His Other Wife (23 page)

Mulligan had forewarned them about the meeting. It would be informal, held in the DA’s office, no imposing robes or judge’s
chambers, no packed courtroom, no rows of spectators to encourage Seth, no onlookers to hiss behind their hands that someone
had to be punished. It would be a conversation. The DA had the right to question Seth as long as he deemed necessary, but
Seth couldn’t be held in jail without the filing of formal charges.

If the DA decided he could make a manslaughter charge stick, another arraignment would be scheduled, bail would be considered
again, and, depending on what amount a judge decided, Eric and Hilary would know whether they had to hire a bail bondsman
or Eric would be able to post bail using stock certificates.

When Eric had picked them up, Hilary had left the house not knowing if Seth would be returning to his own room at the end
of the day. Or they might have to wait over a week to find out what might be decided. John Mulligan had prepared them for
anything.

Hilary had been so afraid and angry at Seth’s first hearing, she’d been ill. But this time her heart kept its pendulum balance
of determination and peace. She wasn’t alone. She was treasured, loved. Inside, she kept praying,
Father. Please. I know how close you are. I know you are there for Seth. Hold what will happen in this office in the palm
of your hand.

The elevator yawned open on the third floor, and when the three of them stepped out John Mulligan flanked them. “Good timing,”
the lawyer said. “He’ll be ready for us in about five minutes.” Mulligan offered his big club of a hand to Seth. “Wow. Anyone
ever told you that you clean up well?”

“Yeah,” Seth said. “My mom.”

Hilary nodded. She couldn’t help but be proud of the way Seth looked in his suit. He’d wet-combed his unruly hair until it
lay flat. The tie he wore, the one that had taken him three tries this morning to knot beneath his chin, had been a Christmas
gift from Alva. He’d worn it only once before, when he’d gone for his scholarship interview at Emhurst.

John was holding the door open to a small reception area, beckoning them to enter, when he looked hard at Hilary. “Hey,”
he said. “What gives?”

“What do you mean?” Hilary honestly had no idea what he was talking about.

“You.”

“What?”

“You seem different. Like something’s changed.”

“Maybe that’s due to the fact that I’ve actually been getting sleep these past few nights.”

“Maybe that’s it. But —” He surveyed her face. “You look so peaceful, Hilary. Beautiful. Calm.”

He flustered her, saying things like that. But honesty got the best of her. “Something
has
changed for me, John.”

That’s all Hilary got to say before the door swung open and a male assistant said, “Daniel Vignaroli will see you now.”

They all four stood rooted to the spot, not one of them wanting to be the first to step forward. “Hey,” Mulligan said to break
the ice. “After all this is over, how about we head around the corner for lunch? There’s a great little place I know of. Amazing
Irish stew.”

Seth walked in first and shook the attorney’s hand. “I’m here if you want to press charges. My lawyer and I thought this would
be the best thing to do. I want to take responsibility for my actions, Mr. Vignaroli.”

The first thing Hilary noticed about the office was that it looked like it belonged to someone who might actually be human.
A photo with a lineup of baseball players in throbbing red uniforms hung on the far wall. It was mixed in with the framed
Doctor of Law degrees, a membership in the Trial Lawyers Hall of Fame, a Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers, an Honorary Law
and Letters Decree from the American Academy of Achievement, and a picture of two blond-haired boys hugging a sleek hound
dog. “My grandsons,” Vignaroli said, following Hilary’s gaze. “The boys. Not the dog. I don’t lay any claim on that dog. He’s
no relation to me.”

“Good to see you, Daniel.” Mulligan shook his hand.

“Have a seat.” Vignaroli gestured toward a sofa along the wall. “Seth. You sit right here.” He indicated a chair beside his
desk. “Let’s talk about this.”

Daniel Vignaroli slid a pair of bifocals up his nose and thumbed through his notes. After he’d finished, he leaned forward
and braided his fingers together. The line of questioning he pursued with Seth was more than harmless conversation. Vignaroli
was pointedly gathering evidence that could be used against their son. “Tell me about this party,” he asked over steepled
fingers as Hilary shot a look of concern at their lawyer. “How long ago did everyone start making plans?”

“I didn’t make any plans at first,” Seth said. “The party gets inherited every year from the class before it.”

Mulligan gave a slight nod.
It’s okay
, his eyes seemed to say.
This is best, letting Seth talk it out. I have weighed the odds.

“So there wasn’t, say, a certain individual who came up with the plan?”

Seth shook his head.

The majority of criminal convictions, Mulligan had told Hilary over the phone, resulted from suspects who provided evidence
against themselves. The lawyer had said, “There is no worse enemy of the suspect than the suspect himself.”

