The Woman in the Window(95)

“Oh, please. Please.” His voice breaks like a dam.

“Ethan, we—”

“Please. Please.” Almost screaming now. I stare at him: His eyes are streaming, his skin is blotched. Half-wild with panic. Do I let him cry it out?

But already he’s talking again, a wet flood of words: “She did it for me.” His eyes are brimming. “She did it for me. I can’t—I can’t do that to her. After what she did for me.”

My breath is shallow. “I—”

“And won’t it be better for them if they turn themselves in?” he asks.

I consider this. Better for them, so better for him. Yet— “They’ve been freaking out ever since it happened. They’re really going crazy.” His upper lip glistens—sweat and snot. He swipes at it. “My dad told my mom they should go to the police. They’ll listen to me.”

“I don’t—”

“They will.” Nodding firmly, breathing deeply. “If I say I talked to you and you’re going to tell the police if they don’t.”

“Are you sure . . .” That you can trust your mother? That Alistair won’t attack you? That neither one of them will come for me?

“Can you just wait to let me talk to them? I can’t— If I let the police come and get them now, I don’t . . .” His gaze travels to his hands. “I just can’t do that. I don’t know how I’d . . . live with myself.” His voice is swollen again. “Without giving them a chance first. To help themselves.” He can barely speak. “She’s my mother.”

He means Jane.

Nothing in my experience has prepared me for this. I think of Wesley, of what he’d advise. Think for yourself, Fox.

Can I let him go back to that house? To those people?

But could I doom him to lifelong regret? I know how it feels; I know the ceaseless ache, the constant drone of it. I don’t want him to feel that way.

“All right,” I say.

He blinks. “All right?”

“Yes. Tell them.”

He’s gawking now, as though in disbelief. After a moment he recovers. “Thank you.”

“Please be very careful.”

“I will.” He starts to stand.

“What are you going to say?”

He sits again, sighs wetly. “I guess—I’ll say that . . . you know. That you have evidence.” He nods. “I’ll tell the truth. I told you what happened, and you said we need to go to the police.” His voice quavers. “Before you do.” Rubbing his eyes. “What do you think will happen to them?”

I pause, pick my way through a response. “It’s . . . I think—the police will understand that your parents were being harassed, that she—that Katie was in effect stalking you. And was probably in violation of what was agreed when you were adopted.” He nods slowly. “And,” I add, “they’ll take into account that it happened during an argument.”

He chews his lip.

“It won’t be easy.”

His eyes drop. “No,” he breathes. Then he looks at me with such force that I shift where I sit. “Thank you.”

“Well, I . . .”

“Really.” He swallows. “Thank you.”

I nod. “You have your phone, right?”

He taps his coat pocket. “Yeah.”

“Call me if—just let me know that everything’s okay.”

“Okay.” He stands again; I stand with him. He turns toward the door.

“Ethan—”

He pivots.

“I need to know: your father.”

He watches me.

“Does he—did he come to my house at night?”

He frowns. “Yeah. Last night. I thought—”

“No, I mean last week.”

Ethan says nothing.

“Because I was told that I imagined something happening in your house, and now I know that I didn’t. And I was told that I had drawn a picture that I hadn’t drawn. And I want—I need to know who took that photograph of me. Because”—I hear my voice tremble—“I really don’t want it to have been me.”

A hush.

“I don’t know,” says Ethan. “How would he have gotten in?”

That I can’t answer.

We walk to the door together. As he reaches for the knob, I catch him in my arms, bring him close, hold him tight.

“Please be safe,” I whisper.

We stand there for a moment as rain spits on the windows and wind hisses outside.

He steps away from me, smiles sadly. Then he leaves.





94


I part the blinds, watch him climb his front steps, jab the key into the lock. He opens the door; when it closes, he’s disappeared.

Was I right to let him go? Should we have warned Little first? Should we have summoned Alistair and Jane to my house?

Too late.

I gaze across the park, at the empty windows, the vacant rooms. Somewhere in the depths of that place, he’s talking to his parents, taking a claw hammer to their world. I feel as I did every day of Olivia’s life: Please be safe.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my time working with children, if I could whittle those years down to a single revelation, it’s this: They are extraordinarily resilient. They can withstand neglect; they can survive abuse; they can endure, even thrive, where adults would collapse like umbrellas. My heart beats for Ethan. He’ll need that resilience. He must endure.