Oh Jesus, please don’t let her dad be crying.
Jeff coughed loudly into his fist, which seemed to compose him, thank God. “I was afraid of Lauren . . . afraid of what she might do, what she might say, to you, to your mom, to the lawyers. . . .”
Hannah looked up at him and spoke in a weak voice. “Did you send her any pictures?”
Her dad jumped up. “Absolutely not! God, Hannah, I would never!” He rushed toward her and reached for her hand. She let him take it. “Lauren is a sad and lonely and confused kid. Her parents are useless. She drinks and takes drugs. She lies and manipulates. . . . I’m sorry you ever got involved with her.”
Hannah’s lower lip trembled. “Me, too.”
Her dad wrapped her in a hug then, and the emotions she’d been holding in check broke free. She cried into his sports coat, blubbering like she was a little girl again, while he stroked her hair. There had been a marked lack of physical contact in her family of late, everyone too angry, too resentful, and too secretive to offer up comfort.
“Does Mom know about all this?” she sniveled into her dad’s chest. Hannah believed everything her dad had told her, but Kim was a tougher customer.
“She knows everything. No more secrets. We need to be honest now.”
Now?
Her dad released her, held her elbows. “Get dressed and come downstairs. Your mom and I have to tell you something.”
HANNAH AND HER dad sat on the low sofa in the living room, drinking cups of coffee and waiting for Aidan to leave for school. Kim stood at the door with him. His backpack was on, his skateboard under his arm, but he was not going easily.
“What’s going on? Why isn’t dad going to work?”
“He is going,” her mom said calmly. “We just need to talk to Hannah for a few minutes.”
“About what?”
“Nothing that concerns you right now.”
“Aren’t I a part of this family?”
“Of course you are,” Kim responded. “And I promise you’ll know everything . . . when the time is right.”
“You always treat me like a goddamn baby,” he grumbled, storming out the front door.
“Language!”
It was bad timing for Kim to bring out the swear jar, but her mom was right about one thing: Aidan was way too young to take in all the mess going on around them. Hannah, at sixteen, was infinitely more equipped to handle the harsh truth of their circumstances. Aidan’s life still revolved around soccer and skateboarding and whether he could convince Mom to let him go on Accutane for his zits. Lucky . . .
Kim joined them on the sofa. She set her mug on a coaster and turned to Hannah. “Your dad and I have made a decision about Lisa Monroe’s lawsuit.”
Jeff placed his coffee next to his wife’s. “We’re going to go to trial to prove that Ronni’s accident wasn’t our fault.”
“Okay . . .”
“That doesn’t mean we’re not upset about what happened to her at your party,” her mom added, looking suitably concerned. “We are. And we want to help Ronni with anything she might need.”
“Of course,” Jeff said. “But we feel—and our lawyer feels—that what Lisa Monroe is asking for is not commensurate with Ronni’s injuries. It’s punitive.”
“I’m in tenth grade,” Hannah sniped. “I didn’t go to law school.”
Jeff and Kim exchanged an amused look before Jeff elucidated. “Lisa is really angry. She wants someone to blame, she wants to hurt us—that’s why she’s asking for so much money.”
“We’ve offered her quite a lot of money already,” her mom contributed, “but she turned it down.”
“She’s trying to ruin us, financially,” her dad said. “But we’re going to protect you and your brother. We’re going to protect our home and the life we’ve built.”
“Okay . . .” Hannah nodded. It all sounded perfectly reasonable. But she knew from TV that lawsuits were never perfectly reasonable.
Her dad cleared his throat. “Some things could come out at trial . . . things that could be embarrassing.”
Hannah’s eyes narrowed. “Like what?”
Her parents exchanged another look. There had been more “looks” exchanged between them in the past five minutes than there had been in the past six months.
Kim said, “This stuff with Lauren could come out. She might take the stand. She might lie. . . .”
If Lauren Ross stood up in court, in front of lawyers and judges and whoever else, and said that Jeff Sanders had sent her a dick pic, Hannah would spontaneously combust. She felt her chin wobble.
“She won’t lie,” Jeff said quickly. “Her dad knows everything now. He’s on top of it. He won’t even let her take the stand.”
Hannah wanted to believe him, but she still felt sick. Her parents didn’t know how cruel Lauren was; they didn’t know what she was capable of.
Kim continued, “Lisa’s lawyers might mention that I drink a little wine most evenings.”
A little wine? Most evenings?
“And that I occasionally take sleeping pills.”
Her dad said, “Lisa’s lawyers will attack us in any way they can. They’ll dig up stuff that’s not even relevant.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know,” Jeff said, but Hannah got the feeling he did know. “Stuff like . . . I train a lot, that I’ve gotten a few speeding tickets, that we tried drugs in the past. . . .”
“When we were in college,” Kim added quickly. “The lawyers will try to damage our character in any way they can.”
“They want to make it seem like we’re irresponsible parents.”
“But you’re not.” It was just the truth, but it made both her parents smile.
Kim said, “Whatever they say in court, we will discuss as a family.”
“We’re going to be open and honest with you and Aidan,” Jeff seconded.
“Okay . . .” Hannah wanted to leave. She wanted to take a long, hot shower and wash away the filth of all this contention. “Anything else?”
Another quick look flashed between the adults, then her dad smiled at her. “I think that’s it. We’re meeting with our lawyer this morning. We’ll know more after that.”
Hannah got up and headed to the kitchen with her coffee cup, but she paused on the boundary between the two rooms. “When I go back to school next week . . . I want to hang out with Ronni.”
Her mother’s lips tightened. Her dad looked at the floor and shifted in his seat. Kim spoke first. “That’s your decision, and we will respect that.”
Jeff added, “But when Lisa finds out we’re going to trial, she might feel differently.”
“We’ll see . . . ,” Hannah said, and continued on her way.