Blame

by Jeff Abbott

  Jane stared at the words:

  I know what you claim you don’t remember, Jane. I know what happened that night. And I’m going to tell. All will pay.

  Tell who? she wondered. Tell what? And “All Will Pay”—what did that mean? She felt cold.

  Adam’s voice went soft. “You know, if the near impossible were to happen and you did remember something, anything, no matter what…you can tell me. You can tell me anything.”

  Even if it’s the worst thing I could know about myself? That maybe everything they say about me is true? She shook her head. “No. Nothing to tell. But maybe someone knows something I don’t know. Someone saw something…”

  “There were no witnesses to the crash. Someone would have come forward.” Adam touched Jane’s shoulder. “Forget it. Erase it. At least change your password.”

  “No. I want to see if they say anything else.” She logged off Faceplace before Adam could take the tablet and start deleting. She stood up. “I keep thinking,” she said, “that whatever happened, it’s still stuck in my brain somewhere, and I just have to work it loose.”

  “You know that is not how amnesia works, Jane.”

  She knew he didn’t mean to sound patronizing, but he did, and she turned on him. “Adam. I live with this every day.” She’d read it described in one amnesia memoir as “the burden of uncertainty.” It was so true. “I know what you mean. I’m saying I cannot shake the thought that I will remember this.”

  “It’s been two years. Most memories, if they’re going to return, do so in six months.”

  “But what we don’t know about the brain is equal to what we do know.” That was what Dr. K, her neurologist, had told her, lighting a candle of hope that never burned very brightly.

  “Don’t you see how that holds you back, Jane? This pointless hope.”

  She turned away from him, a flush flooding her face.

  “You tell yourself the only way you get whole again is by remembering. I’m telling you, that isn’t going to happen. You better find another way to pull yourself together.”

  She pressed her fists to her eyes.

  Adam’s voice broke. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be a jerk; I’m just trying to help. I’ll skip class today. I’ll stay with you.”

  “I love you for that,” she said, and suddenly tears, which she hated, were in her eyes and she wiped them away with the back of her hand. “But no. Go to class. Be brilliant. I’m…”

  Going to David’s grave. Maybe it would loosen a memory. As if being close to him would work a bit of magic on her mind. “I’m going to rest,” she lied.

  “I could find out who it is,” he said. “Ask my hacker friends.”

  “All right,” she said. “Let’s find out.” What scared her was the end of the posting: And I’m going to tell. All will pay. Like there was a score to be settled.

  He nodded. “I’ll start after class.”

  Adam gave her another hug and left.

  She didn’t drive anymore, but there were the ridesharing services, and her mother let Jane use her PayPal account for payments. She didn’t use it often, because she didn’t want her mother to know where she was. She crawled out of the dorm room window and walked across the greens and the college’s parking lots toward Congress Avenue, tapping a request into the app once she was a few blocks away from the school, biting her lip, sick with nervousness at the thought of seeing David’s grave.

  3

  AFTER GRANTING HERSELF a good cry as soon as she awoke, Perri Hall showered, still sobbing under the spray. When she stopped, she told herself, There, that’s done, no more. Then she felt ready to face the terrible day. She pulled chilled spoons from the freezer to ease the puffiness of her eyes, resting on the couch with the spoons curved against her eyelids, the bright chatter of the TV morning-show hosts a garble of voices in her brain. She chose to wear a modest dark top with slightly patterned gray slacks, and a silver necklace that David had picked out as a Christmas gift when he was in middle school. Perri carefully applied her makeup. She looked, she thought, somber but elegant. Now she had to be strong. For David’s memory, for everyone who expected strength from her. She watched herself in the mirror and made sure her bottom lip had stopped trembling.

