The Promised World (6 page)

Mommy didn’t believe it, though. She said she knew William wouldn’t wander off; he’d never wandered off in his life. She said, “You’re a good boy.” She was stroking the top of his arm, nuzzling
his head like she used to do when he was little. He liked the feeling of being in her lap. He felt his eyes closing as she told him how good he’d always been, even as a baby. But then she said, “I know if your daddy told you to stay put, you’d stay put,” and he felt so guilty that he blurted out it wasn’t true. He only stayed put for a little while. When the stopwatch said 1:37, he ran out, looking for Daddy.

“But you stayed put for an hour and thirty-seven minutes,” his mom said. She was still stroking his arm, but her fingers were sort of fast and jerky, like the way she put grease on a cake pan. “Where was your daddy all that time?”

When he didn’t answer, she hugged him and her touch was gentle again. “You were very brave to stay in the woods alone for almost two hours. You must have been so scared.”

He felt his eyes stinging. “There was nothin’ to be afraid of.”

“Did your dad tell you that?”

William nodded. “He said he wouldn’t have had me do the Challenge if there were tigers and bears in the woods.”

If only his mom had asked what William meant by Challenge, he would have known not to tell her. He hadn’t forgotten. He just was too dumb to realize that he
was
talking about it.

She asked how long he was supposed to stay there. He said, “For twelve hours. Daddy said he’d be back when the stopwatch said 12:00. It would be dark but not spooky dark, he said.”

“It sounds hard.” She kissed him on top of his head. “Were the other challenges all that hard?” She leaned her face around and smiled at him. “You must have been very brave to get through them, too!”

He smiled back. “I was brave. Daddy said I was the bravest kid ever.”

“What other cool things did you do?”

“I paddled a canoe across a lake.”

“Wow,” she said. “And you don’t even know how to swim!”

“I didn’t, but I learned a couple days later so I could jump off the cliff.”

“You jumped off a cliff?” She’d leaned back; he couldn’t see her face. But he heard her voice get screechy. “The cliff at Hamburg?”

“I don’t remember.” He put his hand over his mouth. His eyes were burning again. Why couldn’t he be smart like his big sister Pearl? He was so dumb for telling Mommy all this. He was such a baby for being so scared of the policeman who came to the house to ask William questions. If he hadn’t been afraid of the policeman, he would have kept his hand over his mouth instead of repeating the things he told Mommy.

But he didn’t tell Mommy or the policeman about the gun. He told Daddy he remembered that part, and Daddy said he was proud of him. He said it again in the letter William found after Daddy died. “You didn’t do anything wrong, buddy. I was sad because I wouldn’t be able to see you anymore, but it wasn’t your fault I did what I did. Please listen to me, William.”

William wanted to listen to Daddy, but he heard Pearl saying their mother twisted everything William said and made Daddy get arrested. So it was still William’s fault for saying anything. If only he hadn’t done that, Daddy would be here and they could do the rest of the Challenges together.

Now William had to do the hardest one alone, that’s what Daddy said. He had to remember without the reminders. He had to not be scared and not be weak or something very bad could happen to his sisters.

“I know you love Pearl and Maisie, buddy.” He did love them, but that wasn’t why he was going to try to do what his father said. “Whatever happens,” his daddy wrote at the end of the letter, “remember, I’ll always be proud of you for trying. And remember, you’ll always be my smart little man.”

CHAPTER FIVE

I
t was mid-April, two weeks after the funeral, and Patrick had convinced himself that Lila was getting better. Yes, she still woke up crying four nights out of seven, but the other three nights, she slept through until dawn. She was still fighting for visitation with the kids, but she’d given up her plan to pursue custody after her lawyer quit, claiming it was hopeless after reading Billy’s police file. Patrick hadn’t seen the file, but he assumed whatever was in it had sufficiently disturbed Lila that she couldn’t discuss it. She did say that her brother was innocent, but her voice wavered as she said it, and shortly after, she went into one of the trances she’d been going into since they came back from Harrisburg. Maybe the word “trance” was inaccurate. If it were anyone other than Lila, Patrick would merely assume she was thinking, but Lila didn’t sit around
staring at walls, thinking. She was a writer and a teacher and especially a reader. He’d never seen her go a day without picking up a book, much less the ten days it had been since she’d read anything other than Billy’s police file.

