“I missed you today,” Moira said, watching the road ahead.
Leo smiled and studied her pretty profile in the dashboard’s light. She had one hand on the wheel, and the other on the console between them.
Leo put his hand over hers, and she didn’t pull away.
Not anymore.
Garfield’s varsity football team had lost by two points. So the overall mood of the crowd that cold December afternoon was pretty somber. The light, cold drizzle didn’t help either. Once the final whistle blew, the fans quickly cleared the bleachers.
During the game, he’d felt like he was onstage, sitting in the first row, half a bench length away from the cheerleaders. But with his crutches, he couldn’t make it up the bleacher steps. Last time he’d tried at one of these games, everyone had gawked at him and whispered to each other. So he sat there at ground level, very conspicuous with his leg in a fiberglass cast and his titanium crutches at his side.
Jordan stared out at the vacant, muddy football field. He could see his breath and felt the rain on his face. He could also see people staring at him as they passed by, so he put the hood of his navy blue slicker over his head.
He figured this sitting-on-the-sidelines business was a dress rehearsal for spring—and lacrosse season. The leg injury had benched him, permanently.
He’d spent three weeks in the hospital—unfortunately, not the same hospital as Leo. Jordan’s dad wouldn’t hear of him staying in a public hospital. It was only the best for his son. So Jordan had a private room, around-the- clock nurses, a TV, and a telephone so he could phone his friend.
After everything they’d been through, they should have been together. Apparently, Leo had thought he might be ticked off about the sleeping pills thing. But Jordan wasn’t angry, not really. In fact, one of the interns had told him the sedatives in his system might have saved his life. The pills Leo had given him had possibly slowed the bleeding and reduced some of the pain. Whether it was true or not, he passed the story on to Leo. It made his friend feel better.
They’d sprung Leo from Harborview Medical Center after six days. Jordan figured he could have gone home around the same time, but they transferred him to another wing at Swedish Hospital and kept him there for observation—in other words, to make sure he wasn’t crazy. During that time, he wasn’t allowed to use the phone or have visitors. He found out later that a ton of reporters had wanted to talk to him—along with some guys from the lacrosse team; Leo, of course; Moira; and even Susan Blanchette. She’d sent flowers with a card that simply said:
One of the stipulations to his release from the hospital was that he had to see a therapist twice a week. At least that was the consensus from the higher-ups, “the people who decide these things,” as his mom used to say. By the time he got out, Jordan learned that Leo and Moira were dating. Things were suddenly different. He didn’t see so much of his friend anymore.
He used to pick up Leo for school in the morning, but he couldn’t drive with his leg in a cast. So Jordan’s dad hired some limo service to chauffeur him to and from Garfield. As if he already didn’t feel like a freak, now he had a limo dropping him off at school.
Meanwhile, Moira drove Leo to school now. She took up nearly all of his time. Jordan actually had to plan ahead if he wanted to hang out with his best friend—and Moira almost always wanted to join them. It just wasn’t the same. He missed his friend.
Things felt different with his lacrosse teammates, too—or maybe he just felt isolated from them because he couldn’t play anymore. He’d never really gotten into being a big jock hero, but now that he’d been sidelined, Jordan kind of missed it. He felt so isolated. And of course, everyone knew his mother had been murdered by Mama’s Boy, and they all knew about him abducting Meeker, sinking his car in a swamp, and tying him up in his basement. One of his lacrosse buddies even asked him in a hushed voice: “Is it true you had that guy bare-assed down in your basement and you were torturing him?” They all knew about his early breakdowns, and the two extra weeks he’d just spent in the hospital under
It wasn’t just people at school either. Total strangers would stop and stare at him on the sidewalk or in the mall. Some of them would even walk up and ask, “Aren’t you Jordan Prewitt?” And then they’d ask about Mama’s Boy.
He talked about all this with his therapist, who said he was “in a better place” than he’d been last month. Jordan figured that meant he wasn’t so damn crazy—maybe just a little lonely. He and Leo had made a date to get together this coming Friday night. Moira had a girls’ sleepover and would be out of the picture, thank Christ.
It would be nice to see his pal again.
The rain seemed to come down a bit harder, and except for a few stragglers, the bleachers had emptied out. Jordan reached for his crutches, and saw a kid coming down the steps. The red-haired boy was about twelve years old. He was kind of a goofy-looking kid, wearing a yellow rain-slicker poncho. He walked toward him, but hesitated for the last few steps. The boy looked a bit apprehensive. Of course, he did. After all, he was approaching a guy everyone knew was a dangerous character. He used to be kind of a hero. But now, he was just kind of crazy. Jordan wondered if he suddenly said “Boo!” how quickly this curious kid would turn around and run.
He glanced over his shoulder and saw a forty-something guy who had to be the kid’s father. Standing under his umbrella a few tiers up, he had glasses and receding reddish-grey hair.
“Excuse me,” the kid said. “Are you Jordan Prewitt?”
Frowning, Jordan turned toward him and nodded. “Yeah, that’s me.”
The boy in the yellow slicker nervously held out his hand. “I wanted to say hello—and—and—and thank you,” he said. “My name’s Andy Milford….” He glanced back at his father, and then at Jordan. “Eleven years ago, that guy killed my mother. My—my dad, he wanted me to thank you and shake your hand.”
Jordan knew the name. Pamela Milford had been abducted while pushing her ten-month-old baby in his stroller in Volunteer Park. He looked over his shoulder at the boy’s father. The man nodded respectfully and mouthed the words,
Jordan worked up a smile and nodded back. Then he looked the sweet, funny-faced boy in the eye and shook his hand. “It’s really great to meet you, Andy,” he said.
The father came down the bleacher steps. “Okay, Andy, let’s get a move on,” he called gently.
The boy turned and ran back to his dad. He hovered under the umbrella with him.
Jordan reached for his crutches again and caught the boy’s father looking at him. “Are you okay, Jordan?” the man asked, a little tremor in his voice. “Do you need any help?”
“No, thank you, Mr. Milford,” he said. “You and Andy have helped me enough already today. I’ll be okay.”
The father nodded at him once more, then turned and walked away with his arm around his son.
Jordan sat and watched them for a moment. “Yeah,” he whispered to himself, still smiling. “Yeah, I’ll be okay.”
She heard the movers’ truck churning as it pulled away from the curb in front of her new house. Susan stood in the living room. She wearily stared at the maze of stacked boxes amid her furniture—which, somehow, didn’t seem to belong in here. She was tired and hungry, and she missed the old duplex. She didn’t think this new place was ever going to be home.
Of course, when she’d taken one last look at the empty duplex this morning, she’d been flooded with memories of Walt and Michael and Mattie when he was a baby. Funny, she hadn’t thought at all about Allen Meeker, and the nights he’d spent there. Yet that had been her main reason for moving. Now it all seemed so pointless.
Allen had been the reason she’d pushed Tom away, too. Tom hadn’t called back since last week. He’d warned her that if she kept shooting him down, he would give up. And, apparently, he had. In her campaign to expunge Allen Meeker from her life and never make the same mistake again, there had been some heavy, unnecessary casualties.
Tom had been right. She didn’t feel she deserved to be happy. For a while, she’d even considered what some of those people on the Internet had said about giving the lawsuit money to the families of Allen’s victims. Instead, she’d paid off her hospital debt, put some away for Mattie’s college, and anonymously gave $20,000 to pay for Leo
