Page 93 of Thicker Than Water
“At the very least, there’d be an assault charge,” Lou said. “Maybe second-degree, maybe third. If it’s third, it’s a misdemeanor. Then there’s obstruction of justice. False statement and withholding information—he was previously questioned, along with everyone else at Integrity Plus—and that could be anything from gross misdemeanor to mid-level felony.”
“Meaning?” I asked.
“I’ll work to get the charges reduced as much as I can, but with all of that together”—Lou’s pause sapped the air from the room—“it’s possible he’ll see some prison time.”
My tears were hot and sharp, stinging like splinters in my eyes. They snapped me into my reality: my husband could be going to jail. That possibility has taunted me all week, a shadowy, peripheral fear, but I never looked at it too closely; I’d spent the days more concerned with who my husband is, what he’s capable of, than what I might do if he’s gone.
As I relay Lou’s words to Aiden, I wait for his reaction. But his face has gone blank, a concrete expression that does not crack.
I continue. “Maybe this is the wrong time to say this, but honey, if you ever see something, like your dad did at that party—both parties, actually—or if anything ever looks off to you—”
“I know, Mom. I wouldn’t just stand there. I’m better than that.” His words whip out in anger, but his voice is thick, as if he’s holding back tears. He looks up at the ceiling, eyes glassy, and he swallows. He shakes his head and scowls.
When he was a child, he used to cry so easily—at movies, at bad dreams, at a rip in his favorite shirt. I never stopped to note the last time it happened, the last day he shed tears over something fictional or fixable. It seemed he would always be that way—my sweet, sensitive boy—but now I watch him twist his face, squeeze in a breath, shred himself to pieces inside to try to seem whole. I feel how muchit hurts him, as if his muscles, his nerves, live inside my body, the way they did when I carried him, basically a child myself, with so much left to learn.
“You can cry,” I say softly.
He closes his eyes. His throat bobs again and again.
“You can.” I slide closer to him, put my hand on his shoulder. “Aiden.”
I take his chin between my thumb and forefinger. I tilt his head down, hoping he’ll open his eyes and meet my gaze. But he keeps them shut.
“What’s going to happen to our family?” he whispers.
I pause, unprepared for that question. I know he means all four of us—me, him, his father, Sienna. I don’t know what’s going to happen to Jason and me, how we’ll repair our trust, how we’ll say all the things that need to be said—but even more, I don’t know what will happen to me and Sienna. There hasn’t been time, yet, to discuss what I said to her this morning:Maybe we’ve both been holding each other back. It hurt so much to speak those words, but it hurts even worse now, knowing that neither of us have denied them.
I stroke Aiden’s cheek, answering him as truthfully as I can: “I’m not sure, hon. But Dad and I love you. So much.”
A tear slips from Aiden’s lashes and onto his cheek. His lip quivers.
“It’s okay to cry,” I remind him. “Crying’s important.”
Finally, his mouth splits open with a sound that startles me, like he’s choking and gasping at once, losing air and gaining it at the very same time.
It’s a primitive sound, one that resonates inside me. Its vibrations knock my own tears loose. And when Aiden topples forward, then crashes into me, I catch him. I cradle him in my arms, smoothing his hair with my palm, and we cry together—for Jason, for our family, for everything we each have lost.
It’s the next afternoon, as Sienna drives us to the hospital, that we learn Maeve confessed.
“Cell phone data puts her at the scene,” Lou tells us, voice tinny over Speaker. In the back seat, Aiden leans forward. “They recovered the recording, too.”
“What’s going to happen to her?” Sienna asks, face taut as she stares at the road.
“I imagine she’ll make bail,” Lou says. “Maybe get her charge reduced to manslaughter.”
“Do you think she has a case for self-defense? Gavin tried to kiss her. He implied he’d assaulted her before. I know she didn’t need to… smother him, but…”
As she trails off, I’m proud of her for even asking these questions. A week ago, if she’d learned that Maeve had been willing to let Jason take the fall for a crime she committed, Sienna’s rage could have powered entire cities. But now I see in her squinted gaze the facts she’s trying to balance: the ways Maeve was harmed by men, and the ways she harmed them back.
“Uh, I don’t know,” Lou says. “If she’d called the police the night it happened, maybe. But she waited a week. That’s obstruction of justice, a whole other charge.”
Sienna and I exchange a weighted glance. That’s one of the charges Lou told us Jason would likely face.
“What about Jason?” I ask, looking at Aiden, who’s perched so far forward in the back seat that his head is in line with mine. “What’s going to happen to him?”
“Well,” Lou says. “That’s the other reason I’m calling.”
By the time we arrive at Jason’s room, his arrest has already been made. Assault. Obstruction of justice. False statement. Exactly as Lou said.
