by Herta Feely
She studied what she’d written before making it final. The birthday party had been cancelled; she didn’t need to mention that, did she? After a few minor edits, she struck the “enter” key, releasing the message into cyberspace. The good and evil of social networking.
The previous day she had contacted Facebook and reported that a “cyberbullying episode” had occurred on their site, the main points of which she outlined then detailed. She went on to explain that she was an attorney and Phoebe’s mother, attempting to find the culprit, the leader of the pack, someone with the Facebook name of Shane, whose real identity she hoped to uncover, and that she would appreciate their assistance in this regard. Though the day would come when she’d demand they remove or ban “Shane” from Facebook – it shocked her that he hadn’t yet disappeared from the site – for the time being she explained it was a convenient way to send “him” messages and hopefully track down the real person behind his page. They agreed to help in any way that “did not violate privacy laws.”
When she read this response, her eyebrows shot up. Screw your privacy laws, what about my child? After they acknowledged reading the awful things that had been said to Phoebe, “the verbal exchange” as they called it, she’d made a copy and erased the hateful posts that had led her daughter to attempt suicide.
Having digested every word on “Facebook Safety,” she now knew that she could remove any of Phoebe’s “friends” from her Facebook page if she wanted to, but for the time being she left them. She was sure the minute a post went up from Phoebe (or in this case, from herself), everyone would be reading it and then talking about it, though most likely through private messaging. No one could keep people from gossiping, and she thought that perhaps this now worked to her advantage.
Before ending her session, she placed two fingers to her lips, kissed them, then touched them to Phoebe’s image on the computer screen. Her poor baby’s life hung in the balance. Tears began to form in her eyes again, and she had to take several deep breaths to keep from breaking down for the hundredth time that day. In a few minutes she’d go to the hospital and relieve Ron so he could pick up Jackson at Woodmont. She had come home earlier to change clothes and gather a few books and magazines to take with her, though she suspected they’d go unread.
Her life now consisted of maintaining a 24-hour vigil at Phoebe’s bedside and saying silent prayers around the clock. Though she attended church rarely, Isabel believed in God, in a higher force. That and one other thing fueled Isabel’s ability to keep going: Justice, with a capital J. She would make whoever did this pay.
Sandy panicked when she read the post from Isabel. Her body literally quaked with fear. She stared at Shane’s face. “You fucker,” she said aloud. “You fucked me again. Goddamn it, I hate you!” She wanted to throw something at his stupid face. Her hand landed on a paperweight perched atop an unwieldy stack of papers and folders, but she knew destroying her computer solved nothing and that she needed to keep her wits. Her mother’s haranguing voice rattled about in her brain. Hope you’re happy with what you’ve done, you little harlot. Sandy ran her fingers through her hair, grabbed a fistful, and tugged it back. Hard. She released a feral groan.
How was she going to remove Shane from Facebook? It terrified her that somehow someone would be able to trace his page back to her through the separate e-mail she’d set up. She needed to erase that trail. But she was no more capable of that than fixing a gourmet meal. What could she do? Jessie would refuse to help and she couldn’t hire someone, for who could she possibly trust? Her thoughts gyrated like images in a kaleidoscope, each one scattering in a dozen directions. She sat transfixed, unable to make a decision. Could someone really discover she was behind Shane?
The need to destroy all evidence was paramount, to the point that she barely gave Phoebe a thought. Nothing beyond: how could that stupid girl have done such a thing? Provoking suicide certainly hadn’t been her intention. That counted for something, didn’t it?
Sandy wanted to call Bill, but knew that was a non-starter. If he found out about what she’d done, he’d be furious. He’d kill her. Well, not literally. But he might divorce her and she really couldn’t handle that. Which reminded her. She was supposed to have a date with Ron on Friday, the one they’d made while she was saying all those mean things to Phoebe. She couldn’t imagine he’d remember, though maybe she should write to him. But what would she say? She toyed with a few variations of the same email until she heard the front door.
