He swallows. “That you were unstable and you drank too much.”
I don’t respond. I can hear rain, a fusillade against the windows.
“We didn’t know about your family then.”
I close my eyes and begin to count. One. Two.
By three, Ethan is speaking again, his voice tight. “I feel like I’ve been keeping all these secrets from all these people. I can’t do it anymore.”
I open my eyes. In the dusk of the living room, in the fragile light of the lamp, he looks like an angel.
“We have to tell the police.”
Ethan bends forward, hugging his knees. Then he straightens up, looks at me for a moment, looks away.
“Ethan.”
“I know.” Barely audible.
A cry behind me. I twist in my seat. Punch sits behind us, head tilted to one side. He mews again.
“There he is.” Ethan reaches over the back of the sofa, but the cat pulls away. “I guess he doesn’t like me anymore,” says Ethan, softly.
“Look.” I clear my throat. “This is very, very serious. I’m going to call Detective Little and have him come here so that you can tell him what you’ve told me.”
“Can I tell them? First?”
I frown. “Tell who? Your—”
“My mom. And my dad.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “We—”
“Oh, please. Please.” His voice breaks like a dam.
“Ethan, we—”
“Please. Please.” Almost screaming now. I stare at him: His eyes are streaming, his skin is blotched. Half-wild with panic. Do I let him cry it out?
But already he’s talking again, a wet flood of words: “She did it for me.” His eyes are brimming. “She did it for me. I can’t—I can’t do that to her. After what she did for me.”
My breath is shallow. “I—”
“And won’t it be better for them if they turn themselves in?” he asks.
I consider this. Better for them, so better for him. Yet— “They’ve been freaking out ever since it happened. They’re really going crazy.” His upper lip glistens—sweat and snot. He swipes at it. “My dad told my mom they should go to the police. They’ll listen to me.”
“I don’t—”
“They will.” Nodding firmly, breathing deeply. “If I say I talked to you and you’re going to tell the police if they don’t.”
“Are you sure . . .” That you can trust your mother? That Alistair won’t attack you? That neither one of them will come for me?
“Can you just wait to let me talk to them? I can’t— If I let the police come and get them now, I don’t . . .” His gaze travels to his hands. “I just can’t do that. I don’t know how I’d . . . live with myself.” His voice is swollen again. “Without giving them a chance first. To help themselves.” He can barely speak. “She’s my mother.”
He means Jane.
Nothing in my experience has prepared me for this. I think of Wesley, of what he’d advise. Think for yourself, Fox.
Can I let him go back to that house? To those people?
But could I doom him to lifelong regret? I know how it feels; I know the ceaseless ache, the constant drone of it. I don’t want him to feel that way.
“All right,” I say.
He blinks. “All right?”
“Yes. Tell them.”
He’s gawking now, as though in disbelief. After a moment he recovers. “Thank you.”
“Please be very careful.”
“I will.” He starts to stand.
“What are you going to say?”
He sits again, sighs wetly. “I guess—I’ll say that . . . you know. That you have evidence.” He nods. “I’ll tell the truth. I told you what happened, and you said we need to go to the police.” His voice quavers. “Before you do.” Rubbing his eyes. “What do you think will happen to them?”
I pause, pick my way through a response. “It’s . . . I think—the police will understand that your parents were being harassed, that she—that Katie was in effect stalking you. And was probably in violation of what was agreed when you were adopted.” He nods slowly. “And,” I add, “they’ll take into account that it happened during an argument.”
He chews his lip.
“It won’t be easy.”
His eyes drop. “No,” he breathes. Then he looks at me with such force that I shift where I sit. “Thank you.”
“Well, I . . .”
“Really.” He swallows. “Thank you.”
I nod. “You have your phone, right?”
He taps his coat pocket. “Yeah.”
“Call me if—just let me know that everything’s okay.”
“Okay.” He stands again; I stand with him. He turns toward the door.
“Ethan—”
He pivots.
“I need to know: your father.”
He watches me.
“Does he—did he come to my house at night?”
He frowns. “Yeah. Last night. I thought—”
“No, I mean last week.”
Ethan says nothing.
“Because I was told that I imagined something happening in your house, and now I know that I didn’t. And I was told that I had drawn a picture that I hadn’t drawn. And I want—I need to know who took that photograph of me. Because”—I hear my voice tremble—“I really don’t want it to have been me.”
A hush.
“I don’t know,” says Ethan. “How would he have gotten in?”
That I can’t answer.
We walk to the door together. As he reaches for the knob, I catch him in my arms, bring him close, hold him tight.
“Please be safe,” I whisper.
We stand there for a moment as rain spits on the windows and wind hisses outside.
He steps away from me, smiles sadly. Then he leaves.
94
I part the blinds, watch him climb his front steps, jab the key into the lock. He opens the door; when it closes, he’s disappeared.
Was I right to let him go? Should we have warned Little first? Should we have summoned Alistair and Jane to my house?
Too late.
I gaze across the park, at the empty windows, the vacant rooms. Somewhere in the depths of that place, he’s talking to his parents, taking a claw hammer to their world. I feel as I did every day of Olivia’s life: Please be safe.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my time working with children, if I could whittle those years down to a single revelation, it’s this: They are extraordinarily resilient. They can withstand neglect; they can survive abuse; they can endure, even thrive, where adults would collapse like umbrellas. My heart beats for Ethan. He’ll need that resilience. He must endure.
And what a story—what an evil story. I shiver as I return to the living room, switch off the lamp. That poor woman. That poor child.
And Jane. Not Alistair, but Jane.
A tear runs down my cheek. I touch my finger to it and it gloms onto the skin; I look at it, curious. Then I wipe my hand on my robe.
My eyelids sag. I walk up to my bedroom, to worry, to wait.
I stand at the window, scanning the house across the park. No signs of life.
I chew a thumbnail until it leaks blood.
I pace the room, walk circuits around the carpet.
I glance at my phone. Half an hour has crept by.
I need a distraction. I need to calm my nerves. Something familiar. Something soothing.
Shadow of a Doubt. Screenplay by Thornton Wilder, and Hitch’s personal favorite among his own films: a naive young woman learns that her hero isn’t who he pretends to be. “We just sort of go along and nothing happens,” she complains. “We’re in a terrible rut. We eat and sleep and that’s about all. We don’t even have any real conversations.” Until her Uncle Charlie pays a visit.
She remains oblivious a bit too long for my liking, frankly.
I watch it on my laptop, sucking at my wounded thumb. The cat wanders in after a few minutes, bounds into bed with me. I press his paw; he hisses.
As the story coils tighter, so too does something within me, some unease I can’t name. I wonder what’s happening across the park.
My phone buzzes, crawling across the pillow next to me. I seize it.
Going 2 police
11:33 p.m. I drifted off.
I step from bed and snap the curtains to one side. Rain batters my windows, sharp as artillery fire, turning them to puddles.
Across the park, through the smear of the storm, the house is dark.
“There’s so much you don’t know, so much.”