“Then why are we letting him do this?” she’d asked.

“Because Seth has nothing to hide.”

For the good part of an hour, Vignaroli posed questions. In answer after answer, Seth summarized the incident. He talked about
the hours that had led up to the party. He recounted his conversation with Laura, outlined his relationship with most of the
people there. As the DA furiously scribbled notes on a yellow legal pad, his glasses slid down his nose and he shoved them
up again. He took them off once and polished them on his sleeve.

When the DA asked Seth why he had promised Laura that nothing would happen to her, Seth said, “I didn’t know she would look
down.” When Vignaroli asked Seth who else had watched the events unfold, Seth said, “Emily. My girlfriend. Laura’s best friend.
That’s all. Emily was down at the bottom, trying to keep her from being afraid. I didn’t think either of them should drive.
I was so sure I was doing the right thing.” When Vignaroli asked Seth what he’d said when Laura had been afraid, Seth had
to think a minute. He tried hard to remember. And Hilary thought how people could remember things different ways, how sometimes
facts could become fiction and fiction could become facts, and how people thought some stories could be true when they weren’t,
like Seth’s essay about the Grand Canyon.

“I reached for her. I told her to
move
.”

“You did?” Hilary asked.

Eric gripped Hilary’s hand.

“I told her she had to hurry. The rock was breaking. I told her to
move
.”

“You see why I wanted you to hear this for yourself, Daniel.” John rose halfway from the couch, a finger pointing toward the
last few words Vignaroli had jotted.

“Sit down, Mulligan.” The old, seasoned DA frowned on the interruption. “If I want to hear you speak about your client, it
will be because I’ve scheduled a hearing before the judge in the courtroom. Or it will be because I am calling you to ask
more questions. Right now, I’m listening to Seth. Do you understand?”

“He’s turning himself in, if that’s what you deem appropriate.”

“No more interruptions, Mulligan.”

John allowed his voice to fade out. But not before he’d squeezed in one last punch: “This boy never made a conscious choice
to hurt anyone.”

“Manslaughter isn’t always about conscious choices, Mulligan. I’m sure you’re aware of that.”

Vignaroli read over his notes one last time. He tilted his head so he could view them with his other eye, as if they might
look different to him then. Satisfied, he polished his glasses again and laid them carefully atop the pad where he’d been
writing.

“Well, considering all the circumstances, all I can say is this: There are several people in this occurrence who made grave
mistakes. You are one of them, Seth.”

“I know that, sir.”

“It seems this young lady, Laura, made several mistakes as well. One was to drink, which caused her to be impaired in her
decision-making as well as her ability to drive herself home. The second mistake she made was to climb a rock with you. The
third mistake she made was
not
to do as you said when she got into trouble. You offered her help. No matter how quickly it happened, she chose not to react
when you needed her to.”

“I see that, too,” Seth said.

“There will be news tomorrow,” Vignaroli said.

Mulligan asked, “You will make your decision tomorrow?”

“No,” Vignaroli said. “I’ve made my decision today. But the news will be out tomorrow in the
Sun-Times
. The story will say that the DA has found no just cause to proceed. It will say that there are no additional charges filed.”

“What do you mean?” Seth asked. “I don’t understand.”

The DA lifted his brows just high enough so that he could peer at the boy over the top rims of his glasses. “It means, young
man, that I hope you can salvage what’s left of your summer. It means that you are free to go.”

P
am couldn’t help being exhausted. Even though she hadn’t gone with Eric to the DA meeting, she’d spent hours downtown in a
city she didn’t know very well trying to keep the kids occupied. The outcome had been better than expected, but the emotional
toll of the day had been punishing. Everyone needed a break. She and Eric had decided to entertain themselves at the hotel
tonight.

Ben and Lily had been swimming in the hotel before supper. They’d made friends with other kids and played about a hundred
rounds of Marco Polo before Pam called them out of the water. Lily looked like she was about to fall asleep standing up as
Pam dried her off with a towel. Pam held her daughter just a little longer than it took to pat her dry. Ben’s eyes were so
red from the chlorine, Pam felt ashamed she’d forgotten to pack his goggles.

As Pam rinsed out their bathing suits in the sink, she felt like she was the one being squeezed and twisted. She wrung out
the suits and hung them to dry on the retractable clothesline over the tub.

The kids were hungry from swimming, although Pam knew if she tried to eat anything, it would taste like sand.

“How about the room service menu?” Eric asked. “Did you look at that?”

Pam shook her head. “Order whatever you think. I don’t care.”

“We could just get the kids some fries.”

“That’s fine, Eric. Whatever.”

