“The highway?”

“Yes. And he’d been doing it all day.”

“Impossible.”

“Why do you say that? A teacher saw him. His section teacher called, Mr. Raditzky. Joey skipped school. And he forged your name to a note.”

With yesterday’s horror less immediate, this news was shocking. “Forged?”

“Went in in the morning. Left and never came back.”

Was this true? She looked at the ceiling. A black dot of a bullet hole was in the corner. Small as a fly. The slug had come all the way through here. “I had no idea. I’ll talk to him.”

“I tried. He wouldn’t listen.”

“He gets that way.”

In a harsh voice Graham said, “But he can’t get that way. That’s not an excuse. He kept lying to me and I told him no skateboarding for a month.”

“Are you sure-” Her initial reaction was to defend her son, to question Mr. Raditzky’s credibility, to ask who the witness was, to cross-examine. She fell silent.

Graham was tense, shoulders forward.

More was coming.

But, fair enough. She’d asked for this.

“And the fight, Brynn. Last year? You told me it was a pushing match. Mr. Raditzky told me what really happened.”

“He was a bully. He-”

“-was just taunting Joey. Talking to him is all. But Joey hurt him bad. We almost got sued. You never told me that.”

She fell silent. Then said, “I didn’t want word to get around. I pulled some strings. It wasn’t all on the up-and-up. But I had to do it. I wanted to protect him.”

“He’s not going to break, Brynn. You spoil him. His bedroom looks like a Best Buy.”

“I pay for everything I bought him myself.” She instantly regretted the barbed words, seeing the grimace on Graham’s face. This had nothing to do with money, of course.

“I don’t think it’s good for him, all that indulgence. You don’t have to be mean. But have to say no sometimes. And punish him if he doesn’t listen to you.”

“I do.”

“No, you don’t. It’s like you owe him, like you’re guilty about something and paying back this debt. What’s it all about, Brynn?”

“You’re making it into something more than it is. Way more.” She gave a faint laugh, though she felt her heart chill-the way her skin had when the cold, black water rushed into her car at Lake Mondac. “His fight at school…it was just something between Joey and me.”

“Oh, Brynn, that’s the problem. See? That’s what this is all about. It’s never been ‘us.’ It’s always you and Joey. I’m along for the ride.”

“That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it? What’s this all about?” He waved his hand around the house. “Is it about us, the three of us, a family? Or is it about you? You and your son?”

“It’s about us, Graham, really.” She tried holding his eye but couldn’t.

No lies between us, Brynn…

But that was Hart. And it was Keith… Graham was different. This is so wrong, she thought, being honest with bad men, while the good ones get lied to and neglected.

He stretched. She noticed that both their beers were exactly three-quarters full. He said, “Forget it. Let’s go to bed. We need sleep.”

She asked, “When?”

“When what?”

“Are you leaving?”

“Brynn. This is enough for tonight.” A laugh. “We never talk, not about anything serious. And now we can’t stop. Tonight of all nights. We’re exhausted. Let’s just get some rest.”

“When?” she repeated.

He rubbed his eyes, first one, then both. He lowered his hands, looked at a deep scratch inflicted at some point last night in the woods. A tear in the skin from a thorn or rock. He seemed surprised. He said, “I don’t know. A month. A week. I don’t know.”

She sighed. “I’ve seen it coming.”

He looked perplexed. “Seen it coming? How? I didn’t know it till last night.”

What did he mean by that? She asked, “Who is she?”

“‘She’?”

“You know who. That woman you’re seeing.”

“I’m not seeing anybody.” He sounded put out, as if she’d delivered a cheap insult.

She debated but kept to the course. She said harshly, “JJ’s poker games. Sometimes you go. Sometimes you don’t.”

“You’ve been spying on me.”

“You lied to me. I could tell. I do this for a living, remember?”

He’s no good at deception.

Unlike me.

Anger now. But more troubling, he sounded disgusted. “What’d you do? Put a bug in the car? Have somebody from the department tail me?”

“I saw you once. By coincidence. Outside the motel on Albemarle. And, yeah, I followed you later. You said you were going to the game. But you went there again…” She snapped, “Why are you laughing? It broke my heart, Graham!”

“To break somebody’s heart, you need to own a bit of it. And I don’t. I don’t have an ounce of yours. I don’t think I ever did.”

“That’s not true! There’s no excuse for cheating.”

He was nodding slowly. “Cheating, ah…Did you ask me about it? Did you sit down and say, ‘Honey, we have a problem, I’m concerned, let’s talk about it? Get it worked out’?”

“I-”

“You know your mother told me about what Keith did. To your face. You know my first reaction? Oh, my God, that explains so much. How could I be mad at you? But then I realized that, hell, yes, I could be mad. I should be mad. And you should have told me. I deserved to be told.”

Brynn had considered telling him a hundred times. Yet she’d made up a bullshit story about a car crash. She thought now: But how could I tell him? That somebody flew into a rage and hit me. That I cried off and on for months afterward. That I cringed at the sound of his voice. That I broke into a hundred pieces like a child. I was ashamed that I didn’t leave him, just bundle Joey up and walk out the door.

That I was afraid. That I was weak.

And that my delaying would have even more horrific consequences.

Keith…

But even now she couldn’t tell him exactly what had happened.

And here, she understood, was a clue to the crime she’d committed against Graham, against the two of them: her silence, this inability to talk. Yet she felt that whatever the clue led to, even if she managed to figure it out, the solution would come too late. It was like finding conclusive evidence as to a killer’s identity, only to discover that the perp had already died of natural causes.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But you still…” Her voice faded as she watched him pulling his wallet from his slacks, fishing in it. She watched, obsessively touching the bandage on her cheek.

Jesus. Was it his lover’s picture? she wondered.

He handed her a small white card.

Brynn squinted; the cheek wound made reading difficult out of her right, her stronger, eye.

She stared at the raised type: Sandra Weinstein, M.D., LLC. 2942 Albemarle Avenue, Ste. 302, Humboldt, Wisconsin. Handwritten at the bottom was: Friday 7:30, April 17. Brynn began, “She’s a-”

“Therapist. Psychiatrist…Shrink.”

“You-”

“You saw us near the motel, Brynn, but not at the motel. She’s in the professional building next door. I’m usually her last patient at night. Sometimes we leave the office at the same time. That’s probably when you saw us.”

Brynn flicked the card.

“Call her. Go see her. I’ll give her permission to tell you all about it. Please, go talk to her. Help me figure out why you love the job more than me. Why you’d rather be in your squad car than at home. Help me figure out how to be a father to a son you won’t let me near. Why you got married to me in the first place. Maybe you two can figure it out. I sure can’t.”

Brynn offered lamely, “But why didn’t you tell me? Ask me to go with you to counseling? I would have!” She meant this.

He lowered his head. And she realized she’d touched a painful spot-like her tongue probing the gum where her tooth had once been.

“I should have. Sandra keeps suggesting it. I almost asked you a dozen times. I couldn’t.”

“But why?”