Chapter Three
Jake entered the kitchen to face his wife ahead of Ryan, according to plan. He felt sick to his stomach with guilt and horrified at what they had done. All he could think about was the dead woman, but he had to keep it together for Ryan’s sake, to get past Pam. He’d been able to wipe the blood off his face and hands in the car, and he’d hidden his blood-stained parka in the garage. Pam wouldn’t think it was strange that he didn’t have a coat on because he often left it in the car, since their garage was attached. On the way home, Jake had pulled over and quieted his weeping son, even as he’d laid down the law.
Ryan, don’t tell Mom. Never, ever.
I … never ever would. Are you … insane?
I mean it. No matter what. You know what she’d do. She’d have to.
I swear … I won’t tell Mom … I won’t tell anybody.
“Jake, what took you so long?” Pam was standing at the sink and turned toward him, a petite, naturally pretty woman with intelligent blue eyes, an upturned nose, and a small mouth with a perfect smile. She had her horn-rimmed glasses on, and with her long brown ponytail, gray hoodie, and jeans, she looked exactly like what she was, the smartest girl in the class, his valedictorian wife.
“Ryan was starving, and we stopped at the diner.” Jake tried to mask his emotions and avoided her eye, while Moose trotted over and began sniffing him, wagging his feathery tail harder than usual. The golden retriever must have been smelling the blood he hadn’t been able to wipe off his jeans, because it had seeped too quickly into the fabric. He hoped Pam wouldn’t notice, since there wasn’t much and the denim was dark blue, but Jake felt repulsed at the very thought. He never would have imagined himself being responsible for the death of an innocent woman, much less leaving her body by the side of a road.
“Why didn’t you call?” Pam shut the dishwasher door with a solid clunk, then looked past him for Ryan, as if she was already sensing something amiss.
“Sorry, I should have.” Jake put his hands on her shoulders and gave her a quick kiss on the lips, feeling like Judas himself. He had never lied to her, except to tell her that he liked all the wacky things she did to her hair. Highlights, lowlights, whatever, she was beautiful to him. He loved her.
“So why didn’t you call?” Pam pulled away, with a slight frown.
“Fill you in later,” Jake whispered quickly, as if he were trying to say it before Ryan came in. He pressed Moose’s muzzle away from his jeans, but the dog wasn’t giving up, so he reached down and scratched the dog’s head, as if he wanted him close.
“Okay.” Pam’s forehead relaxed, and Jake could see that she had put a wifely checkmark in the box next to Explanation Pending. He glanced at the TV, which showed the local news, playing on low volume. He couldn’t bear it if a breaking news report about the accident on Pike Road came on, with a lurid HIT AND RUN banner. Every time he’d seen a hit-and-run report on the news, he’d wondered to himself what kind of person would do such a hateful thing. And now he knew. He’d just become the guy he hated. In fact, he’d just become the guy everybody hated. He turned off the TV, his hand shaking slightly.
Pam looked over when Ryan entered the kitchen and she flashed him a warm grin. “Hey honey, how was the movie?”
“Okay,” Ryan answered, his voice sounding almost normal.
Jake turned around to see what his son looked like in the bright lights of the kitchen, and his eyes were predictably reddish and puffy, his fair skin mottled. Jake’s heart broke for him, because he knew how guilty and anguished Ryan was feeling. Yet at the same time, Jake was relieved that they had their story in place, because any mother could tell that the boy had been crying, especially as good a mother as the Honorable Judge Pamela A. Buckman, of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania.
“Only ‘okay’? The reviews were excellent.” Pam folded her arms and leaned a slim hip against the kitchen island, getting ready for a conversation, but Ryan kept walking through the kitchen to the hallway, precluding any question-and-answer, as planned.
“Mom, I’m going up, I’m beat,” Ryan called out, tugging Moose away by the collar, on the fly. “See you in the morning. Good night, guys.”
“Oh, okay, sleep tight, honey.” Pam shifted her gaze to Jake, lifting an eyebrow.
Jake called out, “Good night, Ryan!”
