His shoulders inside his thrift-store plaid shirt. His overgrown hair resting on the collar. The smell of lilacs from the bush in our yard infiltrating the night air. Those three things together filled me with a sudden, sad, wild loneliness, like a wolf howl.
Then, Trevor turned and saw me, and the grin that cut across his face shone in the streetlight.
“Tried to talk the guy into the lights and siren, but he wouldn’t do it,” he said.
For a second, I couldn’t find my voice. Then, I eked out a “too bad” so flat and hoarse it got lost in the singing of the crickets.
When we went inside, I saw that the door to Mom’s study was shut, and I knew she was doing what she’d done before: making a phone call that would scrub her son’s latest screwup right out of existence. I knew that when she came out, she’d find Trevor, and there would be another fight, a terrible one.
Trevor hissed, “Fuck her,” then climbed the stairs to his room and flopped face-first onto his bed.
My brother has been my favorite person ever since I can remember, my first friend, but all I could think about was giant objects hurtling toward each other, screams, twisted metal, the smell of burning brakes and rubber tires, smoke in the air, blood on the road.
It was the trust that broke me: all those law-abiding drivers with their belief in signs and signals and carefulness, their belief in the right-of-way, in a fair and orderly universe. It hit me: how we turn our breakable bodies over to the world for safekeeping every single day. One uprooted stop sign and all those years of growing and going to school, laughing, sledding in winter, turning pages of books, getting haircuts, brushing teeth, learning to swim: over, done, extinguished.
From far away downstairs, I heard the office door open, my mother’s footsteps, regular as a metronome.
And I left. Just walked out of his room, down the hall into my own, and I shut the door and put on music and lay in the dark with my churning stomach and leaking eyes and cracked heart and tried not to throw up.
The police put the signs back in time. No one died. No one died. No one died.
It was my version of praying.
I fell asleep. I must have because Trevor was shaking me awake.
“Let’s go,” he whispered.
The first time Trevor and I sneaked out, he was twelve, I was eleven, and our parents were having the fight that would finally set the busted pieces of their marriage on fire and obliterate it forever. In the seven years since then, when Trevor’s asked me to go, I’ve never said no.
“No,” I said.
He took his hand off my shoulder. I could feel him standing there in the dark like a statue.
Then, he whispered, “They were all four-way stops.”
“What?”
“The one at Baxter and Simon’s Bridge. The one down there by that old mill they turned into a restaurant. And this other one a few miles over the PA line, near a Christmas tree farm. I mean, I know people could still have gotten hurt, but right then, when I did it? I was thinking that it would be okay because all the other cars would stop. And I told the cop all the places, so he could put them back. I swear. When Eddie and I were in the car, before he stopped at Ed’s house, he called the locations in on his radio.”
“Oh!” I blurted out, and I sat up in bed and started sucking in air like a person who’d been drowning and finally breaks the surface of the water.
“Hey, hey,” said Trevor. He rested his hand on the top of my head, just for a couple of seconds.
Later, at the burial ground, I said, “I should have known, Trev,” and I counted on him to understand what I meant.
“No, you’re fine,” he said.
And then, he said, “All those years ago, she should’ve let me go with Dad.”
He’s said it before. Every time, it hurts the exact same amount as it did the first time, when I was eleven. Every time, I wonder how he could imagine living away from me, leaving me alone.
That’s when he said he hated her.
I believe in intensity. I believe in diving into the quarry, in standing right under the waterfall. You know what I mean, right? But Trevor’s fury at my mother, that constant, seething volcanic rage. I can’t think it’s right. She is harsh and hard and frozen as a glacier. But I look at her sometimes, when she’s reading or listening to opera or arranging flowers in a vase, and I see that she is human.
Also, she is our mother.
“I think she’s turning me into a monster, like her,” said Trevor.
“That will never happen, ever,” I told him.
“Maybe it already has.”
“They were all four-way stops,” I reminded him. “That’s who you really are. The guy who wants to drive Mom crazy but doesn’t want anyone to get hurt.”
“Like you know,” he said, but I could tell from his voice that he was smiling.
“I do,” I said.
I flung my arms open on the grass.
“I know everything.”
Chapter Six
Ginny
I had underestimated my friend Kirsten. “Finally!” was not the first thing she said. In fact, I don’t think she uttered the word even once. When she called, and, after a couple seconds of hesitation, I steeled myself and answered, the first words out of her mouth were: “How’s our girl doing with this?”
Kirsten had a longtime boyfriend named Tex and no children, but she’d called sharesies on Avery while she was still in utero, and, because we were short on blood relations (especially nonpotentially sociopathic ones) and I was long on love for Kirsten, I’d happily agreed.
“You heard.”
“Not from you, which we will address at a later time, but yes.”
“Well. It’s been, what? Four days. So far, at school, she’s overheard—and possibly was meant to overhear—three conversations. Two of them involved calling the girl in question a ‘slut.’ One involved her friend Alice telling their mutual friend Paigie that, just to be safe, her mom isn’t allowing her to come to our house for a while because Harris is possibly a child molester.”
