Chapter 85

Kelloway got up at 9:30.
Rawle Powder woke up again, when he heard her coming down the stairs. He was sitting on the futon with the newspaper spread out all over him, bleary-eyed, depressed.
Athan was standing on top of his small breakfast table, staring across the room at the TV, at Caillou.
I’m just a kid who’s four, each day I grow some more…
“Hey babe,” Kelloway said, coming downstairs wearing her big white Mohammed Ali housecoat.
She headed straight for the coffee pot in the kitchen.
“God, are you okay?” She called back, as if just remembering that two of their friends had been murdered yesterday.
Rawle said nothing. He couldn’t speak.
She came into the living room. Her eyes were as red as fresh ground beef, from either a lot of crying, or plain-old mother/nurse exhaustion.
Rawle wasn’t okay. He was feeling alien. And frightened and guilty.
He’d relied on adrenaline to fuel through the work yesterday. This morning, his mood was already dipping dangerously low.
The shock of the killings was letting go and he was beginning to feel the emotional effects. He felt like an empty tube with sadness gushing through it, pulling him down. He was physically exhausted, like an enormous piano weight had toppled on him and wa spinnig him down.
His bicep was stinging from the pathetic physical effort of holding up his coffee cup.
Athan began to get really cranky and whiny, just like Caillou.
Kelloway took him into the kitchen and fed him another bowl of Cheerio’s. Rawle heard her put some frozen croissants into the oven. A mother and son favourite.
After a while the smell of rising bread filled the small house.
Athan ran back into the living room to attack his daddy: “Daddydaddydaddydaddy!” he chugged his pudgy little white arms, rounding the corner and heading straight for the futon. He had no idea that anything had happened. He put his head down to charge, just about to pounce-
“Athan! Fuck… don’t!”
Athan stopped in mid-charge. He looked up at his father and burst into tears.
Kelloway stormed into the room, angrily. She scooped up the little guy, but she didn’t end up saying anything.