Not Guilty (17 page)

“Let me ask Jake,” Susan said. Once again her words were muted. “Jake, do you have any idea where Dylan might have gone tonight? Was there anything going on around town he might have . . . ?”

“I don’t know. Skating, maybe . . .” was Jake’s muffled reply.

Susan returned to her caller. “Jake says maybe he went skating. I’m sure he’ll be home soon. Don’t worry. They’re all like that.”

No,
Keely thought, hanging up.
They’re not all like Dylan.
She ran back up the stairs to the bathroom beside Dylan’s room. But before she even looked, she knew he wasn’t in the shower. She would have heard the water running. Or seen a light under the door. She opened the door anyway, to confirm what she already knew. Then she stood in the hallway looking helplessly around her.
His bike,
she thought.
Check on his bike.
Maybe he rode somewhere else. She ran down the stairs again and out the front door to the garage, which was set back from the main house. She pulled open the garage door and flipped on the light.

There was his bike, parked where it always was, beside Mark’s car.
He hadn’t taken his bike. Could someone have picked him up? He didn’t know anybody old enough to drive. Someone’s father? He had no other friends that she knew of. Could he have gone for a walk? That girl, Nicole, who had been at the funeral, lived down the street. Was it possible he had walked down there to see her? It was difficult for Keely to picture him doing that. That took . . . self-confidence. And she knew Dylan’s was in short supply these days. Short supply. That was a joke. He was feeling lower than low. But where else could he be? He wouldn’t just go take a walk. He never did. Jake said skating.
Maybe his skateboard,
she thought, her hopes rising for a moment, but when she walked around the car, there it was, leaning up against the wall beside his bike.

Dylan, where are you?
she thought furiously. Maybe he’d left a note when he went out. Where would he leave it? In the kitchen, she thought. That’s where this family left notes. She had only glanced into the kitchen. Maybe she hadn’t seen it. She raced back into the house, trying not to panic, telling herself there was some rational explanation for all of this that would make him exasperated with her when he found out how upset she’d been. She tried not to think about their argument this afternoon. After all, it was only one of many. Keely hurried down the hall to the kitchen and switched on the bank of lights. Her eyes went immediately to the table, where they always left notes. Even in her other life, with Richard . . . Right there, under the salt shaker. There was nothing. But the thought of Richard gave her another idea. What about Ingrid? Could he have called his grandmother? Maybe asked her to come and pick him up? It was worth a try. She dialed Ingrid’s number and leaned against the sink, chewing her lip. She hated to get Ingrid involved in this. And if he wasn’t there, Ingrid would be panicky and want Keely to call the police.

Oh, Dylan, where did you go?
Keely’s stomach was in a knot of frustration and worry. As she stood there, at the sink, chewing her lip, trying to figure out how she would phrase her question to Ingrid, she did not realize, at first, what her eyes were looking at. After all, there was nothing abnormal about seeing coats on the coat hooks beside the back door. But then, just as Ingrid picked up the phone and said, “Hello, hello?” Keely understood.

She hung up the phone and walked stiffly over to the coat hooks. Richard’s leather jacket was hanging there.

If there was one thing she knew about Dylan, it was this: He wouldn’t leave the house without Richard’s coat. A shudder went through her as she touched the worn leather, and she whirled around, expecting to see him. But there was no one there. The house was as silent as ever.

But he
was
here. He was home.

“Dylan,” she cried out, loudly, not caring if it woke Abby. “Dylan, where are you? Answer me!”

She began to run through the house, turning on lights, throwing open doors. She ran out to the backyard, flipping on the floodlights for the pool. There was no sign of him. “Answer me!” she cried.

And then, just as she was about to cross the patio, back into the house, she noticed something—a dim light at ground level. A dim light coming from the basement.

The basement?
she thought. What would he be doing down there? There was nothing down there. They’d only just moved in. They hadn’t had time to fill it up with junk. There were some empty boxes. A few old lawn chairs. Some tools of Mark’s.

Her heart pounding, she walked over to the closed, sloping metal doors that led to the steps. There was no way into the basement from inside the house—only these heavy doors. Why would he close them if he went down there? Could they have slammed shut accidentally? Was he trapped down there? She hoisted up the door on the right, locked it in an open position, and called out to him again. “Dylan?”

Now that the door was open, she could see that the light was on. But he didn’t answer. Slowly she walked down the cement block steps, her heart thudding as she pushed cobwebs out of her way.

“Dylan, answer me,” she pleaded, but her voice was a whisper. She reached the bottom of the steps and looked through the gloom toward the light. It took her eyes a moment to adjust. To realize what she saw.

He was sprawled facedown on the cement floor.

“Oh my God!” she cried. “No!” She started toward him and lost her balance as her foot landed on an empty bottle, which rolled away. She
pitched forward and landed on her hands and knees, scraping her hands on the concrete. She scrambled toward him. She smelled the blood before she saw it, cutting through the musty odor of the basement, filling her nose with a scent so vile she retched as she reached him. She could see his face now, dead white against the dusty gray floor. From the sickle-shaped wound across his throat, blood had spilled out onto the floor beneath him in a jagged pool, like the map of some dark, lost world.

