When He Fell (12 page)

“They came down hard on Josh,” Joanna tells me quietly. “A week’s suspension. I think he…realizes the seriousness of what he did.”

Does she think that makes it better, that I want to see Josh, with his shy smile and silky hair, punished? And yet, maybe I do. “I know,” I say as I sink into a chair. “Mrs. James told me.” I drum my fingers on the armrest, still restless.

“Lewis thinks the school is hiding something,” Joanna says.

“They’re trying to hide that the boys were on the rocks.” It is obvious to me now. “In case I sue them for negligence.”

Joanna studies me, her eyes wide and dark. Josh’s eyes. “Would you do that?”

“I don’t know.” I can’t even think about a lawsuit right now. “I need to focus on Ben,” I say, but I know what else I need to do. I need to talk to Juliet, and get some real answers.

“If there’s anything we can do…” Joanna begins, and before I can stop myself I give a weary, cynical laugh.

“Everyone says that. No one means it.”

Joanna draws back a little. “I do mean it,” she says.“Whatever we can do. If you need meals, or errands done, watering your plants…” She trails off and I simply stare.

Watering my plants?
I know she means well. I know I’m being unfair in my anger, my jealousy, but what I really want Joanna Taylor-Davies to do is to get out of here and leave me alone. I don’t need her easy benevolence, not when what I really want, what I really need, is her husband.

For a second I imagine telling her just that.
Actually, Joanna,
I really need your husband to be here with me. Can you ask Lewis to come over?

Except I don’t want to ask; I don’t want Lewis to have sent his wife. The injustice and futility of it, of everything, swamps me.

“Thank you, Joanna,” I say, “but there’s nothing you can do.”

10
JOANNA

We wait out Josh’s suspension, cautiously enjoying the days of freedom, before his return to school starts to loom menacingly, like a dark cloud taking over the horizon.

I spend three days with Josh at the Lego Store, and then we have lunch out. I manage to cajole him to the Toys R Us in midtown, where we buy a couple of new puzzles. And one sunny afternoon we walk all the way across town to where the aircraft carrier
Intrepid
is docked. We don’t go on it, don’t even leave the sidewalk. Just look. But at least it’s not Lego.

Then I go back to work and Lewis takes over. He takes Josh to the park, to fly kites and kick a soccer ball. Be normal, try to feel happy.

When I come home on Monday evening, two days before Josh is due back at Burgdorf, I see him and Lewis on the sofa with a length of brand new yellow rope.

“What are you doing?” I ask and Josh looks up and answers succinctly,

“Knots.”

I watch them for a moment; Lewis is guiding Josh through several complicated loops and twists.

“Bowline,” Josh says, and he actually smiles. I can’t remember the last time I saw him smile, a proper smile, showing all his teeth. One of his front teeth has only come in halfway and he’s missing his left incisor; it fell out a couple of weeks ago.

Josh glances at Lewis. “The rabbit comes out of the hole, goes around back of the tree, and then jumps back into the hole.”

“That’s it, buddy,” Lewis says, clapping him on the back. I watch Josh smile up at Lewis, and then look at me, as if for affirmation. I smile back.

“I didn’t know you knew how to make knots,” I say to Lewis. I dump my briefcase on the kitchen counter and take out a sheaf of paperwork. Three and a half days of missed work and I’m swamped. Running your own dental practice isn’t just about sitting in a chair and staring into someone’s mouth. I’m responsible for everything: insurance claims, office maintenance, equipment repairs. I have two employees: my receptionist Barbara and a part-time hygienist, and I have to do their payroll and insurance as well.

“From my merchant navy days,” Lewis says as he rises from the sofa. I’d semi-forgotten that Lewis was in the Merchant Marines for a couple of years, before I met him. He joined at sixteen to get away from home; there were funded places at a local training college. Then he spent another few years traveling the world on commercial ships, working in the engine department before he cashed out and came to New York when he was twenty-four.

“Handy,” I say. Josh is still fiddling with the rope, trying to undo the little knotted noose he made.

Lewis comes over and rests a hand on the back of my neck, under my hair. I close my eyes, reveling in the feel of his fingers massaging the tense muscles in my neck, the strength and warmth of his palm against my skin.

“You okay?” he murmurs.

“Yeah. Fine. Just need to catch up on work.”

