Cheryl—really lie about such a thing? What kind of person would implicate a toddler?
Madison opens the door for Tris. He charges in. Also just like Dad. All forward motion, all the time.
The library is full of soft noise: terminals hum, librarians chat, pages turn, printers click. Tris does not pause at the temperature control panel placed too low or the adult computer terminal left on but not occupied. Even though Tris is the button master, he has a mission: to prove he can climb the tree house.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said about the brake,” murmurs Jack. “But Mad, the thing is, if it wasn’t Tris, then it was Cheryl. And she couldn’t accidentally release a parking brake by accidentally reaching inside somebody else’s car, accidentally brushing against it and then accidentally locking the car after herself.”
“I agree. And if somebody causes the death of somebody else, and it’s not an accident, then it’s a murder.”
The sentence comes rather casually out of her mouth. But her own word—“murder”—assaults Madison, rolling down on her with the weight of a vehicle.
When she walked away last winter, did she abandon her two brothers into the care of a murderer?
* * *
Angus Nicolson enters the drive-thru lane. Smithy just wants to get home, but she doesn’t want to offend him. He’s the producer. It’s only a ten-minute delay, she comforts herself.
“What’s your favorite photograph of your mother?” asks Angus.
Easy. The photo she uses as wallpaper for her cell phone.
In this photograph, Tris is a week old. Mom is in bed, of course. Dad is sitting next to her, leaning on the headboard, holding Tris. Smithy and Madison are also sitting on the bed, smiling at the camera. Mom has lived through it. She’s fine, the baby is fine, everybody’s going to live happily ever after.
Jack is standing beside the bed, and behind his sisters. He is elfin. Over the next few years, he’ll shoot up a foot and turn into a completely different person.
Baby Tris is asleep. He’s a sleepy newborn. He opens his eyes, checks you out, has his bottle, goes back to sleep. Such a good boy! everybody exclaims.
They don’t say it now.
Smithy doesn’t show Angus this photograph. She’s never even been okay when Kate asks about the photograph.
Kate!
Smithy has forgotten that Kate exists. The world of boarding school—Smithy’s universe since February—vanished from hermind. Kate, with whom she had breakfast twice this very morning, seems as remote as her grandparents in Missouri.
Angus puts his window down because it’s almost his turn to place an order. A gust of cold wet wind envelops Smithy. “What’ll you have?” Angus asks. He smiles his huge toothy smile.
She is suddenly, massively, creeped out. What is she doing in a car with a total stranger—a man who could be anybody, a man who refuses to take her home? A man driving the long way instead of the short way?
All of a sudden, he’s not just a stranger—he’s strange. This whole thing is strange.
A feature on the Fountain family won’t showcase Mom the heroine or Dad the solid, steady great guy. It’ll showcase Tris, baby destroyer of families. It won’t be about beautiful people. It will be about raw pain. Hers. Jack’s. Madison’s.
It will destroy Tris.
Angus hasn’t asked yet about her favorite photograph of Tris. She’s got it on her phone too, and sometimes she can stand to look at it. Dad took it when Tris was learning to walk, a skill that consumed all of Tris’s time and attention. He woke up in the morning desperate to be lifted from the crib, hardly able to have breakfast, eager to start. He circled the coffee table a million times back when he still had to hold on, and as soon as he achieved unassisted walking, his goal was the stairs.
For a toddler, stairs are enticing architecture. Smithy was the one willing to go up and down with him all day long. Tris didn’t know that turning around was
Madison opens the door for Tris. He charges in. Also just like Dad. All forward motion, all the time.
The library is full of soft noise: terminals hum, librarians chat, pages turn, printers click. Tris does not pause at the temperature control panel placed too low or the adult computer terminal left on but not occupied. Even though Tris is the button master, he has a mission: to prove he can climb the tree house.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said about the brake,” murmurs Jack. “But Mad, the thing is, if it wasn’t Tris, then it was Cheryl. And she couldn’t accidentally release a parking brake by accidentally reaching inside somebody else’s car, accidentally brushing against it and then accidentally locking the car after herself.”
“I agree. And if somebody causes the death of somebody else, and it’s not an accident, then it’s a murder.”
The sentence comes rather casually out of her mouth. But her own word—“murder”—assaults Madison, rolling down on her with the weight of a vehicle.
When she walked away last winter, did she abandon her two brothers into the care of a murderer?
* * *
Angus Nicolson enters the drive-thru lane. Smithy just wants to get home, but she doesn’t want to offend him. He’s the producer. It’s only a ten-minute delay, she comforts herself.
“What’s your favorite photograph of your mother?” asks Angus.
Easy. The photo she uses as wallpaper for her cell phone.
In this photograph, Tris is a week old. Mom is in bed, of course. Dad is sitting next to her, leaning on the headboard, holding Tris. Smithy and Madison are also sitting on the bed, smiling at the camera. Mom has lived through it. She’s fine, the baby is fine, everybody’s going to live happily ever after.
Jack is standing beside the bed, and behind his sisters. He is elfin. Over the next few years, he’ll shoot up a foot and turn into a completely different person.
Baby Tris is asleep. He’s a sleepy newborn. He opens his eyes, checks you out, has his bottle, goes back to sleep. Such a good boy! everybody exclaims.
They don’t say it now.
Smithy doesn’t show Angus this photograph. She’s never even been okay when Kate asks about the photograph.
Kate!
Smithy has forgotten that Kate exists. The world of boarding school—Smithy’s universe since February—vanished from hermind. Kate, with whom she had breakfast twice this very morning, seems as remote as her grandparents in Missouri.
Angus puts his window down because it’s almost his turn to place an order. A gust of cold wet wind envelops Smithy. “What’ll you have?” Angus asks. He smiles his huge toothy smile.
She is suddenly, massively, creeped out. What is she doing in a car with a total stranger—a man who could be anybody, a man who refuses to take her home? A man driving the long way instead of the short way?
All of a sudden, he’s not just a stranger—he’s strange. This whole thing is strange.
A feature on the Fountain family won’t showcase Mom the heroine or Dad the solid, steady great guy. It’ll showcase Tris, baby destroyer of families. It won’t be about beautiful people. It will be about raw pain. Hers. Jack’s. Madison’s.
It will destroy Tris.
Angus hasn’t asked yet about her favorite photograph of Tris. She’s got it on her phone too, and sometimes she can stand to look at it. Dad took it when Tris was learning to walk, a skill that consumed all of Tris’s time and attention. He woke up in the morning desperate to be lifted from the crib, hardly able to have breakfast, eager to start. He circled the coffee table a million times back when he still had to hold on, and as soon as he achieved unassisted walking, his goal was the stairs.
For a toddler, stairs are enticing architecture. Smithy was the one willing to go up and down with him all day long. Tris didn’t know that turning around was
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