Текст книги "My Life Next Door"

Автор книги: Huntley Fitzpatrick

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“Impossible.” His voice is harder, tougher than I’ve ever heard it. “When you’re driving, you know when you hit a rough patch of gravel, an old piece of tire, a fast-food container, a dead squirrel. No way could you hit a one-hundred-and-seventy-pound man and not notice.”

“Maybe the person who hit him was the person he was meeting up with,” Duff speculates “Maybe Dad is involved in some top secret business and—”

“Duff. This is not Spy Kids. This is real life. Our life.” Alice shoves a paper plate violently toward her younger brother.

Duff’s face flushes, tears flooding his eyes. He swallows, looking down at his slice. “I’m just trying to help.”

Jase moves behind him, squeezing his shoulder. “We know. Thanks, Duffy. We know.” The little kids dig in, their appetites intact, despite everything.

“Maybe Dad’s in the mob,” Duff speculates a little while later, eyes dry now, mouth full. “And he was about to blow the whistle on the whole thing and—”

“Shut the heck up, Duff! Daddy’s not in the mob! He’s not even Italian!” Andy shouts.

“There’s a Chinese mob and a—”

“Knock it off! You’re just being stupid and annoying on purpose.” Now Andy bursts into tears.

“Guys,” Jase begins.

“Be. Quiet. Now, ” Alice says in a flat voice so deadly, everyone freezes.

George puts his head down on the table, covering his ears. Patsy points an accusing finger at Alice and says, “Butt!” Duff sticks his tongue out at Andy, who glares back at him. My Garretts are in chaos.

There’s a long silence, broken by sobs from George.

“I want Daddy,” he howls. “I don’t like you, Alice. You’re a big meanie. I want Mommy and Daddy.

We need to get Daddy out of the hostible. He’s not safe there. He could get an air bubble in his IV. He could get bad medicine. He could get a mean nurse who is a murderer.”

“Buddy.” Jase scoops George up. “That’s not gonna happen.”

“How do you know?” George asks fiercely, his legs dangling. “D’you promise?” Jase shuts his eyes, rubs one hand on George’s little pointy-sharp shoulder blade. “Promise.” But I can see that George doesn’t believe him.

Worn out, Patsy falls asleep in her high chair, her rosy cheek drooping into a smear of tomato sauce.

George and Harry watch a very unlikely movie about a bunch of baby dinosaurs having adventures in the tropics. Alice heads back to the ICU. I call Mom to tell her I won’t be home for dinner. She answers from some loud place with lots of laughter in the background. “That’s okay, sweetheart, I’m at a meet-and-greet at the Tidewater anyway. So many more people showed up than we expected. It’s a huge success!” Her voice is even and cheerful, no tension there at all. It must be a coincidence, has to be, that bump in the night and Mr. Garrett. There can’t be any connection. If I brought it up, I’d sound crazy.

She raised us to be conscientious. The worst thing Tracy and I could do was lie: “What you did was wrong, but lying about it made it a hundred times worse” was a speech so familiar, we could have set it to music.

Chapter Forty-one

Dishes clatter and crash when I call in to Breakfast Ahoy to quit, the next day. I can hear Ernesto swearing about the unusually big morning rush as I tell Felipe that I won’t be coming back in. He’s incredulous.

Yeah, I know, it’s completely unlike me to quit without notice. Much less at the height of the summer season. But the Garretts need me.

“No creo que se pueda volver y recuperar su trabajo,” Felipe snaps, moved to his native Spanish before he translates. “Don’t think you can come marching back in and get your job back, missy. You go out now, and you go out for keeps.”

I suppress a stab of sorrow. The relentless pace and energy of Breakfast Ahoy have been an antidote to the long stretches of stillness and tedium at the B&T. But I can’t escape the B&T—Mom would hear about that right away.

Jase protests, but I ignore him.

“Getting rid of that uniform? Long overdue,” I tell him. More importantly, quitting Breakfast Ahoy frees up three mornings of my week.

