His Other Wife (16 page)

So why take a case that might blemish his record now?

When Hilary Wynn had stepped into his office, when she had told him her husband had filed for divorce, Mulligan knew the moment
he looked into her face that her world had been overturned. But she didn’t rant or cry when she’d told him the details. She
sat in the chair across his desk with her hands folded and her chin raised. Her eyes, steel gray with determination, hadn’t
wavered from his. “I know you’re the best,” she’d said. “I don’t trust my husband and I don’t trust myself through this. Can
I trust you?”

“There are others you could trust, Mrs. Wynn.” But something about her reminded him of himself — the resolution in her eyes,
the way she’d asked for an appointment in person instead of relaying those first details over the phone. Until John saw Hilary,
he hadn’t realized how much of himself had been carved away by his dead wife’s absence.

Hearing Hilary’s story — ironically — brought back the physical symptoms of grief that he’d experienced after his own wife’s
death, the speechless immobility, the shaking knees. After that, each small triumph in Hilary’s case had felt like a conquest
for John, too. She’d given her case a boost by being present in it, bringing him new details in a measured voice that neither
condemned her husband nor released him from his responsibility.

During a lunch meeting she had leaned across the table and had told John how she admired the man she had married in spite
of what he’d done to her. After that, in one brief phone call, she’d suggested a formula for sorting out their financial differences,
something she’d come up with on her own, that John still used with other clients.

Yes, they would think he had done it because of Hilary.

Others would say he did it because he had a soft heart, because he understood the boy’s emotional upheaval. John knew what
sort of damage could be done when a father exited his son’s life.

But no matter how people speculated, they wouldn’t come up with the correct answer. Because John didn’t think anyone, not
even Hilary, had noticed what he’d seen when he’d visited with Seth the day the entire senior class had an arraignment hearing.
John had seen the bright surge of anger in Seth’s eyes.

John R. Mulligan, Esquire, knew how to analyze potential clients. No matter what had happened to one girl climbing a rock,
like the ice that coated limbs and power lines whenever bitter cold struck Chicago, John sensed the boy had been on the verge,
ready to shatter to pieces.

Who am I? I don’t know who I am
, the boy might as well have been shouting.
What have they done with Seth Wynn?
The truth be told, John Mulligan had accepted this case because he’d made a snap judgment, and he would stick by it.

Perhaps finding out what the boy wasn’t telling would be worth going down in defeat.

Pam’s body had always revolted with pregnancy. It wasn’t fair how some women could carry a child with as much ease as they
would attend a tea party while others, like Pam, felt overcome. She felt like she’d been attacked by a marauding intruder,
like carrying a child was an affliction instead of a normal occurrence. How could one tiny living thing in your uterus make
you sick enough to turn your stomach inside out? How could a normal biological function make you feel so tired and antisocial
that you wanted to turn your face to the wall?

Ben had made her run to the bathroom each morning for weeks, but she’d handled it, the same way she’d handled everything else
going on in the marriage that her father had approved. At that point it had been hard but fine. She’d hoped having a baby
would make things better between her and her then-husband; the nausea had been a relief, a sure signal of success.

It had been the onslaught of Lily that had altered Pam’s world, the first tinge of queasiness that she’d thought was the flu,
the morning she’d canceled a design appointment because she just didn’t have the energy to talk to anyone, the hours she’d
spent perched on the edge of the bed trying to make her stomach settle so she could do
anything
.

She’d waited a week to tell Eric, which she had known was too long, but she’d needed time to get used to the idea before she
could announce the news without a question in her eyes. She had no idea how he would react. She and Eric hadn’t talked about
this. She knew how to arrange rooms that pleased people, how to place paintings, rugs, and pillows to create focal points
and balance, how to entice someone’s eye with form, texture, and color. If only her life with Eric could have been arranged
with such ease! An affair could be an uncomfortable, messy thing. Even after such a wait, a ripple of terror had gone through
her as she sat across the table from him. His face had been unreadable. “We’ll get this figured out,” he’d said.

“I didn’t want this to be something we had to figure out,” she’d said. “I wanted this to be something we’d be excited about.”

“Will it be hard for you to take time off from working?” This whole conversation had been like a labor pain, squeezing them,
shooting them forward. Pam had shaken her head.
No.
It wouldn’t be hard. But it might not be easy.

“It
is
something to be excited about, Pam. Something I’ve wanted a long time.”

“But you have Seth.”

“It’s something I’ve wanted with
you
.”

