Jake offered his proffer the previous week, which meant little to her. Luz described it as a confidential meeting, with Jake receiving limited immunity for the day, regarding what he said. Luz’s words only confused Phoebe. The moment she hung up with the clipped lawyer, she looked the word up on the US Legal website:
In the context of criminal law, a proffer agreement is a written agreement between federal prosecutors and individuals under criminal investigation, which permits these individuals to give the government information about crimes with some assurances that they will be protected against prosecution. Witnesses, subjects, or targets of a federal investigation are usually parties to such agreements.
Proffer agreements are not complete immunity agreements. Although the government cannot use actual proffer session statements against the individual in its case-in-chief, the information provided can be used to follow up leads and conduct further investigations. If those leads and further investigations lead to new evidence, the new evidence can be used to indict and convict the individual who gave the information in the proffer session.
As Phoebe understood it, the legal system tried to obtain information it could use against Jake and others, while he worked toward getting some leniency. But all outcomes led to prison.
“What if he were mentally ill?” she’d asked Luz. “Would that keep him from jail?”
“Nothing is impossible.” The attorney bit off each word. “In such an improbable case, he’d be put in a facility for the criminally insane.”
Phoebe still waited for details from Jake, who swore that he had managed the scheme alone. Not one person had helped him. Somehow she was supposed to believe that Jake, who asked her for help turning on their home computers, had pulled off this insanity himself. She’d stopped asking, no longer willing to bang on a locked door.
They remained caged in their luxury jail, speaking with almost no one but each other, lawyers, and whichever doorman was on duty. Helen and Deb checked in daily, though the strained conversations added more stress than not. The children refused to talk. Noah, however, sent an email, again urging her to leave. “Don’t stay on a sinking ship,” he’d written.
When guilt overwhelmed her, Phoebe reminded herself that Kate had her husband, and Noah, his wife. They’d be all right.
She wrote both kids long emails every day, filled with attempts to make them understand her position. None bounced back, so at least they hadn’t blocked her address.
Today’s words probably blended into those from yesterday:
My sweet children,
I hope you are all well, even as you go through hell. Daddy and I are locked in a combat-free war, where he refuses to talk about anything more than the television schedule for the night. I do consider leaving hourly. How can I not? At the same time, incomprehensible questions plague me. What if someone learns that their child has, God forbid, murdered someone? Did they stay there for a loved one—even as they hated the act?
Hate the sin and still love the sinner. Phoebe’s emails sank under the need to explain herself and her stubborn loyalty. The children wanted her to stop caring about Jake, but how fast could one fall out of the habits of love? The caretaking? Few understood the experience of being married to someone you met when you were fifteen. Jake was as much brother, father, and sometimes even child, as he was husband.
Phoebe prepared a feeble version of Christmas Eve dinner. The television played while she cooked. When she returned ten minutes later, Jake glanced up from an ancient episode of The Twilight Zone, evidently the only thing he’d found that didn’t touch on Christmas, family, or happiness.
She placed a platter of bagels with cream cheese and lox—delivered by Zabar’s, paid via knippel—on the coffee table.
“Can you at least tell me the outlines of what they asked and what you said?”
He sliced a bagel, slathering the surface with cream cheese before covering it with oily orange lox. “Let’s be peaceful, sweetheart. For tonight,” he said.
“Help me figure out how I can stand by you.”
“Are you questioning your choice?”
“Of course.”
“I never thought it would go this far,” he said. “That’s the truth.”
“What do you mean?”
“It started . . . The problem started because I never wanted to see it happen again—what happened with your father.”
“I don’t follow.”
“It got out of control. Everything seemed so good, and then it wasn’t. Everyone wanted their damned money, like I was a bank . . .” His words trailed away.
“When?” she asked.
He looked up from his knees, and she saw wheels turning, decisions being made.
“A while ago. Not that long. I always thought I’d fix it.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“The problems became worse.” He put down the bagel and wiped his hands on a napkin. “I couldn’t figure out how to stop.”
“Or step up,” she said.
“Should I have ruined our family? Lost everything? Gone to jail?”
“But that’s what’s happening,” she said.
“Does the past matter at all, those long years of success?”
Insanity now seemed Jake’s proper legal defense. She stood on an eroding beach, digging in with her toes as raging waves washed away the sand.
She’d thought Jake a god; an original iconic deity of Wall Street.
“That’s madness. All that ever mattered was you and the children. Now the kids are gone, and you’re a stranger.”
“Why do you stay?” he asked.
“Who would even talk to you if I left?”
“You’re a good woman, Pheebs. No one knows that like me.”
“I always thought you were a good man.”
“And now?”
“Now? Now I think you’re a criminal. A weak man.” She reached for his hand, his palm so familiar she might be holding her own flesh. “They claim you’re evil, a monster, but I hope that’s wrong. Maybe you just lack courage. Maybe you’re filled with hubris. A greedy man.”
Another moment breathing the same air he’d expelled from his lungs threatened to choke her. Maybe standing by him was possible if she saw Jake through a lens of his being pathetic—her limited child.
Phoebe tried to imagine the bravest choice. She filled two glasses of wine. “Might as well drink it, Jake.”
He picked up the glass, swirling it for a moment before taking a few gulps. She drank hers more slowly, but finished first. She topped off his and then refilled her own.
“There’s nothing in front of us,” he said. “Nothing good faces us.”
Jake was right. Their life was effectively over. They might as well make it easier on everyone. No trial or lockup or shame spilling over to the children. They’d be devastated, but they’d grieve, and then it would be over.
He offered his arms, and for the first time since his confession, she let herself collapse into him.
? ? ?
They pooled their Ambien. They would go together. Phoebe put both bottles in the kitchen and then joined Jake in the living room. He held a pen above a pad of paper. “I don’t know what to say.” His watch collection gleamed from the coffee table.