Authors: Diane Chamberlain
Tags: #Family Life, #Fiction, #General, #Literary, #Mothers and Sons, #Psychological Fiction, #Arson, #Patients, #Family Relationships, #Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, #People With Mental Disabilities
off about it and she said not to worry. That it wouldn’t happen.”
Uncle Marcus was quiet again.
“Could it happen?” I asked.
“I think your mother was just trying to keep you from
getting upset, Mags,” he said. “If she said it was a terrible day,
it sounds like she either didn’t have any luck with the neurolobefore the storm
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gist or else with the lawyer. And if that’s the case, then there’s
a really good chance Andy will end up in adult court.”
“So…” What did that mean exactly? “When would he have
a trial? He could stay home while he’s waiting for it, right?”
Andy came downstairs. I watched him walk into the family
room and turn on the TV.
“No, Mags. Look, I know your mom doesn’t want to worry
you, but here’s the deal. If he gets bound over, they’ll lock him
up right away and—”
“What do you
mean,
lock him up right away?” I whispered,
turning my back to the family room.
“I mean, after the hearing tomorrow, they’d take him back
to jail. And it’s very doubtful he could get bail, so he’d have
to stay in jail until his trial. And sometimes it can take a year
or even longer for a case to go to trial. Then if he’s found guilty,
he could end up in prison for the rest of his life.”
I couldn’t speak. This couldn’t be happening.
“So that’s why your mom’s been knocking herself out to find
the right expert and why she’s been so worried and why you
really were…you were cruel to her today, Maggie. She didn’t
need that on top of everything else.”
“I can’t believe it,” I said.
“What part of it?”
“Any of it.” I looked into the family room. I could see the
back of Andy’s head where he sat on the sofa. He had no idea
how his world might change tomorrow.
I’d
had no idea. “I’m
so sorry,” I said to Uncle Marcus. “I didn’t realize…I knew it
was serious, but I didn’t get how bad it was.”
“It’s worse. That’s what I was calling to talk to your mother
about.”
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“How could it possibly be worse?”
“Here’s how,” he said. “Those empty containers from the
landfill? One of them has Andy’s prints on it.”
I HAD TO STOP ONCE MORE ON THE DRIVE home from
Raleigh, this time because of the blinding rain. Mine wasn’t
the only car to pull over with its emergency blinkers flashing,
but I bet none of the other drivers were in the sort of
turmoil—the sort of emotional pain—I was in. I’d failed to
get the necessary help for my son, and my daughter had been
lying to me for the past year, turning into a girl I didn’t know.
I thought of all the times Ben Trippett had talked to me about
Andy’s swimming, all the while chortling to himself about the
wool he was pulling over my eyes.
And then there was that knife beneath my breastbone, the
most visceral pain of them all. My beloved Jamie had led a
double life. My best friend had deceived me. I’d been blind to
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it. Why did I always
lose
people? My parents. My aunt and
uncle. Jamie. And now even Jamie’s memory would be lost to
me. And Sara! How could she? Even Marcus had betrayed me
in the guise of protecting me—an act of nobility I could barely
fathom, given the wrath with which I’d blamed him for Jamie’s
death. Nothing was as it seemed. The only person in my life I
felt sure about was Andy, and tomorrow, he could be ripped
from my arms for being too naive, too defenseless against a
world he didn’t completely understand. I started to cry. To sob
so hard that, even as the rain let up and the other cars took
off, I stayed on the side of the road trying to get a grip on
myself.
By the time I got home, the nor’easter was in full swing. The
sky was eerily dark for so early in the evening, and the thunder
made a ripping, growling sound that reminded me of when the
church roof caved in during the fire. The slender trees in my
yard bowed toward the sound. I caught them in my headlights,
and that’s when I realized that my headlights were the only
lights near the house. The power must have gone out.
The garage door opener worked, though, and as I pulled
inside, I noticed that Maggie’s Jetta wasn’t there. I let myself
into the house, feeling even more unsettled. Something wasn’t
right.
“Maggie? Andy?”
The wind rattled the windowpanes, but even so, I could hear
the refrigerator’s loud hum. The power
was
on. I flipped the
kitchen switch and the room filled with light. An uneaten pizza
rested on a cookie sheet on the granite counter. Where were
they?
I walked through the house, calling for them, afraid the
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police might have taken Andy away again. Why, though? And
where was Maggie?
I sat on the family room sofa and dialed her cell phone, but
she didn’t answer. She was probably afraid to talk to me after
our conversation earlier. I tried Andy’s phone but, as with
Maggie’s, I was dumped to his voice mail.
“Hi! This is Andy. Leave…leave me a message when the
tone rings.” It had taken us an hour to get that message
properly recorded.
“Andy, this is Mom,” I said. “Call me right away!” I tried
Maggie’s phone again, this time leaving a message.“Where are
you and Andy? I’m home and very worried!”
Then I dialed Marcus’s cell.
“Do you know where Maggie and Andy are?” I asked when
he picked up.
“I spoke to Maggie about an hour or so ago,” he said. “She
was home with Andy. She said they were making pizza.”
“Well, I just got home and the house is dark and empty and
a whole pizza is on the counter. Her car’s not here. She was
mad at me. We had a fight on the phone.” I ran my hand over
the green fabric on the arm of the sofa, unsure how much to
say about that conversation.
“Then you don’t know about the containers?”
“What containers?”
“The ones found in the landfill.” He hesitated. “At least one
of them has Andy’s fingerprints on it, Laurel.”
“No!” I stood up.“Oh, Marcus, that’s impossible! It’s just impossible. I don’t understand what’s happening.”
“I’m coming over.”
“Could the police have picked him up?”
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“I doubt it. I think they have other things to worry about
with this storm, but I’ll call them on my way to your house
to make sure.”
