Commitment (80 page)

Lorna
was
at the college, weathering the storm, ignoring the calls that came to her office from the press
.
Everyone was
curious about her reaction to the scrape
her son-in-law had gotten into.
No one from the administration at the school
had mentioned it yet, however.
That was sure to change if the publicity got out of hand, but like she said last night,
it’ll
die down.
Rappers are always getting arrested for something or other.
Riley
tried not to
show
it, but those words had stung.
Lorna
didn’t understand yet, that
Shawn
was different.

Riley
had gotten up
this
morning and made breakfast in case Shawn woke up hungry, but he
didn’t wake up at all.
And now
it was
just after two in the afternoon
and
he still show
ed no sign of coming out of it.
His eyelashes cast feathery shadows on his cheeks, a
nd his mouth was slightly open.
He looked like he could sleep forever.

“Shawn.
”
Riley
touched his face. 

He didn’t react, so she went downstairs to
see about
lunch.
There wasn’t too much in the fridge, just a bunch of leftovers in
Tupperware and breakfast food
.
Lorna lived on a variety of egg dishes and p
astrami sandwiches.
Occasionally she made pasta or ordered food, but hers wa
s generally not a busy kitchen.
Riley
sighed and grabbe
d the car keys off the counter.
She would just run out to the store and pick up a few things.

She got
a few
steaks and romaine lettuce, salad dressing,
juice
, microwavable fajitas and salsa, and on the way home, just in case, she picked up some
fast food
burgers and fries.
Pulling into the driveway, she glanced up at her bedroom window, as
though she w
ould see anything there that
might
give her a clue about how
Shawn was doing.
She went straight to the kitchen and dropped off the groceries, sitting at the counter to pick at her
food
.
If she followed her honest urge right now she would be calling Tracy, but they were in a tense patch
at the moment
. 

Ever since she’d told Tracy about what was going on and her response had been,
God
Riley
, just how
far down
are you going to
let this man drag you
?
She knew the question was asked out of love and concern, but she didn’t have
the
time
or emotional currency
to address
it
right now.
She had to
focus solely on
what was happening with
Shawn.
Everything else, everyone else’s judgments and hang-ups
would have to wait
.

“You get one of those for me?”

Riley
jumped.
He
was standing at the door, wearing only his
jeans
and a
three
o’clock shadow.

“
Of course
,”
she smiled.

He sat across
the
counter
from her
his eyes bloodshot
,
and
reached
for the paper sack with the fast food.

“Thanks.”
He dug into the
bag and pulled out the burger, biting
into it like he was
starving, which
of course he probably was.

“So,”
she said
, trying to lighten the mood
.
“You’re supposed to be all hard-core; what’s a brother do the day after he gets out of jail?”

“Gets some cheap wine, finds
a
cheap woman and has some cheap sex.”

“The cheap wine I can help you with, but as far as the
cheap sex
, that’s how you got into this mess in the first place.”

“I still ca
n’t believe she did
it
.”
He shook his head
.

“It’ll get taken care of.
P
eople out there know the truth.
They’ll come forward and . . .”

“Or maybe they won’t.
Y’know something Doug said t
o me had me thinking yesterday.
He said innocence is
no guarantee that I’ll get off.
And even though I knew that, to hear somebody say
it . .
.”

“He h
as to prepare you for the worst
case scenario,”
Riley
said.
“It’s his job.”
But her heart clenched like a fist.

“I know.”

“We’ll be alright Shawn.
No matter what happens.”

“
M
arried to somebody in
prison?”
he said.
“It wouldn’t be alr
ight,
Riley
.
Trust me.”

“
Why are we talking about prison?
It’s not going to
happen,” she said impatiently.
She got u
p and went to the refrigerator,
even though sh
e didn’t need anything inside.
She leaned
against it, pressing her forehead to the cool exterior.

“I’m just saying, if things start to look bad, there’s some things we’ll need to talk about.”

“Like what?”

“Like what would happen to me and you.”

“It hasn’t come to that.
I’m not going to talk about that.”

Shawn sig
hed.
“Okay.
But later on
, if it does . .
.”

“We’ll
deal with later on, later on.
Let’s de
al with right now.
We should
call Doug, see what’s going on.
And Bren
dan’s been calling a lot too.”

