Everything to Lose

This time my heart didn’t jump—it stopped. And if my eyes had been wide before, they surely doubled now.

Holy shit, Hil …

The bag was filled with similarly bound packets of cash. All hundreds! Reflexively I pawed through them. There were dozens of them. This time the math was a little harder to calculate.

I was looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I looked over at the driver and tried to figure out what some old guy driving a beat-up Honda would be doing with this kind of cash. Maybe the receipts from a business. No, that wouldn’t make sense; they wouldn’t be all hundreds. Maybe the guy’s life savings that he’d been hoarding for years under his bed.

More likely something illegal, I speculated.

I pulled myself across the seat and tried to determine one last time if he was alive or dead. I even put my hand on his shoulder and shook him. He didn’t move. I spotted a cell phone in his lap and picked it up. There was a phone number and a partially written text on the screen. “Heading back wi—”

Heading back with what?

Heading back with the cash, of course. What else would it be? The message hadn’t been sent. On a hunch I looked for the time of that last entry: 6:41 P.M. It was 6:44 now. He’d probably been about to text that when the deer bolted out in front of him. That’s why he couldn’t control his car. Something that every father begs his own son or daughter not to do …

I put the phone back.

It was clear there was nothing I could do for him. The EMTs and the police would be here any second. The engine continued to smoke; I realized I’d better get out of there. I pushed backward on the passenger seat and my eyes landed once again on the open satchel of cash.

In business, I’d made a dozen deals for this amount of money, but I’d never actually seen so much in cash. At least, not staring directly up at me. It might have been only an instant in actual time, but yesterday’s events came flashing back to me: losing my job; the four-weeks’ severance; how I’d had to beg for an extra month on the health plan. And how the past couple of years were such a struggle …

Then this … Enough to take care of so many things: Brandon’s school, which was five months past due; a good chunk of my payments on a house that was now completely underwater. Even help my folks. Life-changing money for me. I’d never done a bad thing in my life. I mean, maybe smoked a little pot back in college. Stolen a book or two out of the library. But nothing like this.

Nothing like what was suddenly racing through my mind. You must be crazy to even be thinking this, Hil …

Suddenly the guy called from back up on the road. “They’re on the way!” I still couldn’t make him out through the brush. “I’m coming down.”

Everything I’d been raised with, every code I lived my life by, every voice of conscience inside me told me just to let it sit. I didn’t know who it belonged to. It could be gambling or drug money for all I knew. Possibly even traceable. Whatever it was, it damn well wasn’t mine.

I just stared.

Then I felt my blood begin to surge. The guy was dead. Who would ever know? If I just got the hell out of here, didn’t take it with me now, but maybe hid it, then came back another time? I’d gone to a few Al-Anon meetings with a friend back in my twenties, and I remembered this role-playing game they used, on how easy it was to slide back into past behavior—in one ear, there was the addict side, to whom they gave the name Slick, and in the other, the person’s rational side. Slick, seductively whispering in your ear like the devil: “Come on, you can handle it; no one will know; it’ll just be this once.” On the other shoulder, your conscience countering, “You’ll know. This will only be the start of something bad. Once you do it you’ll never go back.”

We all have a Slick inside, the exercise was meant to show.

And it all just caught me at a point when my life was crawling on this teetering sheet of ice. And I saw Brandon there, all the good work he had done taken away, on that ice with me, about to split into a hundred pieces beneath my feet. And nowhere to go but in. Into the black, freezing water.

And I’d been there before.

“Shit,” I heard the guy cry out on his way down, sliding in the wet brush as I had.

“Be careful!” I yelled back. “It’s dangerous.”

If you’re going to do it, you have to do it now, Hilary.

In that moment there was no offsetting argument or rationale. Not that it was someone else’s money. Nor that it didn’t belong to me. Or whether it was legit or dirty.

There was just Brandon. And the fear that I no longer could take care of my son. I didn’t see it as right or wrong. Only that fate had given me a way out. And I had to take it. My heart felt like it was beating at a hundred miles per hour.

I zipped up the bag and lifted it out of the car. I hesitated a last second, almost hoping that the guy on his way down would suddenly appear and the decision would be out of my hands.

But he didn’t.

I took the bag and hurled it as far as I could deep into the woods. I prayed it wouldn’t be visible when it landed—sitting up there like a fucking neon arrow was pointing to it, and I’d have to admit to the police what I’d done. But it landed about ten yards in amid a thicket and disappeared into a clump of brush.

It was done.

