Commitment (89 page)

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Just as
Riley had
known he would, Shawn
came practically running
inside
as soon as he pulled up.
The damage to Lorna’s car was
significant enough that anyone who saw it
could be forgiven for
think
ing
there were
at least minor
injuries involved.
But
really,
all that had happened was that she’d somehow missed one of those fire hydrant sized barriers in the parking lot at the restaur
ant.
Tiny had even had to pull some of the dent out near the wheel well
just so they could drive home.
As Shawn came hurrying in,
he found
her
with
Tiny
sitting at the kitchen counter
watching television, take-ou
t containers and plates nearby.
His eyes scanned her from head to toe, doing
a quick inventory.

“I’m fine,”
Riley
said, reading the worry on his face.

Shawn turned to Tiny, his face hard, eyes narrowed.

“Calm down.”
She got up
and went
tow
ard him with arms outstretched.
“I was a little careless that’s all.”

Shawn put an arm round her and eyes still on Tiny, asked, “
Why were you driving
?”

“Because I’m an adult with a
valid
driver’s license and shoul
d be able to drive if I want to.
Even if I’m no good at it,
”
she added to lighten the mood.

Shawn looked down at her and
seemed to decide
not to make an issue of it.
For now.

“We got Italian,”
Riley
said in a
transparent effort to
change
the
subject.
“Seafood ravioli and penne with sundried tomatoes.”

“I’ll take care of the damage,” Shawn said to Lorna.

“Excuse me,”
Riley
interjected.
“I’ll take care of the damage
.
You aren’t responsible for my mistakes, Shawn
.”

“Fine.
You take care of the damage.”
He tried to sound casual about it, but as was always the case, she could tell he disliked her resistance to him taking care of her.

Lorna
was
watching their exchange, her face inscrutable.
She was clearly
studying them, assessing their rel
ationship, forming impressions.
Riley
was curious
to know what she was thinking
even more now that she had spent so much time with Shaw
n,
first on that ill-conceived trip out the other night, and now on
the rides to and from the city.

Knowing her mother, she
had
asked Shawn every inappropriate question
conceivable
.
But Shawn’s
body language around
Lorna
was m
uch more personal and at ease.
G
od, if they could be friends, i
t would be so much more t
han she’d ever hoped possible,
especially given what was happening right now.

She hung around while Shawn ate, barely listening as he and her mother talked abou
t the meeting with the lawyers.
All she heard sifted in with the fog that was her mind lately were the words “grand jury” and “testif
y” and “return an indictment.”
None of it was good, so she chos
e not to allow it to penetrate.

She
vacillated
between two very distinct phases; one was sheer terror when she thought about what might happen if Shawn were actually convicted and it made her unable to stand even brief separations
like
his
tri
p to the city this morning.
The other phase was anger,
at him for having gotten into this fix and at Keisha who was lying through her teeth for reasons that only she could understand.
In her anger phase, she wanted to get as far away as possible, and only through sheer will
power
was able to be in Shawn’s company and let hi
m touch, and hold and kiss her.

Ev
erything they were—
as muc
h as they were to each other—
w
ould be inalterably
changed if he went to prison.
And it would be all his fault.

“So how’d
it happen?”
Shawn asked as he bit into a piece of ravioli.

She almost didn’t know what he was talking about, coming as it
had
out of left field.
For the last twenty
minutes,
all
anyone had
been talk
ing
about
was
the
trial
.

“Are you back to the accident?” she asked wea
rily.

“Yeah, I’m back to the accident.”

“I
made a wide turn and didn’t see the
parking barrier.
I wasn’t chased through town by paparazzi if that’s what you’re imagining.”

“I just think you shouldn’t be driving yourself right now, that’s all.”

“And I just think that’s ridiculous,” she returned.

Well it was good to know they could still manage to bicker about meaningless crap when their very life together was under threat by something about as far from meaningless as you could get.

“It won’t
happen again,” Tiny chimed in.
“I should’ve been on top of it, man.”

Shawn looked at him
.
”Damn right.”

“Are you done eating?”
Riley
asked.
“I thought you might want to walk with me.”

