For Better and Worse

by Margot Hunt

  “If this case goes to trial, the defense attorney will have the right to depose Charlie, and then anything goes. The defense lawyer can—and probably will—ask Charlie if you or I ever touched him in a way that made him uncomfortable or if his grandparents did or one of his teachers. He’ll ask Charlie if he ever lies, and if so, how often, about what does he lie and has he ever gotten someone else in trouble. And then he’ll ask him if he has anything against Robert, a grudge, or if he ever felt like he was treated unfairly at school, ever saw anyone treated unfairly, if that made him angry. And, if the defense attorney has done his job, by the end, Charlie will be questioning himself. Did the abuse happen exactly as he thought? Or is it possible that he imagined part of it, maybe even all of it? Or maybe it didn’t happen the way he thought, and how can he now be sure what really happened?

  “And that’s before it even goes to trial. Because that’s where Charlie will have to get up on the stand, in front of the judge, and all the lawyers and deputies and six strangers sitting in the jury box. Let’s not forget he’ll also have to face his school principal, who he’s accused of doing terrible things to him. All of them will be staring at Charlie and judging him while he is forced to yet again go into painfully explicit detail about what Robert did to him.

  “Then one of two things will happen. Behind door number one—Robert is convicted, which could possible give Charlie some sort of closure, whatever that means, and Robert will go to jail for a really long time. But Charlie will always wonder if he did the right thing, second-guessing himself, because don’t forget, it will already have been planted in his brain that he might not have remembered exactly what happened, after all. Or, behind door number two—Robert is acquitted, and possibly goes on to hurt other kids. Charlie will spend the rest of his life wondering if he could have prevented that by being a better witness. And either way, he’ll always be known as that kid who was molested by the principal. Even though these sorts of cases are supposed to be confidential, it will get out that it was Charlie. It always does. Do you have any idea what the drug and abuse rates, not to mention suicide rates, are for kids who have were sexually abused? They’re astronomical.”

  I stopped to take a breath. My heart was pounding again. I shook my head definitively. “No. We’re not putting Charlie through that.”

  Will sat down heavily on one of the tall stools lined up by the island. “So, what then? You’re hoping that the other kid...wait, what’s his name again?”

  “Tate Mason.”

  “Right. Are you hoping that his testimony will put that fucking monster in jail? That we can keep Charlie out of all of it?”

  I poured some more merlot in my glass. I didn’t normally drink this late—it kept me up—but I doubted I’d be sleeping much that night, anyway. I pulled a stool out and away from the island counter, and leaned back against it.

  “I’ll be very surprised if Tate’s case goes anywhere,” I said softly.

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  “Tate shared a hotel room with three other boys on the seventh grade class trip to St. Augustine. All three of them have said that they were always together, with Tate, and that there was never a time when Tate could have been alone with Robert. It will be Tate’s word against theirs. And Robert’s.”

  “Tate lied about it?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s possible that he’s not being truthful about when or where the abuse happened. But no, I definitely don’t think he made the whole thing up.”

  “How do you know?”

  I closed my eyes for a minute, took in a deep breath, then looked at my husband. “Because Tate told his mom that when the abuse happened, Robert told him it was a normal practice in ancient Greece for older men to teach younger boys about sex.”

  “That’s exactly what he said to Charlie.”

  I nodded. “I know.”

  We were quiet as Will absorbed this grotesque bombshell. I sipped my wine, even though I didn’t even want it anymore, even though it tasted like vinegar in my mouth. When I looked back up at Will, I saw that he was wiping at his eyes.

  “I know you don’t want to go to the police. But if both boys are saying the same thing—that Robert told them both the same thing—wouldn’t that make the case against him stronger?” Will’s voice was a plaintive bleat.

  “Of course,” I said. “If their cases were tried together, although any half-competent defense attorney won’t let that happen without a fight. They’ll move to sever the cases, and have them heard separately. And the boys wouldn’t be allowed to testify in each other’s case. That’s considered bolstering. It’s not allowed.”

  “The entire system is fucked? That’s just great.” Will stood to splash more Scotch in his glass.

  “Actually, because we’re in such a conservative county, juries here always skew pro-prosecution. But none of that matters, because we’re not putting Charlie through any of it.”

  “We can’t just do nothing,” Will insisted. “Especially if the other kid’s case isn’t strong. We can’t just let Robert get away with it. What if he goes on to hurt another kid? If we don’t do anything to stop him, that will be on us.”

  “Oh, no, we’re going to do something.”

  “What? If you don’t want to go to the police, what can we do? What options do we have?”

  I set my wineglass down on the granite counter. I suddenly remembered back to when we were remodeling the kitchen. I had spent hours, days even, worrying about the countertops. Granite? Quartz? Butcher block? And what color—gray, white, the cool black swirly one that Will had rejected immediately but I thought would make a stylish choice? I had thought that if we had the perfect kitchen, it would create the backdrop for our perfect family life—eating meals together at the island, teaching Charlie how to make meatballs, rolling out pastry dough for summer peach pies. Looking back, it all seemed so naive. Who the hell cared about what your countertops looked like when there were children out in the world right this minute being hurt? When my child had been hurt?

