Chapter Five
Jake slipped into his office, flicked on the overhead light, and closed the door behind him, so he didn’t wake Pam up. He blinked while his eyes adjusted to the brightness and crossed the room, making a beeline for his desk, a cherrywood computer table facing the wall between two windows. He moved the mouse to wake up the computer, then sat down while it fired up. He wanted to know the penalty for vehicular homicide in Pennsylvania.
The large monitor came to life, and onto the screen popped his screensaver, which was their official family portrait, posed for his firm’s website and brochure, to show that he was a good family man. Jake felt his chest constrict at the sight. The photograph was taken when Ryan was only in middle school, and both father and son were wearing identical blue oxford shirts that emphasized how much they looked alike, except that Ryan was all unruly hair and big goofy grin, with orthodonture for miles. His son said the same thing, every time he saw the photo:
Quite the grille.
In the picture, Jake stood beaming next to Ryan, and in front of them, seated on some ridiculously ornate chair, was Pam, who wore a light blue shirtdress, her legs crossed demurely at her ankles. She’d chosen the color to complement their outfits and the cerulean backdrop, which was meant to be clear blue sky but came off like a Tiffany’s box, more upscale than anybody intended. Pam had been running for judge at the time and had made her unhappiness known to the photographer.
Don’t you have a different backdrop? We elect judges in this state, and I have to get votes from normal people. I’m not running for Queen.
Jake went online and typed his search request into Google. He clicked through the first few websites and found himself reading one DUI site after another, featuring the crassest sort of brochureware with glossy photos of grave-faced lawyers in three-piece suits, troubled kids in handcuffs, and a six-pack of beer, with one spilled out. He’d wanted to read the actual law, but the DUI bar had evidently bought the neutral-sounding website names. One DUI firm had a pop-up showing a smiling man on the telephone, NEED A DUI LAWYER? above Click Here! or No, Thanks!
Jake kept searching and finally found a website that cited Pennsylvania statutes regarding the juvenile system. He read that if Ryan were charged as a juvenile, he’d go before a judge and there would be a trial that would send him to a juvenile facility for six months, then he’d be under court supervision until he was twenty-one. It was lighter punishment than Jake had thought, but then he saw a sentence that chilled him to the bone: Call now to avoid serious ramifications, such as your child being charged and tried as an adult!
He knew vaguely that the district attorney had discretion in deciding whether to charge a juvenile as an adult, and it could go either way with Ryan. It was certainly possible that Ryan could be tried as an adult, because the crime was serious enough, resulting in death. And Pam’s status as a judge could cut either way. Either the district attorney would do her a favor and keep Ryan in the juvenile system or he might want to make an example of him, showing that Ryan didn’t receive preferential treatment.
Jake didn’t know the penalties if Ryan was tried as an adult, so he went back to the search engine, plugged in Pennsylvania vehicular homicide DUI, and got his answer in a nanosecond:
Under 75 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 3735, the criminal offense of homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence (DUI) is punishable as a second degree felony. A conviction for this offense can result in a prison sentence from three to ten years and/or a fine up to $25,000.
Jake felt his gut clench. A three-year sentence would derail Ryan’s future, and a ten-year sentence would obliterate it. If they hadn’t left the scene, Ryan would’ve ended up a convicted felon. It was the worst-case scenario, and as a financial planner, Jake was supposed to make a living out of estimating the downside risk and preventing worst-case scenarios. He felt heartsick thinking about it now, too late. If he’d been considering the worst-case scenario on Pike Road, he never would have let Ryan drive and that woman would still be alive. He’d underestimated the downside risk, and a human being had lost her life.
He leaned back in the chair, his stomach in a knot. A woman was dead, and he was responsible, as surely as if he had been driving. He was the adult, and he should have known better. He would carry his remorse with him forever; he felt it to the marrow, as if guilt were seeping into his very cells. He never should have left the scene, but that wouldn’t bring the woman back. He wished he had called the cops, but that wouldn’t bring her back either. He hadn’t wanted to destroy two lives, one of them his own beloved son’s. It would kill Pam.
Jake swallowed hard, thinking of his wife, sleeping down the hall. She would know DUI law, because as an appellate judge, she had a general overview of all state law, which governed the nuts and bolts of real-life, from premeditated murder to employees who stole trade secrets. He tried to remember if Pam had written any significant opinions in any DUI cases, but couldn’t. He was too distraught and exhausted to think clearly, and his heart kept returning to the dead woman.
He palmed the mouse again and navigated to the local news site to see if her body had been found. He scanned the front page, then the next few, but there was nothing except an upcoming snowstorm and articles about budget cutbacks in the township. He was surprised that the police still hadn’t found her, and he wondered if she didn’t have any family or if it just hadn’t found its way into the news yet.
Jake rubbed his cheek, slumping back in his chair. His gaze traveled around his plush home office, taking in the beige sofa, matching chairs, and tasteful cherrywood shelves filled with books and awards. He didn’t deserve an office like this, he was every inch a fraud. He found himself looking out the window, framed by beige curtains handpicked by his discerning wife.
This is the perfect color, see how it picks up the sisal rug?
Jake had laughed. Is sisal the same as straw? Because to me, this rug is straw.
Outside the window, a steady rain came down, running in rivulets on the windows and graying out the houses across the street, identical to his own. It was raining hard, and Jake knew it would be turning cold, with the snowstorm coming. He couldn’t bear to think that the woman was still lying on the street and wondered why it was taking the police so long to find her.
He turned back to the computer, palmed the mouse, and clicked REFRESH, but nothing had changed on the news page. Still he refreshed another time, and the only sound in the quiet office was the click of the mouse and the thrumming of the rain outside the window. He and Ryan were the only people who knew that the woman was dead, and as far as the world was concerned, no crime had occurred and she was alive and well.
Jake wished he and Ryan could live inside that reality, in the very interstices of time, tucked under the comforter of not-knowing, sleeping as soundly as they used to, the Before the same as the After. But even so, he couldn’t wait another second for the woman to be found, gathered up, lifted onto a gurney, and taken from the horrific scene, out of the rain, away from him and Ryan, and finally safe.
The horror of what he had done brought new tears to Jake’s eyes. He clicked REFRESH again and again. He wanted to know the precise moment that After began.
But by morning, when it still hadn’t happened, he got dressed and left by the kitchen door.