Jake called out, “Good night, Ryan!”
They both watched as Ryan crossed the entrance hall and climbed the stairs, followed by Moose, wagging his fluffy tail. As soon as their son was out of sight and Jake was alone with Pam, he felt the tension level rise, as if their kitchen had a barometric pressure of its own. He had to tell Pam a convincing lie, but all he could think of was the woman he’d left dead, in the darkness. He’d driven away, too appalled and disgusted with himself to look in the rearview mirror. Her face had glistened with dark blood, slick and black as tar, covering her features so completely that he couldn’t see what she looked like or how old she was.
“So what’s going on?” Pam asked, mystified. “Was he crying? It looked like he was crying.”
“He was, but he’ll be okay, you’ll see.” Jake crossed to the sink and turned on the faucet, thinking about the dead woman. He felt stricken, knowing that she had been somebody’s mother, wife, or even daughter.
“Why was he crying?” Pam followed him, tucking a strand of hair into her ponytail.
“We had a fight after the movie, but we worked it out.” Jake pumped overpriced hand soap into his palm, lathered up, and began washing his hands of the poor woman’s blood. He didn’t see any telltale pink water going down the drain, and the very notion made his stomach turn. He felt as if he were in a waking nightmare, walking in the shoes of someone else entirely. A murderer, a criminal, a liar, or all three.
“But you guys don’t fight. You don’t talk enough to fight.”
Jake reddened, but it gave him an idea for a better story. He’d been about to tell the story they’d made up in the car, involving Ryan getting mad at Caleb, but his new idea didn’t involve a third party. He kept rinsing his hands, as if it would cleanse him of his guilt, like some villain in Shakespeare, he couldn’t remember which. “Well, we fought this time, a bad one.”
“Really.”
“Yes, believe it or not.” Jake kept his head down and his eyes on the water. The image of the woman’s face reappeared. He could feel the warmth of her lips, when he was trying to get her breathing again. Maybe he shouldn’t have given up so soon. Maybe he should have kept trying. He couldn’t bring her back to life. She was really gone, and they had killed her.
“So what was it you fought about?” Pam folded her arms. “And why do I have to take your deposition? Tell me already.”
“I am telling you.” Jake realized she was right. He was stalling. He didn’t want to lie to her. Once he did, the nightmare would become real, and there would be no going back. He didn’t know if he could lie to her anyway. He hated lying to her, and he hated telling her the truth. It was a night of no-win decisions.
“Jake, you’re beating around the bush.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. Honey, what is going on?”
Man up! Jake willed himself to get a grip. There’d been no going back the moment he’d left the scene. He twisted off the faucet, reached for the dishcloth, and started drying his hands, but he still couldn’t make eye contact with her. “Okay, you’re right, maybe I am. I don’t feel that great about it, is all.” He thought fast, realizing that his obvious discomfort could serve his story. “I mean, think about it from my point of view. I go to pick him up at the movies to get closer to him, and we fight and I make him cry, pushing him further away. I tried to do a good thing, but it turned out wrong.” His throat caught when he realized that he was telling the truth, in a way. All of the emotions were real, if not the facts. “So now I’m home, and I have to tell you what happened.”
“Aw, honey.” Pam’s voice softened, and she rubbed his back lightly. “I didn’t mean to be sharp. I’m so tired. The weeks we sit en banc are a bitch. I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize.” Jake knew that when the Superior Court sat en banc, the entire court would come to Philadelphia to hear oral arguments. There was a lot of preparation, and Pam worked extra hard, drafting opinions into the night to keep up with her regular caseload. Still, she wasn’t so tired that she wasn’t peering at him, intently.
“So tell me what happened.”
“Okay, but it won’t be easy for you to understand, because you guys have such a good relationship.” Jake folded the dishcloth and set it in its pile by the paper towels, more deliberately than necessary. “Plus I’m worried that, the way I handled it tonight, I blew it. I’ll never get in sync with him now, not before he goes to college.”
“Aw, yes you will.” Pam rubbed his back again. “So what happened already, ya big lug?”
Jake cringed inwardly, because he loved when she called him that. Pam liked his size because she said it made her feel safe, and he always thought he could protect her and Ryan—until tonight. He never would have guessed there’d be a jogger around the curve. He never would have foreseen they’d hit her. He told himself to get back on track and tell the story. He said, “It was silly, a little thing that got to be a big thing.”
“That happens.” Pam nodded in an encouraging way. He’d seen her do the same thing in the courtroom, trying to put a lawyer at ease during oral arguments. Counsel, don’t let us intimidate you, she’d say. Judges are people too. Just smarter.
“Well, we were driving home from the movie, and I was trying to have a conversation with him, but he was texting the whole time.”
“I don’t let him do that in the car.” Pam’s lips pursed. “It’s the same rule as at mealtimes. The principle is the same, whatever the location. He doesn’t get to ignore his parents or people around him. It’s just plain rude.”
“Right, I think so, too, but I didn’t want to lower the hammer—”
“Oh, be honest.”
She knows. Jake reddened, stricken. “What do you mean? Honest about what?”
“You wanted to be Fun Dad.” Pam snorted. “That’s why you didn’t lower the hammer.”
Jake tried to recover, but she was right. That was exactly what had happened. He never should have let Ryan drive. He’d made the classic mistake. He’d acted like a friend, not a parent. Pam would never have made such a terrible decision. He sighed heavily, feeling the weight of his conscience. “I know, you’re right. I know, I know, I know.”
“Honey, enough. Don’t beat yourself up.”
Jake couldn’t help it. If she only knew. He tried to return to the story, to spit it out. “So anyway, I didn’t tell him to stop texting. My plan was to win him over, to see if I could engage him on my own. Make it volitional, not a rule.”
“I hear you.” Pam regarded him impatiently behind her glasses. “And so…”
“And then, well, to go back a minute, when I picked him up at the movie, I noticed that there were two girls they were talking to.”
“Girls?” Pam lifted an eyebrow.
“Yeah, so while he was texting, I started to ask him about them, who they were and how they came to be at the movie. I was trying to make conversation, to get something going.” Jake was making it up as he went along, but Pam’s manner had changed from impatient to intrigued.
“So what did he say? I didn’t know there were girls going to the movie, or that they were meeting girls there.”
“I didn’t get an answer. But wait”—Jake caught himself—“if I tell you what happened, you can’t talk to him about it.”
“Why not?”
“If you say anything, he’ll never confide in me again, and that would defeat the purpose of my going to pick him up in the first place.” Jake realized suddenly that if he could get Pam not to bring up the subject with Ryan, then the boy wouldn’t have to lie to her. “Let us work it out, him and me. I think we did by the end, so let me keep at it.”