Sam circles an arm around my shoulders. I don’t push away from him, though the touch reminds me painfully of Tyler. Will I relive the ache of losing him every time someone touches me from now on? I suspect I already know the answer.
“They’re expelling me,” I say to distract myself.
“Oh, Julep,” he says into my hair.
“I couldn’t just leave them.”
Then I tell him the rest of everything—my crazy plan to get the Ukrainians out of Petrov’s cage without getting them deported, or worse. How I used the fake IDs I made to blackmail more than a hundred of Chicago’s wealthiest families into offering their homes and resources. How I persuaded the president of the best private school in Chicago to spend five hundred thousand dollars on a special program to help the victims integrate into American society.
He listens, whistling softly at my description of dumping the IDs on the dean’s desk.
“You’re crazy,” he says. “And wonderful. But mostly crazy.”
“Your turn for confession. What the hell were you thinking, going to Petrov alone like that? And how did Dani end up with my mother’s gun?”
He sighs. “After Agent Ramirez let me go, I was so angry—mostly at myself, for getting caught. I wanted to make it up to you and break Petrov’s hold on you, so I tried to pull the Franklin job on him. I disabled his WiFi access and intercepted his call to the phone company. I took your mom’s gun with me just in case. I made it all the way into Petrov’s office. But then you texted me, and he saw your name on my phone.”
I squeeze my eyes closed, blocking the scene playing in my head.
“I didn’t answer your calls because I knew you’d figure out my plan as soon as you heard my voice. And speaking of … here.”
He pulls an object wrapped in a towel out of his laptop bag and hands it to me. I peel back a corner just enough to confirm it’s my mother’s gun before wrapping it up again and handing it back.
“You keep it for a while, Sam. Just until I feel like you’re safe again.”
He doesn’t argue, which is a relief.
“I negotiated for you, too,” I continue. “You’re free of the FBI. And the dean doesn’t know I made you an ID.”
“What about you? What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. Public school, I guess. Yale is for sissies, anyway.”
“You can still get in,” he says, knowing full well that even if I could convince them to admit me with an expulsion on my record I’d never be able to afford it.
“I know,” I say.
“Yale is for sissies,” he agrees, resting his cheek against my head.
I’d be lying if I said I don’t regret falling on my sword to rescue a bunch of strangers. Tyler’s dead because I thought I could save the world. I’ve destroyed my life here. And though I’d be an idiot to stick around, trying to scratch out an existence in the crumbling ruins of my broken castle, a fresh start is not something I really deserve, or want.
“Will you stay in Chicago?” he asks, reading my mind.
“You’re here.”
He stiffens. I feel it all along my side, though he doesn’t actually move.
“You’re leaving,” I say in a small voice.
Sam sighs. “My dad is shipping me off to military school.”
“What?” I say, wilting further.
“I got arrested, Julep. That kind of thing doesn’t fly with my dad.”
“Blame me. Tell him I lied to you, that you had no idea what you were doing. Tell him you’ll never see me again—we can come up with something.”
He takes my hand and shifts so that he’s facing me. His eyes look sad and uncertain. “I think I need to go, Julep.”
“Why?” The golf ball lodged in my throat makes it hard to get the words out.
Sam looks down. “I love you. I have for years. But so much of who I am is wrapped up in us. I don’t know who I am without you. I need to find that out before I have anything to offer you. Tyler taught me that.”
My heart beats slowly, painfully, as I try to imagine my life without Tyler, my dreams, and my Sam.
Sam takes my hand. The way Tyler used to. The twin aches are almost unbearable.
“Just don’t leave, okay?” he says. “When I come back to you, I need to be able to find you.”
I close my eyes, letting out a shaky breath.
“Okay, break it up,” Mike says after opening the SUV door and letting in all the wind. “Your folks want to talk to you.” Mike hands Sam a phone. Sam takes it and steps out into the night, leaving a gaping hole behind him.
“You all right?” Mike asks me.
I shake my head. I’m so tired of lying. But I’m not any happier telling the truth.
“You know I have to charge you, right?” He sounds regretful, which is something, I guess. If I can’t get amnesty, I’ll take pity.
“Yeah,” I say.
Mike leans against the door, dropping his official demeanor. “Why’d you do it?”
“Because you couldn’t.”
He chews on that for a moment but doesn’t argue.
“Can you wait till after we drop Sam off?” I ask.
“Sure, kid.”
The ride home starts off fairly sober as I consider my bleak future. But then I realize I’m wasting what precious time I have left with Sam. So I paste on a smile until I start to feel the loss a little less, and I reach past the pain to take his hand.
When we get to Sam’s house, Sam slides out of the car, his shoulders slumped in weariness.
“I’ll call you,” he says, letting my fingers slide through his.
I don’t say anything as he walks up the drive and into the house. Then Mike opens the door and I get out, sliding my wrists together in front of me.
“Julep Dupree, you’re under arrest for identification fraud. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do may be used against you …”
I tune out the rest of Mike’s monologue as he fastens a pair of cold metal cuffs onto my wrists. It might be what my father feared the most, but I think he’s proud of me anyway. Despite everything, I think he’s the only one who really understands why I threw away everything to save a handful of strays.
