The Kindness of Strangers (42 page)

Danny got that “it’s not fair” look on his face. He looked down and chopped his tomatoes like he was killing bugs.

“Hey,” Jordan said, “how long do you think the trial will last? Because Danny was telling me about how you go to Michigan every summer.” He turned to Reece and Kramble and told them, “Their grandparents’ backyard is Lake Superior. There are rafts and inner tubes, and they go kayaking, and once they saw a moose. If Sarah got permission from my mom, I could go, too, right?”

Holy shit.
Nate stopped stirring and just stared. Reece opened his mouth, but Mom jumped in first. “Of course we want you to come with us sometime, but we’re probably not going to be able to go to Michigan this summer.”

“What?” Danny perked up on that. “Why?”

Damn.
Nate hadn’t even thought of the trial interrupting Michigan.

“I have to be here for the pre
trial
stuff, sweetie.” Nate knew that Mom was trying to remind Danny:
Remember what we talked about? Please, let’s not talk about the trial.

But Jordan wouldn’t drop it. “But the trial won’t last
all
summer, will it?”

Kramble nodded. “There’s both their criminal trials and the custody trial for your mom. They might not have even started before the summer’s over. It’s pretty complicated.”

“Not really.” Damn, why wouldn’t the kid shut up? Jordan addressed the whole kitchen, confident and cheerful. “There won’t be any charges against her. You’ll see.” Nate saw him glance at Danny. “So we could go to Michigan. Is their backyard really Lake Superior?”

Danny nodded, but he frowned.

Mom seemed too dazed to say anything. That tight, crowded feeling in Nate’s chest began a slow-motion slide toward his guts, but when Kramble and Reece both reached out to pat Mom’s arm closest to them, the feeling clenched again.

“All right,” Reece said with fake cheer, “we’d better get going.” He stood up and put a hand on Jordan’s shoulder. Jordan shrugged the hand off, but there was nothing unfriendly about it; it was just what Jordan did. It struck Nate that he’d never touched Jordan, and Jordan had never touched him—well, except to kick or punch him. Nate thought about the way he and Danny touched each other—wrestling, jostling, leaning on each other. Something like that would be
huge
for this kid.

“See ya later,” Jordan said, and headed for the front door.

Reece lingered a moment. He sighed and shook his head before following Jordan. Nate hoped Kramble would get the hell out, too, but he sat down on a stool the second Reece and Jordan were gone. Mom sat, too, with her chin in her hands.

“Is it true?” Danny asked. “That he could go back to living with his mom?”

The muscles in Kramble’s jaw bunched tight. “It’s way too soon to tell.”

That meant he might. No way. This couldn’t be happening.

Mom looked about to cry. Kramble slumped forward on the counter. “She and the kid are airtight on this bonding together against the dad. She’s actually made well-placed statements that she feels safer in jail. She’s said that maybe this was the best thing that could’ve happened to Jordan—getting placed in a safe home, since she wasn’t able to provide one as long as the husband was around.”

“That is such bullshit,” Nate said. No one scolded him.

“But everyone
knows
she’s guilty,” Danny said.

Kramble looked like he might spit. “We just found out that we’re getting the worst judge for the custody trial.”

“What do you mean?” Nate asked.

“This judge always rules against Children’s Services. She’s got this big chip on her shoulder about government interference in families. She’s gone against my recommendations every single time she’s been a judge on a case of mine. She wants families together.”

Mom buried her face in her hands.

“So it
is
true?” Danny asked in disbelief. “Jordan’s right?”

Kramble said, “It’s a
possibility
we can’t rule out. Unless we can dig up someone to testify against her—besides her husband—photos, something like that.”

Danny looked genuinely bewildered. “But you’ve
got
photos.”

“Not of Jordan’s mom,” Nate said. “Mr. Kendrick said they filmed her once, but no one can find it. It makes him look like a liar, which only makes Mrs. Kendrick look less guilty.”

