Breaking Glass (9 page)

But Patrick Morgan?
I guess with a mother like Trudy, just about anyone would seem like an improvement.

We pull up the steep driveway and I see Dad has made the feeble attempt to string some colored lights on the house. It’s almost laughable compared to the Morgans’. But it’s clear he tried, so I keep a lid on the sarcasm for once.

“Nice, Dad. Is this for me?”

He turns to me. “I thought you’d like it. You always complain I’m lousy at Christmas.”

“You’re a Jew. You’re not supposed to be good at it.”

Dad chuckles and flashes me a rare full-cornered smile. “Well—you’re only half a Jew. I thought the other half would enjoy the lights.”

His smile drops away as it slowly dawns on Dad that he’s fed me my next line.

“So which is the half that’s left?” I say with a sideways smile. “The Jewish half or the Christian one?”

Dad reaches over and places a hand on my shoulder. “Feeling sorry for yourself is understandable, but it’s not going to solve anything, Jeremy. You still have to think of your future.”

“That pesky thing again.”

Dad turns off the ignition. “Let’s go inside. I’ve ordered an Indian takeout feast in your honor. After all that lousy hospital food, I thought you’d be famished.”

It’s not just my loss. It’s his, too, I realize. Which makes me feel even worse.

“Thanks, Dad,” I say. “Indian food sounds great.”

The trip from the car to the house is a heroic 3-D action-adventure movie. The snow is coming down hard. Dad decides that it’s too risky for me to navigate on crutches, and the wheelchair can’t roll on snow, so he slings my arm tightly over his shoulder. Clutching his waist, I hop in small, mincing leaps, a human pogo stick, until, wet and exhausted, we finally make it inside.

We eat our Indian feast in the dining room. Dad’s got a pathetic little tree and an electric menorah set up. I slap on a smile as he tries to distract me with a story about a flaky client, but the heaviness bears down on me so hard I can barely taste the lamb korma, my favorite. I feel Mom watching from the shadows.

“Are you even listening to me, Jeremy?” Dad asks.

“Actually I was thinking about this Civil War general, Dan Sickles. His leg got shot off in battle. He had the bones of the ruined leg wired together so it could be put on display at the Army Medical Museum. Maybe I could have mine put on display in the school trophy case next to last year’s State Championship Cup.”

Dad stares at me a beat, then lays down his fork. “Look, Jeremy. We can either tiptoe around each other and act like everything’s fine, or we can be realistic about things.”

“Tiptoeing may be difficult.”

Dad slams down his glass of water. “Jeremy!”

“Okay. Sorry. I didn’t mean that. It’s just a reflex.”

Dad shakes his head. “No more jokes.”

“Okay.”

“Jeremy, your grades matter more than ever if you still want to get into Cornell. Do you? You can, if you want.”

“I haven’t thought that far ahead. Right now, I’m kind of wondering who we should donate all my left running shoes to.”

Dad stands up and slams his fist on the table. The water glasses jiggle. “Damn it, Jeremy! It’s not funny. None of this is funny. I’ve tried to help you, tried to steer you down the right path, and yet, you—you
did this
.” Dad’s voice rises to the point where veins are popping in his neck and he is yelling. “How could you drink, with your mother’s history?
How could you
? You’ve done this to yourself,” he finishes quietly, tossing his napkin onto the table and striding out.

I close my eyes and hang my head. “Because I’m an asshole,” I say to the empty room.

A few minutes later, as I pull myself up on my crutches, Dad returns. His eyes are puffy and red, his hair damp, like he’s splashed his head with water.

“I’ve arranged for Marisa Santiago to help you with your schoolwork. She’s a senior and has finished most of her requirements, so she has some free time to work with you. She aced her SATs, by the way.”

“Her?”

Dad slants his head. “Are you implying because she’s an immigrant that she couldn’t have anything to offer?”

“No,” I say softly. “I was just surprised, that’s all.”

“She’s extremely bright. And she needs the money. Without her help, you’re up the creek. You’ve got to ace that AP Calculus if you want a shot at Cornell, and there’s very little time to finish your college applications. You’ve already missed more than three weeks of school.”

I’m so tired, and I don’t want to tell Dad that I’d much rather drink myself into a stupor as I zone out on history books. That I don’t care about calculus, or Cornell. That I want to drink until I’m numb. But I just nod my head so I don’t set him off again. “I know.”

He looks at me warily. “Get some rest. And don’t forget that stump massage regimen. It’s important if you want to get fitted for a prosthetic leg. You have the physical therapist coming to work with you in a few days.”

“Sounds like fun,” I mutter, too low for him to hear.

Dad stays home with me for the next two days. We don’t talk much. Mostly, I sleep, trying to forget, trying not to think of what they’ve done with my leg. A nurse comes by to review the changing of dressings and the proper wrapping of the stump.

By the time he goes back to work on the third day, my eyeballs are nearly popping out of my head from thirst.

I stagger clumsily on my crutches to visit the stash in the pantry. I don’t want to hurt Dad, but the panic is swirling in like the black waters of the Gorge. I imagine my lost leg sinking and vanishing into the murky depths. I open the pantry door, heave the giant bag of charcoal out of the way, and cry out.

Gone. The bottles are all gone.

I stand, leaning on my crutches so that with my one leg they form a tripod, and wait for things to quiet. My heart is racing. Since the painkiller dosage has been gradually decreased, panic has started to announce itself at the edges of my drug-induced equilibrium like an ominous organ chord in a cheesy old movie. Soon, the chords will be loud enough to drown out all other sound.

