The last secret_ a novel - Mary McGarry Morris [48]
“I'm sorry.” He holds out his hand, and Drew looks at it. “You don't have to,” Clay says, dropping the hand to his side. “I don't blame you. I feel like such a jerk. I coulda really hurt you and I—”
“You did really hurt him,” Nora interrupts quietly. Both fathers stare with her unsporting comment, but she doesn't care. This was an ugly act of violence and she won't have it glossed over to salve the boy's guilt. They are the adults here, the parents. If they don't speak the truth, who will? “He has a concussion, a fractured rib, a broken tooth—”
“I know!” Clay breaks in, sobbing now. “I know what I did, and I feel real bad about it. I do, Drew. I mean that.”
Ken steps forward and for a sickening moment she is sure from his stricken gaze that he is going to embrace Clay. Instead, he puts his arm around his own son. “Why don't you shake his hand?” he asks gently.
Drew just stands there, looking so slight and miserable next to the men and the bigger boy that she feels like screaming at Ken, Leave him alone, why're you doing this?
“Please,” Clay says through tears, again offering his hand.
“Go ahead,” Ken urges.
Instead, Drew turns and makes his painful climb back up the stairs.
“Aw, he'll get over it,” Ken says with a pat on Clay's shoulder.
“Get over what?” Nora asks.
“Kids,” he says with a look of panic: surely she won't make another scene. “You know what I mean.”
“No. I don't.”
“Better get home now,” Bob says, opening the door.
“I'm sorry,” Clay mumbles.
“It's okay,” Ken says, following them out to their car.
She's still standing there when he comes back in.
“Don't look at me like that,” he snaps.
“Do you know what the fight was about?”
“You really want to tell me, don't you?” he whispers, his face close at hers.
“Your son's up there beaten to a pulp, and you act like it's nothing. No big deal.”
“No. It's a mess. Everything. All of it,” he growls, flinging his arm out. “You think I don't know that? You think I want this? Any of it? Do you? Do you?” he demands with a frightening bitterness.
Coldness. Resentment. It's the first time she's ever felt that from him. In all their years together. She has to be careful. Can't push too hard. Can't keep pressuring, piling on the guilt, or there'll be nothing left.
unlight streams through her office window. It is beautiful outside, cold but clear, the cloudless sky a blinding blue. She keeps yawning. Last night she and Ken stayed up long after the children had gone to bed, but now that she thinks of it, she did most of the talking. Whenever she brought up Robin's treachery, he defended her, at one point even calling her “a victim of circumstance.” Nothing is Robin's fault. Or his. He's the one who betrayed his wife and his best friend but can't or won't say why. Finally, she asked what she might have done differently—something, anything that might have prevented the affair. Nothing, he said, sounding surprised. She didn't ask the obvious next question: what might he have done differently, because hearing his chipper “nothing” a second time would have been too painful. So she held back, allowing him the lead, in the end both agreeing that they loved their children and for their sake would make every effort to treat one another with respect. As much as she knew she should, she couldn't say the words, she admitted, couldn't say she loved him. Not right now, she said, trying not to cry. At least not in the same way. Sighing, Ken squeezed her hand until it hurt, and in his long pause, she waited, needing him to say it, that he loved her, always had, always would. Instead, he said he understood.
She will go to counseling with him. If the marriage is worth saving, it's the least they can do, she thinks he said. Or did she say it, in desperation, anything, to make herself feel better? Worth saving, she keeps thinking. What, like a TV or car, fix it or get a new one? Tinker with it, see how long they can