“Why are you defending her?” Hanna asked.
“Why aren’t you? Can you really blame her for feeling harassed? Particularly given that whole iNeighbor thing?”
“Cindy is a bit out of control, I grant you. But it’s hard for me to have too much sympathy for Julie, given the state of Chris’s face.”
In the end, Chris hadn’t needed traditional stitches. The plastic surgeon told us the scar would likely fade to a thin line without surgery. Nothing that would be noticeable in a couple of years. So he’d glued the cut together, and we’d chosen to let him heal naturally. But Hanna winced every time she caught sight of his face. As if she were being cut each time. Chris didn’t really seem to care. Or so he said. I’d caught him scowling at himself a few times. I offered to buy him an eye patch to complete his pirate look. He’d laughed, and we’d had a wrestling match, which he won. That made it the last six times in his favor. I might be back in shape, but fifteen could take forty-five. Which was probably a good thing.
It had taken me longer to convince Hanna not to bring a lawsuit. I still wasn’t sure I’d succeeded.
“Chris is fine,” I said. “And she’s apologized for that. Accidents happen.”
She closed the dishwasher and wiped her hands on a towel. She was wearing her workout clothes. Hanna hates running outside, preferring the perfectly sealed atmosphere of the gym.
“It wasn’t an accident. And something about this feels off.”
“What?”
“I just get this vibe from her. She reminds me of that client I had. You know the Munchausen-by-proxy one?”
“That woman who was making her kids sick?”
“That’s the one. I knew something was wrong from the first time I met her.”
“What are you talking about?”
“People do weird things to call attention to themselves.”
“I know that. But Julie doesn’t want attention. She didn’t even speak to the press.”
“Then how did they get the story?”
That was a good question. Hanna was always full of good questions.
“You’re the one who’s always saying journalists bribe the clerks to let them know if any juicy gossip comes in.”
“Sure, that happens. But the local paper? Besides, when something comes out about a celebrity, it’s usually because they called it in themselves.”
“Julie’s not a Kardashian.”
“No, but she keeps saying one thing and doing another. Like how she let her real last name ‘slip’ the first time you talked to her. If she was so into privacy, why do we know who she is?”
I expelled a breath. There wasn’t any point in arguing with Hanna when she was like this. And it was more than likely my fault she was thinking this way in the first place. I was spending too much time with Julie. It was time for it to stop. Hanna trusted me. I’d never given her any reason not to. The thought that I might be giving her cause now sickened me.
Because I wasn’t that guy.
I really wasn’t.
Chris turned fifteen and a half a week later. We’d stopped celebrating his half birthday when he was eight, but this half birthday meant something. He could get his learner’s permit. Chris had circled the date on the kitchen calendar the day it was put up. Hanna shuddered and said no way. But he’d worked on her, and now she was resigned.
So on a sweet-aired March day, I built Chris a stack of half-moon pancakes to imitate the half-birthday cake he’d be getting later, and drove him to the DMV. We went to the driver exam station, and I read box scores on my phone while he answered questions like “When is a driver permitted to turn right on a red traffic signal?” He passed the test with flying colors. After I promised he’d always be accompanied by Hanna or me, he was given his temporary permit.
We’d let him take the day off school, thinking we might use the time to start driving lessons. Once his permit was in his wallet, I drove him to the Eastgate Mall, counting on its enormous parking lot to be nearly deserted on a Thursday morning. I parked in one of the spaces and turned off the engine.
“Ready?” I said to Chris.
His scarred cheek was facing me. I felt a pang. Whenever something happened to one of the kids, I couldn’t help feeling like I’d failed. Like I was wounded myself. No matter how small the incident. It was the terrible thing about parenthood. Did that ache ever go away?
His voice cracked. “I think so.”
“You’ll be great.”
“You’re not going to yell or anything?”
“Of course not.”
“That’s what Ashley’s dad did when he was teaching her to drive.”
“Well, he shouldn’t have.” I unbuckled my seat belt. “Let’s switch.”
We met at the front bumper. I gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Have I ever yelled at you when I was teaching you something?”
“No.”
“My dad used to do that, and it drove me crazy. So don’t worry. You can do this.”
“Okay.”
We climbed back in. I talked him through starting the engine, putting the car in reverse, and depressing the gas. After confusing the gas and the brake a few times while the car was still in park, he eased us out of the space a bit too fast. I was glad the parking lot was empty.
“Follow this road to the stop sign,” I said. “Be careful of pedestrians. They tend to leap out between cars.”
Chris looked left and right, then slowed down even more.
“This is stressing me out.”
“You’ll get the hang of it. But it’s not a bad thing to be cautious.”
He didn’t look so sure.
“Why don’t we talk about something? Something to distract you.”
“I thought I was supposed to concentrate?”
“You are. But you also need to learn to do two things at once.”
His hands gripped the wheel tightly. “I think I need to build up to that.”