As she expected, when Jessie came home, she again resisted helping her. The painful session was not without recrimination. “Mom, you’re totally unbelievable. You know that, right? You’re the worst, you really are,” she said, a disgusted baleful expression on her face. Sandy kept a deaf ear to her reproach.
“What if people find out?” Jessie said in a whiny tone.
At which point, Sandy swore her to secrecy. Well, not exactly, but she pointed out the downside to people knowing it was Jessie’s mom who had perpetrated this. Emphasis on Jessie.
Chapter Two
Thursday, November 13, 2008
The following late afternoon, at Georgetown Hospital, in the hallway outside the ICU, Isabel saw a young man sitting in one of the plastic chairs, bent over, cradling his head in his hands. She wondered what ill fate had befallen him or his family, when, as she brushed past him, he glanced up. “Oh, hi,” he said, his red-rimmed eyes scrutinizing her. “You’re Phoebe’s mom, right?”
“Yes, I am. And you are?”
“Noah. I’m a friend of Phoebe’s at Georgetown.” He looked as if he might cry.
“I see.” So this was the boy she’d kept her daughter from going to the dance with. Oh, God, why had she done that? She almost broke down at the thought.
“How is she?” he asked softly.
“Not very good, Noah. It’s nice of you to come.” She wasn’t sure what else to say.
He grew thoughtful. “I want to help. Is there anything I can do, Mrs. Murrow?”
Coming from this boy, the name that usually caused her to wince now didn’t bother her in the slightest. In fact, she welcomed it. Mrs. Murrow. Somehow it underscored and strengthened her kinship to Phoebe and Ron, despite his recent coolness toward her. Why had the name bothered her so much in the past?
“All right, Noah, I’ll let you know.” She was about to turn away when she stopped. “Actually, there may be something. I’m trying to find out who that Shane person is. Was. Apparently he’s not a student at Walter Johnson.” She thought a moment. “I can’t understand why someone would prey on my daughter that way, or do such a thing to anyone, for that matter. You wouldn’t have any idea who he is?”
He shook his head no, but then something seemed to occur to him and his eyes lit up. “I might be able to find out though. I’m pretty good with computers, and if I can’t I know some guys who are—” he hesitated, “—well, who are even better. Would you mind?”
She looked at him gratefully. “Not in the least. You have our number and I imagine you’re in the school directory?” She glanced at the ICU door. Something was tugging at her to get inside.
He nodded, then gazed up at her bashfully. “Uh, is there any chance I could see Phoebe? Just for a minute? There’s something I want to tell her.” He stopped, again appearing as though he were on the verge of tears.
She felt like embracing him, but deemed such physicality inappropriate, after all, she hardly knew him, so she merely placed her hand on his arm. “They have pretty strict rules around here, but let me check,” she said softly. “Maybe we can get you in. Wait here a moment.”
Though Mrs. Murrow’s departure and return took only a couple of minutes, to Noah, it seemed forever, and he worried that access to Phoebe wouldn’t be allowed. Then he heard her say, “It’s okay. You can come.”
Along the way, she whispered to him. “I hope you realize this is not the Phoebe you know.” He nodded, stepping carefully around an amalgam of machinery, medical equipment and I
V poles that hovered like metal angels at each ICU bed. Together they threaded their way between visitors, nurses, and patients, the latter mostly appearing to be asleep or comatose.
Still, he wasn’t prepared for what he saw when they arrived at her bedside. He swallowed and said a quiet hello to her father, then stood there awkwardly. Phoebe’s chest rose ever so slightly with each breath the ventilator pumped into her lungs, a ghastly hollow sound. He could hardly bring himself to look at her face, especially with the breathing tube contraption taped firmly into place around her mouth. He listened to the blip and whirr of the electronic equipment that monitored Phoebe’s vital signs and kept her alive. Her mother was right, this wasn’t the Phoebe he knew; he just hoped the real Phoebe still lived in there, somewhere.
He’d seen a show once where someone snuck into a hospital room at night and flipped each machine off in succession, then watched the person die. That someone had loved the patient, a girl, but knew being a vegetable wasn’t what she would have wanted.
