Keep Quiet(64)

Jake saw his opening. “But, Pam, what if we disagree? You shouldn’t trump me. I’m his father, and I have an equal say. I will not stand by and see him go to prison for this. Not for something that was my doing.”

Pam met Jake’s eye, for the first time, but there was no love there, only controlled fury. “Jake, at this point, you’re right. We have no choice now. You made sure of that when you left the scene. You turned an accident into a crime.”

“I know, I’m sorry, but—”

“So Jake, you pay that blackmailer from our savings or money market. I’m not going to the police, and my son isn’t going to jail.”

Jake couldn’t believe his ears.

“This is a secret we’re going to keep, as a family.”





Chapter Thirty


Jake went into his home office while Ryan took a shower and Pam escaped to her office down the hall, to make the phone calls that would end her becoming a federal judge. He flopped miserably into his desk chair and buried his face in his hands. He couldn’t think, he could only feel, and what he felt was abject misery. He didn’t see any way out of the situation, of his own making. He had wanted Pam to agree to keep their secret, and he’d gotten what he wished for, but it was only the lesser of two evils. He felt a creeping dread that it had only increased the pressure on all of them, tying their family together in a corrupt bargain, each one tethered to the other in a way that doomed them not to survive, but to sink.

Jake straightened up and tried to shake it off. He could hear Pam talking through their common wall, but he couldn’t make out the words she was saying, and he felt awful for her. She’d stormed out of Ryan’s room right after she announced her decision, and he hadn’t had a chance to talk to her alone or to say how sorry he was, again. He knew she’d unload on him later, saying all the things she couldn’t say in front of Ryan, and he hated being betwixt and between, living in that hell reserved for married people, who had to postpone their fights for not-in-front-of-the-kids. But no couples fought about things like this, ever.

Jake tried to focus and make himself do things, so he called Harold and instructed him to stop the line of credit and wire the $250K from their money market and savings account. Harold agreed, no questions asked, of course. Then Jake went online, plugged Andrew Voloshin into the search engine, and tried to find out more about him, but couldn’t. Voloshin wasn’t on Facebook or any of the other social-networking sites and belonged to no professional organizations or alumni groups. Jake felt too distracted to keep looking, much less to answer any emails from work, and when he heard Pam finally get off the phone, he rose, left his office, and went down the hall to hers, knocking gently on the door.

“Pam, can I come in?”

“Yes,” she answered, and Jake opened the door, not surprised to see her teary-eyed at her desk. Her eyes were puffy, her hair undone, and she held a crumpled Kleenex in her hand. She slumped in her chair, framed by the soft pink walls and the red-and-pink toile curtains. All the feminine appointments of her office reminded him there was still a girl inside his wife, and he knew her heart was broken.

“I’m so sorry, honey.” Jake started to come around the desk, but Pam stopped him with a hand, her soft features hardening.

“Don’t even think about it.”

“I’m sorry, I really am.” Jake stopped in front of her desk. “Are you okay?”

“Do I look okay?” Pam tossed the Kleenex in the wastebasket.

“What did you tell them?”

“That I wanted to spend more time with my family.” Pam chuckled, but it was without mirth. “I don’t know how you could do it, Jake, I really don’t. You’ve ruined everything, you know. You’ve ruined our lives. Above all, you’ve ruined Ryan’s life. He’s never going to be the same, ever. This secret, it will ruin him.”

“I’m sorry,” Jake said again, because she was right and it was all he could say.

“It’s such a joke,” Pam said, disgusted without batting an eye, though she never cursed. “You finally decide to pay attention to your family. You want to step back in and reestablish a relationship with your own son, your only son. So I say, like an idiot, go pick him up at the movie. And what do you do? You decide it would be a great idea if he drove the car!” Pam raised her voice, throwing up her hands. “What a great decision! Wasn’t that a great decision? Wasn’t that one of your greatest, all-time decisions ever?”

Jake didn’t reply. She needed to blow off steam, and he deserved every word.

“Fun Dad evidently is the last one to know that a father is supposed to be a parent, not a friend. It’s Parenting 101, but you didn’t get the memo. It’s every magazine article, or on every Dr. Phil or Oprah episode ever.” Pam scoffed. “That’s right, she went off the air, so it’s her fault. It’s Oprah’s fault! Because it’s not your fault, right, Jake? It can’t be! I have a son blaming himself, but really it’s your fault.”

“I admit it’s my fault. I know it’s my fault.”

“I know that, too, but that doesn’t do us any good, because Ryan doesn’t know it’s true. Ryan was properly brought up, by me I might add, which means that he has a conscience. He knows the difference between right and wrong, as do I. Only you don’t know the difference between right and wrong.”