The Whole Golden World (26 page)

Dinah clutched her chest at the thought of TJ Hill as a son-in-law.

“I'd better get back out there,” Dinah said, though the idea of staying in the cool, dark storeroom the whole rest of the day (month, year) was appealing. “Maybe I should take you home.”

Morgan sighed roughly. “Back to my cell?”

“It's not like that. I'm trying to protect you.”

“A little late, isn't it?”

“I mean from the aftermath. You saw what was on the computer today. You heard about your locker. Do you really want to walk through the halls in the midst of that?”

“Maybe it's worse because I'm hiding, ever thought of that? Maybe if I went to school with my head held high, they'd all get over it.”

“Oh, honey . . .”

“Really. Yeah, for the first few days it would be like, all shocking and stuff, but then I bet they'd move on to the next thing. I think my not being there is making it worse. Plus I'm bored to death. You keep saying how I'm the innocent one. So why am I on lockdown?”

Dinah bit her lip, swallowing hard. The next words she said could make or break it. Morgan's face was hard to read in the dim light. “You are the innocent in the scenario between you and the teacher. Absolutely. You are not innocent in the lies you told to see him.”

“I thought he manipulated me and abused me, therefore I can't be held responsible.”

Dinah retorted, “I thought you were a mature woman and fully in control of all your actions.”

Morgan jumped up. “I'll get my backpack and meet you at the car. I don't know why I bothered trying to talk to you.”

Dinah jumped up, too, and blocked her path to the door, trying to catch her eye in the gloom. “Maybe we should see a family counselor . . .”

“No. And I will never speak to you again if you even try.”

“Why would that be so awful?”

“Because if you drag me there, it's because you think I'm twisted and disturbed and I'm not. End of discussion.”

“Morgan . . .”

Her daughter ignored her, charging away through the Den and up the stairs. As she heard Morgan's footfalls grow distant and more faint, Dinah felt her daughter slipping away like sand through her fingers. Morgan's eighteenth birthday and legal adulthood loomed like a day of reckoning in sunny July.

37

I
n Morgan's new favorite fantasy, he would scale the rose trellis and drainpipe under her window, knock on the pane, and spirit her away to California.

There they could dye their hair and change their names. They'd live in some run-down but romantic old house, picking up odd jobs and coming together at night as a couple, unencumbered by the world's stupid rules. Morgan would study when not working, saving money for college. They would take long walks on the beach and make love every night without sneaking around.

Her other, more grounded version, was that he would be found not guilty because what evidence they have was stupid and circumstantial. He and his wife would then get a divorce, and then he would take Morgan far away, to California, where no one has ever heard of them and no one cares how old they are. They get married on the beach and live out their days as a living example of the exception to the rule. Her mother writes every week to beg forgiveness for misjudging them. Fantasy Morgan—depending on her mood—graciously consents for her mother to come visit, where Dinah apologizes through hysterical, hiccupy tears, and Fantasy Morgan announces she is having a baby and allows her mother to feel her grandchild kick.

Or sometimes she just throws the imaginary letters into the imaginary roaring fire.

Yet, in reality, she was still in her tiny, doorless room, furtively scribbling poems and hiding the notebook under her homework.

 

Died and no one noticed

Because I was still smiling

 

All the while, she had to wonder why he hadn't tried to get in touch with her. Not even a message through some kind of intermediary.

True, that could get him in big trouble. But “big trouble” was always possible, and it didn't stop him before.

She rolled onto her back, staring at the thin crack in her ceiling for so long it almost seemed to move, slowly, like waving seaweed. She blinked several times and it was normal again. She thought of that story they'd read in AP English the beginning of this year about the lady going crazy looking at her yellow wallpaper.

She pondered what she'd said to her mother that morning. Did she really want to go back into the high school? At the time she thought she meant it, but alone with her own self and the moving ceiling crack and her own memories, she had to admit she was afraid to go back.

But to stay in her room another day was agonizing.

She texted Britney.

