Laura didn’t want to believe she herself was mad—the very idea of accepting such a prognosis continued to make her blood boil—but denying it had brought her nothing but grief and exhaustion. She couldn’t eat and could barely sleep, and every time her phone rang, as it had once already today, she pretended not to notice, certain that anyone calling besides Elliott would have questions she had no desire to answer. Whatever this nightmare was, she needed it to be over, and if the only way to end it was to acquiesce to the probability the death of Adrian Edwards was all in her mind, she was finally ready to do so.
She had a three o’clock appointment with Noreen Ives, the psychiatrist she’d been referred to, and she was going to keep it. She had no idea what she was going to tell Ives, or how she was going to tell it. She only knew what she wanted the end result of their meeting to be: a clean bill of health. A report that would persuade the Renton School District and Howard Alberts she was fit to return to the classroom. If she had to lie to convince Ives such was the case, she would do it without hesitation. And then, once back at work, surrounded by the children she loved and was loved by, including Adrian Edwards, she would put this episode behind her and never think of it again.
That was Laura’s plan, and she was certain it was a good one. It only fell apart at 9:17 a.m., when the doorbell rang and she decided to answer it.
TWENTY
MILTON DIDN’T WANT TO meet Diane Edwards at her home. He wanted to meet her at the park.
He had called at her request, and yet she sounded surprised when he gave her his name. Like maybe she hadn’t really thought he would call, or had expected at least a few days would pass before he found the nerve. His name should’ve meant nothing to her before last night, but she knew him, all right. Her pause had been too long. She had asked him to repeat his name for appearance’s sake only.
“Oh, yes. I spoke to your son-in-law last night. I’m glad you called, Mr. Weisman.”
He had heard her voice only once before, at the park the day of the accident when, of course, she had sounded much different. But he was certain this was the same voice.
“You are?” Milton asked.
“Yes. Your son-in-law—Alan, was it?—said you’re under the impression our son Adrian was hurt in some kind of accident, a car accident, and that you were responsible. Is that correct?”
She knew it was, they both did, but he had made up his mind not to lose his temper.
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m glad you called because I wanted to assure you that Adrian is fine. You’ve got no reason to worry about him, or to feel guilty about harming him in any way.”
“He’s fine?”
“Yes. He’s perfectly fine.”
“And the accident? I suppose you’re going to tell me it never happened, too.”
A moment passed before she spoke again. “Well, Mr. Weisman, I don’t know what else I can tell you. Adrian’s never been involved in a car accident in his life.”
“How about the truth? You could try telling me the truth. I’ve suffered enough. I killed a little boy, your little boy, and I’ve been living with that for damn near a year. Don’t you think I deserve to hear the truth now? From you, if from no one else?”
This time, her silence fell hard and long, leaving little doubt as to why. “What do you want me to say?” she asked finally.
“I want you to tell me what’s happened. If the boy really is fine”—Milton found the words catching in his throat, pulled himself together before continuing—”if he really is alive, I want to understand. I want an explanation. That’s all I want.”
After another long pause, Diane Edwards said, “Well, I can’t really tell you anything more than I already have, but if you’d like, we can talk further in person. Here at the house. When would you like to come?”
“Right now,” Milton said, relief coursing through his veins like the old, familiar heat of alcohol. He wasn’t crazy. He wasn’t an old man losing his mind. She had practically proven as much by extending this conversation. “But not at your house. I want to talk at the park. Meet me at the park in thirty minutes. Can you do that?”
“The park?”
Milton continued to play along with her act. “Lakeridge Park.”
“Oh. All right. I think I can do that. But—”
“I’ll be alone. Of course I will.”
Milton hung up. He sat on the edge of his bed and took a deep breath, on the verge of more goddamn tears. He listened for someone eavesdropping at the bedroom door, knowing he was just being paranoid. Alan had gone home late last night and Milton had sent Janet to work well over an hour ago, deflecting every argument she posed against her leaving him alone. With all the reluctance Milton had predicted, she had told him about Alan’s conversation with Diane Edwards and given him the woman’s number. She knew Milton would call and didn’t like the idea, especially if she wasn’t going to be around to police what he did afterward. She was as convinced as ever her father had started drinking again or was going senile. Milton had watched the street a full five minutes after his daughter drove off before he was satisfied she wasn’t coming back.
Now, he was dressed and ready to go. The Honda was waiting for him in the garage and, yes—there was no denying it—the old temptation to have a drink was starting to make itself felt. But it had no hold on him. Not yet.
To hear Janet tell it, he had driven the Honda only days ago and had never stopped driving it, but in his mind, it had been months since he last sat behind the wheel. He didn’t know if he could turn the key in the ignition, let alone drive the nine blocks from his home to Lakeridge Park. But he had to try. He wanted Diane Edwards to see the car, to remember it.
And to explain to him how it was that it didn’t have a scratch on it.