M
rs. . . .” The young, bespectacled African-American doctor glanced down at the chart in his hand and then back at the crowd of people dispersed through the emergency room waiting area. “. . . Weaver?”

Keely rose to her feet. There was a whooshing sound in her ears, and she knew what it meant. She was on the verge of fainting.
Not now,
she told herself fiercely.
You’ve got this far.

Somehow, she had made it to a phone. Somehow she had dialed 911. And called Ingrid, who had arrived in her Toyota in only minutes, it seemed, a raincoat pulled on over her nightgown and slippers. Somehow Keely had managed not to pass out in the ambulance as she watched Dylan’s still, white face as the EMTs worked over him, blood seeping through the gauze around his neck. Managed to answer the questions of the police officers at the hospital and sign papers as they jounced Dylan off the ambulance on a gurney and into a room where they closed the door and shut her out. Somehow she had made it through the last two hours, all by herself.
There’s nothing you can’t do,
she thought,
when you have no choice.

“I’m Mrs. Weaver,” she said.

The doctor beckoned to her. “Come with me, please.”

Keely walked to where he stood and stared at him, unaware of the whiteness of her own face. The doctor noticed, however, and guided her to a quiet cubicle where he pulled out a chair and gently pushed her shoulders down. “Here. You’ve had a terrible shock. Sit . . .”

Obediently, Keely sat.

“Your son is stable now,” he assured her. “He’s in no danger.”

The whooshing, which had grown almost deafening, subsided.
Dylan will live,
she repeated in her head. The doctor sat down opposite her.

“That had to have been a nasty scene to walk in on,” he said sympathetically.

“I thought he was dead,” she said.

The doctor sighed. “Well, he was lucky,” he said. “The method he chose—dragging that utility knife across his neck—was gruesome but ultimately less effective than many others he could have tried.”

“You’re sure . . .” she began. “Could it have been . . .? I mean—the police were asking me things like . . . if there were any signs of a breakin. I mean, it probably sounds stupid, but . . . could someone else have done it?”

“Don’t be embarrassed. I understand that this is very difficult for you. Of course, I’m not a forensic M.D.,” he said, “but . . . it’s quite clear it was a suicide attempt. The sight of the blood and the pain put him into shock and prevented him from cutting into his neck any deeper than he did.”

Keely nodded, although his words crushed her.

The young doctor shook his head. “Luckily . . . luckily, he missed both the jugular vein and the carotid artery. If he’d severed either one, it might have proved fatal. He did manage to gouge his larynx, nick the cords. We did a temporary tracheostomy to bypass the wound. He has a nasogastric feeding tube and a drainage tube and an IV for antibiotics. We don’t want any infection getting in there. And, of course, he won’t be able to speak for a few days, but it’s not permanent. He was in deep shock when they brought him in, but he’s coming out of that now. We’ve got him stabilized.”

He’s alive,
she reminded herself.
He’s not going to die.
“When can I take him home?” she asked.

The doctor’s sympathetic face assumed a guarded expression. “Of course, he needs some recovery time, and then . . . well, he may need to be hospitalized elsewhere . . . for a while.”

“Elsewhere?” she said.

“I’m not really the one to talk to about that. You’ll be contacted in a day or so . . .”

“Contacted about what?” she asked, confused.

The doctor took a deep breath. “There are certain . . . procedures related to minors when there’s a suicide attempt . . .”

“What procedures?” Keely asked, alarmed.

“As I said, there will be someone in to talk to you about it. A social worker. And the police will want to ask Dylan some questions.”

“Not the police,” Keely protested.

“I’m afraid it’s hospital policy. They need to talk to Dylan. And to you.”

“Oh no,” she said. “Why?”

“They need to complete their investigation,” he explained. “But I’m not really the person you want to talk to about this. I’m concerned with his physical recovery. Right now, the important thing is getting your son back on his feet. Why don’t you go and look in on Dylan now.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Please . . .”

He laid a hand briefly over hers. “Try not get upset. He looks worse than he is. We were lucky,” he said. “Are you all right? If you need something to calm you down . . .”

“I’m all right,” Keely said, although her heart was crying,
No, no, I am not all right. My son, my baby, tried to take his own life. How can I ever be all right again?
She stood up and followed the resident, who opened the door and indicated that she should go inside.

Slowly, she walked in. Beside a black-screened monitor where multicolored fluorescent lines leaped and pulsed, Dylan lay on the bed, his eyes closed. There was an IV line in his arm, a tube up his nose that looked bloody around one nostril, and a tube emerging from the bandages around his throat. His bald head looked fuzzy and as fragile as an egg against the pillow. His complexion had a grayish hue. His mouth hung open, as if he were too exhausted to close it. She looked at the bandages, then looked away.