If I came back to school would you sit with me at lunch? Or are you too grossed out?

She put the phone on her chest and hated how much hung in the balance of her reply. Kind of like with him: how much she pinned her hopes on whether he could sneak a text to her.

Obsessed, her mother had said. Morgan remembered when Britney became all head-over-heels about this kid at another school she'd met while visiting her dad. When the guy hadn't called her, Britney was a bitch-machine. When he had, she was all gooey and sugary. Morgan had said all the supportive things a friend was supposed to say, but secretly she'd been disgusted.

Morgan sat up, her head swimmy with the sudden verticality. No. This was different.
He
was different. This was no idle high school crush. It couldn't be, because why would he—why would the two of them—have risked so much otherwise?

She didn't ruin her life for a crush. No way.

Her phone buzzed.

Of course. You're my friend and I'll stick by you. I'm sorry I haven't been in touch before. I didn't know what to say.

Relief gusted through her. She replied:

I know. It's really weird. I'm coming back to school, just decided.

Britney said,

Good, see you Monday.

Want to come over this weekend?

Sorry, can't, I have plans already. See you Monday, though.

Morgan frowned at her phone. Plans the whole entire weekend? Every hour?

She shook it off with her favorite phrase lately: “Whatever.”

She cocked her ear to listen for approaching feet. Satisfied all was quiet, she reached for her poetry notebook.

 

Polished

Steel

A sphere

Cool and hard

Whatever you throw

Glances off, tangential and gone

 

Morgan found her mother at the kitchen table, papers and spreadsheets in front of her, her forehead in her hand.

“Mom?”

“Oh, hi, hon.”

Her mother swept away all the papers and gave Morgan her full attention. Morgan bit her lip to keep from laughing. How often before all this had she approached her mother, up to her ears in Den paperwork, only to get half her attention? She'd listen to whatever Morgan was saying, going “MMMm hmmm” while carrying on looking at her papers.

Her grandmother used to use an expression that had something to do with closing the barn door after the cows got out.

“I'm going back to school.”

“Mo . . .”

“Don't call me that right now. You're addressing the senior in high school, who is not sick, and not suspended or in trouble, and doesn't need to be sitting at home. Maybe it's more convenient for Dad, not having to deal with me in the building, seeing as I'm all notorious now. You know what? I don't care. I didn't do anything wrong, and I deserve to finish out my senior year like normal. Graduation, prom, everything. Yes, Mother, I said prom. I don't have leprosy, you know. I can still go.”

“I thought you were in love.”

“I can go with my girlfriends. Lots of girls do that. It's, like, so 1950 to only go to prom if you have a date. I can still put on a pretty dress and go dance.”

“I'll talk to your father about it tonight.”

“Well, if you must, go ahead, but I'm going. If I have to hitchhike or walk or ride the school bus, I'm going to school.”

Her mother sighed so deeply Morgan was surprised she didn't pass out from the exhalation. “Fine. But I'm driving you and taking you home. You are not taking the car.”

Morgan felt a coil of tightness snake through her chest. “Why?”

“As long as we're being blunt here, we're afraid you're going to run away. You have made no secret of the fact that you consider yourself an adult in everything but legal age. You also had no trouble lying and sneaking around these last months. You want to subject yourself to school right now, that's your choice, but I want to know for sure that school is where you actually go.”

“You think I'm going to sneak away to see him?”

“I think very little is impossible these days. What? I'm agreeing you should go to school. That's what you wanted, right? How you get there shouldn't matter.”

“You're still treating me like a criminal.”

“I'm protecting you, as long as I possibly can.”

“A little late for that.”

“So you've said. But I don't give up on my children. Ever.”

For this last point, Dinah pointed a sharpened pencil at her daughter.

Morgan growled and stomped away to her room. She threw herself on her bed and tried to conjure up his face. It was getting harder to do as it had been weeks since she'd seen him, and she found it alarming how fast the specifics of him were fading. In a normal relationship, she could at least look at pictures. But they'd never taken any pictures together.