S
he turned to look at him again.
He had shoved aside his food and stared unseeingly at the kitchen counter.

“Lemme go take a shower first,” he said
.

He pushed back from the
counter and headed upstairs.
Riley
wanted to follow him, but sen
sed that he needed to be alone.
She could show as much support as was humanly possible, but
at
the end
of the day
, only one of them was facing the prospect of being
sent to prison
.

By the time Lorna got home later that afternoon, Shawn had spoken to Doug and Brendan and retre
ated to the bedroom by himself.
Riley
went in to check on him and he was just sitting on the window seat,
staring out into the backyard.
He barely registered an awareness of her presence when she entered the room, and didn’t try to stop her from leaving.

“I only got
twelve
calls from the press today,” Lorna announced cheerfully as she entered the house
and tossed her bags onto the sofa
.
“That’s an
improvement since yesterday.”
Then she noticed
Riley
’s face and took her coat
off. “Didn’t he wake up yet?”

“Yeah, he’s up.
If you want to call it that.”

“What’s the matter?”

Riley
shrugged and followed her mother to
the kitchen.
“He isn’t talking that much.”

“Does that surprise you?”

“No.
I guess it shouldn’t.”

“Okay then.”
Lorna opened the cupboa
rds and started making coffee.

Riley
watched her mother’s back as she measured coffee grounds into the basket, filled the carafe with water,
and poured
it into the coffeemaker.

“You’re making me nervous,
Riley
,” Lorn
a said without turning around. “What’s really the matter?”

“I was just thinking.”

“Thinking what?”
Lorna took two mugs from the cupboard, and a pint of flavored creamer from the fridge.

“About why you haven’t asked me if Shawn did what they say he did.”

At this Lorna tu
rned and looked her in the eye.

“I may not know Shawn very well,
Riley
but I like to think I know a littl
e something about my own child.
If you had even the slightest doubt that he hadn’t done
it, you wouldn’t be with him.
And that’s good enough for me.”

“Is it?”

Lorna nodded.
“It is.”

“So this isn’t like a huge embarrassment for
you?
Having us here when all your professional life you’ve made these statements about rape and . . .”

“You’re my d
aughter, Shawn’s my son-in-law.
That’s all there is to it.
Pro
fessional embarrassment . . .”
Lorna shrugged.
“I’ll just have to wait and see how this plays out before
I start feeling embarrassed.”

“I guess.”

“
Riley
.
Don’t worry about me.
I’ve fought bat
tles far more bloody than this.
But for you, it
may be the fight of your life.
You don’t have time to think about my embarrassment.”

Riley
smiled at her mother.
“Have I ever told you how
fabulous
you are?”

“Not today,” Lorna said without missing a beat.

“Well you are.”

Lorna turned again to
face the task of making coffee.
“Why don’t you go ge
t Shawn and send him down here?
I want to talk to him for a minute.”

Riley
hesitated.
“What’re you going to say?”

“T
hat’ll be between me and Shawn.
He’ll tell you if he wants to.”

“You’re not going to . . .”

“Whatever happened to me being
fabulous?
Just send him down,
Riley
.
And give us a little time to talk.”

Riley
stood reluctantly and headed up to get Sha
wn.
He was lying on the bed, staring up at
the ceiling when she walked in.
Thi
s time he turned as she entered
.

“I heard your Mom come in.”

“Yeah.
She’s
downstairs.
  She wants to talk to you.”

Shawn sighed.
“I knew this was coming.
I bet she has a lot on her chest she wants to get off.”

“I don’t think it’s going to be that kind of talk.”

He sat up and exhaled
, running a hand over his head.
“Where’s she at?”

“In the kitchen.”

When he was gone,
Riley
sat o
n the edge of the bed, waiting.
She didn’t know what Lorna was going to say, but if past experience was any guide, it would probably be something along the lines of ‘Stop feeling sorr
y for yourself and fight back’.
Lorna considered passivity to be the deadliest of all sins.
Riley
remembered distinctly being eleven years old and coming home from school with a bloody lip and skinned knees because Linda Chalmers had decided she was stuck up and needed to be taught a lesson.

At the sight of Lorna standing in the doorway, she’d fallen apart in tears, fully expec
ting to be held and comforted.
And she was.
But only for a little while.