You Will Know Me(28)

I’ll try. I’m sorry. I’ll try to get there. I’m sorry.



Lost in thoughts during the sermon, Katie kept pondering that mug shot, the things Teddy had said, If you get down to the nub of it, people don’t change. But Ryan surely had.

And hadn’t Hailey? And, of course, Eric had. And Katie herself, no longer that wayward girl who couldn’t sit still, who once painted her phone number on her midriff at the beach. The midnight-blue nail polish took days to crack off, fade.

By the time Pastor Matthews finished speaking, Ryan’s mother was sobbing so throatily it almost sounded like singing. Katie moved forward, touching her shoulder lightly.

But then Teddy was there, reaching out to let her take his arm as they strode up the knoll.

Turning, Katie caught sight of Hailey, wind-whipped, hair caught in her mouth and her eyes narrow. It looked like she wanted something, nearly lunging toward Katie, her heel catching on a random footstone.

“Hailey, I’m so sor—” Katie started, but in the crowds, she lost her, couldn’t get to her in time.



The Belfour house—butter yellow, rambling, sun-filled, with a massive new cedar deck that stretched through half the yard—was packed as tightly as it was for a booster event, a preseason kickoff.

As Katie moved through the rooms, everything reminded her of everything: the first welcoming party, held just for Devon, with Teddy singing a karaoke “Welcome to the Jungle”; all the season kickoffs and strategy sessions, Tina’s snipping terriers underfoot. That vast trestle dining-room table, where Teddy had, six years before, unfurled the flow chart, Devon’s pathway to the gold.

Now, Katie watched as the table vanished under large platters of food arriving aloft in the arms of boosters, the same macaroni salad, meatballs, and cucumber salad, Molly’s dream bars, Gwen’s no-carb lasagna brought to every other event at the house. Katie’s fruit basket, which had seemed right at the time, sat untouched in the corner, its jaunty bow and pink cellophane spattered with food.

“I knew he had a record when I hired him,” Gwen was saying to Molly as Katie sidestepped her sight line. “But I believe in second chances. It’s the American way.”

With picture windows and sliding glass doors or mirrored walls in every room, there was nowhere to hide in the Belfour house. Before anyone could see her, Katie ducked into the hallway, where she found Ryan’s mother, wandering with a soggy, tilting paper plate.

“Mrs. Beck, I’m Katie Knox. Can I do anything for you?”

“No,” she said doubtfully, brushing her hair from her face with her free hand. “I packed in a hurry. My dress isn’t right.”

“It’s great,” Katie said, even though the dress was very short, and something you bought quickly at the mall, its threads puckering the first time you wore it.

Her own dress was at least a decade old, the one she always wore to meet with clients. The one Drew used to call her grown-up outfit, and now she glimpsed deodorant marks on the sleeves from the last time she’d worn it.

“I don’t even believe this is happening,” Mrs. Beck said. “He’s my little boy.”

“I know,” Katie said, but she didn’t want to imagine what it felt like. It was what all the parents did. Nearly every time Devon threw herself into the air, Katie had to fight off logic. But sometimes, still, she’d stop breathing. Like she had all those years ago, the whir and screech of the lawn mower. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Beck.”

“Call me Helen,” she said. “You knew my Ryan?”

“Not that well,” Katie replied, a twitch above her brow, “but I liked him.”

“I could tell by your face during the sermon.”

“What?” Katie felt her face warm. “I…”

“I only visited Ryan once since he moved here.”

“Airfare is so expen—”

“I don’t know anyone here,” Helen said, swiveling a little, looking around helplessly for a place to set down the plate. “This house is so big, and I don’t know anyone. And it’s not very…friendly.”

“What do you mean?” Katie asked.

Helen leaned closer, only the paper plate between them.

“I’m not sure they want me here,” she said, lowering her voice. “I—”

“Katie!” It was Molly Chu, charging toward her, Cheyenne’s little brother tangled between her legs. “I thought I saw you.”

Suddenly, Katie was surrounded by boosters—Jim Chu, balancing a plate of food, hovered after his wife. Kirsten Siefert, Bluetooth forever hooked to her ear. Becca Plonski, gesturing with the same celery-stalk wrists that plagued her daughter, Dominique, clinging to her side.

Turning back, Katie saw Ryan’s mother was gone, only the scent of hotel soap and ChapStick remaining.

“Katie! Where’s Eric?”

“I sent him two e-mails about the practice situation. Do you know if he got them?”

“We’re running on one car,” Katie said. “He wants to be here.”

The surprise and confusion on their faces struck her, confirmed that it was surprising, and confusing. Eric never missed anything.

“He’s going to try to make it,” Katie said, all eyes still on her. “You know Eric.”