When He Fell (27 page)

“Fine,” I manage, for my son’s sake. “We’re all fine.”

Josh relaxes against the sofa. I feel so tense I could snap in two. Lewis opens his beer.

I navigate the evening like a mountaineer on an arduous trek, trying not to show how out of breath I truly am. Making chitchat over dinner feels like a Herculean effort. My laugh is brittle, but at least I am laughing. I am trying to make this normal, because I can’t break down while Josh is here. I can’t do that to him, not when he’s been so worried. About
me.

By the time Josh goes to bed I am exhausted. I tuck him in, pulling the duvet tight over his thin body. Has he lost weight in the last two months? He seems smaller somehow, diminished. Perhaps we all are.

He lets me kiss his forehead, which feels like an act of grace. I look down at him, memorizing his features. The freckle by his chin. His incredibly long eyelashes. The way his lips purse when he’s thinking.

He looks up at me, his eyes big and dark. “Is it going to be okay?” he asks and I smile.

“Yes, Josh,” I promise him, my voice throbbing. “Everything is going to be okay.”

Lewis turns to me as soon as I come into our bedroom, my body sagging with weariness. “What’s going on?” he asks.

“I was just going to ask you the same thing,” I reply. I’m too tired to feel angry right now. I just feel broken.

“What do you mean?” He is sitting on the edge of the bed, his hands gripping the mattress. For a few seconds I let my mind rove over the good memories we’ve built up over the last fifteen years: A month after we’d started dating, when I was sick with the flu and Lewis came around with tissues and cold medicine and fashion magazines. I was still in the phase of wanting him only to see me when I was at my best, as styled and primped as I was able to be, and he saw me lying in bed with a runny nose and reddened eyes and he didn’t care. Our honeymoon, when we snorkeled in the aquamarine waters off Aruba, holding hands as we gazed down at rainbow-colored fish. When Josh was born, and Lewis held him, kissed me, and cried all at once.

I love this man. I love him even now, when I’m almost certain he’s betrayed me. I think he’s loved me too, even if he doesn’t now—a thought that has the power to level me.

“Joanna?” Lewis prompts. “Tell me what’s going on.”

Carefully I close the bedroom door. “I spoke to Josh today,” I say. My heart is pounding and yet my voice is flat. “He told me that he pushed Ben because of you—and Maddie.”

Lewis stares at me, looking nonplussed. Blank. The silence stretches on. Finally: “Jo, there’s nothing between me and Maddie.”

“Nothing?” I fold my arms, caught between impossible hope and deadening despair. “Josh doesn’t think that, Lewis.”

“What did Josh say?”

“Nothing more than what I told you.”

“Tell me exactly,” Lewis presses. “What
exactly
did he say about me and Maddie?”

I stare and burn, because Josh didn’t actually say anything. But I know. I
know.
“I asked him,” I finally admit. “And he—he started to cry.”

Lewis stares at me for a long, hard moment before he rises from the bed and swings away from me. “Damn it, Jo,” he says and I jerk back.

“What—”

“You were fishing for information,” Lewis says, turning around to face me, clearly furious. “From
Josh.
”

“I was not fishing,” I snap. “I was trying to figure out what Josh is hiding from us. I was trying to help him, Lewis, because something is eating him up and now I think I know what it is.”

“Oh you do, do you?”

I shake my head. “Don’t turn this around and make it my fault.”

“Why the hell did you ask him? What did you say? ‘Josh, is something happening between Dad and Maddie?’” He mimics me, his voice a savage falsetto.

“I asked him if you and Maddie had something to do with why he pushed Ben.”

“Damn it, Jo, you are so paranoid!” His voice rises in an unexpected yell.

“But it’s true!” I exclaim, my voice rising to match his, an unpleasant shriek. “It’s
true.
”

“You have no idea what’s true.”

“Then why don’t you tell me?” I demand, my voice raw, ragged. “Lewis, please. Be honest with me. Because there is something. I know there is something. ”

Slowly Lewis sinks onto the bed. His head is bowed. “You know, you’ve never believed I can feel as much as you,” he says, which leaves me reeling.
What…?
“Whether it’s pain or grief or love. You never thought I could feel the same.”

“What are you talking about?”

