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  “That’s not old. He’d be a youngster at Morningside.”

  “Look, I know you don’t want him there, but it would be a lot easier to manage him. And who knows, it might help him to be back in Jefferson.”

  Whenever I invited Mom and Dad to visit, Dad would tell me he could never show his face in Jefferson again, not after what his daughters did to him. As if Kate decided to be gay and I got pregnant just to spite him. Mom came for a few visits, but she never stayed long. She didn’t say, but I am pretty sure those visits were a source of strife in their marriage. Growing up, I don’t remember my parents ever fighting about anything. And even when they decided to move, and clearly Mom did not want to, she backed him up. Maybe that’s one of the reasons Jake and I didn’t make it. All we did was fight, and I had never learned how to disagree in a healthy way. I didn’t understand that compromise is the language of relationships. If I disagreed with Jake, I dug in. I wasn’t going to be the blindly obedient wife my mother had been. I know there is much more to it than that but witnessing what I perceived to be an unhealthy balance in my parents’ marriage probably made me more combative than I needed to be. I’m sure Jake was not always the bad guy, but I was too immature to see otherwise. He was young and self-centered, but he wasn’t the same stubborn, controlling man my father had been.

  “Being in Jefferson might actually kill him if you take his word for it,” I say.

  “I think we’re beyond that. Maybe he would never admit it, but I think he has a few regrets. And you will regret it if you never make up with him.”

  “Has he ever apologized to you?” I ask her.

  “In his own way. He’s not an apologizer.”

  I laugh. “Don’t I know it.”

  “He wants to see you. And Jess.”

  “Now he wants to see us. He never wanted to see us for the last seventeen years.”

  “Just think about it. It might be good to get away from Jefferson. We could go over Halloween weekend. Do the schools still have that Friday off? It might help us make a decision.”

  I do not understand why Kate is so insistent, especially right now. I can’t do anything to help him. And yet after I hang up, my unwillingness follows me around. He is my father. How can I not help him?

  — — —

  When Kevin calls, I am still thinking about my father and can’t focus on his questions about our insurance company. He has to repeat himself so many times, he finally asks, “Are you okay? Did something happen?”

  “It happened years ago,” I tell him before explaining about my father.

  “You should go see him,” he tells me. “Don’t wait until it’s too late.”

  “I might,” I say, but I wonder if it would do any good. In rare moments I wonder if one day he will apologize and say he regrets all that he missed in our lives. I imagine a Hallmark moment, but I know that could never happen. That would require him to admit he was wrong. And Arlan Campbell is never wrong.

  20

  JESS

  I concentrate on the tiles beneath my feet and follow them to Ms. Schultzman’s office. She’s the guidance counselor. I have never met her before, but Mom says she wants to see me before I go to classes. I should not be here. I threw up three times this morning. I thought I could do this, but now I’m not so sure. Every nerve in my body is on high alert. If someone touched me, I would probably explode.

  Ms. Schultzman is with another student, so I sit on a bench just outside her door, right next to the main doors. Every person who enters the building does a double-take as they walk by me. This is probably what it’s like to be that beta fish in the bowl on the counter of the pediatrician’s office. I pull out my copy of The Catcher in the Rye. I’ve read the same paragraph at least seven or eight times when the student in Ms. Schultzman’s office finally leaves and she appears.

  “Jessica! It’s so good to finally meet you,” she says, holding out her hand for me to shake. I hate it when adults do this, but I take her hand. It’s tiny, just like her. She is barely over five feet tall. With her practical haircut and twinkling eyes, she looks sturdy, ready for anything. She smiles brightly at me and directs me to a couch in her office. She sits on a chair next to it. I have never been in the guidance office. I guess I never needed any guidance until now.

  “So, I’ve looked over your files. You are quite an excellent student. And it seems you’re also our best hopes for a state title in track and field!”

  I shrug. I want to hate her, but it’s hard. She’s so perky.

  “How’re you feeling about going back to classes?”

  “I’d rather not,” I say.

  “Well, maybe for today, we can hold off. I’m sure you have a lot of work to catch up on.”

  I shrug.

  “I don’t know if your mom told you, but I’m not only a guidance counselor, I’m also a licensed psychologist.”

  I shrug again.

  “Which means that I’m an excellent listener.”

  I look at her blankly.

  “So, if you need someone to talk to, maybe someone not in your family or your peer group, I’d be happy to listen. I imagine this is a pretty tough time for you.”

  “It is,” I say and lean back on the couch but what I think is, Great, a shrink, Mom must have told her I’m nuts. We talk about nothing for a while—the new school logo, AP classes, the track team. She tells me to call her Ms. Ellen. She asks me what I enjoy doing. I shrug because I don’t enjoy doing anything anymore.

  “You don’t have any hobbies? How about running?”

  “I run sometimes.”

  “But you must enjoy other things?”

  I shrug. “Not really.”

  “Okay,” she says, and she squishes up her face like she’s thinking. “How about you tell me one thing that makes you happy? It can be anything. Maybe frosted flakes or going to the beach? Anything.”