“I hate that this changes your life too.”

But nothing like the way things are changing for the Garretts. Mrs. Garrett practically lives at the hospital. She comes home to feed Patsy, snatch a few hours of sleep, and have long, ominous-sounding conversations on the phone with the hospital billing department. Alice, Joel, and Jase trade off spending nights with their dad. George wets his bed constantly and Patsy hates the bottle with a mighty passion.

Harry starts swearing more often than Tim, and Andy spends all her time on Facebook and reading, rereading Twilight again and again.

The night air in my room is warm and close, suffocating, and I wake, gasping for cool air and water. I head downstairs toward to the kitchen, stopping when I hear Mom. “It doesn’t feel right, Clay.”

“We’ve gone over this. How many glasses of wine had you had?” Her voice is high and shaky. “Three—four, maybe? I don’t know. Not all of them, anyway, just a few sips here and there.”

“Over the legal limit, Grace. This would end your career. Do you understand? No one knows. It’s done. Move on.”

“Clay, I—”

“Look at what’s at stake here. You can do more good to more people if you get reelected. This was a blip—a misstep. Everybody in public life has ’em. You’re luckier than most—yours wasn’t public.” Mom’s ringtone sounds. “It’s Malcolm from the office,” she says. “I’d better take it.”

“Hold on,” Clay says. “Listen to yourself, sugar. Listen. Your first thought is for your duty. Right in the middle of a personal crisis. You really want to deprive people of that dedication? Think about it. Is that the right thing to do?”

I hear the tap of Mom’s heels moving into her office, and I start to edge back up the stairs.

“Samantha,” Clay says quietly. “I know you’re there.”

I freeze. He can’t know. The stairs are carpeted, I’m barefoot.

“You’re reflected in the hall mirror.”

“I was just…thirsty and I…”

“Heard all that,” Clay concludes.

“I didn’t…” My voice trails off.

He comes around the corner of the stairs, leaning against the stairway wall, arms folded, a casual stance, but there’s something unnaturally still about him.

“I didn’t come here by chance,” he tells me softly. He’s backlit by the kitchen light and I can’t quite make out his face. “I’d heard about your mother. Your mama…she’s good, Samantha. The party’s interested. She’s got the whole package. Looks, style, substance…she could be big. National. Easy.”

“But—” I say. “She hit him, didn’t she?” It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud. He turns slightly and now I can see him better. I want so much for surprise or confusion to cross his face. But they aren’t there, just that focused, intent look, a little grimmer now.

“An accident.”

“Does that matter? Mr. Garrett’s still hurt. Badly. And they don’t have medical insurance and they’re already broke and—”

“That’s sad,” Clay says. “Really. Good people struggle. Life’s not fair. But there are people who can change things, who are important. Your mother’s one of them. I know you’re close to those Garretts. But think about the big picture here, Samantha.”

In my head I see Mr. Garrett patiently training Jase, coming up behind Mrs. Garrett in the kitchen, dropping a kiss on her shoulder, making me feel welcome, reaching out to Tim, scooping up the sleepy George, his face in the shifting light of the fireworks, solid and capable, clicking his pen and rubbing his eyes over accounts at the store. “They are the big picture.”

“When you’re seventeen with your hormones in a riot, maybe.” He laughs softly. “I know that seems like the whole world now.”

“It’s not about that,” I argue. “Mom did something wrong. You know it. I know it. Something that hurt someone seriously. And—”

Clay sits down on the steps, tilts his head back against the wall, tolerant, almost amused. “Shouldn’t your first concern be for your own mother? You know how hard she works at this job. How much it means to her. Could you really live with yourself if you took that away?” His voice gets softer. “You and me and your mama. We’re the only three people in the whole world who know about this. You start talking, you tell that family and everyone will know. It’ll be in the papers, on the news—might even go national. You wouldn’t be the privileged princess in her perfect world anymore. You’d be the daughter of a criminal. How would that feel?” Bile burns the back of my throat. “I’m not a princess,” I say.

