The Kindness of Strangers (51 page)

Sarah. He sat up in bed. Sarah was supposed to go to court today for another pretrial hearing. These stupid meetings went on forever, and Jordan didn’t believe that the trial would ever start. He felt something like relief at that thought, which scared him.

He didn’t want Sarah to go today, especially since he wasn’t allowed to be there himself. They wouldn’t let him be in the building if his mom and dad were there. A few weeks ago, the jerks in charge had had this brilliant idea to videotape Jordan talking so he wouldn’t even have to be at the trial. Reece was the only one who seemed to understand why Jordan got sick when they set up the lights and the cameras. Really sick, too. He couldn’t breathe right, and he’d spent almost half an hour puking in the courthouse bathroom before Reece drove him home clutching a plastic wastebasket in his shaky arms.

He hoped Sarah answered their questions and then didn’t stick around today. He wanted to keep these families as separate from each other as possible. It was easier that way, especially since he had no idea what might happen at the end of the trial—if the trial ever started. He had no idea what he
wanted
to happen anymore. Sometimes he thought he did, but his own thoughts scared him when he let them stay in his brain too long. He lay back and put a pillow over his head.

His uncle was supposed to be there today, too. He was back in Ohio. Jordan had finally agreed to meet him yesterday with Dr. Bryn. No one had to introduce them. He looked so much like Jordan’s mom. Like his mom had turned into a man or something.

His uncle had wanted Jordan to know he’d like to talk to Jordan if Jordan ever wanted to. He didn’t ask Jordan any questions or even stay long—he’d been in Dr. Bryn’s office maybe ten minutes—and Jordan liked that. Jordan sort of wanted to talk to him, but he couldn’t make his mouth work. What this man had done, what he knew, what they had in common, made Jordan mute.

He hadn’t even thanked his uncle for the box of pictures. Pictures of his mom and uncle as little kids, looking like twins of Jordan. Pictures of his grandma. And his grandpa, the one who did bad things to his mom and uncle. He’d wanted to say thank you, but his voice shut off when he saw his little-kid mom in a pink dress, holding a kitten.

Someone knocked on his door. “Yeah?”

Danny stuck his head in. “Guess what? Mom doesn’t have to go to court today!”

Jordan sat up. “Why not?”

“I dunno. But I was in her room when the phone rang, and that’s what she told me.”

Jordan was jealous of the way Danny lay on Sarah’s bed and talked to her. Now that school was out, Jordan had seen Danny do it lots of mornings. They just talked and watched Sarah’s TV and were all cozy, and it was safe and normal. Jordan felt cheated, watching them. Once Sarah had said, “Come on in,” but he walked away.

Why didn’t Sarah have to go today? He didn’t
want
her to go, but what had changed overnight? So far everything had gone exactly like Reece and Rhonda, Jordan’s lawyer, had told him it would. He’d decided this was bad, this change. He had a horrible feeling. That feeling he used to get, like someone was making him wear a coat that was way too tight.

He heard a door open across the hall, and Nate appeared in a pair of cutoff sweats. He yawned and scratched his belly. “Who the hell’s calling so early?”

Jordan shrugged.

Danny sat on the end of Jordan’s bed. “It was for Mom. She wouldn’t let me listen.”

Another door opened, and Sarah came down the hall and stood in Jordan’s doorway.

“What’s wrong?” Jordan didn’t mean to sound panicked. He got out of bed.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Sarah said. “There’s just no hearing today.”

“Why not?” He tried to take a deep breath, to stop that too-tight feeling.

“I . . . I don’t know.” He figured he must look scared or something, because she said, “It’s probably something silly, like the power’s out or something.” Yesterday the storms had been so bad they’d lost power for about three hours. “Don’t worry, hon. You can go back to bed.”

The phone rang again, and Sarah ran down the hall to pick it up in her room.

Jordan looked at Nate, who shrugged.

Sarah’s door closed, muffling her voice behind it.

“You guys ready to eat?” Nate asked. Danny jumped up and followed Nate downstairs. There was no way Jordan could go back to sleep now, so he followed, too, even though he knew he couldn’t eat. His stomach did somersaults.

