His Other Wife Page 13

  For a long time, he didn’t answer.

  “Seth,” Hilary said. “I love you.”

  His voice, when he spoke, was ragged and angry. “Mom. Don’t.”

  “Honey.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “You don’t have to do this by yourself. We’re here for you.”

  But here came a lightning burst of grief again, Seth’s voice that sounded like it was suffocating in air, like a fish gasping after it had been yanked up on land. “Please. Go. Leave me alone.”

  Two days after Laura Moore had been admitted to the hospital, the eighteen-year-olds who had been caught at the senior-class party were brought back to the courthouse for an en masse arraignment hearing. All had been charged with willful trespassing, for violating an Illinois state statute for being in a state park after sundown without a camping permit. Those who had been caught drinking, whose field sobriety tests had come back positive and could be proven admissible in court, had also been charged with Consumption of Alcohol by a Minor.

  Hilary had left the hospital halfway through a shift. Seth had driven over with his father. George and Ruth Wynn met them inside the front foyer. Hilary’s hands shook as she tugged off her bracelet and stepped out of her shoes. She watched her purse as it jostled along the conveyor at the security checkpoint. Behind her, Seth and Eric unfastened their belts and emptied their pockets.

  When they made it through security, John Mulligan was waiting for them at the courtroom door. Other lawyers for some of the other kids were waiting for their clients, too. It had been a characteristically hectic weekend for the precinct police, John told Hilary, and the judge was moving cases through at about the same speed an agent runs kids through a Disney audition. It was almost Seth’s turn.

  Mulligan greeted Eric with an extended hand and a fierce handshake. “I’ll do the best job I can for your son.”

  “Thank you.”

  John Mulligan shook Seth’s hand, too. He told Seth he had secured an interview booth so they could rehash the charges and discuss Seth’s plea. “You ready to get this under way, buddy?” Mulligan slapped Seth on the back with more joviality than any of them felt. Just before the lawyer walked away, he spoke quietly and competently: “The District Attorney knows you’re attending the hearing with Seth. I’ve slipped him a note. With everything that could happen, we want the DA to know that your son has plenty of support.”

  “What do you mean?” Eric asked. “With everything that could happen?”

  The lawyer leveled his eyes on the three of them. “If anything should happen to Laura.”

  Eric’s hand rested against Hilary’s shoulder blade as he escorted her into the hall. It had never occurred to her that people they knew would come to Seth’s hearing. At first she thought everyone was here to support individual families, individual students. But when Hilary walked in and recognized familiar faces, her world began to shift. A couple of girls from the hospital were there, their eyes smoldering with compassion. Ruth and George Wynn found a place to sit beside their neighbors on the second row. Kim Draper from Spilling the Beans was down the aisle, sending her a nod that, in spite of everything, made Hilary nod, too.

  Another hearing was under way. A defendant wearing a jail uniform, what looked like wrinkled khaki scrubs, stood with his hands shackled in front of the judge’s bench. As Hilary glanced at her friends from Spilling the Beans, she was trying to let them see that she was grateful. Ever since they’d identified the passenger in the incoming ambulance, ever since she’d found out Laura had been injured because of Seth’s actions, Hilary’s emotions had been locked in solitary confinement.

  “I’m so sorry,” said Clyde Pope, a middle-school teacher. “I know Seth and Laura are good friends. It’s a terrible thing to happen.”

  “Oh, Hilary,” Emily’s mother said. “There aren’t words, are there? I’m so sorry for all of them. I’m praying for Laura’s recovery, and I’m praying for your family, too.”

  Every hand that landed on Hilary’s shoulder she wanted to grab hold of and never let go. As Jane was pulling away, Hilary actually did it. “Jane, how’s Emily?”

  “She’s frantic to talk to Seth, but he won’t call her.”

  “Seth hasn’t been talking to anyone.”

  Jane shook her head. “Emily’s doing all right. She’s a very sad girl, but she’ll work her way through it. The family is giving everyone updates. But, well, you work in the hospital. You know if it’s ICU, they won’t let anyone in.”