“Of course you are,” Clay responds evenly. He waves his hand, indicating the big living room, elegant furnishings, expensive artwork. “You’ve always been one, so you think it’s normal. But everything you have—everything you are—comes from your mama. From her family money and her hard work. Fine way to pay her back.”

“Couldn’t she just—explain—I mean—come forward and—”

“You can’t talk your way out of leaving the scene of an accident you’ve caused, Samantha. Especially if you’re in public office. Not even Teddy Kennedy managed that, in case you haven’t heard. This would ruin your mother’s life. And yours. And, just to put it on a level you can understand, I don’t think it would do much for your romance either. I’m not sure your fella would really want to be dating the daughter of the woman who crippled his dad.”

The words drop from Clay’s mouth so easily, and I picture trying to tell Jase what happened, how he’d look at me, remembering his face in the waiting room at the hospital, the lost expression in his eyes. He’d hate me. What kind of a person could do that? he’d asked. How can I possibly answer: “My own mother.”

Clay’s calm face wavers through the tears that have rushed to my eyes. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a cloth handkerchief and hands it to me.

“This isn’t the end of the world,” he says gently. “Just one boy, one summer. But I’ll tell you something I’ve learned in my time, Samantha. Family is everything.”

Leaving scene of accident: One of most serious felonies in the state of Connecticut. Up to ten years ofprison time and 10,000 dollars fine. I stare at the information I’ve hunted for online until the stark black words mallet against my eyeballs.

What would happen if Mom went to jail for a decade? Tracy’d have college, then she’d be off, somewhere…But where would I go? It’s not as if I can throw myself on the mercy of my father. Since he didn’t stick around for me to be born, I’m guessing he wouldn’t be thrilled to have me show up on his doorstep as a teenager.

But Mr. Garrett…It was Jase’s night at the hospital tonight. He called me to say, “Dad’s awake, and that’s good, and he recognized us. But now he’s got something called ‘deep vein thrombosis’ and they can’t give him drugs for it because of the head thing. They don’t want bleeding into his brain. I listen to the medical jargon…don’t get why they don’t just say it in English. Maybe because it’s so damn scary.” I can’t tell him. I can’t. What can I do? Be there for them is vague and meaningless. Like a T-shirt slogan or a bumper sticker making a statement that never needs to be backed up with action.

I can babysit. All the time. For free. I can…

What? Pay the hospital bills? I pull my savings book from my desk drawer, scanning the numbers I’ve saved working, and hardly spent, in the last three summers: $4,532.27. That’ll probably cover some Band-Aids and aspirin. Even if I could find a way to give it to them without them knowing.

I spend the next few hours coming up with ways. An envelope in the mailbox “from a sympathetic friend.” Slipping money into the cash register at the store. Forging documents indicating the Garretts have won the lottery; lost a sick, elderly, unpleasant, unknown relative.…

Dawn comes without any brilliant ideas. So I do the least I can do, the only thing I can think of…run across the yard, around our fence, flip-flops slapping up the drive, let myself in with the key the Garretts keep under the kiddie pool, sharp and jagged, nearly buried in the too-long grass.

I make coffee. I pull out cereal boxes. I try to make sense of the clutter on the kitchen table. I’m wondering who’s here and whether to go up to Jase’s room when the screen door slams and he walks in, rubbing his eyes, then starting at the sight of me.

“Training?” I ask, although at a second glance he looks too tidy for that.

“Paper route. Do you know there’s actually a guy on Mack Lane who waits to catch the paper every morning when I throw it? He yells if I’m five minutes late. What’re you doing here, Sam? Not”—he comes up next to me, dipping his head to my shoulder—“that I’m not glad to see you.” I wave at the table. “Just thought I’d get a head start. Didn’t know if your mom was home or…” Jase yawns. “Nope. I stopped on my way back. She was going to stay at the hospital all day today.

