My Life Next Door

I can’t quite hear Alice’s response, but I’m betting all the words have four letters.

“So, where are we going?” he asks, once we get into the car.

I wish I knew.

“McGuire Park,” I suggest.

Jase flinches. “Not full of happy memories right now, Sam.”

“I know,” I say, putting my hand on his knee. “But I want to be private. We can walk out to the lighthouse or something if you want. I just need to be alone with you.” Jase looks at my hand. I remove it.

“Let’s do McGuire then. The Secret Hideaway is a safe bet.” His voice is level, emotionless. He reverses the car, hitting the gas harder than he usually does, turning down Main Street.

It’s silent between us, the kind of awkward silence that never used to happen. The well-trained (Mom’s daughter) part of me wants to fill it with babble: So, lovely weather lately, I’m fine, thank you, and you?

Great! How about them Sox?

But I don’t. I just stare at my hands on my lap, stealing glances at his impassive profile from time to time.

He reaches out automatically to help me as we jump from stone to stone to the tilted rock in the river. The clasp of that warm strong hand is so familiar, so safe, that when he lets go as we reach the rock, my own feels incomplete.

“So…” he says, sitting down, wrapping his arms around his legs, and looking, not at me, but out at the water.

There may be proper words for this situation. A tactful way to lead up. A convincing explanation. But I don’t know them. All that comes out is the unvarnished, awful truth.

“It was my mother who hit your father. She was driving the car.” Jase’s head snaps around, eyes wide. I watch the color leach from his face under his tan. His lips part, but he doesn’t say anything.

“I was there. Asleep in the backseat. I didn’t see it. I wasn’t sure what had happened. For days. I didn’t realize.” I meet his eyes, waiting to see astonishment turn to scorn, scorn to contempt, telling myself I’ll survive. But he just keeps staring at me. I wonder if he’s gone into shock and I should repeat it. I remember him giving me a Hershey’s bar after that ride with Tim because Alice said chocolate was good for shock. I wish I had some. I wait for him to say something, anything, but he just looks as though I’ve punched him in the gut and he can’t breathe.

“Clay was there too,” I add uselessly. “He was the one who told her to drive away, not that it matters, because she did it, but—”

“Did they even stop?” Jase’s voice rises, harsh. “And make sure he was breathing? Tell him help was coming? Anything?”

I try to pull a full breath of air into my lungs, but can’t seem to manage. “They didn’t. Mom backed up and drove away. Clay called 911 from a pay phone nearby.”

“He was all alone there in the rain, Samantha.”

I nod, trying to swallow the barbed wire caught in my throat. “If I had known, if I’d realized,” I say, “I would have gotten out of the car. I would have. But I was asleep when it happened, they just backed away

—it happened so fast.”

He straightens up, turning to stare out at the water. Then says something in a voice so low, the river breeze carries the words away. I move next to him. I want to touch him, to bridge this gap like that, but he’s stiff and still, a force field around him, holding me back

“When did you know?” he asks, in that same low tone.

“I had a feeling when you talked about Shore Road, but—”

“That was the next day, ” Jase interrupts, loud now. “The next day when the surgeons were drilling holes in Dad’s skull and the police were still acting like they were going to figure this all out.” Shoving his hands in his pockets, he walks away from me, away from the flat part of the rock to the jagged side that slopes into the water.

I follow, touch his shoulder. “But I didn’t really know. Let myself know. Not until I heard Clay and Mom talking a week later.”

Jase doesn’t turn toward me, still looking out at the river. But he doesn’t jerk away either.

“That’s when you decided it was a good time to break up?” No emotion in his always expressive voice.

“That’s when I knew I couldn’t face you. And Clay had threatened to rescind all these contracts Mom’s campaign has with your dad’s store, and I…”

He swallows, absorbing this. Then his eyes flick to mine. “This is a lot. To take in.” I nod.

“I haven’t been able to get that picture out of my head. Dad lying there in the rain. He landed face-first, did you know that? The car bumped him and threw him through the air. Ten feet, probably. He was in a puddle when the EMTs got there. A few more minutes and he would have drowned.” Again, I want to just run. There’s nothing to say and no way to fix anything.

“He doesn’t remember anything about that,” Jase continues. “Only noticing it looked like rain and then fade to black until the hospital. But I keep thinking he must have realized at the time. That he was alone and hurt and there was nobody there who cared.” He wrenches his body toward mine. “You would have stayed with him?”

They say you never know what you’d do in a hypothetical situation. We’d all like to think we’d be one of the people who gave up their lifejackets and waved a stoic good-bye from the slanting deck of the Titanic, someone who jumped in front of a bullet for a stranger, or turned and raced back up the stairs of one of the Towers, in search of someone who needed help rather than our own security. But you just don’t know for sure if, when things fall apart, you’ll think Safety first or if safety will be the last thing on your mind.

I look into Jase’s eyes and tell the only truth I have. “I don’t know. I didn’t have that choice. But I know what’s happening now. And I’m choosing to stay with you.”

It’s not clear who reaches for whom. Doesn’t matter. I have Jase in my arms and mine hold him tight.

I’ve done so much crying that there are no tears. Jase’s shoulders shake but gradually still. No words for a long time.

Which is fine, because even the most important ones— I love you. I’m sorry. Forgive me? I’m here—

are only stand-ins for what you can say better without talking at all.

Chapter Forty-eight

The drive back to the Garretts’ is as silent as the drive to the park was, but a whole different kind of silence. Jase’s free hand intertwines in mine when he doesn’t need to shift gears, and I lean across the space between our seats to rest my head on his shoulder.

We’re pulling into the driveway next to the van when he asks, “What now, Sam?” Telling him was the hardest part. But not the end of the hard parts. Facing Alice. Mrs. Garrett. My mom.

“I only got as far as you.”

Jase nods, biting his bottom lip, shifting the clutch into park.

His jaw tightens and he looks down at his hands. “How do you want to do this? Are you going to come in with me?”

“I think I have to tell Mom. That you know. She’s going to be—” I scrub my hands over my face. “Well, I have no idea what she’s going to be. Or do. Clay either. But I’ve got to tell her.”

“Look, I’m go

I’ll have my cell. If anything happens, if you need me, call, okay?”

“Okay.” I begin climbing out of the car, but Jase catches hold of my hand, stopping me.

“I’m not sure what to think,” he says. “You knew this. From the start. I mean, how could you not have?” Kind of a crucial question.

“How could you not have realized that something terrible had happened?” Jase asks.

“I was asleep,” I answer. “Longer than I should have been.” I know Mom’s home when I get there because her navy blue sandals are outside the door, her Prada purse slung on the lowboy in the hallway, but she’s not in the kitchen or living room. So I head upstairs, to her suite, feeling this sense of trespassing, even though I’m in my own home.