E
mily had discovered a secret about graduating from high school. You walked around your senior year and everybody thought you
were the most important thing on earth. They envied you because you’d almost made it to the end. There was a whole big world
out there and you were about to walk to the end of the high-diving board and jump off into it.

But what people didn’t know was that no matter how boring high school could be, no matter how tired you got of seeing the
same people, there was something comfortable there that you missed when it was gone.

Gone. Finished.

Every end was also a new beginning.

That is, unless you died.

If anyone had told her she would be sorry that school had ended, she would have called that person certifiably crazy.

It was the routine she missed, mostly. Graduation always happened the third week of May. The other three classes stayed in
school until finals the first week of June. During May, the underclassmen looked at you like you were royalty. They skittered
away and gazed at you, starry-eyed, from afar. Emily would have given anything to rewind the clock to last week. She wanted
a do-over.

Today Emily had gone to say hi to her teachers. Three days after graduation and, instead of treating her like she belonged,
they treated her like a guest. The principal had even made her backtrack to the front office and sign in to get a
visitor’s
pass.

One blink, one breath. Like that, everything changes.

Emily’s hands were shaking as she parked her car beside the curb at Seth’s house. Walking up Seth’s front steps, she felt
like her feet were heavier than steel. She didn’t think Seth was her boyfriend anymore. He wouldn’t talk to her. He wasn’t
returning her texts or her calls. Emily had heard about girls who got broken up with via text message or Facebook. You’d think
Seth would at least talk to her long enough to break up with her!

Emily paused at the front door. She wanted to turn and walk away. Instead she took a deep breath and steeled herself. She
knocked on the door and waited. Knocking seemed so much less intrusive than ringing the doorbell.

It was too late now. Emily could hear Seth’s stepsister, Lily, shouting, “There’s somebody at the door! Somebody get it!”

No one must have heard her. Either that or they were all too busy thinking about their own problems. Everyone ignored the
little girl.

Emily knocked again. “Isn’t anybody going to
get
that?” Lily called.

Just as Emily was about to give up and go back to the car, the door started to open. “Lily, are you sure there’s someone out
here?” It was Seth’s mom. It took Seth’s mom a long moment of staring before she recognized her, which Emily thought was probably
a bad sign. “Emily? Sweetie? Oh, honey. It’s
you
.”

“I came to see Seth.” Her voice croaked. “Is he here?”

“He’s here.” Seth’s mom hesitated before she opened the door. “But I don’t know if he’ll talk to you.”

Emily stood her ground. It was too late to retreat now. “Maybe it isn’t fair. But do you think you could convince him? Would
you try?”

Seth’s mother threw open the door. “Of course I can try, Emily. Honey, I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you.” Emily stepped inside. “Thank you so much.”

“Em,” his mom said. “If he’ll talk to anybody, I know it will be you.”

Emily listened, her throat bone-dry, while his mom went down the hall and gave three light raps on Seth’s door. “Seth. There’s
someone here to see you. You have a guest.”

The mattress creaked, which meant he’d been stretched out on the bed staring at the ceiling. Seth’s mom nodded at Emily, as
if they were making progress. A creaking mattress meant that he was sitting up, maybe considering it. When Emily had called
the house, Seth’s mom had apologetically said the only people who’d been able to roust him out of his cave had been Lily and
Ben. “Who? Who’s here?”

“It’s Emily.”

A beat. Then, “I don’t want to see anybody.”

“Are you sure? She’s standing right here.”

“We have nothing to talk about.”

“She says she’s been texting you and you won’t answer.”

“Well,” Seth growled through the door. “Tell her to get an idea. When a boy stops calling a girl…you know what that means.
I have nothing to say.”

“Seth.” Hilary leaned her forehead against the door. “There’s been a lot of hurt already. Is that a reason to cause more?”

“It’s
every
reason.”

“Seth.” His mom’s voice was starting to sound a little frantic. “You know me. You know I respect your privacy. You know I
respect your opinions. I wouldn’t push you to do this. But I’m worried about you.”

A sound came from Seth’s room that sounded like something between a chair thumping sideways and a sigh of regret. “Tell her
to wait up. I’ll be out in a minute.”

By the time Seth emerged, Emily had been waiting a good fifteen minutes. From the direction of Seth’s bathroom, they heard
the Oral-B buzzing and the water rushing and the electric razor going where it had begun to look like no razor had gone before.
Even after all that extra grooming, when Seth emerged he still looked stricken.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” he said. “You came over.”

She let her bodily presence answer that one.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Before Seth could say anything else to push her away, Emily handed him a teddy bear. “Somebody bought this for Laura. The
waiting room at the hospital is full of them.”

