When He Fell (28 page)

Lewis hangs up and I stare dazedly in front of me, the phone still in my hand, as the fragile world I’ve been trying so desperately to keep together shatters all around me.

23
MADDIE

Wednesday is a better day. I make it into Peekskill by nine, and after helping Ben get dressed I support him through his therapies. It’s hard work, but he’s getting better, stronger. He’s able to move his arms and legs with a bit more focus and precision; he spoons yogurt into his mouth.

I refuse to think about Bruce coming over last night, or the MetroBaby post that went viral. I simply don’t have space in my brain for all that. At least Ben is safe out in Peekskill; I’m grateful, for once, to be out of the city. Maybe the
New York Daily Mail
will choose not to run the story. Maybe it will all disappear like so much hot air, just another Manhattan mom on the self-righteous warpath. Who really wants to hear some wealthy urbanite whine about private education? It won’t last.

By two o’clock in the afternoon I realize I am wrong. Brian calls me to tell me the story is on the front page of the
New York Daily Mail.

“Seriously?” I groan. I am standing in the foyer of the hospital; outside I can see the gray sea of the parking lot, and in the distance a field, the grass tipped with frost. The sky is a hard, bright blue. “This makes the front page, when there is so much else going on in the world? Terrorism, injustice, war…?”

“This is the kind of story that sells papers.”

I sink onto one of the sofas and rake a hand through my hair. “It doesn’t mention me by name, does it?”

Brian sighs. “It does. And Joanna and Lewis Taylor-Davies too, and someone named Juliet Decker. But it doesn’t mention Ben or Josh.”

“Oh,
well
then. That’s okay.” I let out a hollow laugh. I wonder if Lewis hates me, for bringing all this up. “I don’t think I can stand to read it. What’s the slant?”

“Mostly against Burgdorf. It’s not blaming either of the boys, or you too much for starting the lawsuit. It’s calling for an investigation of private schools and their governing bodies, making a few digs against progressive education—”

“This isn’t going to help my claim,” I state flatly. “Is it?”

“I don’t know,” Brian answers. “Maybe it will spur them to settle quickly and avoid any more bad press.”

“Maybe,” I agree. But I remember Bruce’s vicious, snarling voice and I don’t think so. This has become personal; maybe it always was.

After I end the call with Brian I stay in the foyer for a few minutes, staring out at the bright, frost-tipped field and trying not to think about how ugly things might get. Juliet and Lewis and Joanna all mentioned on the front page of a tabloid newspaper…

I close my eyes. I never wanted this. This is specifically what I didn’t want. Yet how many people will believe me?

When I go back into Ben’s room he is giving me that funny, lopsided grin that tugs at my heart. I am starting to see a glimmer of the boy he once was, and it makes me so thankful and so sad at the same time. I miss the Ben I once knew, who was loud and boisterous and maybe a little bit out of control.

For so many years I didn’t feel like I knew what to do with him; he mystified and aggravated and ultimately defeated me. I never was prepared for motherhood.

When I’d decided to continue the pregnancy, I’d pictured a baby slotting into my life with ease and joy, a docile little thing in white blankets, and then a cute toddler who snuggled and slept through the night and happily went off to daycare. Ben did none of those things, and for so long that was a source of incredible frustration and disappointment. And yet now I’d do just about anything to have that boisterous boy-child back.
Anything.

But there’s nothing I can do.

“Hi…” Ben says, his voice slurred, his tongue clumsy on the vowels. “
Hiiii
, Mom.”

I see how hard he is trying, and it bursts then in my heart how brave my son is. How incredible. “Hi, Ben,” I say softly, and smiling, I reach for his hand. This is all that matters. Helping my son to heal. Learning to live with this new reality. In that moment I don’t care at all about the MetroBaby post or the
Daily Mail
article or the lawsuit or even Lewis. I just want this.
Us.
My son and me.

As soon as I am on the train back home the article in the
Daily Mail
that I’ve been trying not to think about resurfaces in my mind.

I do an Internet search on my phone, but I have no reception and for once I’m thankful. Bad news can keep.

But it doesn’t keep for long; when I emerge from Grand Central and my phone beeps back to life, I see I have three missed calls. One from Brian, one from Lewis, and one from Juliet.