She bent over and kissed him on his cool, damp forehead. Then she lifted a chair and put it quietly beside him. Snaking her hand through the bars that formed a guardrail around the mattress, she reached up and took his chilly hand in hers. She rested her own forehead against the cold stainless steel of the bars and closed her eyes. First, she
thanked God for her son’s life. And then she silently addressed her sleeping boy.
Oh, Dylan,
she thought.
My poor baby. My darling son. How could it come to this?
She thought back over the last few days, wondering how she had not seen it coming. She imagined him tonight, alone in the house, filled with such despair that he was not willing to face another moment. How could it be? Her mind shut down at the idea.

In every way possible, she blamed herself. She had wanted to go out, so she had left him alone—after they’d argued so bitterly. And she’d known he was depressed. Worse than that, more frightening, was the fact that it had not occurred to her that he might try to harm himself. It was just like Richard all over again. She hadn’t seen the signs. She was so blind that she seemed to have no understanding of the people she loved. It had never crossed her mind. Not with either one of them.

Oh, I am a failure,
she thought.
I have failed you so completely. If only you had let me know. Or maybe you did, and I was so absorbed in my own problems that I didn’t notice.
Dylan shifted in the bed and his body jerked, as if the anxiety of her thoughts had penetrated to his slumbering consciousness.

Don’t,
she thought.
Don’t make it worse.
She lifted his limp hand to her lips and kissed it. “It’s going to be all right,” she whispered, even though she felt as if nothing would ever be all right again.

His subconscious was not fooled. He shifted uneasily on the bed again.

The door opened and a nurse came briskly in, not acknowledging Keely. She was a young woman with broad, high cheekbones, wearing a cheery, pink-flowered smock and pants and a nametag that read
LUZ
PERON, RN.
She glanced at the monitor, went to the IV and adjusted it, and checked his pulse against her wristwatch.

“How is he?” Keely asked humbly.

“He’ll be okay,” said the nurse. “We’re going to move him in a few minutes. Up to a regular room. You need to clear out of here.”

“Can I stay with him tonight?”

“You’ll have to ask the night nurse on his floor.”

Keely gazed at Dylan’s pale face. “I don’t want him to wake up all alone.”

The nurse’s face betrayed no feelings. “I don’t know about that.” Then she relented. “Sometimes they’ll put a cot in the room for you.”

Keely looked up at her helplessly.

“Why don’t you go home and get your stuff if you’re going to stay the night. He won’t wake up for a while yet.”

Keely hesitated, feeling incapable of making another decision. But it was necessary. She stood up and leaned over the bed, kissing him again on his cool forehead. “I’ll be right back, sweetheart,” she said fiercely, tears in her eyes. “I’ll stay right here with you tonight.”

“Go on, now,” said the nurse kindly. “I’ll mention the cot at the nurse’s station when we take him up.”

K
EELY OPENED THE DOOR
and walked into the dimly lit foyer of her house. Ingrid, who was staring at a magazine in the living room, dropped it as if it were hot and leaped to her feet. She hurried up to Keely, who was taking off her coat.

“How is he?” Ingrid asked.

Keely nodded and sighed. “He’s going to be okay,” she said squeezing the older woman’s outstretched hands. Keely took a deep breath. “He just missed cutting an artery,” she said, faltering at the last word.

“God in heaven,” Ingrid moaned, and she swayed slightly.

“Let’s sit down,” said Keely. The two women returned to the living room and sat facing each other from the chairs they had chosen.

Tears rolled down Ingrid’s cheeks, and she looked away.

“Are you all right?” Keely asked.

“Don’t worry about me,” Ingrid said impatiently.

“How’s Abby?”

“Sleeping like a lamb. She never woke up.”

“Good,” said Keely. They sat silently. When Keely looked up, there was a grimace of pain on Ingrid’s face. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“My stomach’s upset—all those painkillers I’ve been taking. I’ll be fine. When can I see him?”

“I’m not sure,” said Keely. “I’m going to go back. I have only a little bit of time before he wakes up. They’re going to let me sleep in his room. On a cot. I just came home to get a few things.” Then she looked apologetically at Ingrid. “Could you . . . would you mind spending the night?”

“I’ll stay,” said Ingrid.

“Thank you, Ingrid,” Keely whispered. She could hardly bear to look her former mother-in-law in the eye.
How she must hate me,
Keely thought.
First her son commits suicide, then her grandson attempts it. What a failure I must seem to her.

“I think it was my fault,” Ingrid said abruptly. “I should have apologized.”

“Your fault?” Keely cried. She could hardly believe her ears. She straightened up. “How could it be your fault? I knew he was depressed. I should have recognized the signs. After Richard—”

“Oh, don’t,” said Ingrid wearily.

Keely shook her head, overwhelmed, anew, by the magnitude of Dylan’s act. “I don’t know what I’m going to do now. I’ll be afraid to let him out of my sight. What if he tries again?”

“Don’t even say that,” said Ingrid. “Don’t think that way. Kids do reckless things. Teenage boys, especially. When Richard was a teenager, the sleepless nights I spent waiting up for him, the scares he put into us—oh, I can’t tell you. Boys are like that. They can’t get out of their own way. They’re . . . like something ready to explode. My husband used to say it was a wonder any of them survived the teenage years.”