I did it because it’s who I am.
I smile for real this time.
THE AFTERMATH
The Graceland Cemetery is as well manicured and picturesque as the bereaved among Chicago’s aristocracy could wish. Grassy knolls slope elegantly toward still waters. Sun-stained statues guard against the ravages of time, eyes downcast, hands clasped as if to hold the lost to this plane.
I stand at the edge, an interloper with a pink chrysanthemum.
My foster-care provider—I can’t think of him as a father—is waiting for me in the car. I ask him to bring me here, and he always agrees, though the jury’s still out on whether or not I belong in Witness Protection. He’s worried that my visits to Tyler’s grave make me an easy target for any unaccounted-for malcontents from Petrov’s crew. But the downside of having such a tight-knit cabal is that no one’s really left when the big man falls. There is one still on the run, but she wouldn’t hurt me.
A slow twenty-minute meandering brings me to the Richland family plot, complete with moss-covered mausoleum. Tyler’s not in the mausoleum, though. He’s here, under my feet. And the thought is still so foreign that my brain dismisses it. Tyler is the essence of what it is to be alive. He’s the kind of guy who every good thing comes to naturally. He belongs in the world, not under it.
I kneel next to the frost-covered earth stretching eight feet west from his gravestone, the chrysanthemum in my lap. It’s been nearly three months since his death, and the grass still hasn’t grown over the grave. He was buried too late in the fall, I guess. He’ll have to wait until spring. It’s a silly thing, but it bothers me.
I start the conversation the way I always do, telling him I miss him, telling him about my trial, telling him about how Sam still hasn’t called. Bu
t all too quickly I run out of things to say, except for the thing I came here to say. This is my last visit to Graceland Cemetery. I’m here to say good-bye.
“Our dads have a lot to answer for,” I say, directing the conversation to the stone rather than to the dirt. “We should have been kids a little longer. Even if we didn’t want to be.”
The Tyler in my head answers me: We all have things in our past we’re not proud of.
I sigh, because this is a sage response, both apologetic and forgiving. It’s exactly what Tyler would say.
I lay the chrysanthemum across the stone, letting my fingers trail across the cut of his name and ignoring the tears that never seem far from my eyes these days. Even three months later, I have nightmares about him. Not his death, though I still have day-mares about that. My nightmares are much worse.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’ll watch the world while you sleep.”
When I get back to the car, Mike is leaning against the fender instead of sitting inside, behind the wheel. Still the protector, even though there’s nothing left to protect me from. Well, nothing mob-related. I could still use protection from Tyler’s friends and family. I haven’t seen any of them since being officially suspended from school pending a lengthy investigation. But I know that the senator has been indicted and is on his way to prison. I can only imagine how Mrs. Richland must feel about me now.
“Ready?” he says.
I’m grateful that he doesn’t add “to go home.” I may be in his custody for the foreseeable future, but his home is not mine.
We pull out of the circular drive onto Irving Park Road in relative silence. Mike is giving me space, and I appreciate it.
You may be wondering a) how I got sucked into foster care despite finding my dad, b) why Mike of all people volunteered to foster me, and c) why I agreed to let him.
To answer the first, my father is in Cook County jail awaiting sentencing, though the deal he made with the district attorney pretty much guarantees he’ll get four years in the pen (medium-security facility, thanks to Mike pulling some strings). But with my mom out of the picture and my dad in prison, foster care is my only option.
As for why Mike willingly volunteered to put up a kid who’s given him as much trouble as I have, I honestly couldn’t tell you. He probably feels sorry for me. Which is not the best reason in the world to invite somebody into your home, but it’s better than putting up with the guilt, I guess.
I’ll be honest: I was not wild about the idea when he first proposed it. I’m still mad at him for lying to me, and for Pete’s sake, he’s an FBI agent. Talk about incompatible. But Mike understands what I’ve lost, and it’s important to me that my handler gets that. Besides, it’s either Mike or juvie, and Mike’s wife, Angela, serves much better food.
Heather and Murphy surprised me by showing up at my apartment with boxes the day the judge ruled that my temporary housing with Mike would turn permanent. I never asked how they knew, but I’d bet Sam called them after I texted him my new address. In any case, the afternoon I crated up and stored all my belongings—including a battered trunk holding a cream-colored dress and two dried flowers—was rendered a little less heartbreaking by a couple of inadvertent friends.
“Sister Rasmussen called,” Mike says now, breaking into my thoughts. “They’re just about to start winter break, and she wants to see you before the school closes. Are you up for it?”
“Sure,” I say, my eyes fixed on the scenery stealing by. “I don’t know what there is to talk about, though. They have to expel me. The investigation is just a formality.”
“I think she wants to explain why.”
I decide to go with it, though anything she says will only be painful and pointless. Maybe it will make her feel better, though. And this new Julep can’t pretend any longer that other people’s happiness doesn’t matter.
