Everything We Ever Wanted by Sara Shepard
Prologue
The man introduced himself on the phone as Michael Tayson, the new Swithin headmaster. “We haven’t had the pleasure of meeting yet,” he said.
“Ah, yes, of course,” Sylvie said quickly, sitting up straighter. It was almost 9 p.m. on a Sunday night. A strangely intimate time, she thought, for a chat. “What can I do for you?”
“We have a bit of a situation,” Michael Tayson said.
For a moment, Sylvie wondered if she’d fallen through a pocket in time. Her sons, Charles and Scott, were still teenagers. They were upstairs in their rooms, doing their homework—or, in Scott’s case, not doing his homework—and it was Jerome Cunningham, the old headmaster, on the phone instead. He hadn’t retired yet, the boys hadn’t graduated yet, and James … well, James was still here, too, upstairs behind his closed office door. He could walk downstairs and she could still talk to him.
“One of our students passed away this morning,” Michael Tayson went on, bringing her back to the present. “We’re not sure how, but there are suspicions it might have been a suicide. His name was Christian Givens, a freshman. One of the scholarship boys.”
Sylvie murmured how terrible that was, how sorry she felt for the family. All her years on the board, they’d had a few deaths—some car accidents, a case of Hodgkin’s lymphoma—but never a suicide, thank God. Was he looking for suggestions about memorial services?
The church clock down at the end of Sylvie’s drive bonged out the hour. “He was a wrestler,” Michael finally said. “Your son coached him.”
“Oh,” Sylvie whispered.
“This is a delicate situation, obviously. We know how much you and your family … we know what you’ve done for us. But there might be questions. We’ll try as best we can to keep things out of the spotlight, but you have to understand that it might not be possible.” He took a deep breath. “Scott’s job is all right for now. The season’s finished. Next season, we’ll have to see. This might blow over.”
Sylvie stood up. “I’m sorry, what does this have to do with Scott?”
She heard a chair creaking and imagined that the man on the other end, a man she hadn’t yet met, was leaning back. Sylvie had been in the office the school reserved for the headmaster plenty of times, especially when Scott was a student. Jerome had never suspended Scott for anything, even though Sylvie assured him that he should treat Scott the same as any other student. She knew why he let Scott’s transgressions slide.
“There’s a rumor going around,” Michael Tayson said. “Apparently, there’s a lot of pressure among the wrestlers. Some of the boys couldn’t handle it.”
“The weight-loss pressure,” Sylvie ventured, “to make their weight class. But doesn’t that happen on all wrestling teams?”
“This wasn’t the typical weight-loss stuff, no.”
“Okay …”
He coughed weakly. “I’m not saying it’s true. I’ll say that up front. But I’ve heard that if a boy doesn’t perform well in the match, the boys … I’m not sure exactly what they do. There are beatings. Sometimes brutal, though you know boys—they hide these things if they can. No one wants to be the snitch; no one wants to look pathetic. There’s humiliation as well. I’ve heard … well, I’ve heard all kinds of things. It’s hard to say who’s doing it. It may be just a few boys, but we suspect the others stand around and, well, watch. It’s definitely bullying. Some may even call it hazing.”
Sylvie felt dizzy. “Hazing,” she repeated slowly.
“I also heard that Christian was one of the boys who … didn’t perform well,” the headmaster said. “I doubt you would remember him from the matches—he was awfully small, didn’t get to compete much. Kept to himself. Maybe he wasn’t cut out for the wrestling team, but as you know, we encourage our boys to participate in sports …”
Outside, the porch light made the wet tree branches glitter. “How many people know about this?” She thought of this getting out, the community talking—people outside the Swithin family. Some would grab onto a story like this and hold tight. The school’s reputation suddenly felt delicate and precarious.
“We’ve tried to keep it quiet,” he answered. “Bullying is such a sensitive topic right now …”
Suddenly, Sylvie scoffed. “Who told you this crazy idea?” It couldn’t be true. Not at Swithin.
“I … I can’t say.”
There was a tingling sensation in her stomach. “And are you implying Scott encouraged these boys to … ?” She trailed off, touching the mantelpiece.
“Of course not,” Michael said. “That’s not—”
“What about the head coach? Mr. Fontaine? What does he have to say?”
“He’s in England, visiting his mother. He left after the season ended. We’re trying to reach him.”