  “And how’s…how’s Abigail?”

  This time Jane’s words didn’t come so quickly. She shook her head. She and Hilary were both perilously close to tears.

  “You’ve seen her?”

  Jane nodded.

  “If you get the chance,” Hilary said, already realizing how inadequate her words were, “please tell her how sorry we are.”

  “Oh,” Jane said much too quickly. “I’m sure she already knows.”

  Julie Rogers, the younger woman whom Hilary had counseled at Spilling the Beans, was the last to approach. Hilary quietly introduced her to Eric and squeezed her arm. “You’ll never know what it means to have you here.”

  “You’ve been such a mentor to me, Hilary.” Julie hugged her. “I wanted to be here.” Then Julie told them about an impromptu service that had taken place at their church yesterday. Hilary asked, floored, “They had a service?” Why hadn’t Seth known?

  “A prayer service,” Julie said. “Pastor Greg invited them to the church if they needed a place to gather. So many of them came!”

  “Those poor kids,” Hilary said.

  “There weren’t microphones and nobody was leading it or anything. The kids just stood up and talked about Laura and cried together and prayed. They prayed for Abigail and Rudy and then they prayed for Seth.”

  Hilary thought it might be wrong of her, but she had to force a smile. “I’m glad they prayed for my son,” she said.

  Up front, the judge was standing to take a break. “All rise,” the bailiff said. The spectators rose in one motion.

  “God used it, Hilary. Those teenagers were praying for Laura. God took something awful and he’s going to make something good of it, I know.”

  “That’s nice.” Hilary said the words by rote as Julie returned to her seat. It just hurt too much to go to that place in her head. She was standing there considering the simple, easy answer, that God could use Seth’s mistake and make something good come from it. But suddenly, out of nowhere, the anger hit her like a blow. She was so furious at Julie for oversimplifying things, she was ready to detonate.

  Or maybe she was furious at herself. Or Seth. Or God. Or at Laura for falling, for being stupid enough to do what Seth told her in the first place. The girl could have said no. Why didn’t she? Why didn’t she? Why hadn’t someone seen what was happening and stopped them?

  Maybe in a few hundred years Hilary would be able to look back and see something good in this. For now, Julie’s “Kids are praying at church, so that makes it a good thing,” was too pat an answer.

  Lord, why couldn’t it have been somebody else? Why did it have to be my son?

  Eric and Hilary sat side by side, their elbows touching, their spines as straight as Chicago’s Sears Tower, on a wooden pew that was hard enough to make them count every knob of their vertebrae.

  The arraignment was a dry, short procedure that didn’t veer off-course. Mulligan nodded as the District Attorney read a statement that the People of the State of Illinois intended to use to prosecute this case. He listened without reaction as the DA read a short recitation of the events that led to the trespass and MUI charges that were being leveled against Seth.

  When the judge asked, “Mr. Mulligan, how does your client plead?” the lawyer’s answer was almost cordial.

  “Not guilty, Your Honor.”

  The judge asked the District Attorney for a recommendation on whether Seth should be released on his own recognizance and John Mulligan sa
id, “I’d like a sidebar. May I approach the bench, Your Honor?”

  “Certainly. Come on up, John,” the judge said. “What do you have in mind?”

  After a quiet conversation, it was over. “Seth Warren Wynn released on his own recognizance.” The gavel fell. The bailiff called the next case.

  During an impromptu conference in the corner, Mulligan explained that he was working toward Seth’s participation in a diversion program, which would include community service and counseling. If the judge agreed, it would mean that the charges would be erased from Seth’s record.

  “Looks like the entire senior class may be vying for community service projects this summer,” Mulligan said.

  Hilary couldn’t get out of there fast enough. But before they could exit, they had to speak with the acquaintances who’d driven this far to be with them, who were siphoning out the door in a stream of mumbled condolences and promises of support. Clyde Pope introduced himself to Eric and shook his hand. Jane stood close by, watching with a sad smile the boy her daughter had been dating. Hilary heard the woman warn Seth quietly, “People can’t help taking sides.”

