It didn’t surprise Zell all that much, knowing the truth about Ty. She supposed in hindsight, she’d known there was something . . . off about him, especially in high school. He’d grown quieter and quieter, retreated more to his room. Zell worried about the usual things you saw on TV—drugs, drinking, depression. She’d wondered aloud to John about whether their middle child was having suicidal thoughts, or dealing with secret homosexuality, or involved with the wrong crowd. John told her to stop worrying so much, to leave the boy alone, that it would work out, and to quit inventing trouble where there wasn’t any. But deep in her mother’s heart she knew something was wrong. And now, all these years later as Jencey Cabot sat at her kitchen table and pored over the disturbing contents of a long-hidden shoe box, she knew she should’ve listened to that nagging internal voice a little closer.
Now she knew: it was her own son who’d driven Jencey away all those years ago. Ty had been a threat, scaring that poor girl to death with his paper hearts left in the most disturbing places. Once, she’d heard through the neighborhood grapevine, a heart had been left on the bathroom counter when Jencey emerged from the shower, the word love scrawled in the steam on the mirror. Zell had known all about it, listening to Lois Cabot lament at the pool that last summer before they finally took Jencey up north to an undisclosed college in an attempt to get her away from whoever it was. Lois wouldn’t even tell the other mothers what school, saying it was just too dangerous.
And it had gotten dangerous. One night when Jencey had been meeting Everett, someone (her son, Zell knew now) had jumped poor Everett and beaten him up, leaving a heart on his unconscious body. Now Zell tried to think about that time in her mind, wondering if she’d seen marks on her son after the fight, if there’d been signs she’d ignored because—much as she would’ve said differently—she didn’t really want to see. She thought of what had happened next door before Debra left. She thought of her son. And it all made a sickening sort of sense. She had given birth to this child, she had raised him, and he had done something terrible. She saw with horrifying clarity her own influence in who he had become.
“I’m sorry,” Zell said over and over to Jencey. “What can I do?” She wrung her hands and paced the kitchen. John and Lance talked in the den, their voices low and serious, like thunder rumbling. Cailey made herself scarce, which was probably a good idea. She hadn’t intentionally done anything wrong, but her snooping had opened a can of worms, and Zell didn’t really know how to talk to her about it yet.
Lance and Jencey took the shoe box and left. Zell went into the den and sat down. Feeling chilled, she wrapped her arms around herself. She wondered idly where Cailey was, reasoning that the girl was probably fine. Her own child was her concern now. John came into the room after seeing Jencey and Lance out. He had his keys in his hand. “I’m going over to Ty’s now,” he said. “Gonna have a talk with him, let him know how this is going to play out.”
She nodded miserably. “Want me to come with you?”
“No,” John said, jingling the keys in his hand. “I think we need to talk, man-to-man.” He looked down at the floor, and she refrained from mentioning that she’d once begged him to do exactly that. “I’m gonna stay with him until the police get there,” he added, his gaze still on the floor. They’d picked out the wood together years ago when they’d replaced the carpet with hardwoods—visiting showrooms, browsing the samples, debating the different choices, colors, prices. It had seemed so important then. Now they hardly noticed the floor; they just walked across it.
“So they’re going to report him to the police?”
John nodded. “Lance is concerned that he might’ve seen Jencey at his house tonight and . . . might resume his old behaviors. He feels it’s best to get the authorities involved just to ward off any possible issues. He’s much less likely to try something if he knows people are watching out for him to do just that.”
Zell nodded. “I can see that. I just . . .” She found John’s eyes with her own. “I just hate it.”
He walked toward her, crossing the room with his wide stride in mere steps. He took her hand, pulling her up to him. She buried her face in his neck and let his arms make her feel safe. John would take care of her; he would take care of them all. She’d known that when she’d married him, and she knew it now.
“He’s going to be OK. We all are.”
She nodded, knowing he could feel the movement of her head against his neck. “You take care of Cailey,” he said. “I bet she’s feeling kind of bad about what happened. She probably thinks it’s her fault. For finding the box.”
Zell pulled back and looked at him. “Well, it kind of is,” she replied, hearing her own cruel words as she said them. She couldn’t blame Cailey for being a normal kid. Normal kids snooped around when they were bored. Even some adults snooped around when they didn’t have anything better to do.
He put his finger against her lips. “She doesn’t need to hear that. She needs to hear she saved the day. That she found something very important that we all needed to see.” He gave her a look. “Because we did. Need to see.”
She thought of all the things they’d been avoiding seeing, and for so long. He was right. There was much they needed to see.
LANCE
Lance held her until she fell asleep, this time not bothering to hide that they were in his bed together. They weren’t fooling anyone anyway.
The children were playing somewhere in the house. He ignored their loudness, their hunger, their bedtimes. He let them feed themselves, fall asleep where they may. They would not die if they were unattended for one evening. They had food, shelter, TV, one another. Tonight his loyalty, his concern, his heart, was for Jencey.
“You’re safe here,” he assured her as she lay in bed and shivered, the shoe box sitting ominously on his dresser. He got up and threw a towel over it.
“But what if he saw me? I was right outside, right there in full view. And you know how Zell runs her mouth. I bet you money she told him I was back, just making small talk. I can hear her now, ‘Oh, Ty, didn’t you know Jencey Cabot? Well, she’s in town for the summer with her two little girls.’” Jencey pulled him back into bed, her hands fisting his T-shirt as she looked at him with wide, terrified eyes. “My girls could be in danger!”
He shushed her and pulled her closer, burying her head in his neck as hot, wet tears caught in the folds of his skin. “I’m going to take care of you,” he promised. He said it so naturally, as if it were nothing, but he heard the catch in her breathing as she reacted to his words. She was silent for a few minutes, and he feared he’d made a dreadful mistake.
“I’m glad you’re here. With me,” she said.
He kissed her. “Me, too,” he said. “Me, too.”
CAILEY
I was sitting in the front yard when I heard Zell come up behind me. I’d just seen Mr. John get in his car and drive away. I knew he was going to see Ty. I knew Lance and Jencey were calling the police about that shoe box. And I knew she was coming outside to tell me she wasn’t mad at me, that I’d done nothing wrong. I knew Zell would be concerned about my feelings and come try to make me feel better because that was who she was. She was the kind of person who would take in a total stranger and make her feel like part of the family. She would love me because she was a loving person. And what her son did didn’t change that.