Maybe she’d known all along. Maybe that was why it had been so easy to direct her anger at him in the hospital the day of James’s collapse. How long had Scott known? Months? Years? The moment it happened? Was this why Scott had seemingly stopped speaking to James in high school? Only why would he side against his father? They were so much more alike, after all. He sided with James in everything else.
Scott was still watching her. Rage bubbled up in Sylvie again. She thought about him sitting in the hospital waiting room, bored. She thought about what Charles had said to him at the Swithin banquet all those years ago, the incident he’d referenced on the phone the other day after the headmaster had called. She’d only caught the tail end of it, hearing a few awful words and then seeing both boys on the ground. When she ran inside, horrified that her children were fighting in front of guests, James was already pulling Scott away.
“Did you hear what Charles said?” James said later. “He deserved what he got.” Sylvie turned away, saying she didn’t want to talk about it. “Oh sure, you don’t want to talk about Charles doing something wrong,” James hissed. “But if Scott had said these things, it would be entirely different.”
Sylvie tried to push what she’d heard Charles say to Scott out of her mind as best she could, not wanting to believe that he’d held on to those feelings for that long, not wanting to admit that perhaps she had perpetuated it. But now as she looked at Scott—who knew—she felt such shame. He’d kept what James had done from her on purpose. He was laughing at her behind her back. He probably thought she deserved it.
“Your father was a good man,” she said to Scott now. He was down to his bare chest and boxer shorts now, all those tattoos staring at her. “You shouldn’t laugh at him. And … and how dare you put me in this position?”
Scott widened his eyes. “What position would that be?”
“Didn’t we give you a good life?” she cried. “Didn’t we take care of you?”
Scott’s forehead wrinkled with contempt. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
She was going mad. It hurt everything inside her, all this ruin. She wanted him to hate her; she wanted him to love her. She wanted him not to know this and hated that he did. And suddenly, the veil over her eyes lifted, and she saw what could have happened in that wrestling locker room. She saw her son capable, culpable. Everything that had been said about him could be true. She felt the slow dam of anger burst free. She gaped at Scott, a stranger, an interloper, a heartbreaker, and then turned away, so overcome with dizziness she could barely stand.
“Please leave,” she then said. She stepped out of the doorway so he could pass.
“But—”
“Go,” she screamed. “I can’t have you in this room right now.”
Scott gathered his own clothes in his arms. “I don’t even need to be in this house right now.”
“All right, then.”
He pressed his clothes to his chest. His eyes burned coal-black. “This house has always been a fucking prison. A big stone jail.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” she said stiffly. “I’m sorry we made things so difficult for you.”
And then he turned and stomped past her into his old bedroom. He dropped one of his socks on the way out without noticing. Sylvie didn’t call him back to tell him.
Chapter Twelve
Monday morning Joanna felt Charles’s lips on her forehead. She listened as he shuffled around the house, pulling the shower curtain back, flushing the toilet, brushing his teeth. She heard him slam the front door, walk down the driveway to get the paper. He climbed back upstairs before he left and loomed in the doorway. “I hope everything goes well in Maryland,” he said. “I’ll come with you next time, I promise.”
She sat up in bed and wished him good luck with his interview tomorrow. When he walked back down the stairs, she flopped back down on the mattress and pulled the covers over her head. She remained in bed until eight, well after he left. When Charles kissed her good-bye, he’d had such a strange look on his face. Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe she was imagining it.
She got out of bed, walked to the kitchen, sat down at the island, and dialed his cell. When he didn’t pick up, she left a message saying she wanted him to call. She thought about all the things they’d gone through on Friday night. Looking back on it, she’d acted like a crazy person. Whining because his friends weren’t—what? Kissing her ass? Picking a fight with him about Bronwyn. Nearly telling him about her crush on his younger brother.
What was she trying to do? What were her actions trying to achieve?
The coffee she made was bitter—she couldn’t remember if she rinsed out Charles’s grounds or re-filtered them through. She tried Charles’s cell again. Voice mail. Same with his work phone. It had caller ID, certainly, and he saw her number coming up every time. I’m sorry, she started to text him. She was sorry she was like this, utterly and unchangeably herself, sorry that she was maybe sabotaging this relationship because of a silly fantasy of how reality was supposed to be.