Chapter 2 - The Empty Chair
"Jordan."
David spoke his stepson's name carefully.
Jordan stared at the fallen fork.
"What happened this afternoon?"
Sabrina answered before he could.
"I've already explained."
David didn't turn toward her.
"I asked Jordan."
The room fell silent.
Jordan finally looked up. His red knit cap sat low over his forehead, and there was a tightness around his mouth David had never noticed before.
"We were moving some stuff," he said.
"What stuff?"
"That old wooden chest from the hallway."
Isaiah's head lifted.
David looked at his son.
"The one that belonged to your mother?"
Isaiah nodded.
The chest had belonged to David's first wife, Monique, who died when Isaiah was nine. It held family photographs, birthday cards, and a collection of little objects she had saved from Isaiah's childhood.
For years, it had stood beneath the hallway window.
David had promised Isaiah they would always keep it.
"Why were you moving it?" he asked.
Sabrina exhaled sharply.
"Because this house is crowded, David. Jordan needed more room to organize his things, and that chest was taking up space."
"You couldn't wait until I got home?"
"Apparently I can't make a single decision without asking permission."
David started to respond, then looked at Isaiah's cheek.
The injury was more important than the argument.
"Get your shoes, son. We're going to urgent care."
"I can walk."
"I know you can."
David put a steady hand behind his son's shoulder.
"I'm going with you anyway."
At the clinic, a nurse cleaned Isaiah's abrasions while a doctor examined his face, checked for signs of concussion, and asked how he had fallen.
Isaiah hesitated.
David sat beside him without answering for him.
Finally, the boy said, "I fell on the front steps while we were carrying something heavy."
"Did somebody push you?" the doctor asked.
Isaiah looked at his father.
"I don't know how to explain it."
David felt something cold settle in his stomach.
The doctor found no signs of a serious head injury but gave them instructions for monitoring symptoms and returning if Isaiah worsened.
When they left, David didn't drive home immediately.
He parked beneath a streetlight.
"Isaiah, I need you to tell me something."
His son picked at the edge of the clinic paperwork.
"Are you going to be mad?"
"Not at you for telling me the truth."
Isaiah remained quiet.
David changed his question.
"How long have you been eating dinner upstairs?"
The boy stared through the windshield.
"Not every night."
"How many nights?"
"Whenever Sabrina says I have an attitude."
"And what counts as an attitude?"
Isaiah gave a small, humorless laugh.
"Sometimes asking why Jordan doesn't have to do the same chores. Sometimes saying I'm not hungry. Once I asked why she moved Mom's picture."
David closed his eyes.
He remembered walking past Isaiah's bedroom weeks earlier and seeing a plate on the desk.
He'd assumed the boy wanted privacy.
He remembered Sabrina complaining that Isaiah was withdrawing from the family.
He'd believed her.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I tried."
David looked at him.
"When?"
"Remember when I asked if we could eat together on Sundays? Just me and you?"
David remembered.
He had been late for work. He'd promised they would talk later.
They never had.
Isaiah folded the clinic paperwork.
"I figured if I made you choose, you'd think I was trying to break up your marriage."
David's throat tightened.
"Son, you should never have had to worry about that."
Isaiah didn't answer.
On the drive home, he fell asleep against the passenger window.
When they reached the house, David saw the cedar chest sitting beside the front steps.
A fresh scrape ran across one corner.
Its lid was tied shut with packing cord.
Beside it stood two cardboard boxes.
Written across the top of one, in Sabrina's handwriting, were three words:
FOR AUNT RENEE.
David stood beside the boxes for a long moment.
Aunt Renee lived two towns away.
May you like
She was Isaiah's mother's sister.
And nobody had told David his son was going anywhere.
