I can’t help thinking of my dad on the night he picked me up at Grace’s. How much it must have hurt him to see me the way I was. I vow that no matter what, I won’t ever do something like this to him. That I will take better care of myself. Make better decisions. Be more like him and less like my mother. It’s the least I can do.
Suddenly Mrs. Browning is in the room beside me, holding my hand. I notice that her back is to Polly—that she doesn’t look at her once, not until the stretcher is being carried out of the room and down the stairs and to the ambulance. Mrs. Browning and I follow, then stand on the porch, still holding hands, watching as Polly’s parents climb into the back with the stretcher and one of the paramedics, while the other one runs around to get in the front and drive. We stand there, frozen in place, watching as the ambulance races away in a blur of red lights and wailing sirens.
After everything is silent once more, I turn and close the Smiths’ front door. We then walk to Mrs. Browning’s car and get in, both of us staring out the windshield.
“Do you think she’s going to be okay?” I say to Mrs. Browning but mostly to myself.
She shakes her head, then wipes away tears. “I don’t know, sweetie. But if she is? It will only be because of you.”
“And you,” I say. “Thank you for helping me.”
Mrs. Browning looks into my eyes. “You’re welcome….And I promise you, Lyla, I’m going to keep helping you.”
“Thank you,” I say, my mind returning to the photograph Polly sent me, just as Mrs. Browning brings it up, too.
“Lyla. You have to come forward about the pictures Finch took. You know that, right?”
I stare at her.
“You have to…for Polly…for yourself. For all the girls who have ever had something like this happen to them.” She pauses, glances away, and then looks back into my eyes. “To us.”
“Us?” I say. She can mean only one thing. But I ask for her confirmation anyway. “Are you one of those girls, Mrs. Browning?”
She doesn’t answer me. She just pulls away from the curb, driving in the direction of my house. At some point, though, she begins to talk, telling me a story of when she was a freshman at Vanderbilt. It is a horrible story about a boy raping her. She tells me that she didn’t report it because she was ashamed and blamed herself. She tells me everything that happened afterward, too. How she broke up with her boyfriend the very next day. How she told only one person—her best friend—but made her promise to keep the secret forever. How she eventually moved on from the heartbreak, meeting, dating, and then marrying Finch’s father. How she desperately wanted to make her life seem and look and be perfect. She talks to me about the dreams that she both had and still has. Dreams I share. She talks about love. And she talks about truth. She talks a lot about truth.
She doesn’t finish until we get to my street, and I don’t speak until her car is in park again. The first thing I say is for her sake, to try to ease her pain.
“Finch isn’t that bad, Mrs. Browning,” I say.
She looks unconvinced—and so sad.
“I mean…what happened to me isn’t anything like what happened to you.”
“Maybe not,” she says, tearing up again. “But, Lyla, Finch is plenty bad enough.”
I don’t know what to say to this, because I know she’s right. So I just tell her again how much I appreciate her help tonight. How grateful I am for her.
“Oh, sweetie,” she says, leaning over to hug me. “You’re the one who did everything….I’m so proud of you….”
“Thank you,” I say, then ask her again if she thinks Polly’s going to be okay.
“I do,” she says this time. “And Lyla?”
“Yes?” I look at her, waiting.
“I also think you may have saved more than one life tonight.”
When I get home, I hear Finch and Kirk talking and watching television in the family room, sickeningly oblivious to the fact that Polly is fighting for her life. I go straight down the hall to my bedroom and start packing. I grab a small duffel bag, and I put in only essentials: jeans, T-shirts, pajamas, socks, underwear, and toiletries. I then remove my wedding ring, along with all the pieces of jewelry that Kirk has given me, laying them on his nightstand.
I tell myself to remember this moment later, if and when we are fighting over money. I tell myself that although I will try to get what is fair, I actually don’t want anything from him anymore.
I glance around the room, thinking back to when we bought this house, how excited I was when we moved in—even happier as I slowly decorated it with furnishings, rugs, and art. The memories make me feel sheepish and shallow, borderline nauseated, until something else dawns on me. I realize I never wanted it to be about accumulating beautiful things or presenting a mere fa?ade of a good life. It was always about creating a home. Something beautiful and real on the inside, too. Something meaningful for the core of our family.
But it all seems like a lie now. And even the parts that weren’t always a lie now feel tainted. Ruined.
Just as I’m turning to go, I hear footsteps. I know it’s Finch before his face appears in the doorway. I feel sure that his father has put him up to it; there’s no way he’d come back here unless instructed.
Sure enough, he glances at my bag and says, “Mom? What’re you doing? Dad says you’re leaving us?”
I stare back at him, my heart breaking, as I say, “I’m leaving your father…and this house….But I’m not leaving you, Finch. I would never leave you.”
“Please don’t go, Mom,” he says, his voice nearly as deep as Kirk’s. “Don’t leave Dad. Don’t do this to him. To me.”
I want to scream at him. I want to shake him and tell him that his actions may have killed a girl. Instead, I walk over to him and take his face in my hands and kiss his forehead, inhaling his sweet, boyish scent. It is the same as it has always been, despite so many other changes.
“Don’t do this to me,” he says again.
“Oh, Finch. I’m not doing anything to you. I’m doing this for you.”
“Polly’s lying, Mom,” he says.
But unlike all the other times he’s told me this, his statement now rings hollow. It’s as if he’s no longer even trying to be convincing. It occurs to me that maybe Lyla already spoke to him about the photos. Maybe he knows that we somehow have proof.
Regardless, I shake my head and say, “No. She is not. You are.”
His lower lip quivers. I wait for more, but there is nothing else.
“Finch. Please confess,” I plead. “Please do the right thing. Princeton doesn’t matter. People matter….And it’s never too late to say you’re sorry.”
He nods ever so slightly. I have no idea if I’ve actually reached him on some level, or if he is just giving me what I want.
Regardless, it’s not a battle I can fight tonight. I’ll start again tomorrow, and will fight as hard and long as it takes. “I’ll see you in the morning,” I say. “I’ll be at school for your hearing.”
“Okay, Mom,” he says.
I lean in closer, kiss his cheek, and whisper, “You’ll always be my baby, Finch. And no matter what, I will always love you.”
He inhales as if he’s about to reply. But he can’t, because he’s now crying. We both are. So I just whisper good night. Then I walk past him and right out the front door of what was once our family home.
* * *
—
WHEN I GET downtown to the Omni Hotel, I discover, from a young girl at the front desk, that my credit card has been declined. She is embarrassed for me—and I want to reassure her that a declined credit card is nothing in the scheme of life. I hand her another, although I suspect what will happen even before that card is also declined.
It is all so absurd—so classically Kirk—that I find myself laughing. This is why Julie told me to have my ducks in a row. Because she knew he was capable of this petty bullshit. I consider stepping aside to call her, but then remember that I still have fifteen thousand dollars in my purse. So I check in using some of those bills, then take the elevator to the eighteenth floor. I use the plastic key to unlock my door and walk into the room, looking out over the city where I’ve lived my entire adult life.