  She and her soon-to-be-ex-husband Cal met for breakfast at The Baconery, an iconic Lakehaven restaurant that served all-day breakfast and was always busy. There were always some of her friends here in the morning, after school started: community groups meeting; committees of volunteers to support football, volleyball, choir, band, robotics, science clubs, and more at Lakehaven’s schools. It was an exemplary school district, nationally ranked, and the parents volunteered many hours to support the teachers and coaches. Supporting it had once been her life. After she and Cal ordered at the counter, they walked into the dining room and, in a slow ripple across the room, heads turned. Perri took a deep breath and steadied herself for the litany: How are you (like she could ever get better), You look so lovely (did not matter), and the dreaded He’s in a better place (that doesn’t matter to me, I want him back). Perri believed they uttered those platitudes as much for themselves as for her. I’m sorry was sufficiently graceful and could never wound, could never subtly suggest that her grief made them uncomfortable or that thank goodness it wasn’t their family, their kids were alive while her handsome, smart, generous son lay in a grave.

  Ronnie Gervase, a local luminary who was a fund-raising powerhouse in Lakehaven, embraced them both and dropped two of the three platitudes that Perri expected.

  “I’ll see you at the gala meeting next week,” Perri murmured, eager to be left alone.

  “Of course,” Ronnie said. “Be strong, darling.”

  They sat and ate. Cal didn’t look good, tired and worn, but he took her hand while they finished their coffee. The hand where she’d already taken off the wedding ring.

  After breakfast they drove to the cemetery. Cal, a big, strong, determined guy who’d played football in college and then made a fortune in business, always seemed to have trouble walking toward the grave, as if he could not bear to get close to David. He tottered on the grass. Perri tightened her grip on his hand and led him along.

  At first when she said, “There’s something on the stone,” he said, “No, that’s just the light” because a tree branch did create shadow on the granite. But when they stood in front of his grave, she saw the words smeared on the tombstone, in white chalk: ALL WILL PAY.

  “What is that?” she gasped. The words were small, neat, above his engraved name: David Calhoun Hall. Cal knelt.

  “Chalk…” He scraped at it with his thumb.

  “What does it mean?” A cold anger stirred in her chest, eclipsing her grief.

  “It’s just someone being stupid,” he said. She ran back to the car and got a water bottle and paper towels—still prepared as if she had a kid to clean up after—and washed the words into a snowy smear.

  “I should have taken a picture.” He looked around. “It’s not on the other graves. Only David’s.” He embraced her and she hugged him hard.

  “What does it mean?” Perri kept her voice under control.

  “Thoughtless kids, probably. I’ll call the management and let them know. Let’s have our visit.” Trying to make the morning normal again.

  “Hello, sweetheart,” Perri said. She laid fresh flowers on the grave, with the kind of gentleness as if she were putting a blanket on his sleeping form. She ignored the white smear. She talked to David for several minutes about what had been going on in their lives, not mentioning the pending divorce. Cal, she knew, could not do this, could not speak to David as if he were still alive. Her own mother had done it at her father’s grave and she didn’t know what else to do. Not talking, the silence, was worse, the hush from her boy being gone.

  She finished her monologue and Cal coughed. She reached for his hand and after a moment he took hers.

  What else was there to say? The glue that kept their marriage together was buried
at their feet. After a moment he let go of her hand and mopped at his eyes and his face with his handkerchief. Monogrammed, with David’s initials. Perri had gotten the linen cloths for David when he finished Cotillion, a Lakehaven tradition of dance lessons and etiquette that he had hated but endured with his usual smile. Cal had bought him video games. Her gift was better; it could still be used.

  “You don’t want to be here,” she said to Cal as if he were betraying her with his hard breathing and his unsteady stance.

  “I don’t think this will ever get any easier.”

  “It’s not supposed to be easy.” Her voice rose.

  “I know that, Perri, for heaven’s sake. Could you let me grieve how I want? Not everyone is you.”

  Perri couldn’t believe he’d snapped at her, today, here, with the awful desecration of his son’s grave.

  “I don’t want this divorce,” he said, his voice barely louder than the breeze.

  “Not here. Not now.”