Nevertheless, she was going back to work finally, which he took to be the best sign of all. Soon she would be swept up again in the progress of her students and the fascination of her research. Her grief would lose its edge with the distraction of her ordinary life.

Or so he hoped. But then, on only her second day back, at around four in the afternoon, Lila’s department chairman called Patrick to come and pick her up. “She has her car,” Patrick said, the first thing that had occurred to him. “Wait, was there an accident?” He heard his heart thumping in his ears. “Is she all right?”

“She wasn’t in an accident,” Professor Stafford said flatly. “I’ll tell you everything I know when you get here.” He paused. “Can you leave right away?”

Patrick had already grabbed his keys and wallet from his desk. As he walked past the math department secretary, he asked her to cancel his evening review session with his teaching assistant.

He met Professor Stafford outside Lila’s office. The hall was deserted, the door was shut, but Stafford was still whispering.

“I think she’s disoriented. I hope that’s all this is.” Then Stafford told Patrick that Lila had simply walked out of her first class this morning. “Sophomore lit. She didn’t tell her students that she wouldn’t be returning. After that, she failed to appear at any of her other classes and shut herself in her office.”

Patrick exhaled, hoping it wasn’t as bad as it sounded. On the drive over, he’d tried Lila’s cell phone and her office phone to no avail. She wouldn’t answer calls or emails from Henry Stafford or his secretary, Becky, either, but she had let them know that she wasn’t sick and didn’t need their help. Unfortunately, the way she
let them know was by screaming this when Becky opened her door.

“Becky immediately apologized for the intrusion and left,” Stafford said. He was nearly seventy years old; Lila said he wore the same bow tie every day and joked that he was the reincarnation of Mr. Chips. Patrick felt uncomfortable for the older man when Stafford’s face turned bright red as he explained what Becky saw in Lila’s office. “Your wife was under her desk. And she had her skirt off.”

“I’m sorry.” Patrick stood up straighter. “I appreciate you calling me.”

“Obviously we would prefer to let Lila leave when she’s ready.” He paused. “Unless you’d like us to call campus mental health services?”

Patrick said he could handle it himself. He was anxious to get to his wife, but he waited until Stafford excused himself before opening the door. It was just as the secretary had said; Lila was under her desk, with her skirt tossed into the middle of the room. At least, she was still wearing her shirt and tights.

“I only took it off because it kept falling off.” Lila must have seen Patrick looking at the skirt. “I’ve lost so much weight in the last few weeks.”

He nodded, but he wondered why she didn’t pin it on.

“I’m sure I look insane hiding under the desk.” She put her arms around her knees, folding herself together, which made her look small. “But I’m so frightened.”

“There’s nothing to be scared of.” He was simply stating the obvious; he hoped she would recognize that. He took a few steps closer. “Let’s go home now.”

She shook her head. “I can’t… I’m sorry.”

He noticed the files of lecture notes on her desk, along with two books she’d been planning to discuss that day:
Sister Carrie
in her
sophomore class and the
Norton Anthology of American Literature,
for her freshman survey course. It all looked entirely normal, as did the rest of her office. A large window that faced the campus green. One wall of shelves filled with the books Lila loved and had been collecting since she was an undergraduate.

“Would you come sit with me instead?” she said quietly.

“You want me to get under the desk, too?”

She nodded, and after a moment, he realized that if this would calm her down, he had no choice. He crawled under with her.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “I really need you right now.”

It was a large desk, but it was crowded with both of them squeezed in the space between the two sets of side drawers. After only a minute or two, Patrick’s neck hurt from bending down and his legs hurt from being folded up like a yogi’s. Still, he waited another few minutes before he finally said, “I don’t know what we’re doing, Lila. There’s no one in this building who would hurt you. Most of them are your friends.”

“I know.” She shrugged. “I guess it does seem silly.”

“It’s certainly not your everyday experience.” He looked up slowly, careful not to whack his head. “It could be worse, though. We could be stuck under a high school desk covered with graffiti and gum.”

