The Wrong Family(21)

“Sam’s already home,” Nigel called. He’d waited until she was down the last step. Winnie had to walk back up, which was cherry-on-top humiliating.

“Subomi’s mom dropped him off. She said she texted you...”

Maybe. Probably. She hadn’t checked her phone since last night. Where was it even? Winnie tried to move with indifference, but Nigel had that knowing look—you’re wearing your face, slim.

She refused—refused—to speak to him. Marching straight upstairs, she went to Samuel’s door and knocked. He called out a lazy “Come in,” and Winnie did just that.

“Hey,” she said. Samuel looked up from his book for a second before his eyes found the page again.

“How was it?”

“Fine,” he said. “They think I’m weird.”

“They do not. You’re not weird.” Winnie frowned at her son. She’d have to text Subomi’s mother and get to the bottom of this.

“You are weird,” Nigel said. Where had he come from? He was standing in the doorway, scratching the back of his head. Why was he saying this?

“I’d beat you up. Possibly shove your head in the urinal till—”

Samuel was cracking up, his face broken of its usually stony boredom, spread into a rare, crooked laughter. Winnie took a moment to appreciate it.

“Dude, weird is better than boring. Every time, man, every time.”

Samuel shrugged but Winnie could tell he was pleased.

“I guess so,” he said. “But I think they’re weird. Just to get that straight.”

“My man,” Nigel said, walking over to fist-bump their son. He strolled back out of the room and she blinked after him. The smell of his cologne on the air was overpowering; she cleared her throat once, twice.

“Did you need something, Mom?” Samuel was no longer smiling but staring at her like her presence was an intrusion.

Her mother’s heart wilted. “Nope. No—just checking on you...and I guess I wanted to talk to you about last night and Uncle Dakota...”

“Dad and I already had a talk. I get it.”

“Oh,” Winnie said. She bit back the rest of her questions, not wanting Samuel to know she was clueless. Thanks, Nigel.

“Well, if you need to talk about anything.”

“Thanks.”

She wanted to hug him—that’s what they always did after they resolved a conflict together—but as Winnie leaned toward her son, he’d already gone back to his book. And nothing had been resolved. Not that included her anyway. Winnie had never had fewer friends in her own home.

And then, as she left the room, a thought seized her so aggressively she took a little step back, away from them. What if Nigel told Samuel? What if he told him what I did? Winnie felt light-headed. There was nothing to steady herself on, so she just swayed on the spot, one hand reaching for a wall that wasn’t there. If Nigel had told Samuel, she’d lose her son forever.

Sometimes Winnie wondered if she’d taken the job at Illuminations Mental Health to prove something to Nigel. Once, when they were dating, he’d made a joke about her not being athletic; within a week she’d registered for indoor soccer and got a gym membership. It didn’t end there, no—Winnie actually became what she wanted. She began to like soccer, enjoy playing it. Can’t say I’m not athletic anymore, can you?

No, he really couldn’t. And since he’d called her spoiled within the first year of their marriage, she’d gotten to work, hadn’t she? He’d laughed at her when she spoke about the occasional dollar she passed to the homeless, had mocked her in one of his crueler moments. “You don’t care about homeless people,” he’d said. “You just have upper-middle-class shame you feel compelled to atone for!”

It was as if he’d issued some silent challenge to his wife. And so Winnie found herself working at Illuminations for two years. Two years of dedication to people less fortunate than she both in spirit and in bank. Two solid years. Before the incident.

He would have believed in her commitment to the cause, too, had she not done what she’d done. “The incident” was the name Nigel gave to it, but it was a weak word for what happened that night. It wasn’t an incident; it was a crime. One Winnie had committed.





      10


JUNO

The autumn rain tapped incessantly against the windows in Winnie’s book nook. Juno settled into a chair with the book she’d started the day she fell. She’d bent the spine, and she regretted that; she had a deep respect for books. That entire day was a bit hazy in her memory. She hadn’t fallen since, but she knew that all it would take was falling the wrong way and her bones would snap like peanut brittle. She settled herself more firmly in her seat. No! There would be none of that. Juno was sick, sick as hell, and if she were careful, she could finish out her days without breaking a hip, or a leg, or whatever old people broke when they fell. As if on cue, Juno’s hip began to ache.

She was trying not to think about what she’d heard the night before as she lay in her own bed. You misheard, she’d told herself a hundred times since that morning. But she hadn’t misheard, and now those words were repeating themselves in her head like a goddamn two-year-old whining in a toy store. She rubbed little circles at her temples and tried to read the words on the page. But she wasn’t thinking about the story; it wasn’t fiction in which she wanted to immerse herself. It was the truth.