Chapter 43
Robert
Ms. Momin pulls into the driveway at dusk. I’m waiting on the front porch.
The garage door rumbles down, and I can hear her chatting cheerfully with Kiki. A minute later the front door opens. I stand and turn to her.
“Is he okay?”
She fixes cold eyes on me and folds her arms. “He’s in a holding cell right now. I’ve already contacted an attorney. With any luck, he’ll appear before a judge tonight for an arraignment. In any event, the attorney thinks he’ll be out in forty-eight hours. I haven’t talked to him.”
“What’s he charged with?”
From inside, Kiki calls out, “Mommy!” Ms. Momin calls back that she’ll be right in and pulls the door closed behind her a little more. She looks at me again. “I want to know what’s going on between you and my ex-husband.”
I knew this was coming. “He’s my calculus teacher.”
“Don’t lie to me, Robert. You’ve lied to me enough. Were you with him Saturday night?”
I don’t answer.
She smirks, but in a way that looks like a prelude to tears.
“I want to know what he’s being charged with,” I say quietly.
“They’re saying he sent sexually explicit text messages to a student, among other things.”
“He wouldn’t do that.”
“He wouldn’t?” She lets that settle on me, then huffs. “I don’t know anymore what he would and wouldn’t do.”
“How can you say that?” I’m angry now, and I don’t care that she knows. “He’s a good, decent person.”
“He’s a teacher,” she hisses. “And you’re just a boy, a student, his student. And you! Do you have any idea what you’ve done? What you’ve cost him?”
“I love him, and—”
Her breath catches.
“—he loves me.”
Kiki appears at her mom’s side, her face a pout. “Mommy, I hungry,” she says around the thumb in her mouth.
A tear spills down Ms. Momin’s cheek. She brushes it away as she runs a hand over her daughter’s hair. “I’m coming, baby.”
Kiki notices me just then. Her pout transforms into a bright smile. She plucks the thumb from her mouth and holds out her dog to me. “Spot.”
I reach out to pet her dog, but Ms. Momin snatches it back. “Stay away from Drew. Stay away from my daughter.”
She pushes Kiki back inside the house and makes like she’s going to shut the door in my face, but I take a step forward and put my hand on the door.
Her look is at first one of alarm, then hatred. “Don’t,” she warns. “Don’t you dare try to insert yourself into our lives. Do you really think you’re the only one?” She scoffs. “You’re not the first pretty boy that he’s fallen for. You’re just the first one stupid enough to believe you actually had some kind of future with him.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You don’t need to come for group Wednesday. I’ll e-mail your counselor and tell her you completed your hours.” She backs away and shuts the door in my face.
He didn’t do it, and I intend to prove it.
“I heard it’s going to be on the news tonight at ten,” Luke says as we head up the stairs to his room. “It’s all over Facebook already. Some kid is bragging about taking him down.”
“Who?”
“Some freshman.”
Something clicks. “A kid named Newman?”
“Stephen Newman. Yeah. How’d you know?”
“He’s Anna Newman’s little brother. The kid who’s been giving Andrew a hard time in class.”
“That’s Anna’s little brother? No kidding. Well, the story is that Mr. McNelis sent him a text with a dirty picture.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Well, apparently Stephen got some photos and some racy messages, and they came from Mr. McNelis’s phone. Somebody made an anonymous call to Mr. Redmon, Mr. Redmon called Stephen in, looked at his phone, and he unloaded.”
He shakes his mouse and his computer screen lights up.
“He didn’t send them, Luke.”
“I believe you. But then how did they get sent from his phone? You think somebody hacked him?”
He opens Facebook and points out some of the posts. “These are just the ones that other kids reposted. I’m not actually his Facebook friend.”
One in particular catches my eye.
That faggot’s getting what he deserves. Ha!
“Nice guy, huh?” Luke says.
Suddenly, I know exactly what happened. “He stole his phone.”
“Somebody stole his phone?”
“Yeah. He wasn’t sure. It disappeared Friday morning. At first he thought he lost it, then he thought maybe his ex-wife had taken it. He didn’t have his SIM card disabled until the next day just in case he found it. If that kid took his phone, he could have sent the pictures himself, right?”
Luke studies me for a moment, then shrugs. “Yeah, I guess. You really think he’d do something like that?”
“You read the posts. What do you think? Andrew wouldn’t do this, Luke. I know him.”
He nods and turns back to his computer. “Let’s see if we can see who Stephen’s friends are.” He opens his page and shakes his head. “Uh, uh, uh. Look at this—he doesn’t even have his page protected. Shame, shame. Friends, let’s see.” He opens up the entire list and scans through the photos. “Looky here. Your number-one fan.”
He points his cursor to a photo near the bottom.
A fan club has to be good for something. I’m counting on that right now as a familiar voice answers the phone.
“Caleb, hi. This is Robert Westfall.”