Lewis kneads my neck with his fingers and I let out a small sigh of both contentment and need as I drop the paperwork onto the counter.

I haven’t asked him about Maddie. He didn’t ask about my visit to her a few days ago, beyond one indifferent ‘How did it go?’ which I answered with a brief ‘Fine’. Neither of us pushed for details, which in retrospect seems odd. It’s as if Maddie Reese has become a no-go area, and I’m not sure why or how it happened.

Meeting Maddie unnerved me. I hadn’t taken much notice of her before, but in the hospital I realized how pretty she was. Her glossy dark hair was cut in a perfect bob, and even though there were violet smudges under her eyes she looked lovely; if I had not sensed a certain jaded hardness to her I would have thought her almost ethereal. Next to her I felt even more awkward and ungainly than I usually did. When I gestured with my hands, I felt like as if was waving oven mitts around.

And the fact that I was the one who told her Josh pushed Ben—that she didn’t know—it felt like I’d made a mistake, even though I recognize that Maddie needs to know. But I didn’t tell Lewis about that, and I didn’t tell him about the boys being on the rocks, either. I’m not sure why. There are a lot of things in our marriage we’ve chosen not to speak about, and I suppose I’m adding to the list. But I just want to get past this. I want Josh to go back to school, Ben to get better, life to go on.

I want to believe it can.

Lewis drops his hand from my neck and I step away as if I don’t miss it and open the fridge to see what we have for dinner. Josh is still sitting on the sofa, trying to undo the bowline knot he made. Lewis braces one hip against the counter, watching me.

“Josh and I had a look at PS 84 today,” he says, his voice casual, and I turn from the open fridge.

“What?”

“It seems like a good place.”

I shake my head instinctively. “Josh has liked it at Burgdorf, Lewis,” I say in a low voice.

“I’m not sure that’s true any more.”

I glance over at Josh, whose head is bent over the rope. I can’t tell if he can hear us. “What did he say about PS 84?”

Lewis shrugs. “Not much. But he seemed interested.”

“I don’t want him to have to start over.”

We’ve lowered our voices so we’re talking in hushed whispers. Josh still fumbles with the knot. “Maybe he has to, Jo,” Lewis answers. “Maybe it will be good for him.”

“Have you asked him what he wants?”

“Josh is nine. He doesn’t know what he wants, or what’s best for him.”

I take out a package of tofu and stare down at it mindlessly. “And if he leaves Burgdorf, everyone will assume he’s done something wrong, that he did it on purpose or something.”

Lewis is silent for a moment, and I turn to him, shocked to think that maybe he believes this is true.

“It was an
accident
, Lewis,” I hiss.

“I know that.” He runs a hand through his unruly hair. “I
know
that, Jo. Of course it was.”

We fall silent, both of us realizing that we’re having this conversation with Josh in earshot. We hold each other’s gazes in the silent, spousal communication:
we’ll talk about this later.

And then I turn back to the tofu, and attempt to turn it and some grilled peppers into a healthy dinner.

After that first party where I met Lewis, he asked me out again about a week later.

He took me to an Italian restaurant near Columbia that looked like it was right out of
Lady and the Tramp
, with big bowls of spaghetti and candles stuck in Chianti bottles covered in drips of hardened wax. I lasted until we ordered before I asked the question that had been burning in me, bursting to get out.

“What…what do you actually see in me?”

Lewis looked surprised, and I cringed inwardly—and probably outwardly, too—because I hadn’t meant to sound so pathetic. But I needed to know; Lewis seemed way out of my league, with his vitality and self-assurance, his curly, dark hair and capable hands. I knew he worked in maintenance for an apartment building, and that might have made him less attractive to some women who cared about status and money, but never to me. Never to me.

“I like you,” he said that night, and I knew he meant it. “You don’t pretend or play games. You’re so honest. I can see everything in your face.”

I fought the urge to hide my face with my hands, longing for a sudden inscrutable sophistication to come upon me, to cover me. I did not want anyone, especially Lewis, to know what I was thinking. To see how much I liked him. But I think Lewis saw that right from the beginning.

I make tofu steaks and we eat all together. Josh talks a bit with Lewis about some of the sailor’s knots they’ve made, and I watch and smile. From a distance, I think, we’d seem like a normal family.
Nothing wrong here.

