None was listed here.
Interesting.
Or not. For one thing they were probably more discreet about personal issues twenty years ago. But second . . . well, who cared? What on earth could Todd’s taking time off as a sophomore have to do with his marrying Natalie and then dying and leaving behind a different wife?
When Todd came back to school, there were now more professor comments—not the ones a student would long for. One professor described him as “distracted.” Another said that Todd was “clearly bitter” and “not the same.” Another suggested that Todd should take more time off to deal with “the situation.” No one mentioned what the situation was.
I clicked to the next page. Todd had been brought up to the disciplinary board. Some schools have students deal with disciplinary issues, but we have a three-professor rotating panel. I did it for a two-month stint last year. Most of the cases that came before us dealt with two campus epidemics: underage drinking and cheating. The rest were a smattering of thefts or threats of violence or some variety of sexual assault or aggression that didn’t meet the standard for law enforcement.
The case that came before the disciplinarian board involved an altercation between Todd and another student named Ryan McCarthy. McCarthy ended up hospitalized with contusions and a broken nose. The school was calling for a heavy suspension or even expulsion, but the three-professor panel gave Todd a total pass. That surprised me. There were no details or minutes on the actual hearing or the subsequent deliberations. That surprised me too.
The handwritten decision had been scanned into the file:
My eyes traveled down to the bottom of the page to see the professor who had signed the panel’s opinion. I made a face. Professor Eban Trainor. I should have known. I knew Trainor well enough. We were not what one would call friendly.
If I wanted to learn more about this “tough blow” or indeed this decision, I would need to talk to Eban. I wasn’t looking forward to that.
It was late, but I wasn’t worried about waking Benedict. He only used a cell phone and turned it off when sleeping. He answered on the third ring.
“What?”
“Eban Trainor,” I said.
“What about him?”
“He still hate my guts?”
“I would assume so. Why?”
“I need to ask him about my buddy Todd Sanderson. Do you think you can smooth it out?”
“Smooth it out? Sure. Why do you think they call me the Sandman?”
“Because you put your students to sleep?”
“You really know how to butter a guy up when you’re asking for a favor. I’ll call you in the morning.”
We hung up. I sat back, unsure what to do next, when my monitor dinged that I had received a new e-mail. I was going to ignore it. Like most people I knew, I got too many irrelevant e-mails during all hours of the day. This would undoubtedly be yet another.
Then I saw the sender’s e-mail address:
I stared at it until my eyes watered. There was a rushing in my ears. Everything around me was silent and too still. I kept staring, but the letters didn’t change.
RSbyJA.
It took me no time to see what those letters meant:
The subject was empty. My hand found the mouse. I tried to get the cursor over the e-mail so I could open it, but first I had to control my shake. I took a deep breath and willed my hand still. The room remained a hushed quiet, almost expectantly so. I moved the cursor over the e-mail and clicked on it.
The e-mail stopped my heart.
There, on my screen, were four words. That was all, just four words, but those four words sliced through my chest like a reaper’s scythe, making it nearly impossible to breathe. I collapsed back on the chair, lost, as the four words on the screen stared back at me:
You made a promise.
Chapter 10
The e-mail wasn’t signed. Didn’t matter.
I quickly hit the reply button and typed:
Natalie? Are you okay? Please just let me know that.
I hit send.
I would explain to you how time slowed to a crawl as I waited for her next e-mail, but that wasn’t really what happened. There was no time for it, I guess. Three seconds later, my new-e-mail-ding sounded. My heart raced until I saw the sender’s name:
MAILDAEMON
I clicked open but I already knew what I would find:
This e-mail address doesn’t exist . . .
I almost smacked the computer in frustration, as if it were a candy machine that wouldn’t dispense the Milky Way. I actually shouted “No way!” out loud. I didn’t know what to do. I sat there and I started drowning. I felt as though I were sinking and couldn’t even flail my way back to the surface.
I went back to googling. I tried the e-mail and different variations, but it was just a waste of time. I read her e-mail again:
You made a promise.
I had, hadn’t I? And when you stopped and thought about it, why did I break that promise? A man had died. Maybe it was her husband. Maybe it wasn’t. Still, was that a reason to go back on my promise to her? Maybe. Maybe it was at first. But now she had made it clear. That was the purpose of the e-mail. Natalie was calling me on it. She was reminding me of the promise because she knew that I don’t make promises idly.
It was why she had made me promise to stay away in the first place.
I thought about that now. I thought about the funeral and the visit to Vermont and this student file. What did it all add up to? I don’t know. If it had originally warranted going back on my word, I now had proof that I could no longer justify it. Natalie’s message couldn’t have been clearer.
You made a promise.
With a tentative finger, I touched the words on the screen. My heart crumbled anew. Too bad, tough guy. So okay, heartbreak notwithstanding, I would let it go. I would back off. I would keep my word.
I headed to bed and fell asleep almost immediately. I know. I was surprised by that too, but I think all the