He looks up, his face haggard. “I fell in love with you because you were so honest. So transparent. I could tell from the moment we met that you liked me, and I liked that. I needed it. My mother always lied to me, about my dad, about her boyfriends, about the drinking and drugs. I wanted to be with someone who couldn’t lie to me, who I could be sure of. Sure of how she felt. Sure of how much she felt. ”

“I’ve never lied to you.” I don’t know why we’re talking about me.

“No, you never have,” Lewis agrees. “But I didn’t realize then that your feelings, your honest, transparent feelings, would always trump mine. That you’d never believe I could love you as much as you love me. That you refused to accept I grieved our daughter as much as you did.”

“You didn’t act like you were grieving,” I protest in a whisper. “But this isn’t about Josie, Lewis—”

“It’s all part of it, Jo. For our whole marriage you’ve been paranoid that I don’t love you as much as you love me. That I’ll leave you—”

“And you did leave me! How can I not be afraid, when you did it once already?”

He shakes his head wearily. “I left you because you were killing me. But you’ve never been able to see that.”

“Killing you—”

“Yes, damn it,
killing
me,” he practically roars. “Because I love you, even if you always doubt me. I love you, and you hurt me, even if you could never see it. I know I handled it wrong with the baby, afterward. I
know
. But you wouldn’t let me make it better. You wouldn’t let me try. Is it any wonder I kept this from you now? You’d make me pay for a single mistake for the rest of our lives.”

“This?” I repeat coldly. “What is ‘this’, Lewis?” He stares at me, furious, but I also see guilt in his eyes, in the downturn of his mouth. “Have you made a
mistake
with Maddie?”

Lewis lets out a shuddering sigh. “There was never anything between me and Maddie, Jo. We were—are—friends. We hung out together because of the boys.” He hesitates, and I brace myself because of course there is more. “And once,
once,
we kissed.”

For a moment I can’t answer; I feel like I’m gasping for air, my mouth open and closing. “You kissed,” I finally say. I can’t believe how much it hurts.

Lewis nods. “Once. By accident.” Just like Ben’s fall was an accident?

“How do you kiss by
accident?
”

“We were saying goodbye and she meant to kiss my cheek and I turned my head. An accident.” He turns to look at me. “I didn’t think either of the boys saw, but maybe they did.”

“And you don’t think this might relate to Josh pushing Ben?” My voice quavers. “You don’t think this might be
relevant?
”

“I didn’t think they saw!” Lewis voice rises to a near-roar, and I can hear the anguish in it, the guilt, the blame. “And even if they did, I didn’t think…I didn’t think it mattered. It wasn’t going to happen again. It wasn’t anything…”

But it was. Of course it was. No matter what Lewis says, you don’t kiss someone by accident. It wasn’t a mere bumping of lips. “But you care about her,” I say slowly, a statement of fact. “And she’s in love with you.”

“Maddie is confused,” Lewis admits wearily. “About a lot of things.”

But he doesn’t deny that he cares about her. I turn away and start to get undressed for bed.

“Jo,” Lewis says. “I’m sorry. I really am—”

“It’s a little late for that,” I mutter, but I can’t keep up the anger. I’m too tired, too heartsick, and I don’t want to talk about Maddie any more. I don’t want to think about what drew Lewis to Maddie, away from me. “Let’s go to bed,” I say. “We can talk about this in the morning.”

Wordlessly we undress, change, brush teeth, and slip beneath the covers. We lie there for a moment, still and separate, and then Lewis puts a hand on my shoulder.

“Jo,” he whispers. “I love you.”

I feel tears start in my eyes, trickle down into my hair. I don’t know whether to believe him, and I hate that. He pulls me toward me and I don’t resist. Even now I crave his touch, the comfort it gives me.

He kisses me, the brush of his lips like a question. I cling to him as I kiss him back. Right now I need my husband, and maybe, just maybe, he needs me too.

But afterward, lying there alone, the terror comes rushing back. Nothing feels safe.

The next morning I take the train to Danbury before Josh has even left for school. My mind is a blank; I’m too numb and exhausted to think about everything that has happened, to evaluate it. And so I lean my head against the window and doze.

When I arrive at my parents’ condo, my mother is fretful and agitated because she can’t find her reading glasses, and my father clearly is annoyed.

“You’re late,” he snaps and I stare at him.