“Please do.” I hung up. I tried to make a pot of coffee, but
forgot to add the grounds and ended up with a carafe full of
murky-looking water. Sobs shook my shoulders as I tried again.
I remembered the grounds this time, but the power died as the
first dark drops poured into the carafe.
Fumbling in the darkness, I found my hurricane lanterns and
flashlights. I lit the lanterns, setting them on the tables and fireplace mantel in the family room.
If the police had Andy, could Marcus somehow get him out
again? Or was this it, now that they had his prints on those containers? Would Andy be locked up tonight, then sent to jail
after the hearing tomorrow, never to get out again?
It was nine o’clock when Marcus arrived. I heard the
slamming of his pickup door and I raced to my front door,
anxious to talk to him. He literally blew into the house, the
wind lifting him off his feet.
“Damn!” he said, knocking into the small table in the foyer.
“My pickup hydroplaned half the way here.” He helped me
close the door against the wind. “We need to go out there
again,” he said. “We need to get your patio furniture in the
garage.”
I was usually a clear thinker in a storm. Tonight, though, I
could barely picture the furniture he was talking about.
“Do the police have him?” I asked.
“No. I’m worried about tomorrow, though, Laurel. I mean, I
thought maybe we had a chance till these containers turned up.”
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“I don’t understand!” I said for the hundredth time.
“Let’s get things secured outside and then figure out what to
do.”
“I don’t care about the patio furniture!” I said. “I don’t care
if the house falls down. I just want to know where my children
are!”
“You stay here, then. I’ll do it.”
I knew he was right. A nor’easter last year had sent someone’s trash can through my front window. I followed him
outside and together we managed to get the chairs and patio
table into the garage. My trash can was already gone, blown
away who knew where. I cried in the windy darkness, letting
myself break down unheard. I just managed to pull myself
together before we went into the house again.
“Let’s think,” he said, as I relit one of the lanterns that had
gone out. “How could Andy’s prints have possibly gotten on
the container?”
“Someone set him up,” I said. “That’s the only possibility.
Maybe Keith, since he was angry that…” I stopped, pressing
my hands to my temples as all that Maggie had told me rushed
back. “Marcus.” My voice cracked as I leaned against the stone
of the fireplace.“I know about Keith. Maggie told me. Is it true
about Jamie and Sara?”
He lowered himself to the sofa. “I’m sorry Maggie told you
the way she did,” he said.“I wanted to wait until a better time.”
I shook my head, sinking into the chair behind me. I had no
time to wallow, I told myself. Right now, I just needed to focus
on Andy. “We should go out and look for them,” I said.
“We wouldn’t be able to see two feet in front of my pickup.”
Again, he was right. I rubbed my arms with my hands,
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watching the hurricane lantern flicker on the mantel. “What
do you think?” I asked. “Could Keith have set Andy up?”
“But then we come back to the question of why he’d get
trapped by the fire if he set it himself.”
“Ben!” I said suddenly, getting to my feet and grabbing the
wireless phone from the coffee table.“Maggie and Andy might
be with Ben!”
“With
Ben?
Why?”
“Well, here’s the other piece of terrific news I got today,” I
said. “Dawn called to tell me that Ben and Maggie have been
seeing each other for nearly a year.”
“Seeing each other?” Marcus’s eyes grew wide. “You
mean…intimately?”
“That’s exactly what I mean. That’s why Maggie got mad at
me. I talked to her about it and I was furious. She—”
“Ben?” Marcus was incredulous. “I saw him with Dawn the
other day, all lovey-dovey. And he’s pushing thirty, for God’s
sake.”
“I know it. I’m going to strangle him.”
“I’ll beat you to it.”
I sat down again, glad to have something to do. Some action
to take.“Do you know his phone number?” I hit the talk button
on my phone, but there was no dial tone. Of course. “The
power,” I said, holding the dead phone in the air.
Marcus pulled his cell phone from his belt. “Cells are iffy
tonight,” he said, frowning at the display. “I only have one bar.”
I watched as he dialed. He listened, shaking his head.“Voice
mail,” he said to me. Into the phone, he said,“Ben, it’s Marcus.
Call me.”
I leaned back against the chair, feeling defeated. “It’s my
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fault, Marcus,” I said. “Maggie and Ben. I’ve been a terrible
mother to her. An absent mother. I made her parent Andy with
me without giving much thought to
her
needs. Jamie raised her
until he died and then I let her be. I expected her to take care
of herself.”
“She seemed really good at it.”
“How could I not have known she was seeing Ben? And for
so
long?
”
“Man!” Marcus got to his feet, pacing toward the stairs and
back again. “I’m going to flatten him!”
“Could they be over there?” I wondered. “At Ben’s?”
“Since it’s actually
Dawn’s
house, not likely.”
I massaged my forehead. A headache was starting, or maybe
I’d had it for hours and hadn’t noticed. “This thing about the
containers,” I said. “It makes no sense.” I rubbed my temples
harder. “But if Maggie had a secret life, maybe Andy did, too.”
There was no other way to explain it all. “I think about the
mothers of those kids who shoot up schools. I’m sure they
never suspected their child could do such a thing.” I dropped
my hands to the arms of the chair. “Marcus, I
knew
there was
something on his shoes,” I admitted.“I hoped it was fluid from
his lighter.You know, how he put it in his sock when we were
at the airport? With all the time and attention I gave Andy, did
I still screw up with him? Is there a side to him he’s managed
to keep hidden from me?” Just then, I felt as though everyone
in my life had deceived me.
“Don’t
you
start doubting him, all right?” Marcus stopped
pacing. “You’re the one person who can’t afford to ever doubt
him.”
“But how do you explain it?” I raised my hands in the air,
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