As she jumped up to search for her most recent yearbook to at least look at his school picture in the faculty pages, her mind looped itself back to the worn groove of the thought that occupied more and more of her mind: Had he given her up so easily?

38

A
freakishly warm March faded into a stormy April, as Rain bought a maternity wardrobe alone, in a town far down the highway. For a few hours that day, Rain soaked in the manufactured joy of the employees who'd been trained to revel in each customer's pregnancy. The salesgirls had asked her if she were having a boy or girl and she said she didn't know. They squealed at the delight of an old-fashioned surprise. In fact, she'd declined to find out because she wanted out of the ultrasound room as fast as possible, the bleak reality of their situation contrasting with the blissful daydream she'd conjured for so long.

Most of that shopping trip, though, she could put aside her husband's impending trial, the fact that Gran was missing yet another milestone, the fact that she found her mother's presence unbearable, not to mention her sister's, who had appointed herself Mothering Expert and decided Rain was a drooling imbecile on the subject of infants. In that anonymous store with searing yellow-bright lights, she was able to forget that she had become an object of curiosity.

Work was no refuge. After her confrontation with Beverly, the atmosphere had become frosty with Bev's disapproval. Layla, as ignorant of such things as a panting puppy, chattered to fill the dead space between classes. She also happily picked up the slack when Rain was feeling too ill (reality: too tired and emotionally withered) to teach.

Some of those early classes had featured uncomfortable words of vague support from the teacher's-pet types, but as their comments were greeted by Rain's mute, still face, they gave up and withdrew. No one showed off their new bow pose achievement after class anymore.

Indeed, her classes had begun to shrink.

This April morning, she sipped her tea as TJ picked up fallen branches from the latest storm. It would have been the Monday after spring break, if such a thing had mattered anymore. He'd be gathering steam for the last big push toward the end of the year. He'd be worried about how his students would do on the exams: Too many good grades meant maybe he hadn't challenged them enough, but too many poor grades meant he was perhaps failing to actually teach them. And she would hold his hand through it. At the end of the year he'd be triumphant, looking back with satisfaction, as if he'd never really been worried.

Now, he spent all day in front of the television, or on the elliptical, or on the computer, though he'd been advised to take down his Facebook page and stay away from social media in general. Alexandra had cautioned: “Any comment you make that someone gets ahold of could be newsworthy, or worse, evidence. For you, it's 1999. It wouldn't be such a bad idea to unplug the Internet entirely.”

Rain had been all for it, but TJ had balked. He wanted to keep up his fantasy baseball team.

The phone rang and Rain winced at the sound of it.

“Hello.”

“Rain, it's Greg. Look, is he there?”

“He's out picking up branches, but I can get him . . .”

“No. It's you I wanted to talk to.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Rain's hip stung her. The ligament down there had been twanging lately, as if someone was snapping it, rubber-band-like. Her doctor assured her this was normal. She folded into a forward bend, taking the phone with her. It seemed to help.

“So he can't hear us?”

“No, he's outside. What is it, Greg?” Rain had begun to understand why TJ found him so irritating. He'd grown so sanctimonious since all the trouble started, as if he'd never made a mistake in his life.

“We just learned something you ought to hear.”

“Fine, what.”

Her hair was brushing the floor; she'd neglected to pull it back. She liked the curtain effect; it was like being cocooned.

“Our neighbor saw the girl leave our house.”

“What?”

Rain stood up so suddenly her vision swam with stars. She grabbed a chairback and lowered herself to a crouching position.

“He didn't think that much of it at the time, but he's absolutely positive he saw a young girl leave our house when we were gone on vacation. He assumed that it was someone housesitting at the time. But we were talking over the fence just now, cleaning up from the storm, and Alessia and I mentioned the vacation. He said it was good we had that girl to watch the house and we were like, what girl? TJ watched the house. Then we all looked at each other like, oh shit.”

