She had spent weeks telling herself she was doing the right thing in giving him a wide berth, telling Mrs. Saint that he was a smart kid, a responsible one, a boy who would never pick bad kids for friends, would never sneak out at night, would never do the things the Frenchwoman had accused him of. She had yelled at the woman today, for God’s sake, screeching at her about falsely accusing her faultless son. Had she really believed he was as innocent as she had claimed, or had she only wanted to believe it to make things easier for herself?
He was so quick to turn silent, so willing to stay that way for days. She had been desperate not to give him a reason to do it. Things were much nicer in the bungalow when she said, “Yes, go ahead. Of course, you can spend time with kids I don’t know / ride in strangers’ cars / have dinner with a family I’ve never met.” The air in the house was easier to breathe when she stifled her concerns, pretended all was well. He’s a good boy. He’s a teenager now. He’s in high school. He’s old enough to make his own decisions.
Sure, he had always been good before, but he’d had different friends before. Hadn’t she sensed something was up with this mostly unnamed group of boys? Hadn’t she wondered if Frédéric was right and it was Brian’s Fusion he had seen downtown? Hadn’t she known, somewhere deep down, the perils of being a new kid, especially one whose self-esteem had been gutted so completely by the bad behavior of his parents? Wasn’t Jesse the precise sort of child most susceptible to getting in with the wrong crowd, doing whatever it took to be accepted?
She felt her body relax, saw her elbows bend, her arms no longer ramrod straight against the wheel. It was no longer such an effort for her to breathe steadily. The desire to hit him, even to yell at him, had passed. “What’s shocking to me,” she said, “is that you like Ben Levin. And Sharon. You’ve been in their store a dozen times, and you’ve always said they were so nice—”
“I know!” he cried, and the noise was like an animal caught in a trap.
He pressed both palms to his ears, and she could see his arms trembling with the force. It wasn’t an act, then. He wasn’t a different kid. He was a confused one, a conflicted one, one who had made a huge mistake. Her heart didn’t break for him, exactly, and she wasn’t anywhere close to feeling bad for him—he was a perpetrator here, not a victim. But something inside her shifted a little.
She wanted to push, to ask him if he had spoken up, suggested they find entertainment of a legal form, or at the very least pick a different target and leave the Levins alone. If he did and they ignored him, he should think about that, about what kind of friends they were. And if he had been afraid to speak up, he should think about that, too. Not that she’d allow him anywhere near them after this—not the three worst ones, anyway. She’d have to think about Trevor. But she told herself to go no further here. She wasn’t in the right frame of mind for a dispassionate discussion about his choice of allies, and neither was he.
They drove a few more blocks before he finally dropped his hands to his lap. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him wiping away tears. He put his glasses back on, shoved his hands under his thighs, and kept his gaze trained on his shoes as she made the final turn onto their street.
“So how long am I grounded for?”
Markie considered the question as she pulled into the driveway and turned off the engine. They were home now, safely parked in the driveway. Finally, she could let him have it. She could feel her father’s “This is not how I taught you! This is not what I expect of a child of mine! As long as you’re living under my roof . . .” creeping up her throat, pressing against the backs of her teeth.
She swallowed the lecture and turned to her son. “Why don’t we both go to sleep now, and tomorrow, when we’re not so exhausted, we can talk about consequences.” She looked at him sharply, ready to retract her statement if she saw even a hint of an I-got-away-with-it smile on his face.
He nodded, his mouth a self-reproaching line. “Okay.” His hand moved to the door handle, but instead of pulling the lever, he let his fingers rest there. “Thanks, Mom. For picking me up. And for not trying to make me feel worse than I already do.”
Inside, he stumbled down to his room. He forgot to close the basement door, and Markie could hear his soft snoring in less than a minute. She pushed the door shut, poured wine into a mug (as her stemware was still boxed up), and retreated to the family room couch. The rage she felt in the car had altered, and so had its targets. Yes, Jesse was to blame for his actions, and he would be punished. For starters, she would send him to the Levins’ store tomorrow to apologize in person. If they didn’t want to hear it—and who could blame them if they didn’t?—she would make him write a letter. After that, well, she was still thinking.
But was she really going to aim all of her ire at a fourteen-year-old boy? Or his slightly older compatriots, none of whom had a completely developed frontal cortex? Kyle was old enough to know better, but had she honestly thought he would act any differently? Could she expect anyone who knew her ex to buy her line that all this time she had been counting on him to show their son the right way to manhood?
Markie refilled her ceramic mug with more wine. Jesse hadn’t been a leader at Saint Mark’s, but he wasn’t a novitiate, either. If someone had come up with the asinine idea to sneak out in the middle of the night and vandalize a building, he would have had more than enough clout to decline without fearing a loss of social position. But those weren’t the kids he was dealing with anymore.
Because his mother had wanted out.
Away. To start over in a place where she could stop at the gas station without worrying that people would see what she was driving now. Run to the grocery store without suffering the pitying looks from across the produce aisle, the whispers in the deli line. “Years, evidently, right under her nose, and she never had a clue.” “Highly leveraged, all of it. I hear even the furniture was rented.”
She hadn’t been able to move quickly enough. She had been in forward motion since the moment she discovered the extent of Kyle’s betrayals, on the fastest track she could find to escape the scene of her plummet from grace. File divorce papers. List the house. Find a rental in a new town, a new school for Jesse, a job where she wouldn’t be recognized—better yet, where she wouldn’t even be seen.
No sobbing herself to sleep over the loss of what might have been. No lying in bed in the mornings, paralyzed with fear about whether she could make it on her own after all those years being part of a couple. No pausing to consider Kyle’s admissions, finally, his pleas for a second chance, his promises he would do better. No time in reverse or even neutral. Move, move, move.