Jordan sat at a kitchen island and watched Danny make toast. Nate sat on the island and ate cereal dry out of the box. Sarah came into the kitchen and stood looking at them, her face pinched up, her eyes far away.

Jordan was afraid to ask her. He held his breath.

“Bobby’s coming over to talk to me,” she said.

That extra heartbeat kicked Jordan’s ribs.

“What’s he wanna talk about?” Nate asked, and Jordan could tell he was pretending not to care that Sarah had just called Kramble “Bobby.”

Sarah shook her head. “I don’t know. He wouldn’t say. He just said it was important.” Jordan watched her finger the wedding ring on the chain around her neck. “He wants to talk to me in private, okay? Do you guys think you can keep yourselves scarce for a while?”

Nate set down the cereal box and sighed. “Whatever. When’s he coming?”

“Right now.”

Jordan looked at the digital clock on the microwave. It was 7:04
A.M
. He had to press a hand over his heart when that extra beat kicked him again.

E
ven though Sarah said they could stay upstairs, Jordan was glad when Nate suggested they go outside. His fear didn’t make him so claustrophobic out here. They’d put Klezmer in the old sandbox and had just started kicking around a soccer ball when Kramble pulled up in the driveway. He got out of the car and paused when he saw them. He gave them a lame wave, but then he walked around to the front door like he wanted to avoid them. Jordan pretended not to feel the goose bumps that ran unwanted fingers up his spine.

Jordan knew that Nate and Danny were thinking about what was being discussed inside the house as much as he was, but no one said anything. Good. It was better that way. The air hung thick and nasty as the sun rose on a haze of humidity from the rains the day before. They slapped at mosquitoes. But they pretended to concentrate on the dumb soccer drills, as if Jordan had trained them for years.

Another car door jerked them to attention. They lifted their heads to see Reece coming in the back gate. Jordan stood.

Reece held up a hand. “Hey. I need to talk to Sarah a minute, okay?” He didn’t wait for Jordan to answer. And he didn’t look Jordan in the eye as he let himself in the back door.

Jordan tried to breathe the way Dr. Bryn had taught him.

He did okay, until Bryn arrived, too. And then Ali.

Jordan heard the water sound start in his ears. Why was Dr. Bryn here? He didn’t have therapy today. He fought the urge to hide somewhere.

“What do you think they’re talking about?” Danny asked, his face pale.

Shut up!
Jordan wished he could scream. They weren’t supposed to talk about it.

“I’m scared,” Danny said. “It’s something bad. And it’s something about Jordan.”

“Danny,” Nate said quietly.

Jordan wanted to punch Danny. Why’d he have to say that out loud?

The three of them stood, silent, in the yard, Nate’s foot on the ball. They stared at the house for what felt like an hour, then jumped as if they’d done something wrong when the back door opened. Reece stepped out onto the porch.

“Jordan?” Reece’s voice came out raspy. “Could you come inside? We need to talk to you.”

Jordan’s heart almost knocked him down that time. “Okay.” His own voice sounded far away, almost drowned out by the gurgling-water sound that filled his ears. He walked to the back door. He hated leaving Nate and Danny behind. Going inside with just a bunch of grown-ups brought bad memories back to him. He tried with all his might to shove those memories out of his head.

Reece held the door for him, and Jordan stepped into the kitchen. The four others sat at an island. Both Sarah and Dr. Ali were red-faced and puffy-eyed, cheeks streaked from crying. Pieces of broken china lay at the base of the Laden Table fridge. Dr. Bryn sat with her hands folded. Kramble’s face was white and set, like a statue.

Even with the air-conditioning, the house felt more suffocating than the heavy heat outside. Suffocating. S-u-f-f-o-c-a-t-i-n-g.

That sickening anticipation filled him. A-n-t-i-c-i-p-a-t-i-o-n. The not-wanting-it-to-happen fighting with the wanting-to-get-it-over-with.

He stood by the island and waited.

Chapter Thirty
Nate

N
ate sat on the edge of the sandbox, shivering even though it was so damn hot. What the hell was going on inside the house? He rolled the soccer ball toward the rabbit.

Danny stood up. “Do you think his parents broke out of jail?”