Alexandra had shown them the police report, where the girl stated that one of the times she slept with TJ was at Greg's house. It had pricked at Rain's consciousness: How would she even have known TJ had a brother who was gone to make that up? Until TJ reminded her how small Arbor Valley was in some ways, how her dad was assistant principal and thus their families knew each other, really, and how easy it would have been.

“Rain? Are you all right?”

“I'm here,” she croaked out.

“I think he's going to go to the police.”

“What? No! Talk him out of it!”

“Rain . . . It's only right. If it's true . . . Then we need to know.”

“It's not true, it's not . . .”

“I wanted to tell you before your lawyer did. I didn't want to believe it either, but . . . look, Alessia wants to talk to you.”

Alessia got on the phone. “Rain?
Cara,
I'm worried about you. Let me come over and take you out somewhere, please?
Per favore?
You never could resist my Italian, no?”

Alessia's voice was layers of pleading and teasing.

“Fine, okay,” Rain answered, just wanting off the phone. She hung up without saying good-bye.

He'd been out with his frat brother, she was remembering now. He'd said he was going out overnight so he didn't have to drive home late and possibly drunk. She'd told him when he got back about the baby. And she remembered like a kick in the chest that he'd come home with wet hair. Smelling like Greg.

TJ had been banned from Facebook, but Rain was not. She went to her laptop and brought up Facebook, looking for this friend of TJ's . . . He still looked like a Belushi-style cliché of a frat boy in his profile picture. Rain scrolled back, back, back to January.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please say you were with him . . .”

The pictures on that weekend were of the former frat boy at some open-air bar in the bright sunshine, face reddened either with sunburn, drink, or both, longneck brown bottle in his fist, giving the camera a thumbs-up with his free hand. Caption: “Miami!”

“Oh God,” Rain said, closing the laptop lid. A swarm buzzed within her, filling her brain with noisy, queasy revelation. Every odd pause in his speech, his distracted behavior, his fervent yet illogical defense, those text messages . . . She'd known about it all and yet had tamped it down inside her, just like in her childhood when she purposely forgot that Gran wouldn't live forever.

TJ came in through the door, sweaty and damp from hauling sticks. Rain yanked her hand back from the laptop and glanced away from him.

“What?” he asked her. “Are you okay?”

Rain swallowed hard. “Yes. Just fine. I'm going out with Alessia later.”

He rolled his eyes and walked to the sink. “Oh, goody. You guys can talk about how perfect everything is for them.”

Rain stood up and drew her shoulders back, standing as tall as she could. “Knock it off.”

“Knock what off?” He was barely listening, washing his hands.

“Stop picking on Alessia. She's supporting me, and I really need that now. You don't get along with your brother, fine, whatever. But stop applying your disgust to her. It's not fair.”

He started shaking his head as he dried his hands, a smirk twisting into place. “Come on. Don't you see how she patronizes you? Both of them act like we're the poor relations who need helping, especially now. Don't encourage them. Text her and tell her you're not coming. We'll get some takeout and watch movies instead. We deserve to have a nice afternoon alone for once.”

Rain set her jaw. “I made plans and I'm keeping them. We'll watch movies later, but for now I'm going to see my friend.”

“What if I need you here? I . . . I don't like to be alone. With my thoughts running wild, worrying . . .”

She sighed, picturing him pacing the floor, imagining a future in prison, without her there to draw him out of the darkness. . . . She reached for her phone, preparing to text Alessia that it wasn't a good day after all, but her gaze landed on the laptop.

Miami. His friend had been in Miami.

She forced a smile. “I'll be back soon. It's only lunch. Love you,” she called, and snatched her phone and purse off the table, dashing out the door before he had time to say another word.

 

Rain toyed with a red glass votive holder as Alessia groaned her pregnant bulk down into the booth across from her; she was due in mere weeks. They were at an Italian restaurant Alessia had always favored for its authenticity and lack of crowds. It was in Royal Oak, which Rain remembered with a jolt was where TJ had supposedly been the weekend he visited his frat-boy friend.