Nate had read everything about Mr. Kendrick that he could. The guy seemed more than happy to blab about all he’d done. Bryn had told Nate that was common—that if it wouldn’t hurt their cases, most sexual predators bragged about their exploits. Mr. Kendrick’s case was so screwed, he had nothing to lose, so it seemed almost like he was proud to talk about how he’d always planned to abuse Jordan, how he’d abused other kids all the way back when he was just a kid, too.

Mark Kendrick had never been abused himself.

“So what happened to him?” Nate had asked Bryn. “What made him that way?”

“Some people just
are
this way. There’s not always a reason we can understand.”

Nate
hated
that. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t how things should be.

No one in the kitchen spoke.

Danny stared at his chopped tomatoes a moment, then said, “No way.” He pushed the cutting board toward Mom. “These are done,” he said, and went out the back door. Nate wondered if Danny was going to pay some attention to “his” rabbit.

Mom picked up the cutting board and slid the tomatoes into the pot Nate was stirring. “You don’t have to keep stirring it so much,” she said. “It’ll be all right.”

Was she trying to get rid of him?

“What next?” Nate didn’t want to leave. The tomatoes melted into an orange stew.

Mom looked like his question made her happy. “How ’bout that big white onion?”

“This smells fabulous,” Kramble said. “Whatever it is.”

“It’s jambalaya,” Mom said, “and I’d love for you to have some. If you can stay.”

“I would like that.”

Shit. Nate picked up the knife. His shirt itched. He didn’t know if it was from Kramble staying for supper or from thinking about Mrs. Kendrick. He remembered recognizing her in the yard and the blurred-panic rush that had washed over him. Not panic that she’d harm them but panic that his mother would realize what had happened between them.

Nate picked up the onion. It was heavy in his hand. He set it in the middle of the cutting board.

“Keep your mouth shut,” Mom said.

He looked at her, that panic rush rising in his chest again. What was she saying?

“Keep your mouth shut and you won’t cry,” she said matter-of-factly. He stared at her, feeling like an idiot.

She pointed to the cutting board. Oh. Shit, she meant the onion. He nodded, clamped his lips shut, and began to cut.

“There’s still hope,” Kramble said, but he didn’t sound like he believed it.

Mom put a green pepper on the chopping block and shook her head. “You hear him talk about her.”

Nate kept slicing.

“Sarah,” Kramble said, “the kid is in denial big-time.”

“That boy has brightened,” Mom said, “blossomed, changed personalities at the mere thought of returning to his mother.”

“Mom! Jesus, you think that makes her okay?” The onion immediately burned the inside of Nate’s nose and mouth, watering his eyes. “Shit.”

Mom turned to him, her face set. “
Nothing
makes her okay. But what if the worst happens . . . ?” she faltered. “What if she does get him back? How do we help her then?”

Nate’s eyes felt raw. “Help her?” Nate asked. “There is no help for her.”

“I don’t think anyone can fix what’s wrong with Courtney Kendrick,” Kramble said.

“But what will you
do
?” Mom insisted. “If she gets him back, what then? Do you just wash your hands of him? What is the
plan
if she regains custody? Because if you don’t have one, good goddamn luck getting me to give him up.”

Nate had only ever heard Mom talk in this fierce, “don’t bullshit me” tone back when Dad first got sick. Some doctor didn’t return her call fast enough one day, and she went on a rampage at the hospital to get answers. Nate had been half embarrassed and half in awe, lurking along behind her as she stormed into the private lounge. Mom looked like that now, and Kramble stared back at her, just like that doctor two years ago. Nate realized he hadn’t seen this side of Mom since before Dad died.

Nate heard the front door open and Danny came through to the kitchen and stuck his head in the door frame. Why had he gone all the way around the house? “Hey, Nate, c’mere. I wanna show you something.”

“We have company, man. Show me later.” Nate didn’t want to leave Mom here alone with Kramble.

“Is something wrong?” Mom asked.

“No. I just . . .”