“No.” Klezmer rolled the ball back to Nate. “No way.” Nate saw Danny’s fear and remembered Mrs. Kendrick sneaking into their house. Nate stood, too, and reached out to pat Danny’s arm, partly to comfort his brother, partly to comfort himself. Thinking about that day still made his knees dissolve. “It’s okay.”

“But maybe something went wrong and they can’t have the trial,” Danny said. “Like on TV, some kind of technicality or something, and the judge has to let them go.”

“No,” Nate said, praying it wasn’t a lie. He wished he knew what to say to make those lines on Danny’s forehead disappear, to make himself stop shivering, but an icy-sharp melting spread through his belly—what if what Danny said was true?

The back door opened, and Jordan stepped out. Nate saw the kid’s white face, white as this sun-bleached sand, and that icy sensation spread to his legs, his arms, hurting his chest. Shit. What now? “Jordan?” Nate’s voice was tight, his throat thick. “You okay, man?”

Mom appeared in the door behind Jordan, and Jordan stepped off the porch and stumbled, zombielike, to the garden gate. He went in, leaving it open, and headed for the bean tepee, now covered in green vines and white blossoms. He crawled inside.

Nate looked from the tepee to the porch, where Kramble, Reece, and Dr. Bryn now also stood. Danny stepped close to Nate.

Reece and Dr. Bryn followed Jordan and crouched outside the tepee. Reece’s voice was low and bedtime-story soothing, but Nate couldn’t make out the words. Nate looked back to the porch. Kramble touched his mom’s hair, but her legs seemed to fold, and she sat abruptly on the top step. Ali came out the door then and sat beside Mom, putting her arms around her.

Kramble came down the porch stairs and walked over to the sandbox. His eyes were bloodshot, and he hadn’t shaved.

“What’s going on?” Nate asked him. Nate put a hand on Danny’s shoulder and suddenly pictured them posed in a family portrait. He was sure they looked as somber as those black-and-white photos in Grandma Glass’s photo albums, where no one smiled. Had all those people been about to receive bad news?

Kramble cleared his throat and hooked his thumbs in his belt. Quietly and matter-of-factly he said, “Jordan’s mother is dead.”

The colors changed in the yard. Nate blinked hard to bring the grass back to green, the sky back to its hazy white.

Any relief Nate thought he might feel was buried under the memory of Ali waking him in the ER, whispering to him that his dad was dead. Danny’s small moan made Nate know he was thinking of that, too. Nate turned back to Kramble. “What happened?”

“She committed suicide.”

Nate waited, and Kramble answered the unspoken question. “She opened her carotid artery with a broken pencil.” Kramble pulled one hand from his belt and touched his own throat. He stared down at the sandbox, but Nate knew he was seeing something else. He wondered if Kramble had actually seen Mrs. Kendrick dead.

Danny went to Mom on the porch. Nate turned his head to watch him and had the sensation that his vision lagged behind his movement by a full second, just like after his hockey concussion last year. Danny sat on one side of Mom, Ali on the other. Nate turned his head slowly to the garden. Reece sat on the bench under the apple tree, staring at the ground. Jordan was in the bean tepee, and Dr. Bryn sat right outside it. Nate sat down in the sand.

He was kind of glad when Kramble sat down, too, on the edge of the box.

“What did Jordan say?” Nate asked.

“Nothing. He just stood up and came out here.”

Nate picked up a handful of sand and let it run through his fingers. He pictured Mrs. Kendrick, with her messy blond hair and sexy arms. Christ, how did you slice open your own throat with a pencil? He felt that draft-on-the-back-of-his-neck sensation. He knew she was dangerous—crazy, even—a person who’d do anything, but . . . he felt he’d underestimated her . . . her
strength
. Maybe . . .

Nate looked up, and Kramble met his eyes. “You think she was trying to protect him?”

Kramble shrugged. “If she was, it was about time.”

Nate picked up more sand. He saw Mrs. Kendrick’s red, lipsticked mouth. Smelled her minty breath, felt it on his cheek. Her hand on his chest. Her lips on his. The way her kisses made him think of vampires. Somehow he knew that Kramble was someone he could trust. “I . . . I almost slept with her,” he blurted.