  As Hilary stood in the midst of the motion and the words, her own sense of nothingness made her dizzy. She watched Seth in the crowd as he was being pulled away for another conference with Mulligan. She loved Seth so much that her body ached. She felt like she was going to be sick, she was so scared for him, for all of them. And she couldn’t help wondering if Pam, given the chance, would have done a better job of raising Seth. Hilary couldn’t help wondering if, had their roles been different, Pam might have kept him out of this.

  If this blew over, someday Eric might tell his son about his own brush with the law. He’d been fifteen, into Van Halen, Brooke Shields, and being the voice of rebellion. The hockey game with Glenwood South had ended and Eric and his friends were looking for an evening’s entertainment.

  Nothing said fun like the electric security gate at the bus barn and the girls’ basketball team coming back from Monroe. The boys had been standing around the chain-link fence, scuffing the dust with their Nikes, trying to figure out how to sneak inside. Then, like a Houdini trick, the gate shuddered, squeaked, and started to open.

  The returning basketball bus had already disgorged the girls with their pillows and duffel bags in front of the school. Now it was rounding the corner, a lumbering beast with two wavering headlights that hadn’t quite focused in the boys’ direction yet. “Come on!” someone shouted, and, doubled over to avoid the lights, they’d darted through.

  Just their luck to get a driver who wasn’t in a hurry to head home. With their stomachs rumbling and sneezes coming on, they hid behind a maintenance tractor while the guy whistled and walked the circumference of the bus, checking the windows, examining something in the vicinity of the tailpipe. “Come on, mister,” one of the boys had urged through his teeth. It was getting cold out there.

  Eric had always wanted to drive a bus. He’d always wanted to drive a car, too, for that matter. And now, with his learner’s permit in his wallet and at least two hours of practice with his grandfather, Eric felt like an old hand.

  Floodlights bathed the yard. No sooner had the driver shouldered his bag and keyed in the code to slide the gate into place, than they bolted.

  One shove on the hinge and the door accordioned open. He’d left it unlocked. They tramped up the stairs, falling against the hand railing and the steps with laughter.

  “Think you can hot-wire this thing, Raymond?”

  The kid didn’t answer. He was already jimmying the ignition with a knife.

  Dane stared at the gearshift. “Wynn, you know how to drive a stick?”

  When the engine started up, Dane flipped on the public-address system and held the microphone to his face. The machine emitted an earsplitting wail until he pulled it away. “Our tour of Rome has been rescheduled. Today, ladies and gentlemen, you’ll be pleased to know that we’ll be taking you on an all-expense-paid, death-defying trip to Addison Street, where you will see —”

  Eric had stomped on the clutch and tried to find reverse. He found the gas pedal instead and the bus lurched forward. They fell on top of one another. Eric shifted again, a horrible grinding noise that sounded like the transmission was eating itself. The bus leapfrogged forward, clipping off the bumper of the Handi-Van in front of it and impaling its nose in the fence. “Evacuate!” someone shouted, and, leaving the engine running, they leaped, ducked through the hole the bus had torn through the fence, and ran.

  Even though the school district had pressed charges and they’d gotten suspended for two weeks, even though Eric had taken a 0 on a test and it brought his grade down to a C, even though he’d missed the first track meet because he’d had to get in a certain number of practices before he could run with them again, his friends hadn’t ostracized him. Even his own father had told the story, years later, with a twinkle in his eye. But there hadn’t been a life at stake. When they’d made it back to class, they’d been treated like heroes.

  Eric’s BlackBerry indicated he had a message. That’s all it took, the vibration in his palm, to return Eric to the present. There wasn’t a need to check who’d sent the text. He already knew.