Noah glanced first at Isabel then Ron, as if for approval, before speaking to the girl he’d kissed less than a week ago. “I’m here, Phoebe. It’s me, Noah, your friend. Everybody says ‘hi,’ and they hope you’ll get better soon.” His voice faltered, and he paused to regain control. “If you want, I’ll come visit you, and read to you. I’ll get the books you like. To Kill a Mockingbird is one of them, right? Anyway, if it’s okay with your parents I’ll start tomorrow.”
He forced himself to look at her face with its disconcerting deathly pallor. “Maybe if you can hear me, squeeze my hand. If you can’t, like maybe you’re too weak, that’s okay, don’t worry about it.” He waited, but there was no response. Not that he’d really expected one, although he’d read that people in comas could hear – it was the last of the senses to go. Still, he had his doubts.
“Skyla said she really wants to come too, so maybe she’ll bring People Magazine and read to you about all the latest important news.” A faint smile appeared on his lips because he knew that if Phoebe could hear him, she’d laugh. As he continued to hold her limp right hand, he noticed the bandages around her left wrist. He couldn’t help staring at them. Then, sensing Phoebe’s parents’ eyes on him, he quickly averted his gaze.
“Thank you for coming, Noah. It really means a lot to us,” Mr. Murrow said. And Isabel added, “Please let Phoebe’s friends know how grateful we are for thinking of her. We truly appreciate it.”
With determination etched into his youthful brow, Noah said, “We’ll find who did this, Mr. and Mrs. Murrow. I promise.”
After he left, Isabel sat down beside Phoebe and wept. Noah’s visit had reached into the softest part of her and reignited all the guilt she’d experienced the past two days. Had it been all her fault that Phoebe had done this? Had she been too hard on Phoebe? Should she not have grounded her, or at least let her go to the dance with Noah? Should she have refrained from calling the police on the Littletons? This bothered her most as it seemed to have unleashed Shane’s hatefulness. Why? It didn’t make sense. But then, when had bullying ever made sense?
Isabel second-guessed herself on a dozen fronts and struggled with these thoughts as she began massaging her daughter’s right arm and fingers. Though logically she knew Phoebe’s suicide attempt hadn’t been all her fault, the answer to the other questions seemed to be yes. And that placed the blame firmly at her feet.
She rubbed Phoebe gently and vigorously, in part because the nurses had informed her and Ron that it was important to keep stimulating Phoebe’s circulation, and also to move her limbs to inhibit muscle atrophy. Then again, she’d overheard a resident whisper that it gave parents something to do. Real muscle atrophy took months before it became serious. Still, it made her feel useful and allowed her to touch her daughter.
Ron looked haggard and spent, his eyes red from lack of sleep and his own bouts of crying. He remained beside Phoebe opposite Isabel. Though he hadn’t said anything, Isabel sensed his anger and resentment toward her. She wished he’d just speak plainly, but mostly he was silent. “Christ,” he said, “this sucks.”
Isabel nodded. “Poor baby,” she said, as she continued to massage Phoebe’s left leg.
“I’ll be all right.”
“I didn’t mean you,” she said, an edge in her voice.
“Right. Guess not.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, though she wasn’t. How could he possibly think she was referring to him? And yet she knew his behavior wasn’t entirely out of character. Plenty of times Ron had acted childish and self-centered, though perhaps not unlike many men, she decided.
To stanch the flow of such negative thoughts, Isabel turned her mind to the only thing she cared about now besides her baby getting better, and that was to develop a strategy for her latest case: finding her daughter’s predator. “Look, we need to find out what laws exist that can be used to prosecute people for doing what he did. Have you run across anything for that piece you mentioned you were working on?”
Ron scowled at her. “What piece?”
“The one on social networking,” she said, glad to have something to occupy her mind, even if only momentarily.
“Are you kidding? How would I have had time for that?”