They took a route that
Riley
was very familiar with.
When she was a senior
at the college
and living at home
once again
,
she was dating a
TA
named Stephen.
O
r at least she thought she was.
He had strange hours which
he insisted
meant that she could only see him at night in one of the academic bu
ildings while he graded papers.
She would meet him there, walking over to campus from home under cover of night,
wound up
like a top
by all the intrigue.
Once in a
while he took her to a pub or to his apartme
nt.
Her memories of their relationshi
p were of sex in strange places—
a professor’s office, a friend’s ap
artment, his car—
and secrecy.
Always the secrecy.

He told her he was worried about his job and his scholarship if anyone found out they were
together
.
She later found out that the reason for all the secrecy was named Sara, and she was a twenty-three year old who was getting her Masters in French Classics or some equally useless thing.
Sara
and Stephen lived together in the small, off-campus apartment that he’d
only once
taken
Riley
to.
She didn’t tell Sh
awn this story as they walked.
He wouldn’t find it nearly as amusing as she now did.

At first, they didn’t
speak
but simply enjoyed the crisp air and the sound of the fall leaves crunching bene
ath their feet.
Riley
looped an arm through his and
leaned into him as they walked.
They had a lot to talk about, but for once she was
reluctant to break the silence.
And
Shawn
wasn’t
broodingly silent, but
in a state of quiet contentment
.
She remembered what he’d told her that first night whe
n he’d come back after his tour;
that she gave him peace.
Even hearing him say
‘I love you’
had not moved her as much.
To know that she could still give that to him right now, in the midst of everything was deeply gratifying.

“Did you look at the file?” he asked suddenly.

Now
that
was a mood killer.

“No,” she said.

The file he’d handed her in the car on the ride up was under a pile of clothes she no longer wore,
in the dresser in the bedroom so there
could be
no chance of her
running across it by accident.
She didn’t want to look at the manila folder, let alone the contents.

“There’s
stuff in there for you to sign.
Once you’ve read it, we’ll go to Doug’s and get it done.”

“There’s plenty of time for that,” she mumbled.
 

She held her breath, waiting,
but he didn’t press the issue.
They stopped in the park near the town
center and sat under a spruce.
Riley
sat next to him, her
legs stretched before her, leaning back on her arms and enjoying the feeling of sunshine on her face.
 

Plenty of time.
That was what she hoped.

g

T
hree black SUVs with darkly tinted windows
pulled up
before dawn
; one driven by Brendan, the other two occupied by members of Chris Scaife’s security team
and the lawyers
.
Everyone
in the house
had been
up
very early.
Today
Shawn
was testifying before the grand jury and
Doug and Robyn
would not be allowed to give him active assistance w
hile in the grand jury room
so they’d arrived at
four
a.m. to confer with him
.
After the
strategy
meeting,
everyone had congregated in the kitchen drinking coffee while Shawn g
o
t dressed.

Finally, he emerged in a
charcoal grey
suit
, pin-striped and cut lik
e that of a Wall Street broker.
Underneath he wore a crisp white shirt and a Kelly green tie.
He’d gotten a haircut the day before, sha
ved so low it was almost bald.
Lorna was
going with
him but as
planned
,
Riley
was
stay
ing
put
.
T
racy
was
there to help her
guard against in
sanity while she waited for
their
return and
of course
, Tiny was
staying behind. 

Riley
watched as Lorna straightened Shawn’s tie.
Not only had Shawn seemed to develop a new appreciation of their bucolic upstate lifestyle, but her mother and husband had developed an unlikely friendship
.
She
often woke up late at night to the low hum of their voices as they talked in the garden, sitting beneath the tree
just below the bedroom window.
Whatever understanding they had arrived at,
or partnership they’d forged,
she felt no particular inclination to in
trude;
she was simply grateful that the two most important people in her life had become i
mportant to each other as well.

T
oday, even Lorna looked somber.
She had pulled her hair back into a chaste knot at the base of her neck and put on a dark blue suit that
Riley
had never seen before
.

Riley
gripped the coffee cup in front of her, trying hard
not to betray her nerv
ousness.
Next to her, Tracy sipped her tea, glancing occasionally at
the television.
The volume was turned way down, but they
were all watching the weather.
An early snowstorm was threatening the
t
ri-state
area and if it hit, as
much
as three inches
was
likely.