  I looked squarely at my husband. “We’re going to kill Robert.”

  Chapter 9

  Will stared back at me. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I’m completely serious. It’s all I’ve thought about since Charlie told me what Robert did to him. It’s the only real choice we have.”

  Will stood and held up his hands, palms facing outward toward me, as though he was worried I was about to run at him. “Stop it. This is crazy talk.”

  “Why is it crazy? You just said yourself we have to do something. We can’t just let Robert go on, molesting other kids, ruining more lives.”

  “Then we report it to the police. I know it will be tough on Charlie—”

  I cut Will off. “You don’t know anything about how tough it would be on him. I’ve worked on these cases. I’ve seen what happens. We’re not putting Charlie through that.”

  “And his parents being convicted for murder wouldn’t be tough on him?” Will asked. “Jesus, Nat. We’d both go to prison for the rest of our lives.”

  “Don’t you remember our very first date? When you told me that you and I were smart enough to get away with murder?”

  “I was trying to impress you! Hell, I was trying to get you into bed.” Will ran a hand through his hair—the same one he’d just punched the wall with—and winced. “I wasn’t proposing that we actually go out and start killing people, like a couple of sociopaths.”

  “Sociopaths lack empathy and don’t have a conscience. We would be removing a bad person from the world. It’s not the same thing at all.”

  “What happened to Charlie is awful and horrible. Don’t you think I’m upset, too? But we aren’t the first parents to go through something like this. Normal people go to the police. They don’t become vigilante killers.”

  “And they’re wrong to do so,” I retort
ed. “No one should put their trust in the criminal justice system. It’s broken beyond repair. Guilty people get off, innocent people go to jail and no one’s life is ever improved in any way.”

  “I can’t deal with this.” Will turned away from me. “I’m going to bed.”

  “We can’t do nothing,” I said to my husband’s back.

  Will stopped, and pivoted back around. He looked terrible. His eyes were bloodshot, and the color was gone from his face, making him look pale and vulnerable.

  “I know you’re upset,” Will said. “I am, too. We’ll talk about it more tomorrow when we’re both calmer.”

  I nodded, but I didn’t follow Will upstairs. Instead, I sat there at the kitchen island for a long time, slowly turning my wineglass in one hand.

  * * *

  I thought about keeping Charlie home from school the next day, but he insisted on going. “Why wouldn’t I go?” he said. “We’re going to start our egg drop experiment today.”

  Because the man who was in charge of that school up until Monday harmed you, I thought. Because I never want to let you out of my sight, ever again.

  Instead, I said, “Have you decided how you’re going to protect your egg?”

  “No, but I don’t have to yet. We just have to write out our hypotho-thingy today.”

  “Hypothesis?”

  Charlie nodded and took a bite of the peanut butter toast with honey I’d made for him. I wanted to grab him, hug him tightly to me, but I also didn’t want to frighten him. It was probably best to keep him on his routine, I thought, which meant that school might not be a bad idea.

  I remembered back to the previous day, when Jennifer Swain told me she wouldn’t ever let Tate and Zoë return to Franklin. I wondered if we should keep Charlie enrolled at the school he was used to, where he had friends and knew his teachers, even though it was where his abuser still officially worked. Or was it better to give him a fresh start, where Robert’s specter wouldn’t be omnipresent, but where he’d also have to make new friends and find his way in the middle of an already troubling time? I’d add that question to the list I’d already started for the child therapist I planned to call that morning. At least I knew Robert wouldn’t be anywhere near Franklin School, at least not today.

  Will walked into the kitchen, freshly shaved and dressed for work. When he saw Charlie sitting at the table in his pajamas, munching on his toast, he froze, staring at the back of his son’s head. Will looked at me, his face stricken. I shook my head at him, silently beseeching him not to pick this moment to talk to Charlie about what he’d gone through. Will seemed to understand what I was trying to communicate, as he nodded and rubbed Charlie’s back.

  “Hey, kiddo,” he said. “How’d you sleep?”

  “Good,” Charlie said through a mouthful of peanut butter toast. “What happened to the wall?”

  “The wall?” Will repeated. I saw him glance at the back of his hand. The knuckles were bruised from where he’d punched the wall the night before.

  “Yeah, in the other room. It looks like someone hit it with a hammer.”

  “Oh...I banged into it,” Will said. “I guess I’ll have to get that fixed at some point.”

  “Did Mom tell you about my egg drop project?”

  “No, she didn’t. Why don’t you fill me in?” Will sat down at the table across from Charlie, who launched into a long, detailed discussion of the various ways you could protect an egg dropped from a second-story balcony. Will listened intently, nodding his thanks when I handed him a mug of coffee.

  For just a minute, watching the two of them talking over Charlie’s school project at the breakfast table, while the sharp morning sunlight streamed into our kitchen, I was almost able to fool myself into thinking that everything was normal with my small family.

