The Collide. Kimberly McCreight

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      OUR HOUSE SMELLS exactly the same, good in that weird, old-house way. Like lavender with a hint of maple syrup. And I want to be comforted by something that familiar, but all I feel is sad. Like even the smell is just another lie.

      Gideon and I sit next to each other on the couch, staring down at our mom’s sealed letter, the milk shake from Holy Cow that I drank too fast sitting heavy in my stomach. Gideon went up to get the letter for me because I still wasn’t ready to face my bedroom. Downstairs, I already feel swamped by memories. Even the good ones feel terrible, too. Maybe especially the good ones. And something about telling Gideon about our mom has made me angry all over again. I got kind of lulled into Rachel’s explanations, which ring a lot less true now that I’ve relayed them to Gideon. I mean, our dad is missing, and our mom is building some coalition? That might be noble. It might even make her feel like a hero. But we need her home, right now.

      “You want me to open it?” Gideon asks after we have been sitting there a really long time.

      “No, I will,” I say.

      My hands tremble as I finally rip open the seal. There is too much riding on what she has to say. I already know whatever’s inside won’t be enough. How can it be? My heart sinks even more when I see it’s just a single page of notebook paper, just a few short paragraphs. Gideon and I read together.

      June 17

      Dear Wylie,

      Rachel has hopefully explained as much as she can about what happened and why. All I can say is that I’m doing the best I can to be sure you’re safe from here on out. I have already found people to help us, including a senator—I can’t wait until you meet her. She’s amazing. There’s a neuroscientist, too (a woman), who your dad has been working with. Real people. Who are smart and committed and are willing to help.

      I am sure you are angry, and I know that nothing I write here will make up for the pain I have caused you. But know that everything I did was to protect you, and because I love you.

      In the meantime, Rachel will help you. I am so grateful to her. Thank God for my “old lady yoga,” as you like to call it, because if she and I hadn’t run into each other, I never would have thought to go to her that night. But she was the perfect person. Anyway, let her help you. She saved my life, literally. She knows what to do. And send my love to Gideon.

      It’s even harder to read than I expected. To think of her sneaking back into the house to leave it after I saw her. To feel how stupidly desperate I am still to forgive her, to find some decent explanation. It makes me feel like such an idiot.

      “Is there anything she could say that would make you forgive her?” I ask. Partly because I want him to tell me how I should.

      Gideon considers the question for a minute. “Probably,” he says. “People who live in glass houses, you know? You’re saying you can’t forgive her? I mean, no matter what?”

      “I’m not sure,” I say, and I realize then that whether or not I can forgive my mom isn’t even the thing that’s bothering me most. I’m just not sure what is. “I’m going to call Jasper’s house, see if I can reach him.”

      “You think he knows something?” Gideon asks.

      “No,” I say. “But he knows me.”

      Jasper’s mom answers on the third ring. “Hello?” Mad, already. Like we’re in the middle of an argument. And she doesn’t even know it’s me. Things are only going to go downhill once she figures that out.

      “Can I please speak to Jasper?” I ask brightly.

      “He’s not here,” she snaps. On second thought, she knows exactly who I am.

      “Oh, I, um, tried his cell phone, and it’s not working. . . .”

      Dead silence. She also knows that Jasper’s phone isn’t working. She is maybe even the reason why.

      “Could you tell him that Wylie called?” I ask. “And that I’m home?”

      “I am not telling him a goddamn thing.”

       Click.

      She’s hung up on me. My chest is burning as I grip my phone. I know that I shouldn’t take her venom personally. But that’s easier said than done.

      I still have the phone in my hand when the doorbell rings. I want to feel a happy surge: it’s Jasper! But already I know it’s not.

      “I’ll check who it is,” Gideon offers as he gets up to peek out the window. He turns back to me. “Rachel.”

      Gideon opens the door and Rachel steps into the foyer, dressed, as usual, in an elegant, perfectly tailored black suit and expensive-looking four-inch black platform heels. Rachel’s thousand-dollar rock-star shoes are her screw-you to lawyerly convention. Somehow, she makes this seem brave.

      “Glad to see you made it home,” she says, and there goes a bolt of lightning. Her feeling, gone before it’s even really there. And right now I am definitely too worn out to chase it. “I just wanted to check in and make sure everything was okay.”

      I stare at her. “I was just sitting here reading the note my not-dead mom left me. So define ‘okay.’”

      “Oh, right,” she says, looking past me. Perplexed. (Maybe.) Flash. Crackle. Gone. “Well, I came by to remind you of the bail conditions: greater Newton area. They can use it against you at trial if you violate, even by accident, not to mention that they will revoke your bail, instantly. It’s not worth it.”

      “I’m not going anywhere,” I say. Though I am already pretty sure this is yet another of my lies.

      “Good. Also, we got the first set of discovery disclosures from the prosecutor’s office today,” Rachel goes on, glad to change the subject. Now her feelings are steady, loud and clear: calm, confident, focused. Whenever we talk about my case is the only time they are ever like that. “They’re, let’s just say, interesting.”

      “Interesting how?” Gideon asks when I am too slow on the uptake.

      “They’re thin,” she says, pleased with herself now. “Like remember those matches they supposedly had in the first interview?”

      “What about them?” I feel a flutter in my chest. The matches really bothered me, right from the start. If they did find matches under my bed, I worried that maybe I did do something awful to Teresa and just don’t remember. Because in some small, dark corner of my mind, I still don’t trust myself, not completely.

      “They’ve disappeared, apparently.” Rachel shakes her head in disbelief. “Now, I don’t know if they lost them or if they never had them or what. But they’re gone.”

      “That’s great news, right?” Gideon asks, looking over at me. I’m afraid there’s a catch. “Does that mean they’ll drop their case?”

      Rachel shakes her head again. “I wouldn’t get ahead of ourselves. They still have proof that the fire at the hospital was intentional. It was ‘constructed from combustible materials.’ Meaning, apparently, whoever set it didn’t need a match.”

      “Maybe СКАЧАТЬ