She smiled and he could feel his shoulders loosening for the first time since he’d gotten the phone call to pick her up. He bantered about nothing for a moment or two, the easy kind of talk Lila usually enjoyed and that seemed to be relaxing her now. Finally she said, “I wonder what Mr. Chips and Becky thought of this.”

“I’m not sure about Becky, but I think Stafford wanted me to know that if I couldn’t get you to leave, he stood ready to have an ambulance crew pry you out.”

She was still smiling right up until the last few words, when she suddenly burst into tears. Then he realized what a stupid thing
he’d said. Naturally, she’d be concerned about the effect of what she’d done on her position in the department. Any faculty member would be. Hell, he was concerned for her.

“You can talk to Stafford tomorrow,” he said quickly. “Explain that you weren’t quite ready to go back to work. He knows what you’ve been going through the last few weeks.” He reached for her hand. It was surprisingly cold given how warm it was in her office, especially crammed down there together. “Let’s go home. We can discuss your strategy with Stafford and make sure we—”

“I don’t care about Stafford.” She removed her hand. When she looked at him, he noticed how long her eyelashes looked, glistening with tears. “You don’t want to know what happened to me today, do you?”

“What?” He sounded surprised—and he was—but he also knew she was right: he hadn’t even thought to ask this question. Partly because he assumed Lila didn’t want to talk about it or she already would have, but also because, honestly, he really didn’t want to know the details. Still, he managed what he thought was the necessary response, “If you want to tell me, I’ll listen. Whatever you want to say.”

“But you’re not going to ask me?”

“No—wait, I mean, yes.” He was very confused, and no wonder: Lila had never
asked him
to
ask her
to tell him something before. And she knew he wasn’t good at prying things out of people. He wasn’t good at any of this.

He tried asking her, but she didn’t answer; maybe because he phrased the question too mechanically, just repeating, “What happened to you?” He didn’t know what else she wanted him to say, what words she was waiting for.

After a long, uncomfortable silence, he said, “Look, I don’t think I’m the one you should be talking to anyway.” He ran his hand through his hair, scraping one of his knuckles against something on
the desk that felt as sharp as a nail. “I think your friends are right. It’s time to find you a good therapist.”

“I already told you I can’t do that. Ashley will use it against me at the visitation hearing.” She had told him that. She’d also said that, at the funeral, Pearl claimed Ashley was already saying that both Billy and Lila were crazy.

“But isn’t the way you’re acting now even more damaging to your petition? Especially if Stafford decides he has to report this, the university will have a case file. You can see that—”

He was only stating the truth, but he instantly regretted saying this. Yes, it was entirely reasonable, but Lila was clearly beyond reasoning with. She began crying again and bolted from under the desk before he could reach her. He started to follow, but his left foot was asleep and he couldn’t move very fast. “Wait, Lila, I didn’t mean—”

She’d already grabbed her skirt and put it on. Before he could finish his thought, she’d snatched up her purse and left the office.

When he got to the parking lot and couldn’t find her car, he cursed himself for screwing this up. How would she drive in the state she was in? What if she really had an accident now?

He rushed to their apartment to discover that she was all right; she’d made it back home. He found her in the bedroom, staring at the ceiling. When he asked if she wanted dinner, she said she wasn’t hungry. When he said, “You have to eat something,” she said, “Don’t worry about me.”

But he did worry about her for the rest of the evening. And the next morning, when she made no move to go to work, he begged her again to see a professional to talk about this.

“You need help,” he said, sitting down on the bed next to her. He was already dressed, but trying not to be anxious about being late for his first class. “Do you realize you could lose your position? Even with tenure, if you don’t contact the dean and—”

“Request an emergency leave of absence? Email Stafford, too, and apologize for yesterday? I’m sure they’d grant my request. I don’t see the point, though.”

“What does that mean?”

“I realized this yesterday when I tried to teach
Sister Carrie.
” She rolled onto her side, away from him. “The characters aren’t real to me anymore. It’s like they’ve fallen to the floor and shattered into nothing but thousands of meaningless words. It’s like they died, but worse.” He heard her swallowing back a sob. “It’s like they never were.”