If the Witness Lied (7 page)

Jack’s only reliable rescuer is Diana. But this isn’t babysitting for an hour. This is Tris’s life—weeks and months and years in which Jack has to protect his little brother, because that’s what he promised.

“You be the best big brother there is, okay?” said his mother. She was too weak to sit up, but she was smiling because the baby was healthy. “He’s going to have a good life,” she told Jack. “Now you help Daddy. He’s going to need you and this is hard for him.”

“I’ll help Daddy,” he promised. He was twelve. He didn’t know how bad it was going to get. But neither did Mom.

How is Jack to give Tris this good life Mom had in mind? Being featured as a monster and a parent killer on national TV is not going to launch Tris on a good life. One good thing, Jack realizes: Cheryl won’t stick Tris in foster care when she’s portraying herself as the Good Aunt, the Only Hope, the woman these children are So Lucky to have.

And now Jack has to call the girls, which he hates doing. He gets caught somewhere between desperation and anger, between love and hate, and can think of nothing acceptable to say. But he has to tell them about the docudrama plan and make sure they don’t cooperate. Smithy can hide out pretty well up there in Massachusetts. But Madison … Is Cheryl telling the truth? Are the Emmers trying to get rid of her? Jack wants her home on any terms. Yet if Madison is forced to come home, what will that be like?

Jack reconsiders flight.

If he takes off with Tris, Aunt Cheryl will call the police. She’ll love calling the police. Any attention is good attention. Jack running away would just add more scope. And bringing in the police could help Cheryl. Aside from creating a nice scene in a docudrama, if Jack runs away from home with a three-year-old and no money in cold weather on a bike, Cheryl can probably put
Jack
in foster care.

So there’s nowhere to run.

But if he takes Tris home, they walk into the arms of the producer.

Tris is chattering about nothing, strings of marvelous words and miscellaneous thoughts. He reaches up under Jack’s jacket and latches his fingers on to the belt loops of Jack’s jeans.

Jack’s emotions suck the strength out of him. He’s barely pedaling. The bike is coming to a stop.

*   *   *

The rear of the TV van in Madison’s driveway opens up and people climb out, as if they’re appliance deliverymen. Madison is running as fast as she can. She circles the van and almost smashes into a little blue car. Leaping up the steps, she rips open the front door, and plows to a halt.

Cheryl is standing right there, badly startled by Madison’s sudden entrance, which is reasonable, because Madison hasn’t walked through this door since Labor Day.

Beside her is a middle-aged man.

Cheryl is well dressed, as if she’s off to a bridge game and luncheon at a fine restaurant. She’s a heavy woman who carries her weight well. Her hair is dyed ash-blond and around her throat a scarf is pinned at a jaunty angle. She’s just had a manicure in her favorite dark vermilion polish, a sort of dead red. Cheryl’s fingers are long and attractive and she’s proud of them. She does not seem frightened or worried, so maybe nothing’s happening. But then what’s up with the television van?

Cheryl’s amazement gives way to a smug little smile. “Madison. Darling. What a treat.” She rests her fingers lightly on Madison’s shoulders and gives her air kisses.

Madison is not a treat. Madison has consistently been the rude kid in the family, the one who never calls this woman Aunt, because she isn’t one.

Mom’s mother, Grandma Smith, died when Madison was little. Poor Grandpa Smith, in a moment of loneliness, remarried a woman with an adult daughter named Cheryl. The second marriage was not just a mistake—it was a disaster. It was over almost before it began. There was an embarrassing divorce. When Grandpa had a heart attack a few years later, neither the ex-wife nor the ex-stepdaughter came to his funeral, which was fine, because hardly anybody remembered that they existed.

Mom had been dead more than a year when Cheryl Rand appeared at their door. Such a tragedy! she cried. I just heard! I’m going through a career change, taking time off to find myself. Please let me pitch in and help my dear dead sister’s family.

In what way, Madison wanted to know, were Laura Fountain and Cheryl Rand dear to each other? Laura Fountain—sender of Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, Halloween and Valentine’s Day cards—did not have Cheryl in her address book. Laura Fountain—happy keeper of a thick birthday diary—did not have Cheryl’s birthday listed either.

Dad let Cheryl have the guest room for a day or two because he couldn’t think of a nice way to say no. Cheryl was a huge help. From groceries on the shelf to laundry in the drawers, from driving the older children to their circuit of games and rehearsals and orthodontic appointments and friends’ houses, to returning videos on time and being home for the furnace repairman, Cheryl smoothed out their chaotic household.

Cheryl loved the house itself, not the family. She did not take care of Tris, who continued to attend day care, dropped off and picked up by Dad. Dad frequently muttered something about “sending Cheryl packing,” but instead he paid her a salary. He tried to treat her like an employee and not a pretend aunt, but Cheryl wasn’t having it. If Dad introduced her as Ms. Rand, she’d say, “I’m the children’s aunt Cheryl.”

What has it been like for Jack living with this woman all these months?

Madison’s gut shudders at the extent to which she has abandoned her brothers.

Next to Cheryl, in Madison’s front hall, stands a middle-aged man Madison has never seen before. A smile inches across his face and gets a good grip. He extends his hand for Madison to shake. Bringing his other hand forward, he clasps hers in both of his.

He’s staring at her way too intently. What has she stepped into? Is Cheryl dating this man? When he abandons her hand, Madison feels in her pocket, checking for her cell phone, in case she needs to call 911.

“Madison, a joy to meet you. I’m Angus Nicolson. I’m a television producer. You’ve come at just the right time. Your aunt and I have wonderful news. You’re going to be on television!” he proclaims, clearly expecting Madison to jump up and down with joy. “We’re setting up a beautiful, gentle program, in which we’ll follow the tragic circumstances of your beautiful family. Your case is so unusual, so heartrending.”