They both watched as Ryan crossed the entrance hall and climbed the stairs, followed by Moose, wagging his fluffy tail. As soon as their son was out of sight and Jake was alone with Pam, he felt the tension level rise, as if their kitchen had a barometric pressure of its own. He had to tell Pam a convincing lie, but all he could think of was the woman he’d left dead, in the darkness. He’d driven away, too appalled and disgusted with himself to look in the rearview mirror. Her face had glistened with dark blood, slick and black as tar, covering her features so completely that he couldn’t see what she looked like or how old she was.
“So what’s going on?” Pam asked, mystified. “Was he crying? It looked like he was crying.”
“He was, but he’ll be okay, you’ll see.” Jake crossed to the sink and turned on the faucet, thinking about the dead woman. He felt stricken, knowing that she had been somebody’s mother, wife, or even daughter.
“Why was he crying?” Pam followed him, tucking a strand of hair into her ponytail.
“We had a fight after the movie, but we worked it out.” Jake pumped overpriced hand soap into his palm, lathered up, and began washing his hands of the poor woman’s blood. He didn’t see any telltale pink water going down the drain, and the very notion made his stomach turn. He felt as if he were in a waking nightmare, walking in the shoes of someone else entirely. A murderer, a criminal, a liar, or all three.
“But you guys don’t fight. You don’t talk enough to fight.”
Jake reddened, but it gave him an idea for a better story. He’d been about to tell the story they’d made up in the car, involving Ryan getting mad at Caleb, but his new idea didn’t involve a third party. He kept rinsing his hands, as if it would cleanse him of his guilt, like some villain in Shakespeare, he couldn’t remember which. “Well, we fought this time, a bad one.”
“Really.”
“Yes, believe it or not.” Jake kept his head down and his eyes on the water. The image of the woman’s face reappeared. He could feel the warmth of her lips, when he was trying to get her breathing again. Maybe he shouldn’t have given up so soon. Maybe he should have kept trying. He couldn’t bring her back to life. She was really gone, and they had killed her.
“So what was it you fought about?” Pam folded her arms. “And why do I have to take your deposition? Tell me already.”
“I am telling you.” Jake realized she was right. He was stalling. He didn’t want to lie to her. Once he did, the nightmare would become real, and there would be no going back. He didn’t know if he could lie to her anyway. He hated lying to her, and he hated telling her the truth. It was a night of no-win decisions.
“Jake, you’re beating around the bush.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. Honey, what is going on?”
Man up! Jake willed himself to get a grip. There’d been no going back the moment he’d left the scene. He twisted off the faucet, reached for the dishcloth, and started drying his hands, but he still couldn’t make eye contact with her. “Okay, you’re right, maybe I am. I don’t feel that great about it, is all.” He thought fast, realizing that his obvious discomfort could serve his story. “I mean, think about it from my point of view. I go to pick him up at the movies to get closer to him, and we fight and I make him cry, pushing him further away. I tried to do a good thing, but it turned out wrong.” His throat caught when he realized that he was telling the truth, in a way. All of the emotions were real, if not the facts. “So now I’m home, and I have to tell you what happened.”
“Aw, honey.” Pam’s voice softened, and she rubbed his back lightly. “I didn’t mean to be sharp. I’m so tired. The weeks we sit en banc are a bitch. I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize.” Jake knew that when the Superior Court sat en banc, the entire court would come to Philadelphia to hear oral arguments. There was a lot of preparation, and Pam worked extra hard, drafting opinions into the night to keep up with her regular caseload. Still, she wasn’t so tired that she wasn’t peering at him, intently.
“So tell me what happened.”
“Okay, but it won’t be easy for you to understand, because you guys have such a good relationship.” Jake folded the dishcloth and set it in its pile by the paper towels, more deliberately than necessary. “Plus I’m worried that, the way I handled it tonight, I blew it. I’ll never get in sync with him now, not before he goes to college.”
“Aw, yes you will.” Pam rubbed his back again. “So what happened already, ya big lug?”
Jake cringed inwardly, because he loved when she called him that. Pam liked his size because she said it made her feel safe, and he always thought he could protect her and Ryan—until tonight. He never would have guessed there’d be a jogger around the curve. He never would have foreseen they’d hit her. He told himself to get back on track and tell the story. He said, “It was silly, a little thing that got to be a big thing.”