  He weighed the small device in his hand for a moment, just let it balance there, and thought how easy it would be to let it fall through his fingers. His whole life, captured inside the small screen and a narrow case. By any investigator in the know Eric’s every call could be retrieved, a jumble of information from acquaintances who’d communicated only once, family and friends he cared about whom he talked to a half-dozen times a day. In his palm, he held Pam and the kids’ itinerary for their return flight to LAX. He held the photo of Ben hugging his best friend, Charlie. He held the complete sequence of Lily’s life, starting with that first fuzzy shot of his daughter in the pink hospital cap all the way to the U5 soccer game last week, with Lily’s shin guards almost bigger than she was. His second life encapsulated on a PDA.

  Yet Eric still caught himself thinking about Hilary. She’d always been exhausted from juggling Seth with her long days at the hospital. She’d been distraught over a patient they’d lost. She’d been busy making Seth a costume or going to Bible study or having coffee with the girls. She’d always found some excuse to be distant, and he’d always found some excuse to let her stay that way. He’d let it happen. He’d blamed it on everyone but himself. He’d fallen for Pam. The days had passed and they’d been swept into an irreversible current. Even now he’d argue that it hadn’t been a mistake. It had just been life. And life made everything more complicated.

  Can a man live the same story twice with a different cast of characters? Could he blame Seth for his abrupt pulling away when he had been the one who’d taught his son how to do it?

  There was more than one way for a man to fall off a cliff.

  Chapter 16

  Emily stared at her phone, willing it to ring. She shouldn’t even have it on. Cell phones were prohibited in the hospital. She’d sent Seth about a dozen messages, but he wouldn’t answer. Come on, she thought, aching. Don’t do this to yourself.

  Don’t do this to us.

  It was a horrible feeling, wanting to save him, wanting to tell him that nothing was going to happen to Laura, wanting everything to be okay for him, when she really didn’t know.

  She should have guessed it would happen this way. When it came down to it, people sided with the injured one. When the police had come to the hospital to question Seth’s friends, Emily didn’t think anyone had actually told the whole story. Not because they wanted to protect Seth from anything but because they wanted to protect themselves from getting into trouble. Rumors were running rampant on the Internet: Seth had been drunk and had dared Laura to the climb. Or they’d been up there fighting about something. Or maybe he’d even pushed her. People could be so stupid.

  Nothing could move as slowly as the hours at the hospital. Most of the kids in the senior class had stopped coming by no
w. There wasn’t anything anyone could do. One of Laura’s mom’s friends had set up an account on CaringBridge and was sending an updated report every few hours. It had been three days and no one could get in to see Laura except family, so only a few of her closest friends still kept watch. Now people were talking. Texting. Blaming. Covering their tracks.

  At least most people were texting. Seth wasn’t.

  Down the hospital hall Emily saw Laura’s mom shut the door to Laura’s room. When the woman glanced up and saw Emily waiting, she offered a faint smile. “Oh, honey. You’re still here.”

  Emily nodded.

  Laura’s mom held out her arms for an embrace. Emily buried her face against the woman’s sweater.

  “There’s not anything else you can do here, Em,” Abigail Moore said. “You ought to go home and get some rest.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Emily whispered. “It’s my fault, Mrs. Moore. She wouldn’t have done it if not for me.”

  “Emily. You can’t say that. I’m sure you didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “I did. I don’t want to leave until she’s better. Please don’t make me go.”

  Abigail held Emily away so she could see her face. “The nurse says that the last sense people lose is their hearing,” Laura’s mom said. “If she can hear, Emily, she knows you’re here. I’ve told her many times.”

  “She knows it’s my fault. I’m the one who told her it would be okay.” How could Emily make Laura’s mom understand that it hadn’t only been Seth, it had been her, too? Emily had told Laura she could climb it, there wouldn’t be any problems if she went with Seth. When the police had come to ask questions, Emily had stood in a corner with her throat sealed shut, like she was trying to swallow a mistake she’d never be able to change.

  Abigail touched Emily’s shoulder. “Would you like to go in? I could convince the nurse to let you see Laura. Now that the crowd has thinned out, I don’t think anyone will mind.”