Golden State (37 page)
Authors: Stephanie Kegan
I’d felt flat for so long that I’d begun to believe I could take anything, any punishment. But this afternoon, in the courtroom commotion, Mrs. Trinidad and I had accidently exchanged glances. In that brief instant, her eyes told me:
you know nothing of grief.
Eric was the only person I could tell this to. He flinched when I did.
“Her eyes told the truth,” I said. “Our children are alive. We only imagine we’ve been grieving.”
Eric looked down and so did I. “Because of what my brother’s done, there are people whose children are gone,” I said. “Yet, only a part of me can hate him. The rest still loves him.”
“I should have been with you,” Eric said. “But I was so frightened of losing everything, so ashamed of not being able to protect us. So ashamed of being the bomber’s brother-in-law. So worried about how it would look to the firm . . .” He raised his eyes to mine. “I’m sorry I wasn’t at your side when you needed me to be.”
I didn’t know what to say. I was astonished. This man I’d been with for more than twenty years, this man I’d thought I’d known better than anyone. I’d understood his fierce protectiveness toward us and his anger over what Bobby had done to our lives. But I’d been so full of my own shame, my own sense of ruin, that I hadn’t been able to imagine his. What it must have been like for him to go to work every day, to look for another job, facing all those people who knew what they knew about him. I hadn’t even guessed his humiliation.
Eric looked back at me. “You’ve given your life for love,” he said. “I couldn’t even come close.”
“You stuck with me,” I said. “There’s more than enough love in that.”
I started to say something else, but Eric put a hand out to stop me. He pulled me against him, his flannel shirt smelling of our laundry soap. I didn’t want to consider tomorrow, or the days after, or even moving from the couch. There was only this moment, in which nothing more needed to be said.
About the Author
Photograph by Lesley Bohm
Stephanie Kegan
grew up in Southern California. She attended UC Berkeley and the Masters in Journalism program at the University of Southern California. A freelance writer, she is the author of the
Places to Go with Children in Southern California
guidebooks and a previous novel,
The Baby
. She lives in Los Angeles with her family.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Stephanie Kegan
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition February 2015
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Jacket design by Christopher Lin
Jacket photograph © Brian Shumway/Gallery Stock
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kegan, Stephanie.
Golden State : a novel / Stephanie Kegan.
pages cm
1. Brothers and sisters—Fiction. 2. Bombings—Fiction. 3. California—Fiction. 4. Psychological fiction. 5. Domestic fiction. I. Title.
PS3611.E355G56 2015
813'.6—dc23
2014040473
ISBN 978-1-4767-0931-4
ISBN 978-1-4767-0933-8 (ebook)
Contents