  But then, the memory of what Charlie had told me the day before came rushing back, knocking my breath out of my chest. I had failed to protect my son and there was nothing I could do to change that. However, I could—and would—stop him from being hurt again. I would do whatever I had to do to protect my family.

  I rinsed out my coffee cup and set it in the sink.

  “Charlie, you’d better go get dressed,” I said. “Or else you’re going to be late.”

  Charlie obediently hopped up from the table, leaving behind his empty plate and juice glass, then headed upstairs to his bedroom. I would normally have called him back to clean up after himself, but I let it go, just this once.

  “Are you sure school is the best idea?” Will asked quietly.

  “No,” I admitted. “I’m not sure about anything. But he says he wants to go, and I think that keeping him on his schedule can’t be a bad thing.”

  “What if the kids in his class are talking about...you know...?” Will’s voice trailed off and he glanced up at the ceiling, as though worried that Charlie would be able to overhear us a floor away.

  “They won’t know about Charlie.”

  “No, but I have to imagine they’ll eventually hear about the other boy, right?”

  “I don’t know. Probably.” I shrugged helplessly. “I don’t think there are any easy answers. We both want to protect him, but we also don’t want to focus on it too much, right? I have to imagine that it’s important to give him a sense of normalcy right now.”

  “You’re probably right,” Will agreed. He shook his head, and I could tell from the dark shadows smudged under his eyes that he hadn’t slept much, either. Instead, we’d lain side by side in bed, not touching, both wide-awake until the weak morning sunlight began streaming in through the linen drapes. “We should probably get some professional help on how to best deal with this.”

  “I’m going to call a child therapist this morning to make an appointment for Charlie. I’m hoping when we meet with her, she’ll be able to answer these questions. What we do, how we best handle everything.”

  “Good idea. Let me know what you hear.” Will finished his coffee and stood. “I have to get into the office early. Do you want me to drop Charlie off on my way?”

  “No, thanks, I’ll do it. I have some errands to run this morning.”

  “Look, about last night,” Will began. “I think we should talk about it.”

  I waved him off. “Forget about it. I was upset. It was the wine.”

  “Are you sure? Because you seemed pretty set on—” Will stopped, turned to check that Charlie hadn’t come back into the kitchen. He needn’t have worried. When Charlie descended the stairs, it always sounded like a herd of eleven-year-olds clattering down, rather than one single boy. Still, Will lowered his voice to a whisper before he continued. “A vigilante approach.”

  “I was angry.”

  “I know. I’m just as angry as you are. There’s a part of me that wants nothing more than to drive over to Robert Gibbons’s house and punch him repeatedly in the face until it’s a bloody pulp.”

  “And the other part of you?”

  Will shrugged. “That’s the part that went to law school. That doesn’t want to jeopardize my family or my freedom, just for the sake of revenge.”

  “Revenge?” I looked at him, surprised. “Who said anything about revenge?”

  “Wouldn’t that be the main motive?”

  “No. The only motive, or at least the only one that matters, would be to stop him from ever hurting another kid. Revenge wouldn’t have anything to do with it. But, like I said, forget about it. I was upset and venting.”

  “Good.” Will looked relieved. “Let’s talk about it later. We’ll figure out what to do together. Okay?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  * * *

  I dropped Charlie off and watched him walk into school. He immediately sought out his friend Jack, who was clearly thrilled to see him. Jack launched into a story that involved windmilling his arms around wildly. Charlie grinned at whateve
r Jack was saying, nodding along happily. He looked fine, I thought, normal, even. I wondered how this sort of trauma worked. Was it something he was always aware of, always feeling bad about...or did it come and go, like a panic attack that hits when your guard is down?

  I realized that I was clenching the steering wheel so tightly, my knuckles were white. I loosened my grip and pulled away.

  As I drove, I made two phone calls—one to Stella, to let her know that I wouldn’t be at the office until later that morning, and one to Camilla Wilson, the child therapist Jennifer Swain had mentioned to me the day before. Neither answered their phone, so I left a detailed message for each.

  I tossed my phone into my handbag. As I drove, I went over my mental to-do list for the day. I had a few errands to run. Then I’d have to do some extensive research.

  If I was going to plan and execute a murder all on my own, I had a lot of work to do.

  Chapter 10

  My first errand was to the bank, where I withdrew eight hundred dollars. This was a bit of a risk. If the police ever investigated me as a suspect, they’d look for unusual withdrawals. I normally used my debit or credit cards to make purchases, and rarely made large cash withdrawals. But I figured that if it came down to it, I could explain it away—groceries, dinners out paid for in cash, perhaps a new handbag.

  Next, I drove to Best Buy. I needed a computer I could do some research on and then easily destroy once this was all over. I didn’t want to leave a digital trail of bread crumbs behind. I browsed through the selection of laptops for sale before finally settling on an inexpensive tablet. I checked out, paying cash for it.