Sweet Water(19)

But soccer cleats wouldn’t make five distinct marks, and we don’t own a cat or know anyone who does.

Then I think of the first time I met Yazmin and her long, bejeweled fingernails. They weren’t fake, I could tell, because the tips were uneven and the paint job was imperfect. They were real nails, the kind that could leave marks—like the ones on Finn’s neck.

I realize my fears have all been about those marks since the minute I saw them.

Deep breaths.

I get off the ground and follow Martin to the porch, but I know nothing will ever be the same once we step through those doors. This is where our divide continues. It started in the woods when I wanted to call the police and Martin didn’t, and it will continue as we enter our home and close the door on the decisions we’ve made tonight. Martin is maneuvering our long son in his arms, shimmying from side to side to balance the weight, mechanically, the machine that he is.

Still, I open the front door for Martin so he can get our son inside. The doors groan in dissatisfaction, and I want to apologize for bringing the turmoil inside. I’m sorry, I silently tell Stonehenge, because this house is my protector. It’s protected me from other secrets and kept the ones from when Joshua lived here too. I’m just not sure its old stone walls are strong enough to withstand the burden of this one.

Martin unloads Finn onto the hulking yellow leather couch in our living room, an overpriced statement piece that now looks ridiculous beneath Finn’s sleeping, ragged body. I imagine the leather is very cold and immediately rush over to cover him with a cashmere throw, prop a pillow under his neck, place a bucket below his head in case he has to vomit in the middle of the night.

Not that I’ll be sleeping. I’ll be checking on him every few minutes to make sure he’s still breathing.

We really do want what’s best for Finn, Martin and I. We just have very different ideas of what best is. I’m not sure what my son’s involvement is here, but I’m positive the better course of action would’ve been to report the incident and let the chips fall where they may.

But then I think—prison.

Martin gave me my phone back only after we left the Ellsworths’, and it’s buzzing in my pocket with unanswered messages. The last time I checked it, there were just texts from Camille Sugarman on which dress to wear to the Children’s Heart-to-Heart Gala this weekend. I glance again. The last two messages aren’t from my friend Camille. They’re from Alisha Veltri, Yazmin’s mother. My heart sinks to the ground along with my body.

Of course she’s calling and texting me. She wants to know where her daughter is.

Alisha: Hi, Mrs. Ellsworth, this is Yazmin’s mom. I asked Finn for your number last time he was here, just in case. Yazmin isn’t home yet. Do you know where she is? Is she with Finn?

As soon as Martin sees the text, he sits down beside me, eyes wide. He looks startled, as if he didn’t expect the text, whereas I’ve been expecting it all night. It makes me think he’s missing the mark on parenthood if he didn’t think she’d at least contact us.

“You must do exactly as I say,” Martin says.

My insides scream no, because I know he doesn’t want me to tell her anything is wrong, but she at least needs a clue that there’s reason to be alarmed. But that’s not what Martin wants, because Alton’s men are still likely in the woods cleaning up our mess. This was manageable when it was just us, but I can’t lie to Yazmin’s mother.

The phone bobbles in my unstable hand. “I can’t,” I cry.

Martin’s fingers dig into either side of my shoulders, too rough. I look up at him, and it’s as if the vein in his head has its own pulse. He’s kneeling and facing me. “You can and you will. You have to for Finn. You need to be strong for your son right now.” It takes my breath away that Martin’s definition of being strong for Finn is lying through my teeth to his dead girlfriend’s mother.

“Put yourself in her shoes, Martin. This is horrible.” I cry some more, because this isn’t just a dead girl in the woods anymore; this is someone’s daughter.

“You made a decision to leave those woods to protect Finn, and you have to stick by it. Now, type what I tell you.” His voice doesn’t leave room for debate.

And honestly, I don’t want it to, because I don’t see any way out of this but to continue down the dark path we’ve started on. Martin is right. We made a decision to leave those woods, and if I tell Alisha what we did, we’ll all be arrested—the whole lot of us—Martin and Finn and the Ellsworths and me. What good would it do? Especially if Finn didn’t do anything to cause Yazmin’s death.

“We can’t bring her back,” Martin whispers, and those are the right words, because I was just thinking them.

We can’t bring her back, but we can do our best to move forward.

I nod through my tears, and he wipes one away now that he knows he has me on board. Martin dictates every syllable as I type.

“Explain that Finn said they had a fight after school, and he hasn’t spoken to her since. When she asks what the fight was about, tell her he wouldn’t tell you the specifics, only that it was something to do with an Instagram post she didn’t approve of that he’s already taken down.”

I type it. All of it. “Why didn’t you tell me about the fight?” I feel left out that Martin knew about it. He must’ve gathered as much from Finn before he passed out. Martin doesn’t answer me.