“For a while? Because child molesters just need a little time to get all that pesky molesting out of their system?”
“Obviously, Alice’s mom doesn’t watch enough Law and Order.”
“Still, two out of three, right?” said Kirsten. “The others sound like they were blaming the girl. Slut is no joke. In our day, kids threw that word around like it was, I don’t know, bitch. But nowadays, calling someone a slut will get you suspended just like that, especially at Lucretia Mott. So they are pulling out the big shame guns on this girl.”
“Great. Let’s pop the champagne.”
“Have they talked, Avery and Harris?”
“No. I talked to her, and then I talked to him about talking to her, and he decided to let her be the one to bring it up to him. And oddly enough, I don’t think she’s quite figured out how to do that.”
“‘So, Dad, about that high school girl you were trying to seduce . . .’”
“Wait. That’s what you heard?”
“I heard that something inappropriate happened between Harris and a gorgeous eighteen-year-old intern. Because no gorgeous eighteen-year-old in her right mind would sleep with Harris, I figured it was more like he was trying to seduce her in his clumsy, bumbling way and she got grossed out and turned him in.”
“That is a very flattering assumption, to both me and Harris.”
“Not to you. You were a gorgeous eighteen-year-old when you met Harris, and you’re gorgeous twenty years later. So I can only assume you aren’t in your right mind.”
“Oh, okay. Thanks for explaining that.”
“Is Avery sleeping?”
“Not that I’ve noticed. And I would notice, since she’s been in bed with me every night since she found out.”
“I’m sorry, Gin. Night drives?”
“Not yet. She’s been very quiet, doing her homework, watching shows on her computer. Even in the middle of the night, she doesn
’t really say anything. The child molester incident was rough, though. I keep trying to prepare myself for a total breakdown, and then I remember that I’ve never figured out how to do that.”
“Avery is sturdier than you think.”
“I don’t know about that. I hope so.”
“Can I say something else?”
“There’s more?”
“Hallelujah. Hal. Le. Lu. YAH!”
“Ha! There it is.”
“It?”
“I was thinking you’d say ‘finally,’ actually, but ‘hallelujah’ works, too.”
“Are you telling me it hasn’t occurred to you that there might be a silver lining here? That this might be a wakeup call? A golden opportunity?”
“I guess I’ve been too busy worrying about the possibly irreparable damage to my daughter’s psyche to fully absorb the perks of my husband’s dalliance with a high school girl, his subsequent attempt to bribe his coworker into keeping silent, and his resulting loss of employment and income.”
“Dalliance, huh? Vague. Old-fashioned. Slightly lighthearted. I think it works.”
“Good.”
“Hold on, though. I didn’t hear about the bribery.”
“Attempted bribery. It’s what got him fired. Someone threatened to rat him out about the dalliance, so he offered hush money or hush stock tips or hush company secrets or something. Harris says that HR did some investigating and decided not to pursue the dalliance charges. They fired him because he betrayed the company.”
“Well, it’s nice to know they’ve got their priorities straight. You know, I’m surprised you haven’t unleashed Adela on this girl. Couldn’t your mom get her deported? Or at least distort facts and manipulate public opinion so that everyone thinks that Harris quit his job to free up more time for volunteering at homeless shelters?”
I wanted to confess that I had already done the unleashing, that, in fact, I had an appointment at my mother’s house in half an hour to receive an update on her fact distortion and manipulation of public opinion, but I was overcome with shame.
“You’re funny, Kirsten.”
“Okay, but seriously, can you kick Harris out already?”
“He’s sleeping in the garage guest suite, for now.”
“And by ‘for now,’ you mean that, later, soon, he will be sleeping in one of those nice furnished apartments down the road where all the single men in town go when their wives kick them out.”
“I haven’t gotten that far. Reminder: Harris is a nice person. Or he’s hitherto been a nice person. Your dislike of him doesn’t speak well of you.”
“I don’t dislike Harris. I dislike that he’s your husband. Strongly, strongly, strongly dislike.”
“Well, that’s so much better.”
Her voice took on a musing note. “But you know, I’m not sure I’d say I like him, either. Liking is probably too aggressive a word for what I feel for Harris.”
“Liking is too aggressive?”
“What’s a word for not minding that he exists but not wanting him to be married to my brilliant, gorgeous, scintillating friend.”
I sighed. “I don’t think I’ve qualified as any of those things in a long time, since high school at least.”
“Oh, Gin,” said Kirsten, her voice going soft. “You still qualify. You’ve just kind of gone underground with the scintillating for the past, um, twenty years or so.”
“You’re mean. And brutally honest. And mean. But I love you, anyway.”
“So it’s all decided. Harris is history. Scintillating Ginny is making a comeback. And I love you, too.”
“Her parents divorced when Cressida was in elementary school,” said my mother. “Her mother remarried and lives in Florida, of all places. Cressida visits her, but she lives with her father, Peter Wall. He was an engineer, but he has lately been on medical leave.”