  “Why not, you like to talk in front of him. Shouldn’t he hear what’s going on in our lives? Do you think this divorce is what he’d want?”

  “Stop, please, Cal.” She began to hurry back toward the car. She got in. She thought she smelled a perfume different from hers, a scent of lavender, still lingering in the passenger seat, and her stomach clenched. But she had asked for the separation and then the divorce and if he found comfort with someone else—she could not complain. But she hated him a little bit, for being able to move forward.

  “Just take me back,” she said as he got into the car.

  “I hoped we could spend the day together,” he said quietly. “I didn’t want to be alone.”

  The lavender tells me you’re not alone, she thought, but today was not the day. “I just need some time alone. I’m sorry.” Why am I apologizing? she thought. She had nothing to be sorry for. The shock of the graffiti turned to a primal rage.

  All Will Pay? There was only one who needed to pay: Jane Norton.

  She tried not to think of that girl, ever. But to pretend Jane Norton no longer existed was impossible: the Nortons lived next door.

  Well, Laurel Norton still did. Jane was gone into the wind, supposedly sinking into insanity, living on the streets of south Austin, according to the Lakehaven gossip chain, a communications network unrivaled in both speed and inaccuracy. Perri had heard several wild rumors about Jane’s current situation. Laurel could not seem to bring her home. Jane’s dad, Brent, had died three years ago, a year before the car crash, so there was no other family to help. Laurel Norton rattled alone in that big house she refused to sell. Now Perri would rattle alone in hers, next door.

  Once, both families had been so happy, so whole…now, both houses felt haunted by their losses. Somewhere today that reckless little bitch was breathing, she was walking, the sun on her face, not lying cold in a grave that could be desecrated.

  “Perri.” Cal hadn’t started the car. “I am so sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.” He had his face in his hands. Not crying, but barely keeping tears at bay.

  “You don’t need to…”

  “I didn’t keep our boy safe. I moved us back to Lakehaven. If we’d stayed in San Francisco; if we hadn’t come back here; if I had put him in private school; if I’d just—”

  “You can’t blame yourself. No one knew she would try and hurt him.”

  “I know. But I feel I failed him.”

  “I used to imagine the worst,” she said slowly. He turned to face her. “The worst. That he would be caught in a fire, or an accident, or come down with some horrible disease. And you see, I believed, really believed, that because I imagined these terrible things, they would never happen; my thoughts were a shield for David. I never could have imagined to keep him safe from someone who decides to kill herself and him along with her.”

  He stared at her, his expression softening. He still loves you, she thought. He loves you and you’re pushing him away. You lost your son and now you’re handing off your husband. But there was nothing left to feel. This had ended her heart. She looked toward the grave. Her anchor, her compass.

  Perri said, “I’d like to go get my car. Come over and have dinner about six, will that work?”

  “Yes.” He cleared his throat. “I think I’m going to set up a mentorship program in David’s name. Something to help kids from disadvantaged backgrounds get into the software business.” He had been the CEO of two software start-ups, one that had succeeded and one that had failed, but he had recovered quickly from that business setback. She had been scared they’d lose the house, but Cal quickly found a new calling. Now Cal worked independently, did private venture-capital investments across the country. He said that was where the real money was. If David had lived, his father’s solo investment practice could have been his. She looked out the window again. So much squandered, so much gone.

  “That’s a lovely way to remember him.” She told herself not to cry.

  He pulled up next to her Lexus in the Baconery parking lot. “I’ll see you at six. I’ll bring some wine.”

  “That sounds fine.” She leaned over and hugged him. She hoped he wouldn’t see it as encouragement for more. He didn’t really hug back. Then she got into her car and waited for him to drive off.

  She didn’t drive back to the house they’d once shared.

  She stopped at a store to buy cleaning supplies and then drove back to the cemetery.

  She returned to David’s grave and knelt on the cool grass. She sprayed cleaner onto the stone and began to scrub away at the smear left by the unwanted words.