After dinner Josh goes to his room and Lewis helps me clear the table. In the kitchen he stands with his hands braced on the counter top.

“So why not PS 84?” he asks. “We could certainly use the thirty grand we spend on Burgdorf.”

“This isn’t about money,” I say sharply, too sharply, and Lewis’s eyes narrow.

“I’ve never thought or acted like it’s about money,” he returns. “But it’s certainly a fringe benefit, and I don’t see why we can’t try the public school system. Plenty of people go through it and are fine.”

“Plenty of people are not Josh.”

“You honestly think he’ll do better at Burgdorf?” Lewis asks. “All those kids
ratted
on him, Jo—”

“You know,” I say very softly, “he did push him, Lewis.” I take a deep breath, knowing I need to come clean. “And Lewis…they were on the rocks.”

“The rocks? You mean the big boulders?” I nod and Lewis’s eyebrows snap together in a frown. “Who told you that?”

“Josh did, a few days ago.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me?”

“I suppose I didn’t want to admit to it. It seems worse, that he pushed him from such a distance.”

“You don’t think he actually meant him to fall all the way down?” Lewis asks in a low voice.

“I don’t think he thought it through. But if he was angry…”

“Josh doesn’t get angry. And he’s insisted that they weren’t fighting.”

“All right,” I agree, “but I still feel he’s hiding something. Can’t you sense it? There is some piece of this we’re not getting, and I think it’s important.”

Lewis is silent for a long moment. When I glance at him, his head is bowed, his jaw set. “I know there is,” he says. “But I don’t know how we’ll find it out.”

I think of Ben lying so still in that hospital bed, the twitching of his eyelids the only sign so far of consciousness. I hope he’s woken up by now. I hope he’s started to move on, so we can move on. And maybe this missing piece of the story, whatever it is, won’t matter any more.

“I still don’t think Josh should run away,” I say to Lewis. “Burgdorf
has
been good for him. Even you can admit that. We need to give it one more chance, at least. Josh has never been good with change.” Lewis says nothing and I press, “Let’s give it until Christmas vacation. That’s less than two months away. If things haven’t improved, we can look somewhere else for January.”

After a long moment Lewis nods. “Okay,” he says. “That sounds reasonable.”

I smile in relief and he reaches for me, enfolding me in his arms. Neither of us speaks; there are no words of comfort we can offer each other. But it feels good to hold each other.

Two days later Lewis and I both take Josh back to Burgdorf. Josh doesn’t say a word all morning, and despite my urgings he won’t touch his breakfast. His face is pale but resolute and I feel proud of him for being willing to face this, even if we haven’t exactly given him a choice.

We walk on either side of Josh as we head towards those bright blue doors. A few parents are walking towards them too, and I can’t tell if people are looking at us because I’m staring straight ahead, my body rigid.

As we come through the door Josh slips his hand in mine. I give his hand a squeeze of solidarity and he looks up and gives me the tiniest smile back.

Mrs. James is standing by the doors, her hands folded at her middle; she looks like a nun in a cashmere twin set and pencil skirt.

“Good morning, Joshua,” she says and Josh mumbles a hello without looking at her. It feels like the first hurdle has been passed.

Parents aren’t supposed to go into the classrooms, but Lewis and I have silently agreed to make an exception as we follow Josh in. He goes right to his cubby and starts slinging his backpack and lunchbox inside; a few kids shoot him curious looks, but they don’t seem overtly hostile.

Then Mrs. Rollins comes over and lays a hand on Josh’s shoulder. “Josh,” she says and her voice is warm. “It’s good to have you back.” She turns to the other children in the classroom; some are unpacking their stuff like Josh, and others are talking or reading or fooling around. “Friends?” she asks, which is how teachers are meant to address the pupils. Her voice is purposefully upbeat. “Isn’t it good to have Josh back?”

A second, two seconds, of silence. Then: “Yes, Mrs. Rollins,” they all parrot, in that eerie singsong chant particular to schoolchildren.

We both say goodbye to Josh, trying to sound upbeat, unconcerned. As we leave the classroom, I can’t help but feel as if we’ve just abandoned him.

Mrs. James is still standing by the doors as we leave. Her expression is neutral as she nods to us. She doesn’t say anything, and neither do we.