What Have We Done
Alex Finlay
PROLOGUE
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO
At the top of a knoll through a break in the trees, five teenagers stand at the edge of a shallow grave.
A light rain falls, thunder rumbles in the night sky.
One of the boys raises the gun. It was his idea, after all, he should go first. He aims into the hole, but the gun wobbles in the half-light.
“Do it,” another boy says.
But the kid with the gun just stands there, arm extended, the rain beading his face, matting his hair.
At last, the only girl in the group reaches for the weapon—the .22 they bought for twenty-two bucks. She swallows, looks at the rest of them. “We agreed,” she says. “We all have to.” Her eyes return to the pit, and the gun clenched in her hand makes a noise like a firecracker, a faint pop.
The girl passes the weapon down the line. And one by one they each take a shot until the gun reaches the last boy. Lightning brightens the sky for a nanosecond. Long enough to see the tears streaming pale vertical lines down his dirty face. He’s the only gentle soul at Savior House group home.
He grips the firearm, his breaths ragged, as his best friend looms over him like the protector he is, laces his finger through the trigger guard on top of the gentle boy’s, and another pop rends the night.
They all then fall to their knees and drive the wet dirt into the void with their bare hands.
In the dark, the gentle boy utters the words none of them will ever forget: “What have we done?”
PART 1
THE TARGETS
CHAPTER ONE
JENNA
PRESENT DAY
“There’s my girl,” Simon says in his chipper morning voice. It’s one of the things Jenna adores about her husband, his unrelenting cheerfulness.
She’s back from running her five miles and feeling every one of her thirty-nine years. She kisses Simon, then sits at the kitchen table across from her stepdaughter Lulu, who’s eating pancakes, her shiny Mary Janes swinging under the chair. As usual, their Labrador, Peanut Butter, is at the five-year-old’s feet, waiting for falling scraps.
Simon stands at the stovetop pouring batter for more flapjacks, wearing the apron that has I HAVE
NO IDEA WHAT I’M DOING inscribed on the front.
“I thought you have an early meeting,” Jenna says, noticing that he’s still in his pajamas. He wears the button-up style like a character from a 1950s sitcom.
“I have time. I need to make sure my girls get the most important meal of the day.” He pushes his glasses up on his nose. For most women, the nerdy tax lawyer wouldn’t elicit the rush of whatever chemical or emotion crowding Jenna’s chest. But this boring numbers man, white-bread as they come, fills that part of Jenna that was empty for so long. She knows they’re an odd match. She catches the looks, the whispers, that she must be in it for the money, the gossipers not realizing that Simon isn’t exactly Bill Gates, even if he resembles him. In fact, Jenna’s numbered Swiss account dwarfs their modest savings and Simon’s 401(k).
Her older stepdaughter, Willow, bursts into the kitchen, backpack slung over her shoulder. She’s wearing her high school uniform and customary scowl. The skirt looks shorter than regulation—
Jenna’s sure she’s had it altered—but she’s always walking a tightrope with Willow, so she doesn’t say anything.
Pick your battles.
“Good morning,” Jenna says with exaggerated cheeriness that would give even Simon a run for his money.
Willow mumbles something, opens the refrigerator, sighs at some unstated grocery-store failure on Jenna’s part.
“Pancakes?” Simon asks, earnestly. He’s immune to the seventeen-year-old’s morning gloom.
“Can’t. Ride’s here.”
Jenna says, “I can get you some fruit or something for the road.”
Willow gives her a you can’t be serious look before she leaves the kitchen with another mumble and the front door slams.
Jenna gets it. Willow lost her mother. Jenna knows what that feels like. Maybe one day they’ll be able to talk about it together.
Simon sets a plate in front of Jenna. Smiles. He doesn’t ask her what’s on her agenda today. He never does. They met on Match.com, a year ago—three years after the girls’ biological mother succumbed to cancer. They married six months later to the consternation of Simon’s family and friends. To hell with them all, he always says, the rare times he curses. And Willow will come around
—just give her time.
Jenna’s not so sure about that.
After breakfast, she kisses Simon goodbye, does the dishes, gathers Lulu’s backpack. At the bus stop, the little girl stays on the sidelines, still too shy to join the other kids huddled on the picturesque block of their affluent village outside Washington, D.C.
Jenna understands. The other moms still haven’t taken to Jenna either. Simon always jokes that they’re intimidated by her looks. She doesn’t think it’s that, but she’ll keep trying. She smiles at Karen, the perfectly named queen bee of the neighborhood moms. The gesture goes unrequited.
Jenna joins the other parents waving to the tiny windows on the yellow school bus, all seeming part saddened, part elated, at the departure of their children for a few precious hours. As the bus disappears in a trail of black exhaust, Jenna notices a woman across the street who seems to be staring at her. She’s not one of the usual bus-stop parents. She has a pretty heart-shaped face, high cheekbones. Someone new in the neighborhood maybe. Too young to be a mom. An au pair? Jenna raises her hand to wave, but the woman turns away. Not even fellow outcasts want to be friends.