  Does she think I’m five years old? She leans forward, smiles at me like she can’t wait to hear my answer. I haven’t thought of anything happy in a long time. I sigh. Happiness seems like a foreign concept anymore, but I reach for it in my memory.

  “Kids,” I say, thinking of Sally and Stu and how I miss them and their family. Mr. Monroe works in the DA’s office and I’ve heard Kevin and Mom talking about whether he might be involved in my case.

  “Kids?”

  “Well, not all kids, I guess. Sally and Stu.”

  “Who are Sally and Stu?”

  “They’re these kids I babysit. Or I used to babysit.”

  She nods and waits for me to go on.

  “I love that they think everything is cool. And they say whatever they think and don’t worry what anyone else thinks.”

  “Children are wonderful that way,” Ms. Ellen agrees.

  I look at her. She looks like a mom.

  “Did you have kids?” I ask.

  “Oh, I very much wanted kids, but we couldn’t have any. It was hard for me and my husband to accept.”

  This is a weird thing for an adult to tell me. I don’t know what to say.

  “Is that why you work with kids now?”

  “I like young people. I enjoy helping them.”

  Ms. Ellen doesn’t say anything more. She waits for me to say something. I try to wait her out, but it goes on so long I can’t stand it.

  “It was a mistake to come to school today,” I say.

  “Maybe it feels that way, but I’m glad you’re here.”

  “I can’t go to class.”

  “It’s understandable that you’d feel that way. For now, how about I set y
ou up in one of my testing rooms and you can work on catching up. Then you can go to class when you’re ready.”

  “What if I’m never ready?”

  I study the bookshelves next to Ms. Ellen’s desk, willing myself not to cry again. I’m so pathetic. The hallway buzz starts up between classes. Ms. Ellen gets up and closes the door. She sits back down and looks at me.

  “Jessica, I’d like to help you.”

  “What if I don’t need any help?”

  “Maybe you don’t, but it might feel better to talk about it.”

  I look at Ms. Ellen perched on the edge of her chair. What can she possibly do to help me? And why would she want to? I can’t imagine they pay her enough to get involved in my nightmare. I sigh and lean back in my chair, picking at the tiny flecks of gold left on my nails from when Sheila painted them on the Friday before the accident. Back when things like manicures and homecoming nominations mattered.

  I shrug. “There’s nothing to say.” I toy with the straps on my backpack. “I screwed up. Now everyone hates me. I don’t blame them.”

  “You’re still a good kid,” says Ms. Ellen softly. “One mistake doesn’t change that.”

  Ms. Ellen lets me spend the day in her office doing makeup work. She sets up meetings with each of my teachers for tomorrow.

  — — —

  Ms. Ellen doesn’t make me go to class the next day or the day after that. In fact, she says I don’t have to go back to class until I’m ready. She also doesn’t make me talk, but somehow I end up talking. I tell her a lot about me and Sheila. When I say some of the stuff out loud, it doesn’t seem nearly as cool as it did at the time. Ms. Ellen raises her eyebrows when I tell her about how much Sheila cuts class, and how she always gets away with it because she knows how to talk to teachers.

  “You haven’t been tempted to join her?”

  I shake my head. “I’m serious about going to college, and the only way that will happen is if I do well in classes.”

  “Sheila doesn’t feel the same way?”

  “Sheila’s family is loaded. Besides, she doesn’t care about where she goes to school, as long as they have a good Greek system.”

  Ms. Ellen frowns.

  “Sheila’s a lot of fun,” I say as if I should defend her. “She’s not stupid, she just likes to play around.” I don’t specify what that means—sleeping with her boyfriend, shoplifting lingerie, cheating on tests (not because she needs to but just because she can), but mostly cutting up with me at other people’s expense. I know that makes her sound like a horrible teenager, but she isn’t. Not if you know her. She’s my best friend. Or she was. In eighth grade, she gave me a necklace with half a heart and she has the other half. Or at least I assume she does. Mine is still on my dresser.

  Ms. Ellen and I also talk about what I want to do with my life. Ever since I was little I’ve wanted to be a doctor. I want to be the one who puts people back together when they’re broken.

  “What kind of medicine do you want to study?”

  I shrug. “Regular medicine. You know? Like work in an ER.”

  “Most doctors have a specialty. Although, you could be a general practitioner.”

  “I think I want to work on hearts,” I tell her, although it’s the first I’ve thought of it.

  She nods. “That will take a lot of schooling.”

  “Which is why I have to do well in school.”

  — — —

  “How would you feel about going back to some of your classes?” Ms. Ellen asks one day.

  “This morning someone put a picture in my locker of me in a jail cell.”

  “What?”

  “It was really badly photoshopped, but I get it.”

  “What’s there to get about that? That’s bullying.”

  Ms. Ellen is hung up on bullying. Her definition of it is far and wide.

  “I think it was just someone expressing their opinion.”

  She frowns.

  I shrug. “They might be right. I might have to go to jail.”