Mike makes a U-turn and heads toward St. Agatha’s.
When we pull into the parking lot and I step out of the car, I get the strangest feeling. Like I’m looking at a house I grew up in that belongs to somebody else now.
“Do you want me to go with you?” he asks.
“No thanks,” I say through the window. “I can find my way back to the house from here.”
The halls are blessedly empty as I make my way to the administrative wing. The lockers cling to the walls with feigned innocence, as if none of them had ever harbored an illegal ID or a dead messenger. I assume the Brockman Room with its row of portraits will reek of smug satisfaction when I pass through it. But though the men in the portraits are as somber as always, this time they seem to judge me a little less.
When I enter the waiting room outside the president’s office, her mousy aide pops up at once and scurries in to announce my arrival. She comes back more subdued, leaving the door open for me. But before I can walk through, Dean Porter comes out, glaring at me as if the devil is spitting on her shoes.
“Ah, Ms. Dupree,” says Sister Rasmussen, who is just a step behind the dean. She is holding a heavy black coat in one hand and an envelope in the other. “Let’s go for a walk.”
I fall into step beside her when the dean heads down the opposite corridor.
“I hear that the judge was fairly lenient, considering the widespread nature of your crimes,” she says as she settles her coat onto her shoulders. “Community service, FBI supervision, a number of fines, and an apology letter, am I right?”
“Yes,” I say. “I suppose he thought I’d suffered enough.”
“Or perhaps that your extreme efforts toward rescuing others showed a redemption of character he wanted to encourage.” She opens the door to the quad and I walk out. I’m not sure where this is leading, but I am curious about the envelope. Is it for me? Is it my official expulsion letter?
“I guess we’ll never know for sure,” I say, zipping my jacket against the chill.
“Actually, Judge Collodi is a friend of mine. I’ll likely ask him during our next tennis match.”
“Oh.” What do I say to that? What am I even doing here?
“No doubt you’re wondering why I called you here.”
She takes a pair of thick knitted mittens from her pocket and puts them on. Her breath is a fog on the frigid air. This far north this late in the year, the sun is already shedding the golden light of sunset as early as two o’clock in the afternoon.
She hands me the envelope.
Inside are two sheets of paper folded into thirds. The first is indeed an official letter from the administration board. But instead of expelling me, it says that they’re rescinding my suspension, that I can return to St. Agatha’s at the beginning of the term.
“I don’t understand…,” I say.
“You may need to examine the second page.”
I flip to the next page—a statement of payment in full for the rest of my education at St. Aggie’s. Not just for the rest of the year, but for the whole of junior and senior years as well.
“Holy crap!” I say, realizing belatedly that Sister Rasmussen is still standing here. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I have once or twice said crap myself. Three times now.”
“I—Where did this money come from?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. Likely better, actually. The tuition came in as a cashier’s check from an anonymous donor with your name and a perplexing note in the memo line.”
“What note?”
She points to the bottom-right portion of the statement under the heading ADDITIONAL INFORMATION.
TROVA LA FATA TURCHINA.
“Any idea what it refers to?” she asks.
I shake my head, though that’s at least partially a lie. I’ve seen fata turchina before—on an unloaded gun in a car stuck in a ditch. It must be from my father. Which means Petrov must have paid him in advance. No wonder Petrov was so peeved. Then I finally get it, what this really is, what it means. It’s my dad’s final score. And he’s just given it to me.
“The truth is, the
board didn’t really have a choice,” the president continues. “The tuition check may have been the final push, but the decision was already on a knife’s edge. During the investigation, scores of students spoke voluntarily on your behalf. Teachers as well. Ms. Shirley was particularly vocal in your defense.”
“Ms. Shirley, my computer-science teacher?” I say, wincing. I think I may owe her an IRA contribution, and an apology. And the students? I thought for sure everyone blamed me for Tyler’s death. I certainly blame myself.
“And then there’s the national publicity the school’s received for its unprecedented efforts at integrating displaced young people. Our admissions applications numbers have tripled in the last month from what they were a year ago. None of which would have been possible were it not for you.”
“But I didn’t do it for the school. I did it to save myself.”
“We both know it was more complicated than that.”
I look down again at the pardon I’m holding, feeling overwhelmed. It’s too much to take in at once. The tuition, the outpouring of support, the unexpected positive outcomes. I didn’t intend any of it, so it doesn’t really feel like I deserve it. I certainly don’t deserve the credit. Any more than I deserve the second chance.
“You look sad,” she says with concern.
“It’s just—I think this dream has already sailed without me.”
She smiles and takes my arm. “Come with me. I’d like to show you something.”
We walk across the quad, past the triumphal arch, to an auxiliary building. She opens the door for me and then leads me to a small classroom holding about thirty girls in school uniforms, with a teacher and a few aides circling the desks. We stand unnoticed at the back of the room.
“I thought you’d like to see what your five-hundred-thousand-dollar favor has done,” she says softly.
One girl a little older than I am raises a hand and says, “I catch the red ball,” in a tentative, heavily accented voice. The teacher praises her and moves to the next exercise.
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