“I’ll come look,” Mom said, standing up.

“No.” Danny’s face reddened. “Forget it.” He disappeared from the door frame.

Mom looked at Nate, and Nate saw the plea in her eyes:
Go.

Nate shrugged and walked into the the living room, where Danny handed him a CD with a tiny piece of straw stuck to it.

“This, uh, this was in Jordan’s backpack. I thought it was his paragraph for Miss Holt. I was going to copy his homework, but then . . .”

That feeling that had crowded into Nate’s chest all evening splintered into tiny shards that stuck between his ribs and made it hard to breathe deep. He sat at the computer—which had been left unlocked—and turned on the monitor. “Is this what I think it is?” he whispered. Danny didn’t answer but stood near him, glancing over his shoulder toward the kitchen.

Nate slipped in the disk and the familiar list of JPEGs appeared. “I really thought it would be homework,” Danny whispered. Nate opened the first photo.

Another photo of Jordan, only this one had just one other person posing with him. A woman, her face turned up and away. But even without the face, Nate knew her. He’d studied that silky blond hair often enough. He’d admired those muscled arms.

Danny made a small moan, but Nate felt triumphant. “Yes,” he hissed. They had her.

“I hit ‘print’ before I knew what it was,” Danny said. “Mom called me into the kitchen for something, and when I came back, I saw it. I took it to school, to tear it up and throw it away, so no one would see it here, in the trash or anything.” Big, fat tears pooled up in Danny’s eyes. He looked again, toward the dining room and the stairs. “Billy Porter got in my backpack to borrow my calculator, but he found this and showed everyone. I just told everyone I found it in the computer lab.”

“Don’t you get it? This is
great.
This is a gold mine. We gotta show Kr—”

“No!” Danny grabbed Nate’s arm. Those tears ran down his cheeks. “I can’t!” he whispered. “I can’t because they’ll see. . . . I don’t want them to see. . . .”

All at once a missing piece locked into place. Those shards felt more like knives. “Danny—did they . . . did they . . . do anything to you?”

“No! Nothing happened, but I . . . I’m on the disk. I don’t want people to think I’d do the things that Jordan did.” He glanced at the screen. “I don’t want them to think . . . to think . . .”

If Courtney Kendrick were in the room right this second, Nate would rip her fucking head off with his bare hands. He clicked through photo after photo. If that bitch had laid one finger on his brother . . .

Nate kept clicking through pictures of Mrs. Kendrick with Jordan. Caressing him, fondling him, and then . . . Jesus Christ. The real deal. With her own son. Nate’d whipped through the photos at high speed, but he stopped, unable to believe what he saw. When he really looked, the picture was even more disturbing. Mrs. Kendrick, holding Jordan on her, in her, was crying. Her face was red, her makeup streaked. Nate stared.

“He . . . he saved me,” Danny said, in that gaspy, trying-not-to-cry voice. “He made me leave. He was such a jerk. I hated him. I didn’t know . . . that if . . . if I stayed, then maybe . . .” He lifted his eyes to the image and cringed. “But I didn’t know this was the only disk with
her,
or I would’ve told you sooner, I swear, I just didn’t want you to think—”

Nate couldn’t stand Mrs. Kendrick’s face. He clicked on another photo. It was Danny, in the Kendricks’ swimming pool. He grinned at the camera, black curls plastered back against his head. The photo was totally innocent. Only in context with the others did it make Nate’s head throb. Danny on the diving board. Danny at the side of the pool. Danny doing a back flip. All artfully taken, skillful shots, of a beautiful boy, nearly naked.

And in one, Mrs. Kendrick leaned over Danny, behind him, as he sat in a lounge chair, her hands on his shoulders, her breasts, in her purple bikini, brushing his neck and ear. Danny smiled in the photo, but it was strained, and he had his hands crossed unnaturally over his lap. Nate knew the feeling well. Mrs. Kendrick had that power. And a boy’s body betrayed him every time.

“Hey, Mom?” Nate called.