* * *
Laura’s first instinct was to slam her apartment door in Allison Hope’s face. That was what Elliott would have wanted her to do, as well as Howard Alberts and the part of her that was thinking straight. But as the door began to close in her hand, she stopped it, and said something pointless and embarrassing instead.
“I’m not supposed to talk to you.”
“You aren’t? Why is that?”
Hope had a pleasant smile and an easygoing manner, which Laura hadn’t been expecting at all. It made the task of sending her away much harder. “I meant I don’t want to talk to you. Please leave me alone.”
“I visited the school yesterday. I was told what happened to you Tuesday was probably the result of prescription drugs. Are you presently taking any prescribed medications?”
“No. No!” Laura was instantly furious. “Who told you that—” She caught herself before the word lie could form on her tongue, but her anger was unabated. Somebody at Yesler had betrayed her, and her guess was Betty Marx. Betty was good for mining the business of others for her own entertainment. “Whoever you spoke to doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
“I didn’t think they did,” Hope said, not taking the “she” bait. “That’s why I came here to see you. To get the real story.”
“The ‘real’ story? There is no story, real or otherwise.”
“Well, I hate to disagree with you, Ms. Carrillo, but it sure sounds like a story to me. A little boy shows up at school eight months after his death. . . .” She waited for Laura’s reaction.
“You don’t really believe that’s what happened,” Laura said.
“I don’t know what happened. Only you and Adrian know that, and possibly his parents. I was going to talk to them next. But if you’d rather not talk to me, I guess I’ll have to hear their account of things first.” She handed Laura a business card. “Have a nice day.”
Laura watched her walk down the hall and exit the building, seemingly without an ounce of regret.
Laura closed her door and settled in the living room, feeling herself being pulled i
n a dozen different directions at once. She understood perfectly well what Hope was doing: pitting her need to remain silent against her desire to be heard. And Hope’s play was not off the mark. The thought of a story brimming with speculation, half-truths, and outright lies about her did make Laura crazy. Even if Betty Marx and Howard Alberts and everyone else at Yesler withheld all comment from this point forward, Laura knew how Diane and Michael Edwards would answer Hope’s questions. And the more she thought about it, the angrier she became. Because they would hang her out to dry. Express their sympathy for “poor Miss Laura” and deny any knowledge of what had caused her horrible “breakdown” at school Tuesday morning. There would be no acknowledgement of any accidents or funerals involving their son, and certainly no talk about miracles and/or resurrections. And to what end? What was the truth they were so willing to sacrifice Laura to hide?
Could Adrian Edwards really have been raised from the dead?
It was an idea Laura had finally become desperate enough to ponder seriously. No other possibility could have been more wonderful or more cruel. Because it would mean Adrian was alive again, that a prayer Laura might have said many times herself, had she possessed the faith, had actually been answered—but by a monster, not a god. For only a monster would throw Laura to the wolves this way, place all she held dear in jeopardy just so she could bear witness to its power. She loved Adrian, but he wasn’t Laura’s child, he was Diane Edwards’s. What kind of “god” would lay the cost of his return at Laura’s feet and not his mother’s? This was the all-loving, all-merciful supreme being Diane Edwards was imploring Laura to accept and obey?
Laura couldn’t bring herself to believe it.
It hardly mattered, in any case. What she believed or not had no bearing on the choice she had to make: capitulate or perish. Give in to the idea that she was a fragile, overworked educator who had temporarily lost sight of reality, or refuse and paint herself as something far worse. One course of action held some hope of redemption, the other did not.
It turned her stomach, but Laura decided not to go on fighting a battle she could never win.
She eyed the clock on the wall in the kitchen, saw it was only nine-thirty. Her appointment with Noreen Ives was over five hours away. If she could keep her pride and anger in check long enough to get to Ives’s office, she would be okay. Seeing the psychiatrist would be galling, but it would satisfy the demands of her employers and fiancé and help her regain the normalcy she craved now more than anything.
She sat in the stillness of her living room and tried not to count the minutes as they ticked by. Her eyes settled on the business card on the table, turned away, then came back again. She picked up the card, examined the name and phone number on its face. She set the card back down and left it there.
Until she couldn’t keep herself from reaching out for it one more time.
* * *
Diane found Milton Weisman waiting for her at the playground. The old man hadn’t told her where specifically at Lakeridge Park he wanted to meet, but he hadn’t needed to. This was where it had happened, after all, the seismic event that, until only days ago, had left a black stain upon both their lives. What more fitting place than this to acknowledge and celebrate the eradication of that stain?
Still, coming here had not been easy for Diane. In the aftermath of Adrian’s death, she had visited the park only once, four months ago. The old playground had been demolished and a new wooden one erected, on the same small, grassy hill but several yards away, and Diane and Michael had been invited to attend the reopening ceremony. Park officials had named the new site in Adrian’s honor, put a plaque down in the earth to memorialize their son’s brief life, and unlike Michael, Diane hadn’t been able to stay away. She had cut the ribbon, said a few words of thanks and left, intending to never return.
And yet, here she was.
