А Финн - The Woman in the Window

“It didn’t go very well.” His breath is choppy now. He hiccups. “Dad told her that if she ever came back, he would call the police and have her arrested for harassing us.”

I’m still thinking of that tableau in the window: child, father, “mother.” Who knows what goes on . . .

And then I recall something else.

“The next day . . .” I begin.

He nods, stares at the floor. His fingers writhe in his lap. “She came back. And Dad said he would kill her. He grabbed her throat.”

Silence. The words almost echo. He would kill her. He grabbed her throat. I remember Alistair pinning me to the wall, his hand gripping my neck.

“And she screamed.” I sound quiet.

“Yeah.”

“That’s when I called your house.”

He nods again.

“Why didn’t you tell me what was happening?”

“He was there. And I was scared, ” he says, his voice rising, his cheeks wet. “I wanted to. I came here after she left.”

“I know. I know you did.”

“I tried.”

“I know.”

“And then my mom came back from Boston the next day.” He sniffles. “And so did she. Katie. That night. I think she thought Mom might be easier to talk to.” He plants his face in his palms, wipes.

“So what happened?”

He says nothing for a moment, merely looks at me out of the corner of his eye, almost suspicious.

“You really didn’t see?”

“No. I only saw your—I only saw her shouting at someone, and then I saw her with . . .” My hand flutters at my chest. “. . . with something in . . .” I trail off. “I didn’t see anyone else there.”

When he speaks again, his voice is lower, steadier. “They went upstairs to talk. My dad and my mom and her. I was in my room, but I could hear everything. My dad wanted to call the police. She—my—she kept saying that I was her son, and that we should be able to see each other, and that my parents shouldn’t stop us. And Mom was screaming at her, saying she’d make sure she never saw me again. And then everything got quiet. And a minute later I went downstairs and she was—”

His face crumples and he splutters, sobs bubbling deep in his chest and bursting at the surface. He looks to the left, fidgets where he sits.

“She was on the floor. She’d stabbed her.” Now Ethan’s the one pointing at his chest. “With a letter opener.”

I nod, then stop. “Wait—who stabbed her?”

He chokes. “My mom.”

I stare.

“She said she didn’t want someone else to take me”—a hiccup—“take me away.” He sags forward, his hands making a visor over his brow. His shoulders jump and shake as he cries.

My mom. I had it wrong. I had it all wrong.

“She said she’d waited so long to have a child, and . . .”

I close my eyes.

“. . . and she said she wouldn’t let her hurt me again.”

I hear him weeping softly.

A minute passes, then another. I think of Jane, the real Jane; I think of that mother-lion instinct, the same impulse that possessed me in the gorge. She’d waited so long to have a child. She didn’t want someone else to take me.

When I open my eyes, his tears have subsided. Ethan is gasping now, as though he’s just sprinted. “She did it for me,” he says. “To protect me.”

Another minute passes.

He clears his throat. “They took her—they took her to our house upstate and buried her there.” He puts his hands in his lap.

“That’s where she is?” I say.

Deep, dense breaths. “Yes.”

“And what happened when the police came the next day to ask about it?”

“That was so scary,” he says. “I was in the kitchen, but I heard them talking in the living room. They said that someone had reported a disturbance the night before. My parents just denied it. And then when they found out it was you, they realized it was your word against theirs. Ours. No one else had seen her.”

“But David saw her. He spent . . .” I riffle through dates in my head. “Four nights with her.”

“We didn’t know that until after. When we went through her phone to see who she might have been talking to. And my dad said that no one was going to listen to a guy who lived in a basement, anyway. So it was them against you. And Dad said that you—” He stops.

“That I what?”

He swallows. “That you were unstable and you drank too much.”

I don’t respond. I can hear rain, a fusillade against the windows.

“We didn’t know about your family then.”

I close my eyes and begin to count. One. Two.

By three, Ethan is speaking again, his voice tight. “I feel like I’ve been keeping all these secrets from all these people. I can’t do it anymore.”

I open my eyes. In the dusk of the living room, in the fragile light of the lamp, he looks like an angel.

“We have to tell the police.”

Ethan bends forward, hugging his knees. Then he straightens up, looks at me for a moment, looks away.

“Ethan.”

“I know.” Barely audible.

A cry behind me. I twist in my seat. Punch sits behind us, head tilted to one side. He mews again.

“There he is.” Ethan reaches over the back of the sofa, but the cat pulls away. “I guess he doesn’t like me anymore,” says Ethan, softly.

“Look.” I clear my throat. “This is very, very serious. I’m going to call Detective Little and have him come here so that you can tell him what you’ve told me.”

“Can I tell them? First?”

I frown. “Tell who? Your—”

“My mom. And my dad.”

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “We—”

“Oh, please. Please .” His voice breaks like a dam.

“Ethan, we—”

“ Please . Please .” Almost screaming now. I stare at him: His eyes are streaming, his skin is blotched. Half-wild with panic. Do I let him cry it out?

But already he’s talking again, a wet flood of words: “She did it for me. ” His eyes are brimming. “She did it for me . I can’t—I can’t do that to her. After what she did for me .”

My breath is shallow. “I—”

“And won’t it be better for them if they turn themselves in?” he asks.

I consider this. Better for them, so better for him. Yet—

“They’ve been freaking out ever since it happened. They’re really going crazy.” His upper lip glistens—sweat and snot. He swipes at it. “My dad told my mom they should go to the police. They’ll listen to me.”

“I don’t—”

“They will.” Nodding firmly, breathing deeply. “If I say I talked to you and you’re going to tell the police if they don’t.”

“Are you sure . . .” That you can trust your mother? That Alistair won’t attack you? That neither one of them will come for me?

“Can you just wait to let me talk to them? I can’t— If I let the police come and get them now, I don’t . . .” His gaze travels to his hands. “I just can’t do that. I don’t know how I’d . . . live with myself.” His voice is swollen again. “Without giving them a chance first. To help themselves.” He can barely speak. “She’s my mother .”

He means Jane.

Nothing in my experience has prepared me for this. I think of Wesley, of what he’d advise. Think for yourself, Fox.

Can I let him go back to that house? To those people?

But could I doom him to lifelong regret? I know how it feels; I know the ceaseless ache, the constant drone of it. I don’t want him to feel that way.

“All right,” I say.

He blinks. “All right?”

“Yes. Tell them.”

He’s gawking now, as though in disbelief. After a moment he recovers. “Thank you.”