THAT NIGHT PERRI poured a glass of sauvignon blanc before Cal arrived. She’d spent the day taking phone calls and answering e-mails. She was grateful to those who reached out to her, but at the same time it felt like a bit of a burden to respond. She could have gladly spent the entire day alone, in silence.
Cal texted that he was on his way. She checked the dinner in the oven and sat down at the granite countertop of the kitchen island with the glass of wine. She took a deep breath and opened up her laptop and jumped to her Faceplace page, finally ready to read it today. Lots of notes of condolence, lots of “thinking about you” private messages. A reminder from Ronnie Gervase about the gala volunteers meeting, and sending her a virtual hug. She felt grateful. Then she saw:
Mrs. Hall, I wonder if we might talk. I know it’s the anniversary and it’s a hard time for you, but I’m thinking of writing a follow-up piece on the loss of your son and Jane Norton’s amnesia. I apologize but I don’t have a current e-mail address for you. I’m not at the newspaper anymore, but you can reach me through my Faceplace account or at [email protected]. Thanks, Matteo Vasquez.
Perri didn’t feel like being on display again. Seeing another article about her son and still having it be mostly about the poor murdering so-called amnesiac who still hadn’t recovered. And if she talked about Jane, Jane would talk about her actions at the cemetery. And she had a witness. So she clicked, wrote No thanks, and hit Send.
She closed the laptop—she didn’t want to look at the words anymore—and took her glass and went upstairs to David’s room. She had kept it just as he had left it, as if it were a room encased in amber. The only item she had removed was a photo of David with Jane Norton, fourth grade, in their flag-football uniforms. They’d played on a coed team. David had been the star and Jane had been the pity player, but you couldn’t see that in the photo, in their white jerseys, Jane smiling in surprise, the participation medal on her chest, the same with David but also with a trophy for, what, most improved player? Best sportsmanship? Yes, that made sense. David was driven by such a sense of fair play. She’d taken down the picture because she could not bear to see Jane Norton’s face during the times she came alone into this room to lie down on David’s bed and let the grief and the loneliness fill her.
She sat on his bed and let her gaze roam over the room. Pictures he’d drawn, he was so gifted. Books on a shelf, novels and instruction guides on drawing. He had been a talented artist, although she and Cal felt it was important to gently push him toward something practical. Art made for a nice hobby, but David was used to a certain standard of living.
The wineglass broke in her hand. She jerked so that the wine didn’t spill onto the floor but stayed in the now-stemless bulb. The stem had broken cleanly but she couldn’t set the wineglass down, so she gulped down the entire serving of sauvignon blanc. It coursed through her and she hurried to the restroom and blotted a dot of blood from her hand. She threw the broken wineglass away.
She fought down a sob. So what if he’d become an artist, if that was what he wanted to do? He might have been a very successful one. He might have been happy. What was wrong with her and Cal that they hadn’t told him, Yes, be what you want to be. Be an artist. No, you don’t have to be a business tycoon, a tech giant. Be yourself. Go draw superheroes. Be one.
She washed the blood off her hand, making sure no particle of glass was in the wound. She put on a Band-Aid that came from a box he’d kept under his sink. His cologne, his aftershave, his razor, his toothbrush, all still here. She should throw them away. But she hadn’t.
She went back into his room, the blood welling up under the bandage.
He had gotten an iMac computer a few months before he died and she woke it from sleep with a touch on the keyboard. She knew his password—that had been a condition of her buying it, she wanted to give him his privacy but was unwilling to give up access to where he browsed and his e-mails—but he had never given her a real moment’s worry. The dock along the edge of the window appeared on his Mac’s screen and she opened up Faceplace, his password already entered in by default.
She went to his page. Tribute after tribute. She read of his friends, scattered now all over the state, and the country, to college, keeping David in their thoughts. There were fewer tributes than last year, and a hard little knot formed in her chest. Fewer people would remember him as time passed. He would further recede into memories. Lives would go on.
Except for his.
She wanted to send notes to some of the girls, and to David’s fellow football players, who left the most touching tributes. But she would do that from her own page. It was too strange to do it from David’s page, creating the illusion that he was still alive.
She typed into the Faceplace search bar: Jane Norton.
Perri clicked.
The top posting was a new one. From someone Perri didn’t know, named Liv Danger.
I know what you claim you don’t remember, Jane. I know what happened that night. And I’m going to tell. All will pay.
Posted today. She stared at the words All will pay. The same three words that had been scrawled on her son’s grave.
Her eyes scanned down the page. Jane herself had posted nothing since a few days after the accident, when she and her mother claimed that Jane remembered a deer bolting out in front of the car. Considering the fact that Jane could remember nothing else of the tragic night, and that there were no deer tracks or signs in the bushes or the damp ground of the too-steep hillside, this story did not hold up. Nothing on her return to Lakehaven, nothing about her time at St. Michael’s. Nothing on Christmas or birthdays or anything, although it looked like a few people had reached out to her. It was as if, like David, she had died. No photos of herself at college, no interactions with friends, no likes of photos or videos or other people’s postings.
And then the postaccident torrent of inevitable garbage commentary on a newspaper article in which someone had so thoughtfully tagged Jane:
They found a suicide note in the debris. She wanted to die. She wanted them both dead. Can u believe?
It was just two rich Lakehaven assholes, who cares?
Her heart felt like it would explode in her chest.
Jane’s father died and it was suicide people said and now she tries to kill herself and David dies instead. We’ll miss you David.
You know she was in love with him and he didn’t love her so she tried to kill them both. She must have thought she was driving off a cliff but it wasn’t. Stupid selfish bitch one day she’ll fry in hell
How is she not in prison, why did the Halls drop their wrongful death suit, I smell a payoff!!!!!!!!!
Her mom writes one of those mom-blogs and has a lot of views and so they must be rich so she’ll get probation and then go off to some rich bitch school up north and that’s that.