  “Baby,” she whispered to David as she cleaned. “I miss you so much. What is this, this garbage written on your stone? Who did this?”

  She felt better with the stone clean. Perri spoke quietly to the grave, about her days, about what his friends were doing—although she heard a bit now and then about Kamala Grayson and Trevor Blinn and a few others, she found if she thought too much about the joys of their ongoing lives in college, the knot in her heart started to tighten.

  She heard the car approaching, resenting its intrusion, then she glanced up. A sedan drove on the road that lay parallel to David’s grave on the right, slowing, then speeding up, and in the backseat window she saw Jane Norton staring back at her.

  Something broke in Perri.

  Jane leaned forward and spoke to the driver. The car zoomed forward, but to get out of Memorial Heights, it had to follow a U-bend, and Perri found herself running to the left, intercepting the car as it snaked in its turn to leave. She reached the one-way road before it did and she stood square in the middle, hands up. The car slowed. The driver—an older woman with curling gray hair—leaned her head out and said, “Excuse me, ma’am.”

  Jane Norton had no reason to see what her stupidity, her thoughtlessness, her recklessness had done. Perri stormed toward the car, fury in her face. She opened the door as Jane tried to lock it.

  “Why are you here?” she screamed at Jane as she pulled her from the car.

  “I’m calling the police,” the driver yelled, holding up a smartphone.

  “No, don’t,” Jane said, and Perri wasn’t sure if the girl was yelling at her or at the driver. Perri thought, She looks horrible. Maybe she really is homeless.

  “You want to see him? You want to say something to him?” Perri said. “Were you here already, writing garbage on his gravestone?”

  Jane’s face was pale. “What? Please, just let me leave…”

  “Oh, no, come say hello. Come see what you did.” She had one hand in the girl’s hair, one on her arm, and she hauled Jane across the cool, immaculate grass toward David’s grave. “Honey, look who’s here: Jane. You remember Jane. She killed you.”

  “Mrs. Hall, stop it…” She had the gall to try and pull away.

  Perri struck Jane’s face with a slap without thinking, shoved Jane to the grass.

  “I didn’t know you would be here…” Jane said.

  The words were like a blow to the
face. “Where else did you think I would be? Manicure? Shopping? I am here even when I’m not here. He’s never far from my thoughts. You took him from me, and you didn’t think I would be here, especially today?”

  Jane had her palms pressed against the grave, heaving, and then she glanced back over her shoulder at Perri, tears streaking her face. “I’m sorry…I can only say it so many times.”

  “Is that what your mother told you? If you said sorry enough, I’d forgive you?”

  Jane said, “What do you want from me? I can’t bring him back. Can’t we both just miss him?”

  Shuddering, Perri turned and staggered away from Jane. She fell to her knees on another grave belonging to someone else’s child, mother, sister, loved one. “Please, don’t ever come back here again. I don’t want you here.”

  “The police are on their way right now!” the driver screamed across the quiet of the graves, still holding the phone, aiming it at them.

  Perri Hall froze. What…what am I doing? Laying hands on a brain-injured young woman on David’s grave. The fury began to fade but not the hate. It was like a seed she could feel planted in her, a dark vine that would grow, take on its own life if she let it. It was a hatred that could blossom into obsession. And for an awful moment, she wanted to let it. Jane had never paid for what she’d done to David. Never.

  A siren sounded in the distance.

  “Mrs. Hall.” Jane stood over her, eyes reddened.

  Frozen spoons will fix that, Perri thought.

  Jane’s hair was more disheveled than before.

  Did I do that? Perri wondered. Oh. Yes, I marched her by her hair.

  Jane picked up the ugly sunglasses that Perri had knocked off her face and put them back on. “The police will be here in a minute. I’m going back to my ride to wait for them. I have a witness. I could press charges.”

  Perri said nothing. She just wanted to cry, curl up, and wait to die. She had been so careful and controlled this morning. Jane had undone her.

  “Could press charges. You get me?”

  “Just go,” Perri said.