The Secret Between Us by Barbara Delinsky Page B

on his head. He jumped in surprise.
    “Everything okay, sweetie?” she asked.
    He nodded vigorously. “Everything’s good.”
    “You’re watching that rag pretty closely. Not blurring on you, is it?”
    He shook his head.
    “You’d tell me if it was?”
    “Mom. Nothing’s
blurred.
We have to leave soon, don’t we?” he asked and looked worriedly at Grace. “You’re coming, aren’t you?”
    “Oh, Dylan, I don’t think—”
    “You
have
to come,” he cut in, sounding desperate. “See, that’s why Coach never plays me, ’cause my family isn’t there. He doesn’t have a reason to do it.”
    “Wait a minute,” Deborah said. “I haven’t missed a game. Aren’t I family?”
    “One
small
part.” He looked at Grace again and pleaded, “
Please
come,” in a way that made her want to scream, because she couldn’t say no when he looked at her that way. He was her little brother, he had terrible eyes, and he was so bad at baseball that it was painful to watch. Grace didn’t know why her parents let him play.
    Actually, she did. They let him play because baseball was normal, and they wanted that for him. They wanted him to have friends. They wanted him to be a typical boy. They wanted him to like sports.
    “Five more minutes,” Deborah told him and turned so that he wouldn’t see what she mouthed to Grace. “Please come. He needs us there.”
    “How can
either
of us go?” Grace whispered when her mother was close again. “We just
killed
a guy.”
    “We didn’t—”
    “Won’t it
look
bad if we’re there?”
    “Maybe, but what choice do we have? This is about Dylan. Should he be punished because Mr. McKenna died?”
    Grace was torn. “Okay,” she granted, “I’ll go to the game, but I can’t go to the funeral, I absolutely can’t do that.”
    Jill joined them as they were leaving. “Are
you
going to the funeral?” she asked Deborah.
    “I thought I would, out of respect.”
    “But you were driving the car that hit him.”
    Precisely,
Grace thought.
    “Isn’t that all the more reason I should go?” her mother asked.
    Grace held her breath. She could usually count on her aunt to side with her.
    This time, Jill just frowned. “There must be protocol for this kind of thing. Maybe you should ask Hal.”
             
    In the car,
Deborah phoned. Hal nixed the idea without a moment’s pause. “Stay home.”
    “Why?” Deborah asked.
    “Because your presence may upset the widow.”
    “But it’s a graveside service, and it’ll be packed. I’ll stand way at the back. She’ll never know I was there.”
    “And you don’t think other people will see you? Come on, Deborah. Word’ll spread.”
    She figured it would. With the appearance of the
Ledger,
though, the accident was public knowledge. As self-conscious as she felt driving through town, hiding would make it worse. “Would that be so bad?” she asked. “You wouldn’t let me talk to the press, but I feel terrible about this, Hal. It’s not like I set out to run the guy down, and it’s not like I live in a city with millions of people and don’t know who the man was. I feel responsible for what happened.”
    “The widow may play on that.”
    “Still, it was my car that hit her husband. Going to the funeral is the least I can do.”
    “As a friend, sweetheart, I understand,” Hal replied patiently. “As your lawyer, I advise you to skip it. We still don’t know what the widow plans to do. If your appearance sets her off, it’ll only make things worse.”
             
    Deborah didn’t ask
Hal about going to a Little League game, because she didn’t want him to veto that, too. After delivering Dylan to the field, she and Grace stood on the sidelines to watch with the other families. The air had cooled. Clusters of parents stood together wrapped in coats, always a natural barrier to conversation, but they were friendly enough to Deborah and Grace. If they thought Deborah shouldn’t be there, they