The Neighbor's Secret(6)

There was a knock on the door. Mr. Marley appeared, as low-energy as ever, in one of his ubiquitous homemade tie-dyed shirts.

“Abe has cleaned out his locker,” he said. “Not much in there.”

Abe stood hunch-shouldered right outside the doorway, clutching the almost-empty cardboard box. He looked pale and uncertain and ah, yes, here came the prick of tears.

So much for seventh grade. If Jen ever got a do-over in life, she might pick that moment with the Popsicle and the couch, and scream obscenities at Harper French until her voice was raw.

She was aware people would disapprove of this: you weren’t supposed to hold a grudge against a child. But it was basic animal instinct: when a Canada goose sensed a threat to her gosling, she attacked.

Jen stood up, did not apologize for the indelicate screech of her chair scraping the linoleum. She walked over to Abe and put her arm protectively around his shoulder, which felt bony and delicate.

“We’re leaving,” she said.

No one dared say one word as she, Abe, and Paul brushed past Dutton and Mr. Marley. They strode out of the office and down the hall, heads held high. For a moment, as they walked out of the front doors into the cloudless sunny day, Jen tasted triumph.

Jen and Paul had arrived separately and even their brief logistical conversation in the parking lot—I’ll take Abe, meet you at home—didn’t puncture the mood.

She and Abe walked to the car in silence, arms linked. She peeled out of the visitors’ spot like a renegade. Hasta la vista, suckers! To make Abe smile, she punched the gas and careened too quickly down the road from the school.

It was when Jen braked for the stop sign that the reality of Abe’s expulsion hit.

What on earth now?

Homeschooling, she supposed.

Given Paul’s travel schedule, the logistics would fall on Jen. When they’d moved from California, she had not minded giving up her teaching job. Jen had dropped so many balls in the process of juggling Abe’s needs with her schedule, and she’d always felt like she was neglecting someone or something.

But that didn’t mean she was ending her career. A few months ago, Jen had received a small grant from the Mellon Kramer Fund to research a book on ethology, the study of animal behavior under natural conditions.

With a little focus and attention, the project could be incredibly fulfilling, and Jen had been relying on the uninterrupted hours when Abe was at school.

And now?

“Well,” Abe said. “That was an eventful morning.”

With the morning light streaming behind him through the car window, he looked like an angel.

Jen and Paul were each rather ordinary-looking, but somehow Jen’s round features and Paul’s sharp angles had come together to create in Abe one physically stunning person. Even when he was an infant, Jen had marveled at those rosebud lips, that symmetrical bone structure, those sharp-edged cheekbones—who knew a baby could even have cheekbones—her son was a beauty! The world’s secret doors would open, people would warm to him, want to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Almost immediately after came the worries: But life comes so easily for the beautiful; what if he never develops inner strength or grit? And will beauty make him more vulnerable to pedophiles?

New parents were the most clueless people in the whole wide world.

Abe’s stunning looks had turned out to be the least remarkable thing about him. And if Jen had believed beauty mattered before, now she knew better. It was the unseen stuff: character, adaptability, resolve, the ability to connect with others. You were born with those buffers. Or you weren’t and even the most patient and committed parent (Jen was not) couldn’t teach them.

Jen knew exactly why she’d kept Scofield’s card. He had colonized her brain with five little words, planted a Big Red Flag right there in her amygdala.

Abe had turned toward the window and Jen watched his profile, the line of his chiseled jaw under his warm amber skin. He’d refused a summer haircut and his long swoopy bangs made him look like a pop star.

Jen wished there was a way to know for certain what he was thinking.

“Even if Harper was being awful,” she said, “hurting her—violence—is never the answer.”

Abe nodded.

“It could have been really, really bad, Abe.”

Abe’s dark eyes showed consternation and he raked his fingers through those boy-band bangs.

What had concerned Scofield, the “Big Red Flag,” hadn’t been the hamster’s injuries. Kids were clumsy and impulsive, he said, they made mistakes. It was that after he’d hurt the rodent, Abe had showed a startling lack of remorse.

And that had been only a rodent.

“You could have permanently damaged Harper’s arm,” Jen said. Her voice was wobbly as she realized the truth of this. “Severed a nerve or an artery.”

Abe’s leg jiggled up and down until Jen placed a flattened palm on his knee. He turned back to face her.

“Harper French,” he said finally, his voice certain, “pretty much got what she deserved.”

And then Abe gave Jen the tiniest of tiny smiles, so minuscule that she could almost pretend to have missed it.





CHAPTER FOUR



“The internet tells us”—Annie glanced at her phone screen—“that it’s nearly impossible to remove paint from copper.”