“I’d go to hell and back.”
“Okay, then. So you will.”
19
I n the last week of August-that non-week, the week of Sundays when we all move a little slower and mourn the passing of summer and get ourselves ready for fall-the temperatures climbed and the air thickened until the heat was all anyone could talk about: when it would break, how high it would go, how unbearable the humidity was. It drove people indoors, as if it was winter. The sidewalks and shops were oddly quiet. To me the heat was not an affliction, it was merely a symptom, as a fever is a symptom of the flu. It was only the most obvious reason the world was fast becoming unbearable.
We were all a little heat-crazy by then, Laurie and Jacob and I. Looking back on it, it is hard to believe how self-absorbed I had become, how this whole story seemed to be about me, not Jacob, not our entire family. Jacob’s guilt and mine were entangled in my mind, though no one had ever accused me of anything explicitly. I was coming apart, of course. I knew this. I distinctly remember exhorting myself to hold it together, to keep up appearances, not to crack.
But I did not share my feelings with Laurie, and I did not try to draw out hers either, because we were all coming apart. I discouraged any sort of frank emotional talk, and soon enough I stopped noticing my wife altogether. I never asked-never even asked! — what the experience was like for the mother of Jacob the murderer. I thought it was more important to be-at least to seem-a tower of strength and to encourage her to be strong as well. It was the only sensible approach: tough it out, get through the trial, do whatever it takes to keep Jacob safe, then repair the emotional damage later. After. It was as if there was a place called After, and if I could just push my family across to that shore, then everything would be all right. There would be time for all these “soft” problems in the land of After. I was wrong. I think about that now, how I should have seen Laurie then, should have paid more attention. She had saved my life, once. I came to her damaged and she had loved me anyway. And when she was damaged, I did not lift a finger to help her. I only noticed that her hair was getting grayer and sloppier, and her face was becoming crazed with lines like an old ceramic vase. She had lost so much weight that her hip bones protruded, and when we were together she spoke less and less. In spite of it all, I never softened in my determination to save Jacob first and heal Laurie later. I try to rationalize that merciless intransigence now: I was by then a master of internalizing dangerous emotions; my mind was overheated with the stress of that endless summer. It is all true and it is all bullshit too. The truth is, I was a fool. Laurie, I was a fool. I know that now.
I went to the Yoos’ home around ten o’clock one morning. Derek’s parents both worked, even during this pseudo-vacation week. I knew Derek would be home alone. He and Jacob were still texting regularly. They even spoke on the phone, though only during the day, when Derek’s parents were not around to hear. I was convinced Derek would want to help his friend, he would want to talk to me, tell me the truth, but I was afraid he would not let me in anyway. He was a good kid. He would do as he had been told, as he always did, always had done. So I was prepared to talk my way into the house, even to force my way in to get to him. I remember feeling quite capable of that. I came to the house wearing baggy cargo shorts and a T-shirt that stuck to my sweaty back. I had gained some weight since this all began, and I recall that the shorts shimmied down my hips over and over, weighted down by my gut. I had to hike them up constantly. I had always been fit and trim. My sloppy new body made me ashamed, but I felt no inclination to fix it. Again, there would be time after.
Arriving at the Yoos’ home, I did not knock. I did not want to give the kid a chance to hide from me, to see me and refuse to answer the door, pretend he was not there. Instead I went around to the back, past the little flower garden, past a hydrangea shooting white conical bunches of flowers in every direction like fireworks, a blossoming that David Yoo waited all year for, I remembered.
The Yoos had built an extension off the back of their house. It contained a mudroom and a breakfast room. The walls were windowed all around. From the back deck I could see in through the kitchen to the little sitting area where Derek sprawled on a couch in front of the TV. There was patio furniture on this deck, an umbrellaed table and six chairs. If Derek had refused to let me in, I might have thrown one of those heavy patio chairs through the French door, like William Hurt in Body Heat. But the door was unlocked. I walked right into the house as if I owned it, as if I had just run out to the garage to take out the trash.
Inside, the house was cool, air-conditioned.
Derek scrambled to his feet but he did not come toward me. He stood with his skinny calves against the couch, in gym shorts and a black T-shirt with the Zildjian logo across the chest. His bare feet were long and bony. His toes pressed down into the carpet, arching like little caterpillars. Nerves. When I first met Derek, he was five years old and still pudgy. Now he was another scrawny, gangly, slightly spaced-out teenage kid like my own. He was just like Jacob in every way but one: there was no cloud on Derek’s future, nothing to obstruct him. He would move through adolescence with the same zonked-out expression as Jacob, same crap clothes, same shambling, no-eye-contact manner, and he would pass right on into adulthood. He was the blameless kid Jacob might have been, and I thought briefly how nice it would be to have such an uncomplicated kid. I envied David Yoo even as I considered him, at the moment, an asshole without peer.
“Hello, Derek.”
“Hi.”
“What’s wrong, Derek?”
“You’re not supposed to be here.”
“I’ve been here a hundred times.”
“Yeah, but you’re not supposed to be here now.”
“I just want to talk. About Jacob.”
“I’m not supposed to.”
“Derek, what’s wrong with you? You’re all… flustered.”
“No.”
“Are you afraid of me?”
“No.”
“Then why are you acting like this?”
“Like what? I’m not doing anything.”
“You look like you just shit a brick.”
“No. It’s just, you’re not supposed to be here.”
“Relax, Derek. Sit down. I just want to know the truth, that’s all. What on earth is going on here? What’s really going on? I just wish someone would tell me.”
I moved through the kitchen into the TV room cautiously, as if I were approaching a skittish animal.
“I don’t care what your parents said, Derek. Your parents are wrong. Jacob deserves your help. He’s your friend. Your friend. I am too. I’m your friend and this is what friends do, Derek. They help each other. That’s all I want, is for you to be Jacob’s friend, right now. He needs you.”
I sat down.
“What did you tell Logiudice? What could you possibly have told him that would make him believe my son is a murderer?”
“I didn’t say Jake is a murderer.”
“What did you tell him, then?”
“Why don’t you ask Logiudice? I thought he had to tell you?”
“He’s supposed to, Derek, but he’s playing games. He’s not a good guy, Derek. I know it might be hard for you to understand that. He didn’t put you in front of the grand jury because then he would have to provide me with a transcript. He probably did not have you talk to a detective either, because then the cop would have written a report. So I need you to tell me, Derek. I need you to do the right thing. Tell me what you said to Logiudice that made him so sure Jacob is guilty.”
“I told him the truth.”