I was talking to my mother, talking to her, for the first time since she’d gotten sick and maybe for the first time ever in our adult lives, in her bedroom. She wasn’t in bed, nor was she in pajamas, and even though she had a perfect right to be both of those things, I was relieved that she wasn’t. Even so, the sight of her in an armchair next to the bed, her feet propped on a velvet tufted ottoman, with a blanket over her legs, was causing me minor internal earthquakes.
And then there was the fact that she was sounding like a wiseguy reporting on a stakeout to her mafia don.
“Mom, why are you digging up information on Cressida’s family?”
“The medical leave story is possibly false. There may have been drinking involved. Or drugs. Who knows?”
A burning started up in my stomach.
“Hold on, Mom. Stop.”
“The girl is bright, an A student with Ivy League–ish aspirations. Apparently, she applied early decision to Vanderbilt. She’s beautiful in the manner of cheap blondes. Probably, they could afford St. Michael’s when her father was employed, but now, Vanderbilt would probably be a real stretch.”
“There’s financial aid,” I said.
“There is. Perhaps you’d like to sit down with Peter Wall and discuss his finances, maybe help him fill out the financial aid forms? Or how about a personal loan to help foot the bill for dear Cressida’s tuition.”
I held up my hands.
“None of this matters. Why are you even—?”
“The point is that they are in reduced circumstances,” she said. “They need money.”
“Who cares? This is about Harris!”
“Obviously it’s about Harris. I suspect the girl got her father involved or perhaps it was the other way around.”
“Involved in what?”
“The plan to trap Harris into giving Cressida money.”
“No, no, no, no. The plan is for you to whisper in a few ears, tell people that Harris got confused, that he was only trying to help Cressida, that he made an honest mistake.”
“Maybe it was planned from the beginning,” said my mother, continuing as if I’d never spoken. “Maybe the idea evolved once it became clear that Harris’s generous heart and his natural fatherly concern made him an easy mark. In any case, she flattered him, spent time alone with him, batted her eyelashes, et cetera. She began to ask for gifts, money. She gave him a woe-is-me story about her father’s having been fired and vaunted her oh so admirable goal to attend a top-ranked college. It’s possible that she hoped Harris would set up a fund for her.”
“You’re going to spread the rumor that Cressida Wall, high school girl, plotted to have sex with a forty-five-year-old man in exchange for a 529 plan?”
My mother ignored me. “When that didn’t work, because Harris is a devoted family man, her father, one assumes, persuaded her to get Harris into an awkward and easily misconstrued position in order to blackmail him.”
I felt sick. “What father would urge his child to throw herself at a middle-aged married man?”
“A desperate one. Mind you, he may not have gone so far as to persuade her to offer sex to Harris.”
“May not have? Her father didn’t actually do any of this, did he?”
My mother gave me a thousand-yard, dead-of-winter stare.
“And blackmail? She’s eighteen years old!” I said.
“I know that kind of person, Virginia, and she will stop at nothing.”
I knew that kind of person, too.
“Please tell me that you haven’t shared this—narrative. It’s all hypothetical at this point, correct? You haven’t already launched this smear campaign.”
“Your concern for the Walls is touching,” replied my mother, not sounding at all touched.
“Listen to me. Stop. Cressida is a little girl, just like Avery. Leave her alone.” Saying this and remembering Harris’s voice when he talked about Cressida, a human child, someone’s daughter, made me shudder.
To my surprise and relief, my mother said, “All right, fine. I understand, Virginia. I don’t share your sentimental concern for the very people who have dis
rupted your life, but I understand. I’ll only do the minimum of what needs to be done so that we can all sleep better at night.”
I would’ve bet money that my mother had never lost a night’s sleep over anything. “Really?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.”
“Please remember, Virginia, that I do what I do for the greater good, always for the greater good. But I don’t enjoy it.”
I reached out and touched her hand.
“Mom. Are you okay?”
She smiled, a genuine smile. For a moment, the etched, trembling pain in her face got lost in her mischievous luminousness, and for a fraction of a second she turned her hand over and held mine. “Okay. Sometimes, I enjoy it.”
“That’s more like it.”
She slid her hand away.
“Can we move on now?” she said.
I considered. “Soon, I think. I would like to. The problem is that I’m not sure where to move on to. I hate to have my marriage end this way, but I also can’t imagine staying in it. But I’m afraid of what our splitting up will do to Avery. I mean, the two of them aren’t even talking right now, but I’m sure that her parents’ divorcing would hurt her. Maybe we should hang in there until she goes to college? But does that feel right? Natural? I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
My mother made an impatient sound in her throat. “Fascinating issues, all. Plenty of food for thought. But what I meant is can we move on to a new topic of conversation.”
I laughed. “Sure.”
“I don’t want a funeral.”
I sat back in my chair. “You’re not a big preamble person, are you? You just sail right in.”
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