“That happens.” Pam nodded in an encouraging way. He’d seen her do the same thing in the courtroom, trying to put a lawyer at ease during oral arguments. Counsel, don’t let us intimidate you, she’d say. Judges are people too. Just smarter.
“Well, we were driving home from the movie, and I was trying to have a conversation with him, but he was texting the whole time.”
“I don’t let him do that in the car.” Pam’s lips pursed. “It’s the same rule as at mealtimes. The principle is the same, whatever the location. He doesn’t get to ignore his parents or people around him. It’s just plain rude.”
“Right, I think so, too, but I didn’t want to lower the hammer—”
“Oh, be honest.”
She knows. Jake reddened, stricken. “What do you mean? Honest about what?”
“You wanted to be Fun Dad.” Pam snorted. “That’s why you didn’t lower the hammer.”
Jake tried to recover, but she was right. That was exactly what had happened. He never should have let Ryan drive. He’d made the classic mistake. He’d acted like a friend, not a parent. Pam would never have made such a terrible decision. He sighed heavily, feeling the weight of his conscience. “I know, you’re right. I know, I know, I know.”
“Honey, enough. Don’t beat yourself up.”
Jake couldn’t help it. If she only knew. He tried to return to the story, to spit it out. “So anyway, I didn’t tell him to stop texting. My plan was to win him over, to see if I could engage him on my own. Make it volitional, not a rule.”
“I hear you.” Pam regarded him impatiently behind her glasses. “And so…”
“And then, well, to go back a minute, when I picked him up at the movie, I noticed that there were two girls they were talking to.”
“Girls?” Pam lifted an eyebrow.
“Yeah, so while he was texting, I started to ask him about them, who they were and how they came to be at the movie. I was trying to make conversation, to get something going.” Jake was making it up as he went along, but Pam’s manner had changed from impatient to intrigued.
“So what did he say? I didn’t know there were girls going to the movie, or that they were meeting girls there.”
“I didn’t get an answer. But wait”—Jake caught himself—“if I tell you what happened, you can’t talk to him about it.”
“Why not?”
“If you say anything, he’ll never confide in me again, and that would defeat the purpose of my going to pick him up in the first place.” Jake realized suddenly that if he could get Pam not to bring up the subject with Ryan, then the boy wouldn’t have to lie to her. “Let us work it out, him and me. I think we did by the end, so let me keep at it.”
“Okay, Coach.” Pam rolled her eyes, amused. Her hands went to her ears, fingering the diamond studs he had given her, checking the backs to make sure they stayed on, a nervous habit. “So, as you were saying…”
“Well, all he would tell me about the girls was that they were from school and…” Jake stopped short, not wanting to tell her about the girl from Texas that Ryan had asked out. “Anyway, when I asked him another question, he kept texting, and I heard him mutter under his breath, ‘It’s none of your business.’”
“That is so disrespectful!” Pam’s mouth dropped open. “He gets that from Caleb, you know. I hate that kid. He’s a bad influence.”
Jake bit his tongue. Pam was more right than she knew. “Ryan says he didn’t say it, but I swear he did, and we got in a fight. I told him I thought he was being fresh and entitled—”
“Hoo boy.” Pam’s eyes flared.
“—and he told me that he was too old to be reporting his personal life to his father, and he shouldn’t have to account for everything he did, and we yelled at each other.”
“And he cried? He never cries.”
Jake told himself to remain calm. Pam may have been a Ryan expert, but she didn’t know he smoked marijuana and she would disapprove heartily. He had tried pot in college, and she hadn’t even tried it. His wife took seriously the fact that she was a judge and had sworn an oath to uphold the law. Plus she believed marijuana turned kids into underachievers, which in her mind, was practically criminal. Jake reminded himself to get back on track with the story. “He cried from the stress, I guess. I shouted at him. I lost my temper.”
“You?” Pam blinked. “You never lose your temper.”
“I do sometimes.”
“Okay, whatever.” Pam shrugged, but Jake didn’t want to remind her of the night he’d lost his job, when he’d thrown his laptop across the kitchen and cracked the screen. It wasn’t even under warranty.
“Anyway, he pushed my buttons.”
“Did you call him names? Remember, you’re not supposed to call names.”