  “It doesn’t seem likely that they would put you in jail for something you don’t remember doing.”

  “Maybe I just don’t want to remember.”

  “Is that true?”

  I look away from her. Ms. Ellen has this way of looking right through you. I haven’t known her long, but it sometimes feels like she can read my mind.

  “I want to remember,” I say quietly, almost whispering. “I don’t know why I can’t, but sometimes I think it’s just my mind protecting me. Does that make sense?”

  “There’s actually a lot of scientific evidence that backs that up. Your brain contains chemicals that go to work when you’re under stress or in danger. To protect you, sometimes it buries painful memories or loses them completely. Maybe the experience was so painful at the time that your brain won’t let you remember it.”

  “Will it ever?”

  Ms. Ellen hesitates. “Hard to say. Maybe it will surface, but maybe not.”

  “Great.”

  “You may just have to come to terms with that.”

  — — —

  Every day after school I go for a run. Sometimes I think about the things that Ms. Ellen and I have talked about, but sometimes I just turn my music up loud and try not to think about anything. Most days I run past Coach’s house. There’s very little activity there these days. I’ve seen a guy raking up the leaves. He’s probably Coach’s son. I haven’t seen Helen Mitchell, but she must be in there. I’m terrified I will see her, but I still look. I want to tell her I wish I had died instead of her husband.

  If Mom asks me one more time, “How’re you doing?” I might just have to tell her. She doesn’t want to know how I really feel, so I always say, “I’m fine.” But I’m not fine. In fact, some nights I lay in bed and hold my breath, wishing I could stop being and feeling. I will my heart to stop beating, but it just keeps going. Forcing me into another day as painful as the last.

  The only person I can tell any of this to is Dylan. Which is weird, right? Dylan is just about the dorkiest kid you could know. He’s in middle school and dresses like a freak. He draws earrings on his earlobes with a permanent marker. I’ve started talking to him on the bus, because, well, no one else will talk to me.

  Turns out Dylan is pretty cool. He’s smart and funny. We’ve hung out a few times now, mostly when I get back from my runs before I have to go inside and pretend I’m fine for mom. What I appreciate most about Dylan is that he listens when I tell him stuff that I’m thinking, but he doesn’t try to fix me, like Mom or Ms. Ellen. When he has the chance to direct our conversations, he veers towards music or math or global warming.

  I think if Dylan wasn’t around, I might actually lose my mind and end up like Bridget Cantor. Bridget spends more time suspended than not. Sheila loved to talk about Bridget. Sometimes I think Sheila wants to be like her in some small corner of her brain. Some people think Bridget has mental health problems (clearly) but other people say she does hard drugs; that’s why her behavior is so erratic and extreme. She broke her hand once, slamming it on the principal’s office door. They had to call the mall cop to come get her. Most everyone is afraid of her (me included). She disappears from school for a few months every year. Everyone says she goes to rehab, but when Bridget comes back, and she always does, she’s even angrier.

  I imagine there will be lots of girls like Bridget in prison.

  21

  LIZ

  Every day when I ask Jess how school went, she says, “Fine.”

  “Really?” I ask on Thursday, one week after she went back. “Becaus
e your face doesn’t say it went fine.” I picked her up from school today because we have a meeting with Kevin. The DA rejected our counter, so it seems a judge will have to decide, which means a trial. Kevin has assured me it will not be like the movies because Jess is a minor. There won’t be an audience, just us and the DA and whoever he calls to testify.

  Jess flips down the mirror on the sun visor and studies her face.

  “My face doesn’t say anything,” she says.

  Ellen Schultzman told me Jess has yet to go to a class. She sits in the guidance office and does her makeup work, but Ellen told me that’s okay for now. She says they talk, and Jess will go to class when she is ready. I have to admit, I’m jealous. I wish Jess would talk to me. She used to replay her entire day for me when I picked her up from after-school daycare. I hung on every word. Somewhere between when she stopped needing after-school daycare and when she got her driver’s license, she morphed into a little adult busy doing her homework, running, going to football games, babysitting for the Monroes, hanging out with Sheila, but always busy. I would hear Sheila and her laughing behind Jess’ closed door and I would wish I was in on the jokes. Single parenting consumes your every waking moment until the moment when they don’t need you, and then it becomes the loneliest job in the world.

  Before the accident, Jess was so confident, so independent, so sure about everything she did. Now, she hesitates before she speaks, guarding her thoughts. She is a shadow of who she was. I only hope when this is all over, whatever happens, I will see my daughter smile again and hear her laugh. I don’t want this accident to dictate the rest of her life. Or mine.

  I turn off Pershing toward the business park where Kevin’s office is.

  “How long is this going to take?” she asks.

  “I don’t know. Kevin just said he wanted to talk to you before we leave for your grandpa’s.”

  Somehow I have allowed Kate to talk me into driving all the way to Arizona for fall break so we can meet with the staff at Dad’s nursing home and make some decisions. As much as I hate the long drive, I do like the idea of getting out of Jefferson. It might be easier to breathe.