Kate Hewitt - When He Fell

A heartbreaking page-turner for fans of Jodi Picoult and Diane Chamberlain from USA Today bestselling author Kate Hewitt.

Josh and Ben are nine years old and best friends, until a single, careless act in the school playground destroys the lives of both families – and wrenches their small Manhattan school apart.

As both mothers Maddie and Joanna try to find out what really happened between the boys, they discover the truth is far more complicated and painful than either of them could have ever realised… with lasting repercussions for both families.

And when tragedy strikes again in the most unexpected of ways, the lives of these two women will be changed once more, and this time forever.

And Then He Fell explores the issues of parental responsibility and guilt, and whether there are some acts that human nature just cannot forgive…

And Then He Fell

Kate Hewitt

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2015

Copyright © Kate Hewitt 2015

Kate Hewitt asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © June 2015 ISBN: 9781474034654

Version date: 2018-07-02

KATE HEWITT

After spending three years as a diehard New Yorker and four years in a remote village in the Lake District, Kate now lives in the glorious Cotswolds with her husband, five children, and Golden Retriever.

She writes women’s fiction as well as contemporary romance for Mills & Boon Modern, and whatever the genre she enjoys delivering a compelling and intensely emotional story. Find out more about her books at www.kate-hewitt.com, and follow her blog at www.acumbrianlife.blogspot.co.uk.

To those who have found hope amidst tragedy, and strength in suffering. You know who you are, and you have been an incredible encouragement to me in the difficult times I’ve faced.

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Extract

Endpages

About the Publisher

1 MADDIE

My phone rings on a Tuesday afternoon, in the middle of a meeting. Not an important meeting, nothing crucial or critical or even remotely urgent. Just a boring meeting to go over new HR procedures for the pharmaceutical company I hate working for. But one of Alwin Pharmaceuticals’ policies is no phones in meetings, and so I reach into my bag and switch it to silent without so much as glancing at the screen. My boss, Elena Drummond, gives me a pointed look and an over-loud throat clearing before she continues.

It’s only later, when I’m back in my cubicle in a fluorescent-lit office on the fourteenth floor of a nondescript building in midtown, that I happen to glance at it, and then only because it falls out of my bag when I toss it onto my desk.

Missed Call. Ben’s School. I put the ID in as Ben’s school rather than its full title, The Burgdorf Institute for Committed Learning, because I joke to people, even as I mean it semi-seriously, that it sounds like a mental institution. Sometimes I wonder if it is. I certainly don’t fit in with the two kinds of mothers whose children attend Burgdorf. First there are the hippy-dippy types like my friend Juliet; her husband is a board member and hedge fund manager. They could afford to send their three girls to one of Manhattan’s best private schools but they chose Burgdorf because they are committed to its ‘principles of learning as exploration’ as well as Burgdorf’s motto, ‘Educating The Individual As Well As The Citizen’. Whatever that means.

The other kind of mother at Burgdorf is the pinched and bitterly disappointed woman whose child hasn’t been able to get in anywhere else.

And then there is me. And Ben. But we’ve always been misfits, skirting the periphery of other people’s lives. I’m not sure I know how to do or be anything else.

Now I reach for my phone and press a button to return the call, sending up a silent entreaty to whoever cares that Ben isn’t in trouble. Again.

He is, as the headmistress of Burgdorf has rather acerbically put it, a lively boy. Lively is Burgdorf’s non-pejorative word for ill-behaved. Ben isn’t a bad boy; he’s just loud and rambunctious and restless. He doesn’t always respect boundaries or rules or personal space. He’s been in trouble—although Burgdorf never talks about children being in trouble; they just need to be redirected or channeled, as if they are water—for a variety of infractions: talking when the teacher is talking, throwing his pencil across the room, getting up when he is meant to be sitting down, pushing in the playground. Nothing major, but barely a day goes by without me receiving the pale blue form that his teacher, Mrs. Rollins, fills out detailing his latest sin. The note is headed in curly script: We Just Want You To Know.

For the last year I’ve been skirting around the topic of ADHD with Burgdorf’s counselor; no one at the school seems to like labels. And while I don’t want to slap a label onto my son, a definite diagnosis, with its accompanying potential solution, even if that comes in the form of prescribed medication, holds some appeal. I work for a pharmaceutical company, after all. I can see how a little Ritalin might improve a situation.

“Burgdorf Institute,” Tanya, the receptionist, answers cheerfully. She is twenty-two and interning in the office while she completes her Masters degree in Pedagogical Studies.

“Tanya, it’s Maddie Reese. I’m calling about my son Ben—”

“Oh, Maddie .” Tanya’s cheerful voice turns hushed, tragic. I still, feeling as if my insides have frozen solid. That is not the tone someone uses when your son has thrown one too many spitballs.

“Has something happened?” I ask, which is a ridiculous question because of course something has. It is just a matter of what. Of how bad.

“Oh Maddie, I’m so, so sorry—”

God in heaven . The words come into my head more like a prayer than an expletive. My throat is dry, my tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth, and my frozen insides are starting to turn liquid. “Tanya. What is it? What’s happened?”