I consider who to call back first and then I decide I can’t deal with any of them, and so I chuck my phone in my bag and walk briskly home through the chilly darkness.

Brian pops his head out of his door as I fumble for the keys to mine.

“Have you seen it?” he asks, looking grim. His bristly hair needs a cut; when it gets long it stands straight up and he looks rather adorably ridiculous.

Not that I’m thinking romantically about Brian.

I shake my head. “I don’t think I want to see it. Do you have a copy?” He nods, and I sigh. “You might as well bring it over, then.”

He goes back into his apartment for the paper and then follows me into mine. I kick off my shoes and toss my bag on a chair. My whole body aches, and I am conscious that in just over twelve hours I have an appointment with Sheila of Alwin’s HR to discuss going back to work part-time. More things I can’t bring myself to think about right now.

I flop onto the sofa and hold my hand out for the newspaper.

“Are you sure?” Brian asks.

“I might as well know the worst.”

He hands me the newspaper and I take in the photographs first, one a screenshot of the post on MetroBaby, another of Burgdorf’s bright blue doors. It jolts me to see them; I haven’t actually been to Burgdorf in two months.

The article is a mishmash of vitriol, accusing Burgdorf for being negligent and Juliet for being careless. There are hints that Joanna is at fault for having a son who pushes, and I am for being a single mother who works full-time and is out for blood money, the unwritten implication being, I suppose, that if I stayed at home and baked cookies this wouldn’t have happened.

I throw the paper on the sofa. “They want to offend everybody.”

“Apparently.”

I lean my head against the back of the sofa. “Maybe I should just drop the claim.”

“What?” I open my eyes to see Brian lurch forward in his seat, his expression shocked. “Maddie, you have a strong case. Why would you do that?”

“Because I don’t want things to get ugly. And I need to focus on Ben.” I picture his lopsided, drooly smile, the painstaking way he formed the words
bye, Mom
when I left. “I’m not sure I have the energy for this.”

“For one settlement conference?”

I sigh. “If that’s all it takes.”

“This publicity isn’t your fault.”

“I know. But will they believe that?”

Brian sighs. “The whole thing is shitty.”

“You can say that again.”

We sit in silence for a moment and then he asks, “How was Ben today?”

“Good, actually. He’s making progress. I mean, most people would probably still be appalled. They wouldn’t be able to understand what he’d saying and he still can’t walk but he can feed himself and reach for things and I think he’ll get there.” I’m not sure where
there
is, but I know it’s somewhere, and it is a place I am starting to accept.

“That’s good, Maddie.” Brian pauses, shifts in his chair. “I was thinking…maybe I could visit Ben this weekend. I could drive you in my car.”

The smile that takes over my face is so wide my cheeks hurt. “I’d love that,” I say. “And I know Ben would too.”

Brian smiles back, awkward but sincere. We sit in silence for a few minutes and then he leans over and pats my knee. “Hang in there, Maddie,” he says and I nod.

“I am,” I say, and I mean it.

After he leaves I realize that the conversation we just had possessed no overtones or innuendoes, no sense of a sexual transaction that might take place. It is, surprisingly, a relief. I’m changing, I think with a little ripple of shock. This whole experience is changing me, and maybe in a good way. It’s a strange and novel thought.

The next morning I head across town to Alwin’s offices. I haven’t been there since the day I walked out after the phone call from Burgdorf telling me about Ben’s accident. It feels like a lifetime ago; it
is
a lifetime ago, because I was living a different life then. I was a different person.

Sheila meets me the moment I walk onto the HR floor, her face wreathed in the kind of grimace that is meant to indicate a sympathetic smile. I’m tired of that look, but I smile back and shake her hand. Firmly.

“It’s so good to see you again, Madeleine,” she says, even though we don’t really know each other.

I follow her into her office and sit in the chair she gestures to while she positions herself behind her desk, folds her hands on its surface, and assumes an alert but friendly look.

“So I’ve read your e-mail correspondence about wanting to return to work part-time,” she says, her tone indicating that she is going to launch into some kind of spiel.

My smile turns polite, a little fixed. “Yes.”

“And that is really good news. Ben must be doing much better?” The slight hesitation before his name tells me it wasn’t on the tip of her tongue, but why should it be? I don’t know this woman.

“He’s progressing well,” I say.

“Is he home from the hospital, then?”

