Paul takes my shoulders. “Honey, this is exactly when you need to worry about your health. You know that.”
It takes another ten minutes of convincing me; even so, I insist on seeing Sean’s doctor. This takes another thirty minutes, until finally we’re in Sean’s room, and I’m getting a crash course in comas. In Sean’s case, it was caused by a combination of traumatic head injury and cerebral hypoxia. As much as I try to pin down the doc to a prognosis, he gives us the “It could be hours, days, or even months. The brain is a mysterious organ . . .” and so on. If Sean doesn’t come around in a couple of days, a hospital in Albany will be better equipped to handle his needs.
I stare at Sean the whole time. He looks utterly helpless, a broken toy with the batteries fallen out. In a hospital gown, an ID bracelet on his wrist, the IV going in his arm, the ventilator in his neck. The hissing and beeping of the machines. The astringent smell of the room, along with the suspicion that things are never as clean as they seem in a hospital, and there are dust bunnies and stray hairs, billions of writhing germs.
The heavy gauze wrapping his head.
I finally leave feeling heartbroken, stunned, a failure. I’ve failed my son, somehow. I didn’t protect him. I’ve been preoccupied by Joni, ever since she was a recalcitrant tween testing our limits. We always put our faith in Sean. He had his head on straight. He was daring and adventurous, but safe and smart. I’d worried he’d injure himself as a boy, but as a man, he instilled confidence.
Now his brain, starved of oxygen, has shut down.
I can’t even think about it. I can’t think about his chances at regaining consciousness. The possibility that he never returns . . .
No. Don’t.
But I walk to the rental car in a daze, picturing his wholesome, handsome face. His hazel eyes — same as his father’s. His genial smile.
I’m lost in my love for him, opening the car door, when footsteps quickly approach.
Michael is running toward me. His face replaces the mental image of my son. I feel colder the second I see him; my skin tightens, pupils narrow.
He’s slightly out of breath. “I’ll drive you,” he says.
You’re out of your fucking mind is my first thought. But I catch myself.
“It’s okay. Go back inside and be with Joni. She needs you.”
“Honestly, it was her idea. But she’s right. We need to talk.”
“I don’t think we do. Not unless it’s going to be honest, anyway. But I just don’t have the strength right now.” I let my shoulders drop, releasing some of the tension. “And I’m sorry about what I said in the hospital room. I was just angry and hurt and lashed out at you. I shouldn’t have treated you that way . . .” I pause to fight against new emotion. “I just need to go home now.”
“And I’ll drive you there,” he insists. “Joni asked me to get a few things for her at the house, so I’m gonna go anyway. I’ll drop you and then I’ll come back.”
“No.” But I’m curious. “How?”
“I’ll take Sean’s car. Just let me, okay?”
In the end, since it’s dark, and I’ve already had one accident in the past forty-eight hours, I accept.
For Sean.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
I feed Michael some leftovers. We eat in silence. My thoughts swing from Sean to the young man seated across from me. Who is he? Why is he in my house? Was what happened to Sean an accident or something else? Is Michael capable of something so sinister? Or maybe it was one of those things that’s not quite an accident, not quite premeditated?
He could be mentally unstable.
I have so many questions. Why are you engaged to my daughter? Was it fate or did you seek her out? Is your mother behind this?
But neither of us speaks, except when Michael says, “Thank you,” and picks up his dishes and places them in the sink. “I’ll grab Joni’s things and then I’ll go.”
I face the lake through the windows, watching the column of light from the dock lamp ride the bumpy waves. I don’t say anything to Michael. A stair tread pops behind me as he ascends to the second floor.
I hear more creaking over my head as he walks into Joni’s room. The door closes, more footfalls follow, then silence.
Who is this stranger in my life? What is his purpose here?
Each time I try to fathom the coincidence, it’s as though my own mind spits out the thought undigested. Is it really possible that Michael met my daughter at a college lacrosse game? Part of me says no way. But it’s contradicted by another notion: anything is possible.
Therapists and former patients do sometimes bump into each other on the street or discover they ride the same daily train. Maybe this is a more complicated version of those coincidences: Former patient dates therapist’s daughter.
But — unknowingly?
Even if Michael had full recall of his trauma, it’s plausible he forgot the name of a therapist he saw a handful of times fifteen years ago, let alone what she looked like. Or be able to fathom what she’d look like now. At first, he might only have a picture or two to go by, something Joni showed him on her phone.
But once he met me in person, would that have not jogged his memory?
Maybe it did. Maybe this whole thing is a case of Michael, having fallen in love with Joni, becoming mortified at who her mother turns out to be.
Mortified not just because of what I might know about him, but because he’s already concocted this false narrative for Joni about his parents dying in a car wreck.
Ashamed by what his mother did to his father, he’s built an alternate self. For years, it works just fine. By the time he’s old enough to care about girls, perhaps, the media have mostly forgotten about him. He’s gone through puberty; he looks different enough that the paparazzi have lost the scent. And so now, when it comes to that getting-to-know-you moment in a new relationship, he’s free to improvise. He keeps it tragic, with plenty of truth to reinforce the lies. There’s only one problem: he ends up dating the daughter of someone who knows better.
The chance is very slim, but possible. For one thing, I’m not the only one who knows. He could’ve wound up dating the daughter of his ad litem from the case. Or the judge’s daughter. Or one of the police officers or crime-scene techs involved. Even a reporter who might still recall the case with clarity.
But instead of any of them, it was me.
And maybe seeing us this weekend wasn’t the first time he made the connection. Surely Joni showed him some pictures. And then there’s her last name. My last name. Had he forgotten it at first? Or thought nothing of it? The “aha” moment might not have come until several months into their relationship. They could’ve had a conversation about what I did for a living, what Paul did. By the time Michael finally put it together, he was in too deep.
Maybe it’s all a sign of how much he loves my Jo. That he didn’t run, even after he realized what a horror show of a coincidence this whole thing was.