I was the one embroidering daydreams, letting myself pretend it all meant more than it did. Lewis was just hanging out with his kid and his kid’s friend. I know this, of course I know this, but it still sits like a leaden weight inside me.
Juliet texts me at lunchtime: Thinking of you xo which makes me grit my teeth. That’s it? One lousy text? I don’t reply.
By two o’clock in the afternoon Ben’s condition is neither worse nor better, which frustrates me. I want Ben to wake up and smile at me and ask for his soccer ball. I want someone to talk to; the loneliness, a loneliness I’ve dealt with my whole life, is starting to make me feel crazy.
I was raised in foster homes since I was four years old, so I know a lot about loneliness. My parents divorced when I was a baby, and my father walked out without, as far as I know, a backward glance. I certainly never saw him again. My mother spiraled down into depression, according to the files I accessed when I was eighteen, and when I was four I was removed from her care for ‘gross neglect’. Apparently I only weighed twenty-eight pounds, so she must have forgotten to feed me. I don’t remember any of it, not even a few blurred snatches of memory. It’s as if a curtain has been drawn across the first four years of my life. I do remember monitored visits with my mother over the next few years, as the social services sought to find a way to get us back together. I remember sitting on a hard plastic chair while a woman across from me, a woman who still has a blurred face, talked and sometimes cried quietly. I remember wanting to leave, fidgeting because I needed to pee, feeling uncomfortable and impatient and confused.
When I was eight the visits ended; my mother had killed herself.
By that time I’d been bounced around a few foster homes. I’d had a couple of long-term placements, but as I wasn’t ‘available to adopt’, I was always relinquished, sometimes reluctantly, sometimes not so reluctantly, back to the system. I was a quiet, morose kid, and I grew into a surly and wild teenager. My mother had been an only child whose parents were dead and my father was AWOL, so there were no relatives to take an interest.
And then, when I was fourteen, there was Esme. Esme was a career foster mother who always had a couple of kids in her duplex in Haddonfield, New Jersey. She was cheerful, brisk, and didn’t take any bullshit. She saved me from spiraling down like my mother did, into depression or drugs or worse. With her help, I finished high school and got into Rutgers for college; I completed a degree in Business Studies, admittedly overwhelmed by college loans, and then an internship at Alwin.
She’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to family, but we aren’t even that close. Esme has had a dozen foster kids go through her home since I was there, and she tries to keep in touch with them all but there’s so many, and besides, the ones she really cares about are the ones currently living with her. I’ve seen her a few times over the last ten years; I took Ben to see her when he was a baby, and she cooed over him before being distracted by the hell-raising five-year-old twins she’d taken on board. I understand the limitations placed on her, and I’ve been okay with that. I’ve had to be.
But now I break down and call her, because there is no one else.
“Maddie!” She sounds genuinely pleased to hear from me. “How are you, sweetie?”
“Not so good, Esme.” I take a shuddering breath. “Ben’s in the hospital.” Quickly I explain what happened, and Esme clucks her sympathy before saying, quite sincerely,
“I wish there was something I could do.”
Which says it all, really. Because she is acknowledging there isn’t.
We chat for a few more minutes and then I hang up the phone, feeling worse than before. Who else is in my life? Ben’s father has never, not even remotely, been in the picture. Juliet was my best friend but she’s clearly not all that interested; I have a few acquaintances from work with whom I’ve eaten lunch or grabbed a coffee during a break, but they’re hardly people I’d go to in an emergency. None of the parents from Burgdorf are on more than quick-smile-by-the-school-door terms, except for Lewis.
And as much as I want to, I know I can’t call Lewis. Not again. He didn’t respond to my one-word voicemail except to cancel our plans. Which means, I realize, that he must not know about Ben’s accident. But Josh must know. Josh might have seen him fall. They always play together at recess. Why wouldn’t Josh tell Lewis that Ben fell?
I grab my phone and press Lewis’s number. My heart is beating hard as I prepare for a conversation, perhaps a confrontation, but the phone just switches over to voicemail, and disappointment crashes through me. This time I don’t leave a message.
Her words hang in the air as Lewis, Mrs. James, and I all look at each other. Lewis shifts in his chair; his hands have balled into fists.
“Why,” I finally manage, “do you think Josh pushed Ben?”
“I spoke to Mrs. Rollins this morning and several children have mentioned it,” Mrs. James says. “They are…concerned.”
But Josh is not a pusher. He’s never aggressive. Ben is the one who is hyperactive, who bounces around, who has no boundaries. Ben is the one who would push.
“I think,” Mrs. James says, “we should call Joshua in here to speak with us.”
“I’d like to discuss this a little more first,” I say as firmly as I can. “I don’t want Josh to be intimidated—”
“There is no intimidation involved, Mrs. Taylor-Davies,” Mrs. James says in quelling tones. I give her a disbelieving look and she has the grace to look slightly abashed. “We all want answers,” she says in a quieter tone.
“You’re acting like you’ve already found them.” Lewis’s voice is even and measured but I can feel the latent anger underneath it. I think Mrs. James can too.
“Based on what I’ve heard this morning, it seems quite clear that Joshua pushed Ben,” she answers.
“So you mean it was an accident,” Lewis says after a moment, his voice so very even.
Mrs. James’s purses her lips. “I’m not sure about that, Mr. Taylor-Davies.”
My whole body goes rigid and I can’t speak, can’t process what she is implying. “That’s bullshit,” Lewis says calmly.
Mrs. James stiffens. “Mr. Taylor-Davies, please.”
“Two nine-year-old boys messing around in a playground, and there is an accident. What are you trying to turn this into?”
“I am simply trying to find the facts of the matter,” Mrs. James answers with chilly dignity. “Ben’s mother, Madeleine Reese, has some questions. We, as a school, need to give her the right answers—”
“I know Maddie,” Lewis cuts across her. “She’s not behind this. You’re looking for someone to pin this onto, God only knows why, and it’s not Josh.”
“All I’m suggesting is that we talk to Joshua and see what he has to say for himself, so we can deal with the matter appropriately.”
“Appropriately?” Lewis repeats disbelievingly. “What the hell does that mean?”
Mrs. James draws herself up. “Naturally Burgdorf does not tolerate violence of any kind.”
“My son is not violent,” I say quietly. “If Josh pushed Ben, it was nothing more than an accident as my husband just said. A very unfortunate and tragic accident.” My voice trembles and I gaze at her, daring her to contradict