The argument between Pam and Eric started simply enough. While they’d been waiting for the French fries, Pam had wandered
down to the front desk to see if the hotel had any games or videos that would keep the kids occupied until they were ready
for bed. The concierge had dug out a shredded Monopoly box that looked like it had been stacked beneath a row of books for
at least a quarter century.

“You brought Monopoly!” Ben said when Pam carried the box into the room.

“Does this look like a good idea?”

Lily eyed the box dubiously. “I thought I was too little to play that game.”

“You and I can be partners,” Pam told her.

It took them fifteen minutes to organize the money and elect Eric banker. After they unfolded the game board, Lily found the
houses and hotels and became immediately obsessed. She set out building a large town on the patterned bedspread.

“I’m taking the car,” Ben announced as he dug the little steel sportster out of the box.

“Something tells me that’s not going to be the last time we hear him say that,” Pam said, laughing.

But Eric didn’t catch the humor. He was examining Ben’s eyes. “Ben? Gosh, your eyes are red. Do they hurt?” Then, to Pam,
“Maybe you shouldn’t have let him stay in the pool so long.”

“His goggles,” Pam said. “I forgot to put them in the suitcase.” It had been an aside for Eric, a quick comment when he’d
noticed the boy’s bloodshot eyeballs. But Pam couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d been judged in some way. She was tired,
she told herself. Shake it off. It had been a long day. But some of the fun had gone out of the game as Eric let Lily roll
the dice.

It wasn’t long before Ben had managed to wheedle his way into three of the four railroads and the matching set of Mediterranean
and Baltic avenues. He began to peel off hundred-dollar bills, improving his properties house by house. Lily, who had been
drifting off to sleep in Eric’s lap, sprang awake to protect the town she’d built on the bed. “It’s just
two
, Lily,” Ben tried to explain. “It’s how you play Monopoly. I’m moving them from your town to my town. The same way Eric did
when he married Mom.”

The most horrifying thing of all, Lily understood the analogy. Very seriously, she selected two plastic houses, not two sitting
beside each other but one from one side of her arrangement, one from the other, and handed them to her brother.

Pam landed on Baltic Avenue the next time she passed “go.” Ben proudly read aloud the rental charge as Pam clucked at her
son, pretending to be annoyed at the fee. Eric bought St. James Place and let Lily hold the card. Pam landed on Water Works.
“You want to buy it, Mom?” Ben asked. “If you don’t, I do.”

When Eric made the fateful comment, he’d thrown a 10 and was already headed toward jail. “It’s good we’ll be headed home in
a couple of days.”

“I know,” Pam said. “It’s been tough. I’m ready to have our lives back to ourselves.”

Eric could have said
anything
here.
Anything
. He could have said,
I know it’ll feel great to get to your office, Pam
. He could have said,
I want you to take care of yourself. I’m glad you’ll be able to keep your checkups with your OB-GYN
. He could have said something,
anything
, to give his wife the idea that he was out to protect her. But, instead, Eric said, “You being here this long has been too
hard on Hilary.”

Pam’s eyes darkened. “What did you say?”

Eric paused with the metal shoe in his hand. Regret briefly flickered across his features. Too late, he’d realized what he’d
started.

“Why does it always have to be about Hilary, Eric? I don’t understand.”

Ben found something interesting in the corner of his thumbnail. Lily climbed down from her dad’s lap and huddled next to Ben.
She started to count her brother’s five-hundred-dollar bills with one hand while she sucked on a knuckle.

“Pam,” Eric said. “Not now. Not here.”

“Why
not
here?” Pam asked. “You started it here. Why can’t we finish it here?”

Without speaking, Eric looked pointedly at the two children.

“Outside then,” Pam said, defying him. “You want to have this friendly family discussion out in the hall?”

Eric took Pam’s shoulder and propelled her out the door. “We’ll be back,” he said over his shoulder.

They squared off in the hallway with industrial carpet that looked like it had been designed by someone color-blind and a
row of doors that seemed to stretch into oblivion. Two doors down, a
DO NOT DISTURB
card had been propped inside the lock.

“I meant what I said, Eric.” Pam crossed her arms. “Why does it always have to be about
her
?”

“Why does it make you so angry when I talk about her? Why can’t you understand that she’s a part of my life, that she always
will be because of Seth?”

“I’m trying, Eric. Can’t you see that? I’m here because I’m supporting you. But it’s not my fault that it isn’t the best time
hanging out with your ex-wife.”

“It’s your fault that you just keep harping on her about Seth going to that party. You have to stop. I just want a little
unity
.”

“So it’s
you
we have to please!” Pam lifted her chin. “And
harping
? Did you really use that word?”