“My mom said.”

Tears started to well in Emily’s eyes. “She’s getting so much stuff that they asked the Moores if they could give it away
to other people.”

Seth scrubbed his face with his T-shirt as if trying to wipe his face clear of any emotion.

“I thought you might like to have it instead.”

He was moved by the gesture, Emily could tell. He clamped the bear between two monstrous hands like he was clamping a football
before a pass.

“It isn’t much, but I — I wanted you to have something.”

He gripped the bear again, examining its face. “Emily. Why are you here?”

“I guess.” She shrugged and clapped her hands, trying to be casual. “I guess you could put it on your bed or something.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I started that not long ago. Putting animals on my bed. Been looking for another” — he surveyed the plush
toy without smiling —“bear to add to the pile.”

That little shrug again. “Thought you’d be the one to give it a good home.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” he said.

“Maybe I don’t know why I’m here,” she told him, the frustration curling in her voice. “I just thought it would be fair to,
you know,
talk
this
out
.”

As they stood talking, Lily bounced up and down on the sofa. She was so small that the toes of her Cinderella sneakers barely
touched the floor. He grabbed Emily’s arm roughly. “Come with me.”

When they got to his room, Emily lifted her eyes to Seth’s. The entire conversation was a façade, mindless words they were
murmuring while they avoided the huge, unspoken entity that stood between them. That Emily felt as guilty as Seth. Because
she was the one who had told Laura it would be okay. She was the one who had told Laura that if she did what Seth told her
to do, everything would be okay. And it hadn’t been.

“Seth, why won’t you talk to me?”

He lifted his chin in surprise. The way he kept fidgeting, the way he kept squeezing and gripping the bear in his hand, Emily
expected its head to pop off and stuffing to fly.

“Why didn’t you answer my text messages?”

Seth set the slightly misshapen bear on his bed and turned toward her. “There’s no way to make up for what I’ve done. She’s
your best friend.”

“Seth.”

“You don’t want to be with a loser like me.”

“Please,” she said quietly. “Don’t push me away.”

“What else am I supposed to do?” His voice was a high wire of tension. “You know I’m no good for you.”

“Look,” she said. “Break up with me because you’re tired of me. Break up because you want to date other girls now that summer’s
here. Break up because you don’t want to have a girlfriend anymore. But don’t give me the pity party about you not being good
enough.” She felt her face flaming with anger. “Don’t you sit in your room and think you’re the only one who’s hurting, Seth
Wynn, because you’re
not
.”

He looked like he’d been broadaxed.

“You give yourself way too much credit, don’t you think? Don’t you think you’re the only one responsible for what happened
to Laura, because you’re
not
. The whole senior class planned that party, not just
you
.”

“You seem to forget,” he said, his teeth clenched, his features a tangle of pain. “I’m the one who let your best friend fall
off a cliff.”

She wanted to hit him. “And I’m the one who told her to go with you!”

Seth stopped. He eyed his girlfriend, if that’s what she was anymore. Maybe he could see her point.

“Everybody’s pulling for you, Seth,” she said. “But you have to pull for yourself.”

He looked at her like she had grown three heads and six arms, a total alien.

“You don’t believe me?” she asked. “You don’t?”

“No.”

“Then look on the Internet.”

“What?”

“I
said
look on the Internet.”

“I know what’ll be on the Internet. There’ll be stories about Laura. There will be people saying I should be shot. There will
be people saying I should never have been let out of jail. That I’m a criminal. And I am.”

“Go to your Facebook page, silly. You may be able to shut yourself away from everybody who cares about you at your house,
but you can’t get them off of the computer.”

He stared at her like she was speaking a foreign language.

“Do it,” he said. And because they’d been dating almost a year, because she’d sat beside him at his desk for hours while they’d
researched a project on the human heart for Life Sciences class, she knew how to log on. She did it for him.

“Look,” she said. “Go ahead.”

Seth lowered himself into his chair and stared at the screen.

“Read,” she ordered him.

“I’m reading,” he said.

The sentiments were all there for him to see. Seth couldn’t believe it. Names. Times. Faces. Hearts.

“Keep your head up, Wynn,” Remy had written. “We’re all in this together.”

“I can’t even imagine what you’re going through, Seth. Stay strong, hon!” from one of Laura’s friends.

“You’re one solid kid. Keep the faith,” from Seth’s football coach.

The messages trailed all the way down two pages and onto another:

Seth read to the end of the messages. He stared at the screen.

“See? I told you.” From behind his chair, Emily wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held on. She felt him sag at last.
She felt his breath on the curve of her ear.