Mad Honey: A Novel (19 page)

His eyes move from my face to my shoes, before coming back to meet my gaze. “Liv,” he says, just like he used to, a purr in his throat, a syllable that sounded like
love,
which is all I ever wanted from him. “I’ve got to admit—your text was a surprise.”

I had messaged him at 3:00
a.m.,
after I got home from the jail. I told him I needed to see him. I did not tell him why.

“Thank you for making time to see me,” I manage, the words balanced like glasses on a tray. I glance at the chair opposite the desk. “Can I…?”

“Of course, sit down.” His mouth quirks up on one side, just like Asher’s does. “But you don’t have to be so formal. I mean…it’s just me.”

What he means is:
We used to sleep together. I used to be able to play your body like it was a symphony.

What I hear is:
When you’ve slapped someone so hard you draw blood, why stand on ceremony?

“You look great.” Braden smiles wider. “Still beekeeping?”

I nod. “Still fixing hearts?”

Still breaking them?

We have, of course, communicated. Through lawyers, during and after the divorce. For all that my marriage was a mess, I have never faulted Braden for his responsibility to Asher. Every month his alimony check and child support are deposited into my bank account without fail. Sometimes, they are all that has kept us fed.

If anyone is at fault for being less than transparent, it’s me.

On the window ledge behind him I see a photograph of a woman and twin boys. I knew that Braden had remarried; but seeing that feels like falling through a frozen pond—like I can’t breathe, like the light on the other side of the ice is a whole different world.

I force my attention to Braden again. “I need your help,” I say. Every syllable is a knife.

I start at the beginning, walking him from Asher’s relationship with Lily to the day he found her unresponsive to the suicide attempt last night at the jail. While I talk, I clench my hands together in my lap. I explain everything as if it has happened to someone else, some other mother, some other boy. As if I’ve had the privilege to watch from a distance.

When, finally, my words run out, I glance up at him. His face is pale and a vein throbs at his temple.

“Braden?” I murmur.

“You didn’t think,” he says, dangerously soft, “that this was something I should have known about
four
months
ago?”

I feel dizzy and nauseated. I
did
think about it. But I didn’t want to hand Braden the reins again.

“What the
fuck,
Liv?”

On the guttural punch of the curse word, I can’t help it. I flinch.

Braden and I both go absolutely still. “Olivia,” he whispers, breaking.

“I am sorry,” I say. “You’re his father. I should have told you.”

How easy it is to fall into the habit again.

“
He
should have told me,” Braden mutters, picking up the phone on his desk. “I need to get him a better lawyer.”

“He’s got a good lawyer,” I interrupt. “Jordan.”

Braden puts the receiver back and raises an eyebrow. “They don’t let surgeons operate on a family member,” he says.

“But if they did,” I counter, “you’d do everything you possibly could to save him, wouldn’t you?”

He concedes the point. “What do you need?” Braden asks.

I clear my throat. This is where I have to tell him I am a failure; that—like he used to say—I couldn’t afford my home/car/life without him. “His bail is a million dollars. I need a hundred thousand to get him out. I tried to get a loan; I even tried to second-mortgage the house. I was turned down by seven banks.” I swallow hard. “I don’t want Asher to spend another night in jail.”

In the few seconds that I sit with my head bowed, twelve years unwind. I hold my breath, waiting. Knowing that every ask has a cost. Hoping that this time when Braden looks at me, he won’t see a reflection of his own frustration. That this time, he’ll just see…me.

I don’t realize he’s come around the desk until I feel the heat of his hand on my shoulder. “Done,” he says.

BY THE TIME
I drive back to New Hampshire, the judge has agreed to a closed courtroom to hear Jordan’s motion to exclude, and she has also agreed that the motion can be sealed. This is good news, but it pales in comparison to the phone call I receive just as I cross the limits of Adams. “Mom?” Asher’s stunned voice says. “They said I…I can leave.”

Silently, I thank Braden for whatever he did to make bail so quickly. I am at the jail fifteen minutes later. Asher steps outside,
looking dazed and wary. He is wearing the clothes that he came here in—sweatpants pants too warm for this April day. He holds a sheaf of papers. I fold him into my arms, too relieved to speak at first. “Let’s get you home,” I say, and I lead him to the truck.

But as soon as we step off the sidewalk into the parking lot, the sun strikes his face. He stops walking, tilts his face to the sky, and bursts into tears.