“Well, I would have thought—”
“Thought what? That I’d be hard at work investigating the pitfalls of social networking while our daughter is…is lying here…like this? Jesus, Iz.”
Her finger shot to her lips, indicating he should keep his voice down. “Let’s not argue. I just think we owe it to her to find out who this Shane person is and bring him to justice. I, for one, will not rest until we do.”
“A lot of good that does.” His lip curled in disgust.
“What are you saying?”
“I just think we need to stay focused on her. We can deal with that later. Anyway, it won’t change what’s happened. Why are you so intent on that? What does it accomplish? Where does revenge ever get anyone?”
“I can’t believe you’re saying that. Anyway it’s justice, not revenge. Doesn’t Phoebe deserve that? Maybe you’d better go pick up Jackson,” she said brusquely.
Ignoring Ron’s heavy sigh as he lifted himself out of his chair, she turned her attentions back to Phoebe, listening to the steady blip, ping and whirr of the machines that were keeping her daughter alive. The mechanical sound of her breathing.
After he left, she grew teary-eyed because they’d snapped at one another exactly when they needed to be supportive, and then she experienced a growing inner steeliness, a quality she’d always possessed, but now it felt like a hardening shell that would protect her from the feelings that threatened to drown her in self-pity and guilt, that threatened to immobilize her. She couldn’t afford that, not when so much was at stake. She would find Shane and bring him to justice. And she’d do it with or without Ron, with or without the justice system.
Chapter Three
Monday, November 17, 2008
Ron drove slowly, following the road that wound through Rock Creek Park, noticing the thinning canopy and the increased light that always came with November. He knew homeless people roamed and even lived in the park and wondered if the lack of foliage gave them fewer places to hide. He had an insane desire to hide too, but in his case it was from people’s glances and stares. He’d barely started at the Post and already he was the source of water cooler gossip. The kind of notoriety no one wanted. It was human nature for people to talk, but he couldn’t help wondering what they were saying. All the wrong things, he was sure.
On Friday he’d stopped in for a few hours, grabbed a cup of coffee and in the hallway overheard someone saying, “Hey, d’you hear that awful thing about Murrow’s daughter?” He fled to his office, a little stunned and off-kilter, and turned to his voice mails, hoping to regain his bearings.
The first message caught him off guard: “Hi Ron, this is Sandy Littleton. I’m sorry we won’t have a chance to talk today.” That’s when he remembered th
ey’d planned to meet. “I just want you to know how sorry I am about Phoebe.” She spoke in a soft baby doll voice. “How is she? Anything I can do just let me know. Can’t imagine what you’re going through, so if you need a break, a shoulder to cry on, call me.”
The moment he’d finished listening to her message, all he could think about was meeting up with her and literally crying on her shoulder. Since the event – he didn’t know what else to call it – he’d felt like a fish without oxygen, trapped in a house that provided only dark, somber reminders of what had happened on the third floor. And seeing Isabel only seemed to make matters worse. Then, being in the hospital, a stark depressing place filled with sick and dying people, he could hardly stand it. He needed a break, he deserved one, he told himself, and now after a long weekend he was counting on Sandy for a breath of fresh air.
Finding a place to park on this slightly remote stretch of road alongside the Potomac, especially at this time of year, offered little challenge. Many spaces were available. At the last moment before exiting the car he grabbed his shades and slipped them on. Of course the sun shone, but it was a protective maneuver, in case someone passing by knew him.
Jack’s Boathouse was empty, as he’d imagined. Being early, he sat down on one of several benches to wait. Lanterns of various colors were strung along the small wooden structure, a thriving, fun establishment during the season when it was open. Both a place where you could rent a paddleboat or a canoe and also have a drink. Ron had brought the kids here to go canoeing. And he and Isabel had ridden bikes on the nearby Crescent Trail, which began just a few yards further down the road.
He wished he hadn’t thought of Isabel just then. She was the last thing he wanted to think about. What had happened to Phoebe, more or less, could be traced back to her. Several times, he’d come close to saying so, but it would be cruel and at the last second he’d stopped himself.