Madison has picked the absolute worst minute to come home. A media minute.

This man is standing here as if he owns the place, because he thinks he does. That’s what it is to be television.

The Fountains have faced the media three times: Mom’s decision, then Mom’s death, then Dad’s death. To the media, this is not a grieving family. It’s a story. It’s public property. More precisely, it’s their property.

“Let’s all sit down for a little chat,” says Angus Nicolson, his arm encircling her. “Madison, you are just a beautiful young woman. I can’t wait to do a screen test on you.”

Cheryl can barely restrain herself. She presses her fingertips together, jouncing them, a sort of clapping prayer position.

Behind Angus Nicolson stands a short, squat woman with no makeup, her hair falling out of a casual ponytail, her sweatshirt baggy and her jeans old. She has a notebook in her hand and a camera on a strap. It isn’t an impressive movie camera—not the big, sturdy kind that takes a strong shoulder. But it will film.

The children had to wade through the media to attend their own mother’s funeral. As for Dad’s, when it became clear that gawkers, reporters and distant acquaintances would fill the pews, the minister suggested a private funeral; the following day, he’d hold a memorial service open to the public, which the children need not attend.

Cheryl had been opposed to anything private. People kept asking her what she’d seen of the accident, and she kept telling them. She loved telling them. She wept well in public.

The children were unable to argue and the minister lost the argument with Cheryl.

Don’t look at the cameras, Reverend Phillips advised the children. And don’t use the reporters’ names. A name lets them creep into your life.

Angus Nicolson and the woman with bad hair are not creeping. They are staking a claim, and Cheryl is glad.

S
MITHY HAS A FEELING THE HEADMISTRESS WON’T LIKE SLANG OR
abbreviations. Carefully she texts:

There. The boarding-school stage of Smithy’s life is over.

She stares out the window as the New York—bound train whips past little Massachusetts stations. Normal towns, where normal commuters park in normal lots, have normal jobs and go home to normal families.

When it happened—when Smithy’s family was forever separated from “normal”—Smithy was in her bedroom. She wasn’t paying attention to anything or anybody. She was online, happily seeing what various friends had posted. The scream alerted her. Who had screamed—Cheryl in horror, Dad in agony, a neighbor in shock?

The scream pitched Smithy out of her chair and out of her
house. There at the edge of the driveway stood Aunt Cheryl. Her hands were over her mouth and strange bleating sounds were coming out. The Jeep was halfway down the driveway. Madison was bending over something.

Their father.

When the long day had finally ended, something was wrong in Smithy’s brain. She could no longer see in color. Television was blurry, leaping nonsense, so she stopped watching. She couldn’t hear well either. Music was racket. She stopped listening. She seemed to swim in slow motion through a black-and-white movie filled with strangers.

Nonny and Poppy flew in. Smithy had trouble recognizing them. They were desperately sad: they had outlived their only child. They stood, or swayed, or sat with no more idea what to do next than the children.

In the street, strangers gathered. Cars slowed down. Reporters flocked. A tabloid newspaper fell in love with the tragedy. “Baby Boy Kills Dad” was one day’s headline. “Toddler Who Caused Mother’s Death Now Causes Father’s” was another.

“What can we do to help?” their grandparents asked Cheryl.

“Everything’s under control. You just sit on the sofa,” said Cheryl, scurrying to give another interview.

Nonny took Tris into the spacious kitchen, where the old couch was tight against the wall. Tris rode his toddler trike over the vinyl floor, around the kitchen island and up to the sofa, where he chatted with anybody sitting there.

One day a reporter took photographs right through the kitchen window. Nonny called the police. Then she pulled the
little curtains so nobody could see in. Nobody could see out, either. The room, like their hearts, was dark.

Nobody knew what to do with Tris. He just went on being Tris. He was two. He didn’t know anything. Every now and then he asked for Daddy. “Daddy come home now?”

Because he was cute and smart and always surrounded by an adoring family, Tris expected everybody to look at him. He had no idea that they were looking at him differently.

Now they will look at Smithy differently. She bailed on her own family. Okay, fine, she’s home again. But is she marked, just as Tris is marked?

*   *   *

Angus Nicolson continues to beam at Madison. “We were on our way to the day care to get little Tristan, but we can do that later. Let’s sit down together, in your beautiful living room, with all the lovely colors your aunt chose. Gosh, what a warm and homey place this is. Of course I know you miss your poor mother so much. Come tell me about it.”

A cameraman opens the door without knocking and shoulders his way in.

“And of course, we’re counting on you, the big sister,” says Angus, “to lead the way.”

Madison hears her mother: “You can handle this, darling. I’m counting on you. You’re the big sister.”

This is what has killed Madison all these months. She may be the big sister, but she’s not the one anybody counts on.

“It’s the anniversary, you see,” Angus says, as if Madison could have forgotten any of those terrible dates. She wants to scream, “You go near my little brother and I will rip your pathetic little smile right off your pathetic little plastic-surgeried face!” She remembers in time that there are cameras here. Great footage—the sister who runs out on her family spitting about the baby brother, as if she actually loves Tris and has a right to opinions.

I do love Tris, thinks Madison.

This is huge.

The knowledge envelops the hallway and the people standing there. It inflates Madison’s lungs and softens her heart.
She does love Tris
.

It’s why she’s home. She needs to tell her brothers she’s sorry, that she loves them. Will they give her another chance? She needs Mom and Dad to be listening—and maybe they are, because Madison cannot believe that they’re just so much road-kill; they have to
be
somewhere, waiting for Madison to come home.

First, the home needs to be emptied of strangers. “Cheryl, did you invite these people here?”

“Madison, you are not part of this household anymore. I make the decisions.”