“Okay, Coach.” Pam rolled her eyes, amused. Her hands went to her ears, fingering the diamond studs he had given her, checking the backs to make sure they stayed on, a nervous habit. “So, as you were saying…”
“Well, all he would tell me about the girls was that they were from school and…” Jake stopped short, not wanting to tell her about the girl from Texas that Ryan had asked out. “Anyway, when I asked him another question, he kept texting, and I heard him mutter under his breath, ‘It’s none of your business.’”
“That is so disrespectful!” Pam’s mouth dropped open. “He gets that from Caleb, you know. I hate that kid. He’s a bad influence.”
Jake bit his tongue. Pam was more right than she knew. “Ryan says he didn’t say it, but I swear he did, and we got in a fight. I told him I thought he was being fresh and entitled—”
“Hoo boy.” Pam’s eyes flared.
“—and he told me that he was too old to be reporting his personal life to his father, and he shouldn’t have to account for everything he did, and we yelled at each other.”
“And he cried? He never cries.”
Jake told himself to remain calm. Pam may have been a Ryan expert, but she didn’t know he smoked marijuana and she would disapprove heartily. He had tried pot in college, and she hadn’t even tried it. His wife took seriously the fact that she was a judge and had sworn an oath to uphold the law. Plus she believed marijuana turned kids into underachievers, which in her mind, was practically criminal. Jake reminded himself to get back on track with the story. “He cried from the stress, I guess. I shouted at him. I lost my temper.”
“You?” Pam blinked. “You never lose your temper.”
“I do sometimes.”
“Okay, whatever.” Pam shrugged, but Jake didn’t want to remind her of the night he’d lost his job, when he’d thrown his laptop across the kitchen and cracked the screen. It wasn’t even under warranty.
“Anyway, he pushed my buttons.”
“Did you call him names? Remember, you’re not supposed to call names.”
“Of course not, I don’t call names.” Jake knew from therapy that name-calling was against the rules, like the Geneva Convention of marriage.
“I don’t understand something. Was this in the car or the diner?”
“Was what?” Jake lost his train of thought again. He kept thinking of the woman, how horrible she had looked, lying there.
“The fight,” Pam was saying. “Did you have it in the car or the diner?”
What diner? “In the car.”
“After a fight like this, you went to the diner?”
Jake realized it sounded implausible. “Yes,” he answered anyway.
“He went along with that?” Pam recoiled, surprised. “I would think he’d be embarrassed. He’d been crying. What if he ran into someone he knew? Everybody knows who he is, from the team. You can’t miss him, he’s built like a lighthouse.”
“That’s what he said, but I insisted on it. He cleaned himself up in the car. I always have those Wet Wipes in the console, for when I eat in the car.” In truth, Jake was the one who cleaned up using the Wet Wipes. There had been blood on his face and hands. He’d driven away from a hit-and-run, thrown away the Wet Wipes and the marijuana in a Dumpster, and taught their son that dishonesty was the best policy. Jake didn’t know himself anymore. This wasn’t him.
“Why’d you want to go to the diner? You mean Mason’s?”
“Yes, Mason’s.” Jake realized he’d just trapped himself. He was a terrible liar. His heart beat wildly in his chest, as if it wanted to escape his very body.
“But you hate Mason’s. Every time I ask you to go, you say no.”
“I know, but you and Ryan love it, and I thought we could sort things out better there.”
“In public?” Pam didn’t look suspicious, merely critical. “Why didn’t you come home? I could’ve helped.”
Think! “I know, that’s the problem. If we came home, we would have looked to you to settle it, like Judge Mom. I didn’t want that. We had to do this on our own, just the two of us.”
“Really.” Pam nodded, with a new half smile. “So you went to Mason’s because I wasn’t there?”
“Honestly, yes. I have to find my own way with him. That’s the goal, right?” Jake felt he had turned a corner, inadvertently saying something that made complete sense, however false. Still it brought him no satisfaction or relief.
“Exactly.”
“You keep saying you can’t facilitate my relationship to him. The therapist said that too.”
“True.”
“So I tempted him with a cheeseburger, and we got over it.”
“Wow.” Pam brightened, genuinely happy, which only made Jake feel horrible.
“So it’s over. We solved it.”
“You resolved it.”
“Whatever, I’ll take it.” Jake managed a shaky smile, and Pam patted him on the back.
“You’re a good guy, Jake. That’s why I knew we’d be fine. Back when, you know.”
Jake’s throat caught. She meant when he’d lost his job and they had their rough patch. She’d dragged him into marriage counseling. It wasn’t his way, with his old-school, close-mouthed, working-class Scottish upbringing, from the other side of town. But like everything else he’d learned growing up, it had been 180 degrees wrong. Pam had taught him that, and now he was lying to her face.
“You’re reliable, and kind, and you try. You really do.” Pam smiled, sweetly. “You know what my mom always said about you.”
Jake couldn’t even fake a smile back. It was something they always said, a marital call-and-response, but the words soured on his tongue. “I’m Husband Material?”
“Ha! Don’t say it that way. Yes, you are.” Pam gave his back a final pat, like a period at the end of the sentence, then turned to go upstairs. “Okay, let’s go up. This week needs to end.”
“Right behind you.” Jake followed her from the kitchen, flicking off the lights. He should be relieved that he’d gotten away with lying to Pam, but it made him sick to his stomach.
He trudged upstairs behind Pam, leaning on the banister and hanging his head. He tried to unravel the night in his mind, to unspool the hours, to undo all the times it had gone wrong. He wished he had told Pam the truth. He wished he’d called the cops at the scene. He wished he hadn’t distracted Ryan while he was driving. He wished he hadn’t let Ryan drive in the first place. He wished he’d never even gone to pick Ryan up. Most of all, he wished that that poor woman was alive and well, back from her run, happy and at home, with her family.
But she wasn’t.
Jake had committed himself and his son to a course, and he had to see it through. Even though the notion filled him with dread.
And the deepest, deepest shame.
Chapter Four
Jake turned over, facing away from his sleeping wife, and opened his eyes. The bedroom was pitch dark because Pam liked to keep the blackout shades down, and it made the green digital numerals in his alarm clock glow even brighter. It was 2:45 A.M., and he’d been tossing and turning since he’d showered and gone to bed. He knew he would never fall asleep, replaying the night in his head, starting with him being parked outside the movie theater and ending with his avoiding his rearview mirror, so he couldn’t see the broken corpse of the woman vanish into blackness.
Jake tugged the covers up over his shoulder. In his mind, he went over everything he did and everything he said, then everything Ryan did and said, again and again, trying to see how it could have come out differently, or how he could’ve reached a different decision. But he kept coming out in the same horrendous place, reaching the same unthinkable conclusion.