Alice rented that pump thing.” He flushes. “You know, for Patsy. Anyway, so she’s taken care of. Mom didn’t want to leave Dad since he was finally talking.”

“Does he—remember anything?” If he does, he can’t have told Jase, whose open, expressive face never holds a thought back.

“Zip.” He opens the fridge, pulls out milk, drinks directly from the plastic gallon. “Only being out there, after a meeting, deciding to walk home for some fresh air, thinking it was going to rain, then waking up with tubes everywhere.”

Is it the disloyal or the loyal part of me that’s so relieved?

Jase lifts his hands over his head, bending from one side to another, stretching, closing his eyes. Very softly, almost under his breath, he says, “Mom’s pregnant.”

“What?”

“I don’t know for sure. I mean, not exactly the right timing for the announcement, huh? But I’m pretty sure. She’s been sick in the mornings, chugging Gatorade…let’s just say I know the signs.”

“Wow,” I say, sitting down hard in one of the kitchen chairs.

“It’s a good thing, right? I should be glad. I’ve always been glad before, but…”

“Not exactly the right timing,” I echo.

“I feel so damn guilty sometimes, Sam, lately, for the things I find myself thinking.” For some reason, well as we know each other, I’ve never thought about Jase feeling things like guilt.

He just seems too healthy, too balanced for that.

“You know how much those people piss me off,” he continues, still in such a low voice, as though he doesn’t even want to hear what he’s saying. “The ones who come up to Mom in the supermarket or wherever and tell her there’s such a thing as birth control. Or this asshole guy who fixed the generator at the store last month. When Dad asked him if he could pay in installments, the guy said, ‘Didn’t you know you’d be broke all the time if you had so many kids?’ I wanted to deck him. But…sometimes I think that too. I wonder why my parents didn’t ever…imagine…what having another kid would mean each of us not having. I hate myself for it. But I think it.”

I take his face in my hands, holding tight. “You can’t hate yourself.”

“I do. It’s just wrong. Like, who would I want to do without? Harry? Patsy? Andy? None of them…

but…but Samantha, I’m only kid number three and there’s already no money for college. What’s gonna happen when we get to George?”

I think of George’s somber face bent over his animal books, of all the facts at his fingertips. “George is like his own college,” I say. “Garrett U.”

Jase laughs. “Yeah. You’re right. But…I’m not like that. I want to go to college. I want to be…good enough.” He pauses. “For you. Not that guy from the quote-unquote wrong side of the tracks, Samantha.”

“That’s her. It’s not me.”

“I guess part of it’s me, then,” he says heavily, “because, Samantha…look at you.”

“I’m just some girl with an easy life and a trust fund. With no problems. Look at you.” Then I have a horrible thought. “Do you…like…resent me for that?”

He snorts. “Don’t be ridiculous. Why would I? You don’t take it for granted. You work hard all the time.” He pauses for a moment. “I don’t even resent Tim anymore. I did, for a while, ’cause he seemed so oblivious. But he really isn’t. And his parents are the worst.”

“Aren’t they?” There’s Mr. Mason, sleeping his way through life in his recliner, ignorant to everything, and Mrs. Mason with her cheery voice and her cheery Hummel figurines and her miserable children. I think of Nan. Will she turn out like her mom?

“Jase,” I say slowly. “I’ve got…some money. Saved. It doesn’t mean to me what it means to you. I could—”

“No,” he says, his voice harsh. “Just stop it. Don’t.”

The silence between us now is heavy and still, stifling. Different. I hate it. I fuss with gathering enough bowls out of the cabinets, finding spoons, keeping my hands busy.

Jase stretches, locking his fingers behind his head. “I’ve gotta remember how lucky I am. My parents may be broke, things may be bad now, but they’re great. When we were little, Alice used to ask Mom if we were rich. She always said we were rich in all the things that matter. I need to remember she’s right.” So like Jase, to pull himself right back to counting blessings.

He comes close, touches my chin with a roughened finger. “Kiss me, Sam, so I can forgive and forget myself.”

