Lucy didn’t contradict her, but she doubted that bad luck had anything to do with it. Something was seriously wrong in the Stanton household and Lucy was determined to find out what it was before it grew out of control and engulfed the whole neighborhood.
“Tell me about Tommy, if you can,” said Lucy, remembering her job and pulling out her notebook.
“Well,” began Bonnie, “Buck says he’s a bit of a loner…”
The words sent a chill up her spine. How often had she heard them used to describe a killer, some sociopath who’d gone on a murder spree? Was Tommy like that? Had he killed his mother as the result of some stupid argument and then been so filled with remorse that he killed himself?
Lucy couldn’t shake that thought as she retraced her steps down Prudence Path and along the winding path through the lilacs to home. Teenagers were so emotional and so unpredictable, and movies and video games were so permeated with violence that it was no wonder they reached for a knife or gun when frustrated. Lucy had heard of instances where teens killed parents for refusing to allow them to attend a rock concert, or for making them go to church. And then there were the school shootings that seemed to occur with sickening regularity ever since Columbine. She was convinced that all this youthful anger was a symptom that something was wrong, but she wasn’t sure exactly what. Maybe teenage boys should be sent off to live in a hut with tribal elders until they were deemed fit to marry and assume their place in society, as was the custom with some primitive tribes. There were certainly times when she’d wished she could hand her own son, Toby, off to some wise shaman who would teach him the secrets of manhood. Bill had certainly tried, but like most kids, Toby had found it hard to take advice from his father when his father was the very same person he was trying to separate himself from in order to establish his own identity.
There had to be a better way than the present system of intense peer pressure in high school combined with the stress of academics and college admission, she thought, as she climbed the porch steps and went into the kitchen. A minute or two later Willie’s car turned into the drive and Sara climbed out. “What’s going on?” Sara asked, bursting into the kitchen. “There’s a police car at Tommy’s house.”
Lucy took a deep breath. “Tommy tried to kill himself.”
Sara was stunned. Her mouth dropped and she sat staring straight ahead, speechless. Lucy felt like kicking herself for not taking a gentler approach.
“I shouldn’t have sprung it on you like that,” she said, squeezing her daughter’s shoulders. “I’m sorry.”
Sara’s eyes widened. “Is he dead?”
“No. His brother found him in time, at least that’s what I heard. He was alive when they took him away in the ambulance.”
“So he’ll be okay, right?”
“I hope so. There could be brain damage and he could have broken his neck.”
“Broken his neck?”
“He tried to hang himself.”
Sara’s face went white and her knees began to buckle. Lucy quickly pulled out a kitchen chair for her to sit on and shoved her head between her knees. In a minute or two she sat up but her color hadn’t improved. “That’s sick. I can’t believe he’d do that.”
“I noticed he seemed pretty unhappy even before his mother died,” said Lucy, dragging another chair out from under the table and sitting next to Sara. “I’ve been hearing rumors that the JV football players are getting bullied and hazed a lot. I wouldn’t be surprised if his mother’s death was the straw that broke the camel’s back and he just couldn’t go on anymore.”
Sara was silent and Lucy knew she had to find a way to get her to open up.
“If there is hazing and you know about it, you have to speak up. What if some other kid decides to kill himself? How would you feel then?”
“C’mon, Mom. Tommy was screwed up, right?”
“So it’s his fault he tried to hang himself?”
“Well, nobody did it to him, did they?”
“I think we all bear some responsibility, everybody who knew him.”
“How could they know he’d do something like this?” she demanded, her face flushed with anger.
Aha, thought Lucy. She’d finally hit a nerve. “Who couldn’t have known?” she asked.
“The varsity guys.”
“All of them?”
“Pretty much,” admitted Sara. “It’s what guys do. No big deal.” Sara shrugged, and then, to Lucy’s amazement, began sobbing.
“Oh, honey,” she cooed, wrapping her arms around her but Sara shrugged out of her hug, wiping her eyes.
“I’m being stupid. I don’t know what came over me.”
“You have a right to your feelings,” said Lucy. “If you can’t trust yourself, who can you trust?”
Sara sighed and paused, as if weighing her options. Finally she spoke. “Some of the players got a little obnoxious today after practice, that’s all.”
“What do you mean?” asked Lucy. It was gradually dawning on her that Sara was upset about more than Tommy’s attempted suicide. “Did they do something to you?”
Sara looked at the ceiling. “They kind of cornered a few of us, me and Sassie and Renee, and well, Renee’s really busty and they wanted to know if her boobs were real so they made me squeeze them and say if they were.”
Lucy was appalled. “You did that?”
“Renee said it was okay.”
“And where was the coach during all this?”
Sara shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Does this sort of thing happen a lot?”
“No, Mom.” She was on her feet. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” Then she flounced out of the room and pounded up the back stairs to her bedroom.
Lucy’s emotions were in turmoil and she dashed after her, catching her in the upstairs hallway. “I think we have to talk about it,” she said, grabbing her by the shoulder and spinning her around. “This is serious.”
Sara was so shocked by her mother’s unusual behavior that she simply stood in the tiny hallway as if waiting for her to regain her senses. Lucy was too upset for that, though. She was out of control.
“You’re going to quit cheerleading, that’s what you’re going to do,” she said, waggling a finger at her daughter.
Sara shook her head. “No, I’m not and you can’t make me.”
“Oh, yes I can,” insisted Lucy. “Just you see.”
Then she whirled around and marched down the stairs, determined to give Coach Burkhart a piece of her mind. She didn’t like the way the football team was run and she was going to let him know exactly what she thought. The players had no business harassing cheerleaders and the coaches had a responsibility to protect the girls from that sort of behavior. It was insulting, it was demeaning. It was unsportsmanlike, that’s what it was. She was panting and red-faced when she crossed the tiny square of emerald green lawn punctuated by a dwarf Japanese maple and knocked on the Burkharts’ door.