These are the times I used to run.

But what am I going to do now?

I feel myself shattering inside, like a clay figurine that has been broken, holding my shape before I crumble to dust. I ease myself to the floor and rest my head in my hands.

“What the fuck am I going to do with my life?” I ask the cereal boxes.

The door creaks ever so slightly and a soft breeze whisks past my cheek.

I raise my head. “Suze?”

Nothing.

Then I hear it, the softest of whispers, little more than a breath.

At least you still have a life, Jeremy Glass
.

C H A P T E R
n i n e

Did I really hear that, or was it just my guilty conscience misfiring?

I scrape myself off the floor and clump back to the study.

I’ve been so busy starring in my own drama since the amputation, I haven’t really thought much about Susannah. She’s been missing for four weeks, and at one point it was all I cared about. And now her mother thinks someone might have killed her.

So what have I done about it? Nothing, except distract myself with nonsense rituals and hallucinate evidence that I’ve brought her back from the dead. To start with, there’s no evidence that she is even dead.

But what if Ryan actually killed her and, just like always, I’m letting him get away with murder? Meanwhile, the poor bereaved boyfriend has been busily raising money for my new super-advanced high-tech leg, texting me once a day to update me on his progress. As always, I text him back a quick thank you and refuse to see him, though he asks each time. Today, instead of texting me he’s sent a link to a video of a guy walking with the state-of-the art leg he’s hoping to get me.

I consider calling him and asking some pointed questions. Like, where did she run? How far did he follow? My dad insists the police report says Ryan wasn’t there at the accident scene. That his car wasn’t there. Leaving nothing to trace him to Susannah’s disappearance except my very shaky and unreliable word.

I search my memories for clues and wonder how accurate they are. Could anything I remember be trusted? What if I had it all wrong? With the amount of drugs I’m on, I’m starting to doubt everything. Even what I’ve seen with my own eyes.

But if Patrick Morgan can doctor my medical report, why not a police report?

I’d have to do some serious poking around to uncover the real truth. Which is no easy task in Riverton. But one I’m not above trying.

With me occupying his study, Dad’s turned the dining room table into a precarious mountain of papers, his ad hoc home office. Before I took over his space, he must have still worked at his desk. In his haste and upset over my accident, he probably stuffed the police report in the bottom desk drawer, his catchall for bills and whatnot, and then forgot about it. Dad’s not exactly Mr. Neat.

I hobble over to his desk. It’s my lucky day. The bottom drawer is unlocked and I don’t have to look far. In a crumpled manila envelope is a copy of the report, filed by Sergeant Evan Barnes, one of Dad’s occasional poker buddies.

There is no mention of the four vehicles that should have been at the scene if Ryan’s account is accurate. There are just three recorded as present—mine, Susannah’s, and the truck that was involved in the collision.

There is no eyewitness account of the accident, save for that of the truck driver. The officer notes he was quite distraught, insisting that he didn’t realize I was in the road until he hit me.

I stare at the paper. Either the report is a fake, or Ryan flat-out lied to me. He’d left Susannah alone in the woods. Or he’d killed her and scrammed.

Or my memory is playing tricks on me. Either way, none of this adds up. Susannah is missing. Her mother thinks someone killed her.

And maybe so do I.

Then

Susannah and Ryan became the “it couple” that Christmas, and I took my place as the ever-present third side of our triangle. We were Susannah and Ryan, and Jeremy. My mask fit so well, I started to believe it was my actual face.

The stark reality that Susannah had chosen Ryan over me stuck in my gut like a blade.

I had to admit, as Susannah’s boyfriend, Ryan thrived and unexpectedly developed the nerve to step away from his persona as Ryan the jock. He started auditioning for school plays, getting bigger and bigger parts. Ryan could sing like crazy and commanded the stage as though it belonged to him.

I finally understood that there was much more to my old friend than met the eye. And that Susannah saw clearly what I’d completely missed. Ryan really had star potential.

Still, it didn’t make my agony any easier. But instead of drifting away, idiot that I was, I kept coming back for more.

Susannah started designing the scenery for the school plays. Not wanting to leave poor, faithful Jeremy out of the equation, Susannah drafted me to do lights, since I sucked at everything else besides running and knowing shit no one cared about. And the most surprising thing of all was that, although Trudy was still the town pariah, Susannah was accepted into the Morgan household like a long-lost relative.

Ryan got his first lead role in the school’s production of
Pippin
and it took up most of his time. Susannah complained that Ryan’s dad didn’t seem to get how brilliant an actor he was and that it bugged her.

“Figures,” I said. “Patrick Morgan’s a competitive guy. That’s how he built the family empire. Acting is a joke to someone like him.”

“That’s a rotten thing to say, Jeremy. Mr. Morgan is an amazing human being.”

“I’m sure your mother would totally agree.”

Susannah went quiet.

“What? Did I say something wrong?”

“Just leave my mother out of this,” she snapped.

“Okay.” I should have known better than to bring up Trudy Durban, but it bugged me the way Patrick Morgan seemed to have Susannah eating out of his hand. She’d made it clear how her mother bitterly disapproved of her dating Ryan. That they fought about it all the time. One night, Trudy had chased Susannah down the street with a cooking pan. The cops had been called; if Dad and Patrick Morgan hadn’t stepped in, Susannah might have been removed from her home and placed in foster care.