“You’re forgiven, Jase Garrett, for being only human,” I say.

He’s so easy to forgive. No sins at all. Not like my mom. Not like me. When our lips meet, I don’t feel the familiar warmth and ease. I feel like Judas.

Chapter Forty-two

There’s a big hole where Nan should be. I could go to her and tell her everything and surely Nan would listen and maybe even help me find my way. Of all people, Nan would understand. She was there the day I got my period, on the tennis court during gym class, in white shorts. She noticed before anyone else did, pulled me to the side and took off her own pants—shy Nan—walking in her underwear to her gym locker to get another pair—and a tampon. I was there the first time we saw Tim really drunk—he was twelve—

and hustled him into a cold shower (didn’t help) and made him coffee (likewise) before putting him to bed to sleep it off. She was there when Tracy had a huge “day” party at our house while Mom was at work, then left with her boyfriend, leaving us—at fourteen—to kick out forty older teenagers and clean the house before Mom returned.

But now she doesn’t answer texts, or return periodic calls. When I come by the gift shop, she busies herself with customers or says, “I’m on my way to inventory the stockroom/have lunch/see my supervisor.”

How did our entire friendship, the whole twelve years we’ve known each other, get canceled out by what I saw? Or what she did. Or what I said about what she did. I can’t let her just walk away like this, I tell myself, though Nan seems to have no problem doing exactly that. So, at five o’-clock, the end of the B&T day, I catch up with her as she’s making out an order form.

When I put my hand on her shoulder, she twitches it off, reflexively, like a horse shaking off a troublesome fly.

“Nan. Nanny. You’re just going to freeze me out? Forever?”

“I don’t have anything to say to you.”

“Well, I’ve got things to say to you. We’ve been friends since we were five. That counts for nothing?

You hate me now?”

“I don’t hate you.” For an instant there’s a flicker of an emotion I can’t identify in Nan’s eyes, then she drops her gaze, turning the key on the cash register to lock it. “I don’t hate you, but we’re just too different. It’s too much work to be your friend.”

This last is unexpected. “Too much work? How?” Could I be high-maintenance without knowing it? I scan through my memories. Have I gone on too long about my mother to her? Have I talked too much about Jase? But I know, I know, it’s been at least equal. I’ve listened for hours to the Tim drama-fest. I’ve heard every twist and turn in her relationship with Daniel. I’ve sympathized with her over her parents. I’ve seen her beloved Steve McQueen movies with her even though I’ve never really gotten the charm. All that counts for nothing?

She straightens up, looking me in the eye. Her hands are unsteady, I notice.

“You’re rich and beautiful. You have the perfect life, the perfect body, the perfect grade point average, and you never have to work for a thing,” she hisses at me. “Nothing comes hard to you, Samantha. It all drops into your lap. Michael Kristoff still writes poetry about you. I know that because he was in my fiction class this spring. Charley Tyler tells everyone you’re the hottest girl in the school. And lies about having had sex with you. I know that because someone told Tim and Tim told me. Now this Jase Garrett, who’s definitely too gorgeous to be real, thinks you hung the moon. It makes me sick. You make me sick.

Hanging around with you and being your sidekick is way too much work.” Her voice drops even lower.

“Not to mention the fact that now you know something about me that you could use to ruin my life.”

“I’m not going to tell anyone,” I say softly, trying to swallow down the hurt. My chest feels so tight, I can’t take a deep breath. Way too much work, Nan? What, because there’s no way to cheat at being a friend? “Don’t you know me at all? I would never do that. I just– You don’t need to cheat—you’re too smart in every way to do that, and I want to be your friend and…and I need you. Something happened to Jase’s dad and—”

“I heard,” she says briefly. “Tim told me about it. And your guy came by the house the other day too, to let me know how fabulously helpful you’d been and that you missed me. Not going to tell anyone, huh?

Hometown Hottie obviously knew something was up.”

