird thing was that he said something to Manny.”
    “Said something? What did he say?”
    “I dunno, that’s what I want to ask him.”
    “You and me both,” Jesus said. “You and me both.”

    * * * *

CHAPTER 5 — Jon Conway

    Wednesday
    September 6
    6:50 p.m.

    The sky was unseasonably clear for a summer on Hamilton Island, with not a single cloud in sight. In fact, the only thing spoiling the bruised orange pre-twilight sky was a pair of long white contrails, stretching from the other side of the tree-lined hills on the west side of the island to the snow-capped Mount Rainier on the eastern horizon.
    Jon drove his rented Avalon past the Chamber of Commerce and the Visitors’ Bureau buildings, past the outer limits of the tourist trap downtown, then finally along the freedom of the winding coast to Greenwood, where the rich people lived, then up into Cedar