“Of course not, I don’t call names.” Jake knew from therapy that name-calling was against the rules, like the Geneva Convention of marriage.
“I don’t understand something. Was this in the car or the diner?”
“Was what?” Jake lost his train of thought again. He kept thinking of the woman, how horrible she had looked, lying there.
“The fight,” Pam was saying. “Did you have it in the car or the diner?”
What diner? “In the car.”
“After a fight like this, you went to the diner?”
Jake realized it sounded implausible. “Yes,” he answered anyway.
“He went along with that?” Pam recoiled, surprised. “I would think he’d be embarrassed. He’d been crying. What if he ran into someone he knew? Everybody knows who he is, from the team. You can’t miss him, he’s built like a lighthouse.”
“That’s what he said, but I insisted on it. He cleaned himself up in the car. I always have those Wet Wipes in the console, for when I eat in the car.” In truth, Jake was the one who cleaned up using the Wet Wipes. There had been blood on his face and hands. He’d driven away from a hit-and-run, thrown away the Wet Wipes and the marijuana in a Dumpster, and taught their son that dishonesty was the best policy. Jake didn’t know himself anymore. This wasn’t him.
“Why’d you want to go to the diner? You mean Mason’s?”
“Yes, Mason’s.” Jake realized he’d just trapped himself. He was a terrible liar. His heart beat wildly in his chest, as if it wanted to escape his very body.
“But you hate Mason’s. Every time I ask you to go, you say no.”
“I know, but you and Ryan love it, and I thought we could sort things out better there.”
“In public?” Pam didn’t look suspicious, merely critical. “Why didn’t you come home? I could’ve helped.”
Think! “I know, that’s the problem. If we came home, we would have looked to you to settle it, like Judge Mom. I didn’t want that. We had to do this on our own, just the two of us.”
“Really.” Pam nodded, with a new half smile. “So you went to Mason’s because I wasn’t there?”
“Honestly, yes. I have to find my own way with him. That’s the goal, right?” Jake felt he had turned a corner, inadvertently saying something that made complete sense, however false. Still it brought him no satisfaction or relief.
“Exactly.”
“You keep saying you can’t facilitate my relationship to him. The therapist said that too.”
“True.”
“So I tempted him with a cheeseburger, and we got over it.”
“Wow.” Pam brightened, genuinely happy, which only made Jake feel horrible.
“So it’s over. We solved it.”
“You resolved it.”
“Whatever, I’ll take it.” Jake managed a shaky smile, and Pam patted him on the back.
“You’re a good guy, Jake. That’s why I knew we’d be fine. Back when, you know.”
Jake’s throat caught. She meant when he’d lost his job and they had their rough patch. She’d dragged him into marriage counseling. It wasn’t his way, with his old-school, close-mouthed, working-class Scottish upbringing, from the other side of town. But like everything else he’d learned growing up, it had been 180 degrees wrong. Pam had taught him that, and now he was lying to her face.
“You’re reliable, and kind, and you try. You really do.” Pam smiled, sweetly. “You know what my mom always said about you.”
Jake couldn’t even fake a smile back. It was something they always said, a marital call-and-response, but the words soured on his tongue. “I’m Husband Material?”
“Ha! Don’t say it that way. Yes, you are.” Pam gave his back a final pat, like a period at the end of the sentence, then turned to go upstairs. “Okay, let’s go up. This week needs to end.”
“Right behind you.” Jake followed her from the kitchen, flicking off the lights. He should be relieved that he’d gotten away with lying to Pam, but it made him sick to his stomach.
He trudged upstairs behind Pam, leaning on the banister and hanging his head. He tried to unravel the night in his mind, to unspool the hours, to undo all the times it had gone wrong. He wished he had told Pam the truth. He wished he’d called the cops at the scene. He wished he hadn’t distracted Ryan while he was driving. He wished he hadn’t let Ryan drive in the first place. He wished he’d never even gone to pick Ryan up. Most of all, he wished that that poor woman was alive and well, back from her run, happy and at home, with her family.
But she wasn’t.
Jake had committed himself and his son to a course, and he had to see it through. Even though the notion filled him with dread.
And the deepest, deepest shame.