“Why don’t you take a right up here?”
He slowed to a stop, the car jerking twice.
“Sorry!”
“It’s fine, Chris. Remember, gas is on the right, brake is on the left.”
“Why can’t I use two feet?”
“Well, if you ever drive stick, you’ll need your left foot for the clutch. You’ll get used to it. Now, put on your turn indicator and turn the car gently around this corner. Then drive over there and park between those two cars.”
Chris leaned forward and followed my instructions. When he stopped crookedly between the two cars and turned off the engine, his hands were shaking.
“You okay there, buddy?”
“It’s a lot more difficult than I thought.”
“You’ll get it, I promise.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
A phone buzzed, then stopped, then buzzed again. I checked my own phone, but there weren’t any new messages.
“Sounds like someone’s trying to reach you,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Something going on?”
“It’s probably Ashley.”
“Has her mom relented about you two seeing each other?”
“Sort of?”
“So how come you’re not answering?”
“I’m doing this right now.”
“She text you a lot?”
“What’s a lot?”
I almost laughed. I was glad my first relationships hadn’t had to deal with e-mail or texts or any of the things we now took for granted. Though, I’d been so awkward at talking to girls on the phone back then that sometimes whole minutes would pass in silence. I dreaded those phone calls about as much as Chris was dreading this conversation. Maybe texting would’ve saved me.
“I think a lot is anything that makes you uncomfortable, taking compromise into account.”
“What does that mean?”
“Compromise, son. It’s what makes relationships work. I’m sure you’ve noticed that girls talk a lot more than boys?”
“Y
eah.”
“And they worry more, too. Take your mom, for instance. How she likes you to call her or text her when you get somewhere. You do that, right?”
“Sure, but that’s Mom.”
“Right, but I do it, too. Because I know otherwise she’d worry. And that’s compromise.”
“What do you get in return?”
“It’s not really about that. It’s more like, if there’s something I really care about, then she’ll let me have my way.”
He sighed. “That sounds like a lot of work.”
“It can be. It depends if it’s worth it.”
“How do you know?”
“With you guys, it’s obvious. Everything is worth it. But in general, that’s hard to say. I think you have to ask yourself whether the good outweighs the bad. No one’s perfect. Everyone has their stuff. Things they’ll do that you find annoying or don’t understand. But if you love someone, or think you might, then you decide what’s the most important thing. Them in your life, or not.”
His phone buzzed again. His fingers closed around its shape in his jeans.
“Why don’t you go ahead and answer that?”
He put his hands back on the wheel. “I think I’d like to try this again.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Okay. So, you’ll need to check your rearview mirror and back out slowly. Don’t try turning the wheel until I tell you to.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
He gave me a shy smile, and I knew he was thanking me for more than the driving lessons.
Months later, I’d asked myself repeatedly whether, if I’d said something different that day, things would’ve turned out the same.
Life is made up of turning points. Forks in the road.
We make choices every day that take us down one path over another.
The thing I’ve learned is, there generally aren’t any signposts along the way.
Today
John
12:00 p.m.
We’re at lunch. Around eleven, the prosecutor came downstairs to tell us we wouldn’t testify until the afternoon. We needed to eat, so we decided to go to The Rookwood, the former site of Rookwood Pottery that’s been turned into a restaurant. The old kiln still sits in the middle of the building. Renovations have added a stone patio with a view over the river. The threatening sky has cleared, so we accept a table outside in the sun.
Chris used to love this place when he was a kid. He and Becky would order Shirley Temples and French fries. Things they weren’t normally allowed to eat. Special treats to bribe good behavior while the grown-ups tried to eat a meal in semi-peace.
Today, he orders a classic burger, which now comes with artisanal lettuce, whatever that is. I know he won’t eat much of it. Like the pancakes this morning that congealed in their syrup. And all the meals since the morning of the accident that have been pushed around his plate.
He’s shredding his paper place mat into little pieces, leaving a trail of confetti across the metal table. His face is blank, dazed.
“Chris, is there something you haven’t told us?” Alicia asks.
“I dunno,” Chris says. “Like what?”
“What’s going on, Alicia?” Hanna asks.
“I want to hear from Chris first. Is there something about that day, or the months before it, that you haven’t told us about? Something important?”
Chris squirms in his seat. Hanna’s told me more than once that all witnesses have something at the forefront of their minds. Something they’re worried they’ll be asked about. It’s as likely to be important as innocuous. The challenge is to get them to disclose what they’re scared to reveal before they testify.
I wonder if this is what Alicia’s doing. Trying to get Chris to release whatever’s scaring him before he takes the stand.
We watch Chris struggle. My heart wants to believe there’s nothing there. That there aren’t any secrets left to tell. I know that’s a fantasy. I just don’t know how big a fantasy it is.
The waitress arrives with our food. Chris seems to think he’s off the hook, and actually takes a large bite from his burger. But Hanna doesn’t touch her beet salad. Her eyes shift back and forth between Alicia and Chris like she’s watching a tennis match.
