Salvation by Michael Stedman

I discovered this short story written by my late father. Here it is.

It had been a nauseating morning. And then it got worse.

His Dad died six months earlier to the day; nothing was going right. The radio said how Williams might have been batting .450, but lost yesterday’s Yankees game for the Sox. His mother had called, begged off their Sunday visit — his sister called him a whiner when he cried about it.

“That’s just what Dad would say, too,” she cut.

He was only twelve. But they were clones. Together all the time. William and Billy, father and son — preordained by God or destiny, Billy never knew which — to look, walk, think alike . . . so people pitied him for his loss.

Now the sun scorched the trail around Lake Tisquantum. It must have been an hour since — alone — he had left the raft way out from the strip of patchy grass and gravel they called a beach. He could still hear shouting, splashing from the other kids vying for best dive, longest underwater swim, races to the rowboat dock.

He had to get away.

Overhead, a torn shroud of pines, maples, birches cloaked the trail, startling and foreboding. An unusual late afternoon mist hung low over the surrounding hills. Hot rays stabbed through the haze and the leaves above; patches of early foliage flashed on the ground like pieces from an afghan blanket. He kicked the leaves aside with the toe of his black high-top Keds and leaped recklessly from one large stone to the next thick root. Under his feet, he could hear the smaller rocks crack as he smashed through them. He could not see the raft now, beyond the hill behind. Jack O’Hara, one of the campers from the city neighborhoods, would be challenging
everybody in a double back flip off the high-diving board that jutted off the tower.

You could fly freely over the lily pads fringing the raft, over the sheer mud ledge that dropped into the darkness. Across the lake, he could see the French-style fleche of the camp chapel that penetrated the low-lying, clean layer of fog.

Fuckin’ obscene. A wash of light radiated through the leaves, flooded sensually over his face, numbed his head. He picked up a maple leaf, shredded it, kicked an innocent red mushroom to pieces, resumed jumping over the obstacles, like a maniac. That morning he had gorged on Brother Louie’s special: a lusty Canadian breakfast of eggs, fried in…