“I didn’t tell him everything. Hardly anything.” I hate that I sound self-justifying. “Just that we’d fought.” Looking down at her hands, I see that her nails, always ragged, are now bitten to the quick, bloody and painful. “I never expected he’d come to your house.”

“Well, he did. Mr. Hero to the Rescue again. It’s the thing you always get. While I get…Daniel.” I want to say You picked Daniel, but that wouldn’t make anything better. She’s red in the face now, with that look I know comes right before tears. “Nan—” I begin, but she cuts me off.

“I don’t need your pity. And I don’t want your friendship.” Picking up her purse and hauling it up onto her thin shoulder, she says, “Come on. I have to lock up.” I follow her into the hall. She flips the deadbolt, turns, and walks away. At the last moment, she swings around, looking skinny and stiff. “How does it feel not to get what you want, Samantha?”

I’ve never felt like this before.

I’ve had that thought again and again since I met Jase. But it’s always meant good things, not this pit in my stomach that travels with me everywhere.

Jase picks me up at the B&T, asking if I mind if we swing by the hospital.

I feel a fist grip my insides. I haven’t seen Mr. Garrett since what Mom did. “Of course not,” I say, the kind of polite lie I’ve never told him before.

The ICU is on the fourth floor and we need passes to get up there. When we do, Jase braces himself visibly before heading into the hospital room. Invisibly, I do the same.

He looks so shrunken in his hospital gown, tubes sprouting everywhere, his tan skin startlingly pale in the bluish hospital light. This is not the man who carries stacks of wood easily on his shoulders, hoists Harry and George up high, arcs a football effortlessly. Jase pulls the chair closer and sits, then reaches out for his dad’s hand with the tape and the tubes. He bends to say something in Mr. Garrett’s ear, and I stare at the heart monitor going up and down and up and down.

Driving home, Jase stares straight ahead. He doesn’t reach for my hand as usual, but keeps both of his on the wheel, gripping tight enough that his knuckles whiten. I edge down in my seat, propping my heels on the dashboard. We drive past the exit for Main Street.

“Aren’t we going home?” I ask.

Jase sighs. “I thought I’d head to French Bob’s. See what he could give me for the Mustang if I sold it back. I’ve put a lot of time into it, not to mention cash.” I grab at his arm. “No. You can’t. You can’t sell the Mustang.”

“Just a car, Sam.”

I can’t stand it. All the hours Jase has spent on the Mustang, whistling through his teeth, tinkering away.

How he pores through Car Enthusiast or Hemmings magazine, dog-earing the pages. It’s not just a car.

It’s the place he goes to relax, find himself again. The way I used to search the stars. Or watch the Garretts. The way I swim.

“It’s not,” I say. “Only that.”

Instead of continuing on the highway toward French Bob’s he pulls off now and loops back on the long road that lines the river, stopping in McGuire Park.

The Bug is old and noisy, but that’s probably not why it’s so silent when he turns the key and shuts off the ignition. It’s the first time I’ve been here since that night. There are noises—the slow lap of the waves on the rocks, since a speedboat has just hurried by, seagulls calling and plunging, dropping clams on the rocks. Jase climbs out, nudging at a rock on the dirt road with the toe of his sneaker, headed not to the Secret Hideaway, but toward the bend in the road by the playground.

“I keep calling them,” he tells me. “The police. They just say there’s nothing, really, they can do.

Without witnesses.” A well-aimed kick sends the rock skittering off the sandy road onto the grass. “Why did it have to be raining that night? It’s hardly rained all summer.”

“Does it really matter that it was?” I ask.

“If not”—he drops into a crouch, moves his finger in the dirt—“there might have been something. Tire tracks. Something. As it is…whoever did this will get completely away and will never know how much harm they did.”

Or they’ll know and not care.

Shame burns in my chest now, replacing the anger over Nan. More than anything in the world I want to tell him the truth. From the start, it’s been easy to tell him that, truths I’ve never told anyone. He’s always listened and understood.

But there’s no way to understand this.

How can he, when I don’t understand it myself.