“What is it, Alicia? Please, tell us,” she says finally.
Alicia gives Chris one last look and relents. “They think Chris was behind some of the harassment Julie was getting.”
“Who thinks that?”
“The police. The prosecutor. They’ve gone back and looked at her complaints more closely. I gather they didn’t take them that seriously when it occurred.”
Chris puts his hamburger down. There’s a splotch of ketchup at the corner of his mouth. Hanna’s hand reaches unconsciously to wipe it away. How many times has she done that in the last sixteen years? Cleaned up after Chris. That swirl of chaos he always seemed to leave around him, even as a tiny boy.
“Chris?” I say. “Is this true? Did you have something to do with harassing her?”
I know even before he nods that it is. That it’s the explanation for a lot of things. That even though the threat of Heather Stanhope has been, to some extent, real, the boy next door is a more likely explanation.
“Sort of,” he says, his voice rising an octave above its new register.
“What kind of answer is that?”
“I’m sorry.”
“We’re all sorry. But we said. We agreed. We’d tell Alicia everything so we could deal with it up front.”
His eyes brim with tears. “You really want me to tell everything?”
There’s something in his voice. A threat. A warning.
“If you were involved in what happened to her, then yes,” I amend. “You need to tell us. Right now.”
He breaks my gaze and pushes his plate away.
“It wasn’t my idea.”
“What wasn’t your idea?” I say at the same time as Hanna says, “Whose idea was it?”
“Ashley,” Chris says. “It was Ashley’s idea.”
It comes out of him in fits and starts. How Ashley’s parents had grounded her after Chris was found escaping their basement. That they’d confiscated her phone and forbidden her to talk to him at school. How upset she was at the state of his face. She wanted to get back at Julie for what she’d done. She was, like, obsessed.
“She wasn’t responsible for you being in Ashley’s house that night,” I say.
“I know. But she told that dog to attack, Dad. She did.”
Hanna shoots me a look. How dare I blame our son for anything right now?
How dare I.
“So what happened next?” Alicia asks. She takes a yellow legal pad out of her bag and starts taking notes. Another pad to add to the pile. I’ve always meant to ask her what she does with all of them.
“She kept talking about it and talking about it. How we should do something. Get back at her. Make her feel like I did that night. It sort of became like this game? We could toilet-paper her house. We could key her car. We could—”
“Leave a turd with a scary note at her front door?”
“Yeah.”
“It was yours?”
Alicia looks embarrassed for the first time since I met her. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible, given what she does for a living.
“Yeah.”
“And the note? How did you do that?”
“Ashley pricked her finger. She saw something online about this woman who stalked Mrs. Prentice. She’d done something like that.”
Our sunny waitress appears.
“Everything all right here? Burger not to your liking?”
“I’m not hungry,” Chris says.
“I’ll take that, then,” she says, stacking our plates and ushering them away.
“What does this mean?” Hanna asks Alicia. “For the case?”
“Is that everything, Chris?” Alicia asks. “The only thing you did?”
&nbs
p; “We called her a couple of times and hung up. Stuff like that. Ashley might’ve done some other stuff. I didn’t really want to know.”
“Well, if that’s everything, then I think we can contain this,” Alicia says.
“How?”
“It’s a question of emphasis. It was all Ashley’s idea, wasn’t it Chris?”
“Yeah, but—”
“I know you don’t want to blame her. I get that. But it will make a difference to how the jury perceives you. If you tell it like you told us. Reluctantly. Let the prosecutor drag it out of you, but make it clear you never would’ve done something like that without her influence.”
“To keep their sympathy?” Hanna asks.
“Yes. And you and your husband didn’t know, I presume. Didn’t even suspect?”
“No.”
“No,” I echo. “We didn’t know. How could we?”
Alicia gives me a fleeting look. “People don’t have a tendency to believe that. We assume people must know what’s going on in their own house, their own family.”
“Nobody knows everything that’s going on,” Hanna says. “Even in their own house.”
“That’s true, but that’s not a winning strategy. We have to convince them you didn’t know.”
“I didn’t tell anyone,” Chris says. “Ashley didn’t tell anyone.”
“Tell that to the jury and we should be all right.”
The waitress brings the bill and we pay up. Hanna walks ahead while I hang back with Alicia.
“Is this really an issue?” I ask. “A stupid prank?”
“It doesn’t look good. It might seem like it’s a motive.”
“A motive for what?”
“If Julie knew who’d been pranking her. If she’d threatened to expose them.”
“How would Julie have known?”
“She hired someone to look into everything because of the lawsuit.”
“She did?”
“Daniel did, actually.”
“So you’re saying they knew Chris and Ashley had done those things?”
“I’m not privy to all the details. The testimony is sealed.”
“But you knew enough to ask Chris.”
“I have my sources, but they’re not perfect.”
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