The Marriage Lie(4)

But I also believe that everyone, even the worst parents and the most maladjusted kids, has a redeeming quality. Ava’s is because she can’t help herself. Her parents have made her to be this way.

“I’m sure if you give it a bit more thought, you could come up with a better reason why Charlotte might be—”

“Knock, knock.” The head of the upper school, Ted Rawlings, fills up my doorway. Long and lanky and with a crown of tight, dark curls, Ted reminds me of a standard poodle, one who’s serious about pretty much everything except his ties. He must have hundreds of the hideous things, always school-themed and always ridiculous, but on him somehow they only look charming. Today’s version is a bright yellow polyester covered in physics equations. “I take it you’ve heard about the plane crash.”

I nod, my gaze flitting to the images on my screen. Those poor people. Their poor families.

“Somebody at this school is going to know somebody on that plane,” Ava says. “You just wait.”

Her words skitter a chill down my spine, because she’s right. Atlanta is a big city but a small town, one where the degrees of separation tend to be short. The chance that someone here is connected in some way to one of the victims isn’t small. I suppose the best thing I can hope for is that it’s not a family member or close friend.

“The students are anxious,” Ted says. “Understandably so, of course, but I don’t think we’ll get any classroom work done today. With your help, though, I’d like to turn this tragedy into a different kind of learning opportunity for everyone. Create a safe place for our students to talk about what happened and to ask questions. And if Miss Campbell here is correct, that someone at Lake Forrest lost a loved one in the crash, we’ll already be in place to provide whatever moral support they need.”

“That sounds like a great idea.”

“Excellent. I’m glad you’re on board. I’ll call a town hall meeting in the auditorium, and you and I will tag-team the discussion.”

“Of course. Just give me a minute or two to pull myself together, and I’ll be right there.”

Ted raps a knuckle on the door and hustles off. With lit class officially canceled, Ava picks up her backpack, rifling through it for a few seconds while I dig a compact out of my desk drawer.

“Here,” she says, dumping a fistful of designer makeup tubes onto my desk. Chanel, Nars, YSL, Mac. “No offense, but you look like you need them way more than I do.” She softens her words with a blinding smile.

“Thanks, Ava. But I have my own makeup.”

But Ava doesn’t pick up the tubes. She shifts from foot to foot, one hand wringing the strap of her backpack. She bites her lip and glances at her oxford shoes, and I think under all that bluster and bravado, she might actually be shy. “I’m really glad it wasn’t your husband’s plane.”

The relief this time is a slow build, wrapping me in warmth like Will’s sleeping body did just this morning. It settles over me like sunshine on naked skin. “Me, too.”

As soon as she’s gone, I reach for my phone, pulling up the number for Will’s cell. I know he can’t pick up for another hour or so, but I need to hear his voice, even if it’s only a recording. My muscles unwind at the smooth, familiar sound.

This is Will Griffith’s voice mail...

I wait for the beep, sinking back in my chair.

“Hey, babe, it’s me. I know you’re still in the air, but a plane just crashed after taking off from Hartsfield, and for about fifteen terrifying seconds I thought it might have been yours, and I just needed to...I don’t know, hear for myself that you’re okay. I know it’s silly, but call me as soon as you land, okay? The kids are kind of freaked, so I’ll be in a town hall, but I promise I’ll pick up. Okay, gotta run, but talk to you soon. You’re my very favorite person, and I miss you already.”

I drop my phone into my pocket and head for the door, leaving Ava’s makeup where she dumped it, in a pile on my desk.





3

Seated next to me on the auditorium stage, Ted smooths a hand down his tie and speaks to the room filled with high-schoolers. “As you all know, Liberty Air Flight 23 traveling from Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport to Seattle, Washington, crashed a little over an hour ago. All 179 passengers are presumed dead. Men, women and children, people just like you and me. I’ve called us here so we can talk about it as a group, openly and honestly and without judgment. Tragedies like this one can make us all too aware of the dangers in our world. Of our own vulnerabilities, of just how fragile life can be. This room is a safe space for us to ask questions and cry and whatever else you need to do to process. Let us all agree that what happens in this auditorium stays in this auditorium.”

Any other head of high school would hold a school-wide moment of silence and tell the kids to get back to work. Ted knows that for teenagers, catastrophe takes precedence over calculus any day, and it’s because he sees everything, good or bad, as a learning opportunity that the students follow him without question.

I look out over the three hundred or so kids that make up Lake Forrest’s high-school student body, and as far as I can tell, they’re split pretty solidly down the middle—half the students are freaked by the images of an airplane filled with their maybe-neighbors falling from the sky, the other half giddy at an entire afternoon of canceled classes. Their excited chatter echoes through the cavernous space.