She had known before she even left the house that the new playground would be gone, and it was. As was the plaque bearing her son’s name and likeness. In their stead, the original play structure stood off to one side where it had been before the accident. An outdated yellow and blue construct of metal tubes and plastic bars, ladders and towers and fireman’s poles, steering wheels and bridges—and a slide. The slide. Every piece scratched and scarred and weather-beaten, and, true to Diane’s memory of it, crawling with children.
Milton Weisman was sitting on a bench nearby, watching the parking lot.
She recognized him immediately: broad-shouldered, head dusted with wisps of white hair, a face ill-suited to conveying much more than mild aggravation. It was the same man she had seen here eight months ago, dazed and frightened and mumbling useless excuses, and for days afterward on television, doing much the same for the sake of news reporters, and finally that afternoon at the house when she’d refused to acknowledge his presence on her front porch.
And yet, something about him had changed. Diane saw it the minute he pushed himself to his feet as she approached. It was a gesture of respect she would not have expected from the old man she remembered.
“You came. I wasn’t sure you would,” he said when Diane reached him. “Thank you.”
They were both nervous, smiling like kids on a first date. Weisman looked like he’d been crying.
“Please. Sit,” he said.
They took their places on the bench, Diane putting more distance between them than was necessary. She no longer had any reason to treat him so harshly, but this was a fact she needed some time to get used to.
“It’s all back. Just the way I remember it,” Weisman said, nodding toward the playground. And now Diane was certain: he had been crying.
“Back?”
She wasn’t ready yet to speak the truth and Weisman’s disappointment was palpable.
“The tree that stopped my car. The play structure that was here before the accident. The new one is gone, the wooden one they built over there.” He pointed. “If you’re going to tell me you don’t remember, I’ll just go and never bother you again. I’m not going to sit here and listen to you lie to me.”
Diane studied his face. Voices on the playground filled the air. “What will you do? If I decide not to lie?”
“What will I do?”
“Yes. With this truth you think I’m hiding, I mean. Who will you share it with? How will you use it?”
“Use it? I don’t want to use it. And who could I share it with? Who could I tell it to that would believe it, coming from me? I’m sixty-eight years old. To hell with sharing it!” He reined himself in, as if to hold another round of tears at bay. He looked straight into Diane’s eyes and dared her to turn away. “I just want to know. I have the right to know.”
Diane hesitated still, riding the razor’s edge of a monumental decision.
Then she told him what he had come to the park to hear.
* * *
Allison sat in the car and waited, growing less confident by the second. Had she overplayed her hand?
It had been a bluff and nothing more, of course. Leaving Laura Carrillo without argument, tossing her a business card and driving off as if she were intent on talking to Adrian Edwards’s parents in Carrillo’s stead. Allison had driven all of two blocks from the teacher’s apartment and parked in a shaded spot at the curb, expecting to be there only a minute or two before Carrillo folded and gave her a call.
Almost half an hour later, Allison’s phone had yet to ring, and it was beginning to look as if she would have to come crawling back to Carrillo, not the other way around.
“Well, shit,” she said.
Playing tough with the teacher was the kind of dumb stunt Flo would have expected from Allison. All bravado and no forethought. Allison could see her partner now, almost but not quite shaking her head, eyes filled with pity, a sigh suppressed only with great effort. Another misstep to add to all those that had come before, and all that were destined to co
me in the future.
Allison started the car and threw it in gear, so lost in thought as she pulled away that she almost didn’t hear her ringing phone. She snatched it up off the passenger seat, brought it straight to her ear without checking the ID window.
“This is Allison,” she said. Cool, calm, and without a hint of eagerness.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Laura Carrillo said. “I’ll talk to you.”
* * *
Milton didn’t ask Diane Edwards a single question. He just listened.
The story she told was every bit as incredible and unlikely as he had feared. God had answered her prayers and brought her son back to life, altering the very construct of time to remove all evidence of his death—save for the memories of only four people Edwards could name: She and her husband Michael, Adrian’s teacher at school, and Milton. There could be others, Edwards said, but she doubted it. Why these four alone had been chosen, Edwards didn’t know and didn’t care. It was part of God’s plan, she said, and she had no desire to question it.
Milton didn’t know how to react. On the one hand, he was heartened by Edwards’s account. If he had lost his mind, he wasn’t alone; surely Adrian Edwards’s mother was every bit as mad as he was, probably even more so. On the other hand, if they were both sane and what Edwards had told him was true, he was no better off now than he had been before, because Milton couldn’t repeat anything he’d heard to anyone—Lisa, Janet, Alan—without solidifying their already firm belief he was no longer in possession of all his faculties.
Still, what troubled Milton most was not the outrageousness of Edwards’s story, but how well it explained everything he had been experiencing over the last two days. It was contrary to every idea he had ever had about the existence of God and the relevance of faith, but in the context of all the inexplicable things Milton had seen and heard since Tuesday night, its logic was unassailable. What better way to make sense of the impossible than to lay it at the feet of God, the most impossible premise of all?
In Things Unseen Page 12