Chapter Forty-three

“Hi sweetheart! I’m making up some meals for you to have on hand. I’m gone so often these days that we don’t get to have dinners together. I don’t want you living on that garbage from Breakfast Ahoy or the snack stand at the club. So I’ve made up some dinners—that roast chicken one you like with the mushrooms, and some pasta Bolognese.” Mom says all this cheerily as I drag myself into the kitchen after coming home from lifeguarding. “I’ve labeled them all and I’m going to put some in the freezer.” And on and on.

Her voice is firm and calm, chatty. She’s wearing a watermelon-colored wrap dress and her hair down, looking young enough to be my older sister. Mrs. Garrett has circles under her eyes these days, is gaunt and perpetually distracted. Though I’ve tried to keep things clean, the Garretts’ house gets messier by the day. Patsy’s fussy, George clingy, Harry misbehaving, Andy and Duff fighting like bears. Jase is tense and preoccupied, Alice even more acerbic. Everything is different next door. Nothing’s changed here.

“Would you like some lemonade?” Mom asks. “They had Meyer lemons at the Gibson’s Gourmet the other day, so I made it with those for a change. I think this is the best batch ever.” She pours me a glass, the picture of graceful efficiency and maternal solicitude.

“Stop it, Mom,” I say, sliding into the kitchen stool.

“You don’t want me to mother you so much, I know. But all the other summers when I’ve had to work, you’ve had Tracy to keep you company. Should I post a chart of what’s frozen and what’s fresh? I don’t need to do that. You’ll remember, right? I just suddenly realized how alone you are.”

“You have no idea.”

Something in my tone must get to her because she halts, glances at me nervously, then continues rapidly,

“When this election is over, we’ll take a good, long vacation. Maybe somewhere in the Caribbean. I’ve heard great things about Virgin Gorda.”

“I can’t believe you. Are you, like, a robot now? How can you just act like everything’s normal?” Mom stills in the act of putting Tupperware in the freezer. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says.

“You need to tell the truth about what happened,” I say.

She straightens up slowly, looking me in the eye for the first time in days, chewing her bottom lip.

“He’ll be fine.” She snaps a lid tightly. “I’ve followed it in the news. Jack Garrett’s a relatively young man, in good shape. Things might be rough for a while, but he’ll be fine. In the end, no real damage done.” I lean forward, hands flat on the counter, my palms sliding across the cool surface of the kitchen island.

“How can you even say that? Do you actually believe it? This isn’t some, some nothing—” I fling one hand out, accidentally hitting the Waterford crystal fruit bowl full of lemons, sending it flying toward the wall, splintering on the tile floor with a jarring crash, lemons bouncing everywhere.

“That belonged to my grandparents,” Mom says tightly. “Don’t move. I’ll get the vacuum cleaner.” Something about the accustomed sight of her, bent over, moving the vacuum in orderly symmetrical strokes in her dress and her heels, makes me feel as though I’m going to explode. I jump down from the stool and flick the OFF button.

“You can’t just tidy it up and forget it, Mom. The Garretts have no health insurance. Did you know that?”

She pulls the trash can out from under the sink, snapping on her rubber gloves, and begins methodically putting the larger chunks of glass into the bag. “That’s not my fault.”

“It’s your fault that it matters that they don’t. He’s going to be in the hospital for months! Then maybe rehab—who knows for how long? The hardware store was already struggling.”

“That also has nothing to do with me. Many small businesses are struggling, Samantha. It’s unfortunate, and you know I’ve made speeches about that very issue—”

“Speeches? Are you serious?”

She winces at the volume of my voice, then turns and switches the vacuum on again.

I yank the plug out of the wall.

“What about everything you’ve ever told me about facing up to your responsibilities? Did you mean any of it?”

“Don’t speak to me that way, Samantha. I’m the parent here. I am doing the responsible thing, staying where I can do the greater good. How will it help the Garretts if I lose my job, if I have to retire in disgrace? That won’t fix anything. What’s done is done.”