“Oh. Robert. Hi. Um, what’s up?” He covers the microphone, but I can still hear a muffled, “It’s Robert Westfall. Oh my God!”
“You got a minute?”
Muffled talk: “He wants to know if I’ve got a minute.” Then, as if he hadn’t been about to pee his pants, “Sure. Whatcha need?”
“A favor. You’re friends with Stephen Newman, right?”
“Yeah. Why?” he asks cautiously.
Someone rings the doorbell. I leave it for Mom.
“Good friends?”
“No. Not really. We rode the same bus in junior high.”
I realize I’ve been holding my breath. I let it out. “I need you to do something for me.”
“Sure. Anything,” he says eagerly.
I honestly think he means that. I tell him what I need, and he promises he’ll get it done.
Mom sticks her head in my room. Her face is white. “Robert, I need you in the living room.”
I try to read her expression as I say, “I really owe you one, Caleb.”
“Robert, did something happen?” she asks as I end the call. “There are some police officers at the door.”
My heart sinks.
The officers begin to introduce themselves as we enter the living room.
“What is this about?” Mom asks, cutting them off.
“Ms. Westfall,” one of them says, turning to her, “we believe your son may be involved in a relationship with Andrew McNelis.”
She looks at me, her face a question. “Who’s Andrew McNelis?”
I glare at the officer.
“He’s one of your son’s teachers, ma’am. Math, I believe.”
“Robert?”
“Did he tell you that?”
“I’m not here to discuss with you what he did or did not say to us. I am merely asking you a question. You should know that we have his cell phone in our custody.”
That means nothing to me. “Are you arresting me?”
“What?” Mom’s face blanches even further if that’s possible, and she takes my elbow like she’ll fight for me if it comes to that.
“We’re just here to talk, son.”
“Well, I’m not interested in talking.”
“There’s a photo of you on his phone.” He lets that sit there for a moment. “Did you send him that photo?”
I can’t believe Andrew kept a photo of me. After all his talk about being careful. What else did he keep? Text messages?
When I don’t respond, the officer says, “We can subpoena you.”
Mom steps between us. “Then you need to do that. My son is not answering any questions tonight.”
The officers exchange a look, but after a brief standoff, they allow Mom to show them out.
When she returns, I’m sitting on the couch, nervously picking at my cuticles. She sits opposite me and waits. Finally she gives up. “It’s true, isn’t it?”
My eyes flood with tears. “He’s in trouble, Mom. Some jerky kid set him up. He’s being accused of something he didn’t do.”
She wrinkles her brow. “Are you telling me that this is not just about you? Oh, Robert.”
I don’t sleep. And every time I turn over, Spot II starts and his little heart races.
“It’s okay, boy,” I say each time. His belly is full and round, but his ribs are still achingly prominent. I run my hand over his soft fur and he relaxes again.
The ten o’clock news had run the story just like Luke said. Mom and I had watched it together.
The field reporter didn’t mention any student names but used Andrew’s name repeatedly, then cut to a video of him being escorted from the police cruiser to the jailhouse. That is the reel that keeps looping in my mind—his hands secured behind his back, a police officer gripping his arm. But Andrew didn’t walk with his head down like a common criminal, nor did he tip his nose in the air in haughty defiance.
I was proud of him, but angry and frustrated that I couldn’t do a damn thing for him.
Mom moved to the couch next to me and put her arm tentatively around my shoulders.
“What do you know about the students involved?” the anchor woman in the studio asked.
“All I can tell you, Hannah, is that there are two students, both minors. Sources tell me that both are, in fact, students of this teacher.”
“Wow,” Hannah said to her coanchor. “I’d say that Mr. McNelis is facing some very serious charges.” Her coanchor shook her head and said, “You know, stories like this are so disturbing. What are these teachers thinking? It seems like every week we’re hearing about another teacher being accused of sexual misconduct. You send your kids to school, you expect them to be safe”—she turned to the camera—“and then you hear about things like this.”
“I know what you mean,” Hannah said.
“They’ve already convicted him,” I’d said angrily to Mom.
When I can’t bear to think about him in jail anymore, I turn my attention to Stephen Newman. He set him up; I know it as surely as I know that Andrew would never send a sext to anyone, even me. It’s the only thing that makes sense.
I still find it hard to believe that anyone could be that cold and vindictive though. To ruin an innocent man’s life and then to brag about it? I swear to myself, he will not get away with it.
Spot II makes a noise that sounds like a bark through sleep-paralyzed vocal cords. His little legs twitch like he’s running. I notice that one of his pads is bleeding again and there’s a watery blood spot on my sheet. “Shhhh, boy,” I say quietly. “You’re okay.” I place my hand on his head and he jerks awake and yelps. When he realizes he’s in no danger, he nudges my hand with his wet nose.
I get up for a washcloth and some hydrogen peroxide, then hold it to his paw until the bleeding stops again.
Sometime in the middle of the night I finally allow myself to think about what Ms. Momin said.
Do you really think you’re the only one?