Does he not have any idea how hard it is for me to get out to Danbury for nine o’clock in the morning? Not to mention my own career, my family, my life? Not once has he asked me how Josh is, or about what I told him about Ben’s fall.

“I got here as soon as I could,” I return shortly, and I hand my mother her glasses; she’d left them in plain sight on the kitchen counter.

Two hours later my father has had his eye examination and is now declared officially unfit to drive. His face is grim even though it’s nothing more than we all knew.

“Is there any way to improve…” I begin hesitantly, after he’s left the doctor’s office, and he shakes his head hard.

“Macular degeneration,” he says shortly. “There’s nothing you can do.”

It is time, I know, to talk about a nursing home. I wait until we’re back at their house, unwrapping sandwiches I picked up at the nearby deli.

“Mom and Dad,” I say, and my voice is firm, final. My mother looks up absently and my dad starts to glower. He knows what’s coming. “I think it’s time we considered you moving from here, to a place that offers more care.”

“What?” My mother looks baffled, as if this idea is utterly preposterous. “What are you talking about, Joanna?”

“This condo is getting to be too much for you, Mom. And Dad, too.” I turn to him and he’s glaring at me, the message clear in his eyes:
shut up.
I don’t. “I can’t keep coming out here to help you out. I wish I could, but I can’t.” Actually I don’t even wish I could. And I refuse to let them guilt me into it.

“We can manage,” my father says. “If you came out once a week.” He speaks as if this is a reasonable request, and maybe it would be if we had a reasonable, normal relationship. But we don’t, and we never have. I’ve always felt like a burden to them. Now they feel like a burden to me. I’m sad that this is true, but I am finally strong enough or maybe simply too battered to keep trying to please them. It’s never worked.

“I’m sorry, Dad, but that’s not possible.”

“Once a week, Joanna!” he exclaims. “That’s not asking for very much.”

“No, Dad, I can’t. And in any case, what about if there’s an emergency?”

“We call 911. Besides, I’m a doctor.”

An eighty-four-year-old nearly-blind doctor who has been retired for fifteen years.

“Dad, be reasonable—”

“I am.”

I shake my head. “No. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not going into some nursing home,” my dad says, and I feel a stab of pity. But I cannot manage them along with my own family. I cannot.

“Nursing home?” My mother’s voice rises fretfully. “Why are we talking about a nursing home?”

By the time I get on the train home my head is pounding. My phone buzzes and I see that it is Lewis.

“Lewis—”

“Jo?” He sounds tense, anxious, and so I become so too.

“Lewis, what’s up—”

“Are you getting back in time to pick Josh up from school?”

I glance at my watch; it’s just before two. “Yes—”

“Don’t.”

“What?” The words don’t compute. “What do you mean?”

Lewis releases an agitated rush of breath. “Somehow the press has got hold of the story.”

“What story—”

“About Ben and Josh. The lawsuit. There are reporters crawling all over Burgdorf.”

“
What?
” Everything in me contracts with appalled horror. “Why? How? I mean, it’s not a news story—”

“Apparently it is. Someone posted a rant against Burgdorf online and it’s gone viral. They’re outside the school, waiting for you to come get Josh.”

“They know—”

“Your name was mentioned in the original post.”

“And Josh…”

“No, they didn’t mention any children’s names.”

“I don’t understand why it’s a news story—”

“Does it matter? It is. I have no idea how they found out about the lawsuit. I don’t think Maddie told anyone but me.”

The casual reference to Maddie after everything we argued about last night needles me, and resolutely I push it aside. “I don’t know…” I begin, and then fall silent. Because suddenly I’m afraid I do know. I knew about the lawsuit, and I told Jane when we were having coffee. And Jane seems exactly the kind of person who would rant online. This is my fault.

“Jo?” Lewis cuts across my spinning thoughts impatiently. “I’ve called the school and they’re going to keep Josh in the afterschool club. Wait a bit and then you can go around to the side entrance on Sixth Avenue. Okay?”

I’m barely taking in what he is saying. “Okay…”

“I don’t want them to get any pictures.”

“They can’t take photographs of a child—”

“They can take photos of you. They can even blur his face. I don’t want any of us in the media.”

I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe things have gotten worse. “Okay,” I whisper.

“Take a cab home. I don’t want anyone figuring out where we live.”

“Okay.”