All Is Not Forgotten(48)

The information entered my brain. The sweatshirt. My wife’s fear about our son being at that party. Her fear infecting me, making me call that lawyer. Then it was real, this risk to our own family from that night. The new facts entered my brain, and within seconds the rebellion was lost and the realignment was in place. They were painful seconds. Like a tooth being pulled.

I found this in his closet.

She got up and walked to where I was standing. She got close to me and pressed the sweatshirt into my chest.

The lawyer called this morning. He told me one of the other boys had his interview today and they asked him about a blue sweatshirt with a red bird. He told me that Jason would be asked this same question and did I know how he would answer. I bought him a hoodie for his birthday that year, remember?

I did not remember. It had not been important to me then.

We got it on our trip to Atlanta. That conference you had, remember? We had to go to that Hawks game and we got him this. The red bird—it’s a hawk! Look.

She held up the sweatshirt. There was a red hawk on the front and the back. The name of the team was in white, but the letters were small. On the back was just a hawk. I took hold of her arms and looked at her sternly.

“What did you tell him?”

I told him the truth. That Jason had a blue hoodie with a red hawk on it.

“Oh, Jesus!” I let go of her arms and turned away, thinking, thinking.

Did you know about this? Did you know they were looking for a boy in a blue sweatshirt? Did she remember? You would tell me, wouldn’t you?

“I didn’t know about the sweatshirt.”

Yes, I know. The lies continued.

She blabbered on and on. What was I supposed to do? He’s our lawyer! We can’t have Jason lie. What if someone remembers? He wore that thing all spring. If he lies and they find out he lied, he’ll look guilty.

“Of what?” I asked. “No one would believe Jason raped Jenny Kramer.”

Think about it, Alan! He’s a swimmer. He shaves his legs and arms.… Maybe he shaves everything.… What if he does? What if they ask him and he has to admit he shaves everywhere?

I waved her off. “The whole goddamned team shaves! Half of them were at that party. That doesn’t mean anything!”

But now this! She held out the blue sweatshirt. When I got off the phone, I ran upstairs and started going through his things. I couldn’t remember him wearing that sweatshirt since that spring. It wasn’t there anywhere. Not in the laundry, or his drawers. Then I just started tearing apart his room. I started to think, maybe it’s gone. Maybe he’d lost it, and maybe he’d lost it before the party! Then he couldn’t have been wearing it that night. And then … God! I started digging through all the crap on the floor of his closet. And there was this plastic bag and it had the sweatshirt!

“Why was it in the bag? Was that all there was?” I was shifting then to damage control.

There were some sweatpants and socks and a pair of boxers. Sometimes he does that when he changes at the pool. He puts his school clothes in a bag, and then he changes into whatever he’s wearing to go out after.

“Where are they? Where’s the rest of it?”

I followed her into the laundry room, where she’d placed the rest of the clothing into the machine. She hadn’t started it yet.

I didn’t know what to do. If I should wash everything or throw it out. It all smells like the pool.

She handed me the sweatshirt then, and I pressed it to my nose without thinking. It smelled of the pool where Jason spends most of his free time. It smelled of chlorine. You can already see where this is going.

I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. I reasoned with myself why I should tell her, though the real reason had nothing to do with reason. It was my purely selfish desire not to be alone with my agony.

“Jenny Kramer had a recall yesterday. A memory from the night of the rape.”

Julie looked at me warily.

“It was the bleach, Julie. He smelled of bleach.”

Her eyes grew wide then as her hand drew slowly through the air to cover her mouth. That’s three things. Three things they could use against him!

“There were a lot of swimmers at that party. Half the team, you said.”

We both looked at the sweatshirt.

“He didn’t do it,” I said.

I know that.

“Do you? Do you know that the way I do? I know it! In my bones and in my heart. This man was a sociopath. Do you understand?”

Of course I do!

“He held her face into the ground. He gripped her neck and defiled her over and over for an hour!”

I know … I know.

“And then he took a stick, a sharp stick, and whittled away at her, at her flesh until he was all the way through her skin, every layer of skin!”

Okay! Just stop! Stop it. I know what he did to that poor girl!

“Then you can’t possibly be worried that our son did this.”

She took a long breath then and waited for me to calm down. I was indignant, and it was wrong of me to direct it at her. It didn’t matter what we thought, what we knew about our son. The world would accuse him, would doubt him. The world would want to believe. Tom Kramer would want to believe. Charlotte would want to believe. Jenny would want to believe. A thought rushed in, and I was too overwhelmed to stop it from coming back out.