“Sorry,” the detective said. “I see that you want to help. You have helped. We can use what you’ve told me, as long as you’re willing to repeat it in court.”
“I’m willing to repeat it anywhere,” Harlan said.
“Good. But you can’t go back in there on purpose to extract some kind of confession, and come tell us about it. You could jeopardize the case,” he went on, when Harlan would have said something. “Go see him, if you like. Ask him whatever you want, if it’s helpful to you and your sisters. But don’t tell me about it. We can’t use it, not now.”
Jennifer could see the frustration in every line of Harlan’s body, but all he said was, “What happens next?”
“He’ll see a judge in the morning,” Johnson said. “For the bail hearing. The judge will appoint a public defender, if he hasn’t hired an attorney. It’ll be short.”
“Is there a … a plea deal?” Harlan asked. “Some way he pleads to a lesser charge, and there’s no trial?”
“That depends,” the detective said. “On whether he wants to take his chances with a jury, and on what we can get him to tell us.”
“Which won’t be much,” Harlan said. “Not if he has an attorney. You can’t play in the NFL for ten years and not know that.”
Harlan was silent again as they left the building, but he held the car door open for her and said, “You need lunch.”
She said, “Yes. I do.” It would help him, she thought, to help her. He also needed to let some of this go, to talk it out. He still had to tell his sisters and absorb all their emotion. He’d be trying to help them deal with it, too. How hard was that going to be?
And exactly how much guilt was he carrying around? How much more, after today?
He said, “I know a place,” and drove there.
It was an Irish pub, she saw when he stopped the car. He sat, though, his hands on the wheel, and said, “I just realized. Can’t do it. Maybe a drive-in or something.”
“Ah,” she said. “People will recognize you.”
“Yeah. Usually, I can. But today … I can’t.”
“Hang on,” she said. “Two minutes.”
She came back in about that long, leaned into the passenger compartment, and said, “Come on.”
He climbed out. “Is this some assistant magic?”
“Yep. That’s exactly what it is. We’ll go around to the alley. Through the kitchen.”
They ended up in a back room. Banquet tables stacked against the walls, and one hastily-set-up table with two chairs in the middle. When the server came, Harlan eyed Jennifer and asked the kid, “What’s the quickest thing you’ve got?”
“Uh …” The kid’s Adam’s apple bobbed. Twenty-one, probably, or he couldn’t serve here, but not any more than that, and awed almost to the point of speechlessness. “Soup, probably. Or Irish stew.”
Harlan looked the question at Jennifer, and she said, “Irish stew, please. Definitely.”
“Bring us two bowls of that right now, OK?” Harlan said.
Five minutes later, she was blowing on a chunk of rich beef dripping with gravy, her stomach clenching with anticipation. The stew was served in a bread bowl, too. Bonus. “I don’t know how you knew,” she told him, “but thanks. I go from, ‘Eh, I could eat,’ to ‘Oh my god feed me NOW’ in about one minute. If you don’t eat yours fast, I could start in on it, too. So you know.”
He smiled, which was so much better. “I should keep my arms out of reach, is that it? Because if you get hungry enough, anything goes?”
“That’s it,” she said, keeping it cheerful. “You’re dangerously meaty.” And he laughed. She ate the chunk of beef, then went for a carrot. “You did well in there,” she decided to say. “And before that, especially, with your dad. Did you really hold it together while he said all that? How?”
He grimaced. “I was concentrating so hard on not losing it, on getting him to talk, I didn’t realize until later that I should’ve stayed longer. I should’ve asked more. Strung him along. I didn’t know it would be the only shot I had.”
“Well,” she said, “by the time he said the ‘pregnant’ thing, I imagine all you wanted was to kill him yourself.”
He looked up at her, startled, and laughed. “Yeah.” He set his spoon down, put his palms over his face, and rubbed. “Yeah. That was … pretty bad. Especially … I thought about you. About the way I feel about it. And I’m not even sure I’m the dad. We’re not married. Not even together. And still … How could any man do that?”
“You didn’t even want it to happen,” she guessed, “and yet you still feel protective.”
“Well, yeah.” He took his hands down and sighed. “I can’t imagine any other way a guy could feel. I don’t get it.”
“Because you’re a good man,” she said. “And you get that from your mother. You could think about that. She isn’t here anymore, but she gave you such a gift. And I’ll bet she’d be so happy to know it.”
Her hand was on his, trying to let him know. Trying to show him. His deep-blue eyes were bright with unshed tears, and when he hauled in a breath, it was ragged. “But, Harlan,” she went on, urgent with the need to say this. “You don’t know that was what happened. Much more likely that she just told him she wanted out, don’t you think? That’s what I’d have done. I’d have said, ‘I want out. I can’t do this anymore.’ It just doesn’t sound to me like a baby would make your mom leave. It seems like a baby would make her stay.” She hesitated a moment, then said, “I wonder about Annabelle. I wonder if she’d have left earlier, if not for Annabelle. And maybe, Annabelle being five … maybe she thought, ‘They’re all in school now. Time to have my own life.’ That’s how it is, when you’re a mom.”
“What?” he said. “They’re in school, so you want to leave them?”
“No. Don’t you see?” She had her hand on his arm now. “She wouldn’t leave. She’d ask him to leave. She’d tell him she wanted him to move out. She was the mom. She’d stay in the house. That’s how it works. He wasn’t getting any better, from what you’ve said, and she’d think, ‘I don’t want to raise another daughter in this house with him. I don’t want to teach her that this is OK. It’s time to change, no matter how hard it is.’ And maybe, seeing you go off to college … maybe she thought, ‘There’s more life for me. All I have to do is make the move.’”
“Do you think?”
“Yes.” That she wasn’t pregnant, he meant. Did she think that was true? She hoped so, at least. She hoped so with all her heart. And she couldn’t stand—she couldn’t stand—to watch him tear himself apart over this. Not if he’d never know one way or the other.
Wait a minute. She said, “You know—if she was pregnant, they can find out. She’d have gone to a doctor, or she’d have told somebody. Somebody at her work, maybe. She’d have confided. And the pregnancy idea doesn’t fit, Harlan. Why would he fight with her, choke her, because she was pregnant?”