Alessia ordered minestrone, so Rain did the same, not caring what she ate, only eating at all for the sake of the baby.

“This place is private,” Alessia said, glancing up and down the length of the restaurant. Indeed, the booths had high dividers between them, and everyone seemed to speak in the same hushed tones. It was late for the business lunch crowd. There were few other customers. “I'm sorry to bring you here for this, but I didn't want to talk about this at home. Yours or mine.”

“About what?”

For weeks now, Rain had told herself,
It can't get worse; this is the lowest point
. She was about to be proven wrong again.

“I understand if you hate me for not telling you before.”

“Alessia, if you don't just tell me I might scream.”

“TJ cheated on you. Before.”

Rain rolled her eyes. “I know he slept around in college while we were dating. We weren't really exclusive and I've made my peace with that. He was sowing oats. Sorry to take the wind out of your sails, but that's old news to me.”

“No. When you were engaged.”

“No, he didn't” was all Rain could think to say.

“Greg saw them together when you were off buying a wedding dress.”

“I'm sure there was an explanation . . .”

“How many simple explanations can there be? He was kissing her neck, Rain.”

“So what?” Her voice cracked over the words. “Whatever, that was then.”

“I'm sorry I didn't tell you. Greg and I talked about it, fought about it, actually. He convinced me not to. He said you were the best thing that ever happened to TJ and if we sabotaged it by telling you . . . He said you would save him. That you'd fix him. For all these years I thought he was right. You both seemed so happy . . .”

Alessia's eyes were misting up, and Rain wanted to slap her. How dare she be the one to cry?

She continued, “That's why I'm here. I should have told you then, and I'm telling you now. Greg says you are standing by him and I think it's a beautiful example of how loving you are. . . . But now with what the neighbor saw, and Greg said there are text messages. . . . And now I can tell you it wouldn't be the first time that he'd done it. I think you need a lawyer of your own.”

“I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm pregnant. We are parents together no matter what happens. You think this will be simple? Just break up, like we're in high school? I give him his class ring and letter jacket back? He's gone crazy or something; he needs my help.”

“You need your help. Your baby does. He's betrayed you, ruined your lives . . . not to mention what it's done to that poor girl . . .”

“That poor girl is a few months from eighteen.”

“Rain, I love you, and your loyalty is amazing. But you have to open your eyes. You have to protect yourself, and the baby.”

“Too late,” Rain said, as the waiter appeared with their soup. “It's too damn late for that.”

The waiter shrank away as if he knew that he needed to.

Rain said, “So is that why Greg has been around so much? Soothing his guilty conscience for not letting you tell me before?”

“He knows you need taking care of. That your parents are . . . eh . . . airbrains? Airheads. Forgive the phrasing.”

“Sure, I'll forgive. Why not.”

They toyed with the vegetables in their cooling soup, each pregnant woman shifting uncomfortably in the narrow booth. Rain allowed herself some hatred for Alessia: beautiful Alessia with a rich husband who only had eyes for her and never made a move not Grade A approved for appropriateness. Alessia's baby would have an intact, happy family and all the material luxuries possible. Her own baby would be the pitied cousin, the one in whose wake whispers would trail.
Did you hear about her? Such a sad story . . .

Alessia coughed lightly. “What are you going to do?”

Rain sipped her cold water, and after a moment, she gave Alessia the truest answer she had. “My baby's father can't go to jail. I can't have my baby grow up with that.”

Alessia nodded, glancing down at her own belly, her own baby-to-be. “I know,” she said quietly, reaching across the table to take Rain's hand.

Rain let her take it and let herself go ahead and cry. She said, “I hated you for a minute there.”

“Yes,” Alessia said. “I know.”

They finished their lunch in silence, and Rain wondered how she could go home and lie down next to TJ. Nor could she imagine what else she could possibly do.

 

When she got home, TJ was at the table with both hands wrapped around a beer bottle. He raised his eyes to hers and then she knew: Alexandra had called about the neighbor's statement.