I shake my head. “No, he’s in a rehabilitation facility up in Peekskill. He’ll be there for a few more weeks at least.” Yesterday Dr. Spedding said he thought Ben might be able to come home in another month, but that thought is incredibly daunting to me.

“Oh. Right.” Sheila’s expression reorients itself from surprise to interest. “Well. Yes. Good news.”

“Yes.”

“As for your part-time hours…”

Here it comes. I brace myself, waiting for her to explain some obscure policy of Alwin’s and how it keeps me from coming back part-time. I braved a look at my bank account this morning, and after paying December’s rent the money I’d saved for Burgdorf’s tuition is nearly gone. I’m nearly broke. I need to work.

“I thought we could start with twenty hours,” Sheila continues, and I blink. “Five four-hour days? I think it’s better to be in the office on a daily basis…” She goes on for a minute but I’ve tuned her out because inside I’m reeling, I’m rejoicing, that for once something is actually going to work out for me.

“Five four-hour days sounds perfect,” I tell her when she finally lapses into silence, and seems to be waiting for my response. “I can start next week.”

“I’ll need to get the paperwork to you…” she says, and then drones on about insurance and paying into my pension and all the rest, but I’m barely listening. If I work from nine to one I can get to Peekskill by two-thirty and spend the afternoon with Ben. It means I won’t be there for his therapies in the morning, but sometimes I just feel like I’m in the way, fluttering my hands and mumbling encouragement while the professionals get to work.

No, I’d rather be there for his leisure time and dinner, and then get home in the evening to do it all over again.

Realization crashes over me at how exhausting such a dual life is going to be. I’m already exhausted, and I’m not even working. But I don’t care. This is good news. This is a way forward.

As I’m leaving Alwin’s offices to head to the train station, my phone rings. It’s Juliet. I take a deep breath and then answer the call.

“Hello, Juliet.”

I hear a ragged intake of breath and then Juliet says, “I don’t really blame you, Maddie. Bruce wouldn’t want me to say that, but…”

“I’m sure Bruce wouldn’t,” I agree, wincing as I remember him thrusting his tongue into my mouth, grinding his hips against mine. I close my eyes, cringing inwardly. What the hell was I thinking?

“I’m sorry,” Juliet whispers, and I know she means it. She sounds like she has been crying. Maybe drinking too.

“So am I.”

“How is Ben?”

“Getting better.”

“Is he?” Relief fills her voice. “Oh Maddie, I’m so thrilled. Will he back at Burgdorf in January?”

“Ben will never go back to Burgdorf, Juliet,” I say almost gently. Even if he had a complete recovery, which I know he won’t, I wouldn’t send him back there. Not after the insurance claim, the bad press. Not after everything.

“Oh.” Her voice is small and sad, like a child’s. “But…”

“He still can’t really walk or talk,” I explain, knowing the words are brutal and that they will hurt Juliet, but they are the truth. “He still has a long road ahead, and the truth is he’ll never be the person he was before.”

Juliet doesn’t respond, but I can hear her uneven breathing. Finally she asks, “Do you blame me?”

I slow, people streaming past me on the way into Grand Central. I duck into the doorway of a deli and press against a bin of oranges. Do I blame her? I’ve wanted to. I’ve wanted to have the clean, sure feeling of knowing just who was to blame. Pointing your finger can feel very satisfying.

“I don’t know,” I admit. “You haven’t actually told me what happened.” She doesn’t answer. “Were you talking to Helen Lanfer, Juliet? Did you not see Ben and Josh climb up on the rocks?”

Silence. I close my eyes. She’s probably thinking of the settlement conference on Friday. Maybe I should be thinking of it too, but right now I just want an honest answer from my friend.

“Juliet…”

“I should go,” she says hurriedly. “But Maddie, I am sorry.” She hangs up the phone, and I stand there for a moment, staring down at my phone. I think about calling Lewis. I haven’t because I’m afraid he’s angry with me for the lawsuit, the article. He never answered the text I sent, and I wonder how he and Joanna are handling the media frenzy. I almost call him—I’d be returning his call, after all—and then I decide not to. I’m not going to go there any more. I’m not going to look to someone who’s taken to save me. I’m not going to fantasize about something that will never happen, that
shouldn’t
happen. I slide the phone in my bag and then start walking toward the train station.