In the car, he worries the edge of the bandage at his wrist. “How did you do it?” he asks. “How did you get the money?”

“It’s not important—”

“It is to me.”

I glance at him. “Your father.”

His eyes widen, and he looks out the window, watching the watercolor run of scenery. “Did he know?”

“He does now,” I say.

“What did he say?”

I bite my lip, wondering why Asher is so concerned about the feelings of a man who has not been part of the last two-thirds of his life. “He said you shouldn’t be in jail,” I answer. To redirect the conversation, I nod at the papers on his lap. “What’s all that?”

“Paperwork for my release,” Asher says. “And a couple of letters from Maya.”

“She wrote you? That’s nice.”

He shrugs. His face remains turned out the window. Without its blanket of snow, New Hampshire is reawakening. “It’s green,” he murmurs. “It wasn’t green when I left.”

When we enter the farmhouse, it is decorated. In the mudroom, Selena has strung a makeshift banner, letters sharpied on printer paper that spell out
WELCOME HOME
. She and Jordan are waiting just inside the door.

Selena smiles wide and holds out her arms for Asher to walk into. “Tall people unite,” she says, the same refrain with which they’ve greeted each other since Asher was fifteen and hit the six-foot mark.

Asher pushes his mouth into a smile. “Hey, Aunt S.”

She holds him by his shoulders, cataloging the length of him,
including the bandage, which her gaze skips right over. “You look fine,” she pronounces, and she smiles too hard.

Jordan claps Asher on the back, and he pivots immediately, his hands raised in protection.

Jordan’s demeanor slips, but he tugs a friendly grin back into place. “Glad you’re back,” he says. “Did they give you the conditions of release?”

Asher hands the paperwork to Jordan, who reads it out loud. “Judge says you can’t leave your property except for medical reasons or court appointments, no visitors…you can communicate verbally and electronically with your mother, me, and anyone else I approve.”

“Whew,” Selena says. “For a second, I thought I wouldn’t make the cut.” She laughs, and Jordan laughs, and Asher and I smile. But we’re all working too hard to act normal, like we are struggling to stay upright in a wind tunnel while pretending it’s a gentle breeze.

As we walk into the heart of the old Colonial, Selena tells me that she and Jordan have relocated from Asher’s room to my mom’s old room, and that there are fresh sheets on his bed. He turns, his face tight and drawn, as if he’s expecting me to give him a direction. “Maybe you want to change in to fresh clothes?” I suggest.

He nods. “Yeah. A shower. That sounds good.”

We watch him climb the stairs and when the water in the bathroom starts running, all three of us exhale heavily.
Why isn’t he happy to be home?
I wonder, and it isn’t until Jordan answers that I realize I’ve spoken aloud.

“The people I’ve known who’ve been in jail only want to get out. But when they do, they’re shell-shocked. Being incarcerated, you feel like time’s standing still. On the outside, you realize that the whole world moved forward without you.” Jordan puts his arm around my shoulder. “Give him a little while, Liv. He’ll come back to us.”

I don’t know what I expected, actually. That Asher would not want to let me out of his sight; that he’d have a thousand questions about the months he had missed; that we would sit at the kitchen table and play Scrabble or look at old photos? The truth is that even before he was arrested, Asher was a teenager. He spent most of his
time in his room, on his phone or his computer, or with Lily. The Venn diagram of our relationship intersected at meals and was limited to a brief recounting of how his calculus teacher was pulled over for a DUI during the weekend or whether Carniolan bees are hardy enough to make it through a New England winter. Having Asher out on bail would not roll the calendar back to the time when he was a little boy.

Selena and Jordan pretend they have something pressing to do, but I know they are giving me privacy while I help Asher settle in. After the water stops running through the pipes, after a full hour has passed with no sign of Asher, I go upstairs and knock on his bedroom door.

He is sitting on his bed, his hair damp and tousled. He’s wearing jeans and a yellow T-shirt and he is trying, unsuccessfully, to tie a new bandage around his wrist.

“Let me help,” I offer, sitting next to him. Our shoulders bump as I unwrap the gauze to start fresh, and the wound from his suicide attempt is fully visible. It’s angry and red, clenched with stitches. Quickly, I cover it with clean gauze and secure it with a layer of adhesive bandage tape. “All set,” I tell him, but I don’t let go of his hand.