Eric propped an elbow against the wall, leaning against it resolutely. “Look, Hilary’s the one who’s being hurt here. I don’t
like to see her this run-down by all this with Seth. It’s my duty to support —”

“You don’t make it look like that, Eric. You don’t make it look like
duty
. You make it look like you care about her more than me.”

“That’s just
you
, Pam. It’s how your dad pushed you when you were a girl. It doesn’t always have to be about who gets top prize.”

“You should have seen Lily with her at the doll place the other day. Even
Lily
likes her better than me.”

“You can’t be serious to think that. Lily was being kind. You’re Lily’s
mother
.”

“Do you know what it’s been like being married to you? Ever since the beginning? From the minute we first met each other,
you started telling me about Hilary.”

“I don’t do that.”

“ ‘Hilary would do it this way.’ You say it all the time; are you aware of that, Eric? ‘Hilary doesn’t grill chicken like
that.’ Or, ‘Hilary always helped Seth do his homework right after he got home from school.’ ”

“Not true.”

“You take every occasion to make sure
I
think it’s true.”

“Is that what all this is about? I’m a guy, Pam. Sometimes I say insensitive things. You want me to measure every word that
comes out of my mouth?”

“You could try.”

“I’m trying to balance two lives.”

“Oh?” Her fists knotted at her sides. “So that makes you a hero?”

The door with the
DO NOT DISTURB
sign opened a crack. A muffled voice asked, “Do you mind? Everyone can hear you.”

Inside the adjoining rooms, it took forever to get all the money and the game pieces stuffed back into the box. Ben sorted
everything by color and stacked the bills into their proper compartments, pretending he couldn’t hear. Lily lined the tiny
hotels in a row on the floor. She kept at that as long as her parents’ dull voices volleyed outside the door. Until she told
her brother that the town she was building was a stupid town, that she didn’t like it anymore, and she swept the pile of buildings
away with her hand.

Laura Moore’s funeral was as pretty and bittersweet as a summertime funeral can be. Thirty minutes before the service, the
church that the Moores had selected had already filled. Since then, people had started parking on the grass. A guest book
was open on a table outside the heavy double doors. Lines of solemn attendees waited to sign.

It seemed the order of the day not to speak. Church visitors recognized one another, met one another’s eyes grimly, and nodded.
A few whispered and hugged; others saved seats or milled around the foyer. Most had already saved a pew in the overflowing
sanctuary. The sound system played a quiet worship song. Pictures of Laura when she was a little girl, some the very same
shots that the boys had used in the senior video, faded in and out on an overhead screen. Members of the senior class each
carried a yellow daisy, tied with a blue ribbon.

It had been Emily who’d convinced Seth he needed to be there, Emily who had been with Seth since early morning, repeating
the same words that encouraged him when they appeared on the Web site this week: “Keep your head up. We’re in this together.
Stay strong.”

Emily said, “We both have to let her go, Seth. We have to tell her good-bye.”

“I can’t,” he said, his voice tortured.

“You don’t have any choice.” Tears leaked from Emily’s eyes. “Neither of us do.”

“You know, Em,” Seth said with the voice of someone who’d finally lost patience with a young, pesky child. “I wish you’d stop
telling me what you think I should do. I already have a perfectly good mother.”

“Seth.” The tears started rolling down Emily’s face. “I have these dreams, you know? Sometimes they’re daydreams and sometimes
I’m asleep. I see Laura standing in front of me with those leaves in her hair.”

“It’s okay,” he said, fishing in his pocket for a tissue. He’d jammed a whole wad in there when he’d gone into the bathroom.
“You go ahead and cry.”

“She looks at me with this smile on her face. Like we never went camping that night, like she never fell. But still, there
are all those
leaves
in her hair. She’s just standing there.”

“How do you feel when you wake up?”

“I don’t know. Not scared really. Just…breathless. Because I wake up thinking she’s here. And then I remember she isn’t. It’s
like she’s playing a joke on me.”

Seth knew what he had to say next. “Em. I was such a jerk. I had to go away from everybody. And that meant going away from
you, too. I had to figure out on my own how to come to terms with it.”

She sniffed and blew her nose. For a long time, she stared at the shredded tissue as she folded and unfolded it in her hand.

“Sometimes I think you were lucky because you got to go back to the courthouse. Because they had to talk about what happened
and if they were going to charge you. And then they didn’t.”

“Maybe you’re right,” he said.

“Do you think about that sometimes? Now, when you try to blame yourself, do you realize that they didn’t?”

“Yeah,” he told her. “I guess I do.”

“Well,” Emily said. “I didn’t have that.”

He gripped her shoulders. “Em.”

“You know that when I tell you what to do, when I tell you to grieve, when I tell you not to worry, that you have to do things,
it’s because it’s easier to tell you, Seth. It’s easier to tell you than it is to tell myself.”