I realize that he is not looking down at his wrist, like I am. He’s staring at the drawing he did of Lily when he was in jail, now in a frame on his nightstand.

“Oh,” I say. “I hope it was okay to put it there.”

“It’s nice,” Asher murmurs. “It’s been almost four months, you know, and I still can’t really believe she won’t ever walk through that door.”

I feel my throat tightening, and I don’t want a day that should be a celebration to lose its joy. So I squeeze his hand and say, “You must be starving. What do you want for dinner? Sky’s the limit.”

Asher looks up at me, his brows drawing together.

“Filet mignon…chicken and dumplings…lasagna…we could barbecue…ribs, burgers…or maybe you want vegetables? A stir-fry? Or both.” I laugh. “Or all. You pick.”

I realize too late that with every option I’ve offered Asher, he seems more and more stricken.

“I…um…” Asher shakes his head, and heat rushes to his cheeks.

I realize when it’s been months since you have had a choice, you forget how to make one.

“How about I make one of your favorites?” I gently suggest, and Asher nods quickly.

In the end, I cook steaks on the grill, with a tossed salad and honeyed carrots—fresh, simple food I imagine doesn’t exist in jail. I fry bacon and cut up chives and set out bowls of sour cream and shredded cheddar, making a baked potato bar. When Asher was little, that was his favorite meal, and maybe going back to simpler times will make him feel more at home.

But Asher doesn’t come down to dinner. When I go upstairs to tell him it’s ready, he is fast asleep, and I do not have the heart to wake him. The portrait he drew of Lily, I realize, isn’t on the nightstand anymore but next to him, on the bed. I turn off the light and close his bedroom door gently behind me.

Jordan assures me that there’s nothing physically wrong with Asher. “The kid probably hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in months,” he says. “You know it never gets completely dark in jail, at night.” He distracts me from worrying about Asher by telling me that the hearing for the pretrial motion has been scheduled for tomorrow in superior court.

“Do you think you’ll win?” I ask.

“Well,” Jordan says, glancing at Selena. “You’ll get to see, firsthand. Asher has to be there, Liv.”

“I don’t think he’s ready for that,” I say. “My God, Jordan, he tried to
kill
himself.”

“I know,” Jordan says. “And I want the judge to see that bandage.” He looks at me across the table. “You’ll sit behind him, the whole time. You’re his emotional-support person. No one’s going to argue against that.” He softens his gaze. “He doesn’t have to say a word. He just has to be present.”

Eventually, I agree, and I leave Jordan and Selena to do the dishes while I go upstairs to check on my son.

Asher is still asleep. But the door of his bedroom is now open, and the light in the hallway has been turned on.

BECAUSE IT IS
a closed courtroom, there are only a handful of people present: me, Asher, and Jordan; Judge Byers; the prosecutor, Gina Jewett; a court clerk; and a bailiff. Asher is wearing the same suit he wore to Lily’s funeral. Before we entered, Jordan adjusted his cuffs—making sure Asher’s bandage peeked out from the edge of his jacket.

Judge Byers is an imposing woman with ombré locs and fingernails that each end in a sharp bedazzled point. She focuses a laser gaze on Jordan as soon as the hearing is called to order. “Mr. McAfee,” she drawls. “What a coup to have you in front of my bench. I’m a little surprised that you wanted this motion to be in a closed courtroom instead of chasing the publicity that came after Peter Houghton’s trial.”

There’s no mistaking her sarcasm, but Jordan flashes her a dazzling smile. “So glad you’re a fan, Your Honor,” he says.

She snorts. “Well, welcome to Lancaster, or as I like to call it,
not Portsmouth
. Let the record reflect that the State is being represented by Gina Jewett, and the defendant, Asher Fields, is here with his attorney, Jordan McAfee. We are holding this hearing in a closed courtroom because of the inordinate media interest in this case.” As the stenographer tries to keep up, the judge’s gaze falls on Asher’s wrist. “The defendant has his mother here for support. Mr. McAfee, this is your motion to suppress, so please proceed.”

Jordan rises. “Your Honor, pursuant to the State’s discovery rules, we have viewed all the evidence that currently exists in the AAG’s file in this case. As part of this evidence, there were texts sent back and forth between the victim and my client, who were involved in a relationship. Naturally, there were many text messages exchanged;
however, what we are moving to suppress is merely one text message that remained on the victim’s phone unsent, which was thus never received by my client.”