The other motorist finally made it down. He seemed in his fifties, in a sports jacket, striped shirt, and loosened tie. As if he was on his way back from a hard day at the office. He had a flabby, ruddy face with thin, reddish hair combed over a bald spot.

“You were right. You could kill yourself getting down here.” Wide-eyed, he focused on the wreck and then the driver. “Shit,” he whistled, “is he …?”

“I think so. I tried to get at him, but he’s completely wedged in. I couldn’t even open the door. Not that I could have done anything anyway. He was already gone.” I nodded toward the engine. “I think we ought to back away …”

“I think you’re right. The police said someone will be here soon. I saw the deer up there. It took off into the woods.”

The police. At the sound of the word, I felt my heart start to patter. If they found me here, I’d be a witness; I’d have to leave my name. There’d be a record that I’d been first on the scene. If the money was ever reported missing, it would lead right back to me. I glanced at my watch. Four minutes had elapsed. Others driving by might see our cars and stop to help.

“Listen …,” I said, hesitating.

“Rollie,” the guy said, pushing his hair across his brow. “McMahon.”

“Jeanine,” I said, in a moment of panic, knowing I needed to say something, so I came up with my middle name. “Rollie, I know this is crazy, but I really have to get out of here. I’m already late to pick up my son. He’s in this basketball league. The cops will be here any second and, you know how it goes, they’ll have me tied up for an hour. You said you saw the deer …”

He nodded. He seemed to think it over for a second, a round-shouldered, amiable dude. “I guess you’re right. No worries. I’ll wait for them. You can go on ahead.”

“Thanks.” I blew out my cheeks. Realizing that every second I remained here might get me in a load of trouble. “You’re a lifesaver.

“Shit …” I looked at the body and grimaced at the choice of words.

“You ought to leave me your info though,” he said. “In case the police want to contact you.”

“You’re right. I’ll leave my card on your car. Under the windshield wiper. That okay …?”

He nodded. And glanced back at the wreck. “Like you said, it’s not like there’s much we can do for him anyway.”

“I’m really sorry to run out like this.” I looked at the dead guy one last time.

“Go on. Go get your kid,” he said. “Raised three myself. I know what it’s like. I’ll wait here.”

I waved thanks and hurried back up the slope, feeling like hell that I’d taken advantage of such a nice man.

On the street, a car going in the other direction slowed to see what was going on. I averted my face and waved him on like everything was okay.

Suddenly I heard the wail of a siren from behind. I turned and saw flashing red and blue lights through the trees, heading my way. Shit. I hurried to my car, climbed in quickly, and started it up. For a last second I questioned whether I should stay. Admit what I’d done now. Anyone might have been tempted. Probably nothing would even come of it.

I heard myself say inside that I could always follow it up. I could track it and see if the money was ever reported missing. And if it did end up rightfully belonging to the guy, I could send some kind of note, anonymously, to his family, about where it could be found. They’d be happy to get it back. No one would even have to know what happened. Or care, ultimately.

Right?

The siren grew louder.

I pulled away just as the police car came around the bend. I accelerated and looked back at it in the rearview mirror as the police car slowed.

A hundred yards ahead, I passed a poster on an electrical pole. An election poster that hadn’t been taken down. BRENNAN FOR CONGRESS. In bold underneath his photo, COMMITMENT. INTEGRITY.

If I ever needed to come back, I could use it as a marker.

This time, Slick won out.

CHAPTER THREE

Jim and Janice lived in a colonial on a couple of acres with a pond in back.

Janice’s house actually, whose CFO ex-husband had come through for her slightly more supportively than mine had for me.

Clearly, Janice had gone in the opposite direction when it came to Jim, who was, at heart, a big-shouldered, overgrown teenager. The truth is, there’s not much not to like about him: he’s always happy, usually finds the fun in life; always the last one to ever figure out that anything’s actually gone wrong. Other than maybe he’s way more of a dreamer than he is a provider, and a little light on the scale when it comes to family responsibility.

I met him when he’d just turned a couple of torn-down sixties ranches into brick and glass McMansions at the height of the housing boom. He took me sailing to Nantucket and up the coast of Maine on his motorcycle, things I’d never done in my life, having grown up in the Bronx and majored in cultural anthropology at NYU. He was kind of a furry brown bear to me; that’s even what I called him—Bear. No one I knew ever understood the match.

There was nothing particularly acrimonious about our split. We just grew apart. We still remained friendly mostly. I didn’t even mind that as his business declined, the alimony and child support payments gradually petered out. It was just Jim being Jim, in my view, until he got back on his feet. The thing that was hard to swallow was how he seemed to enjoy being a dad to Janice’s boys a lot more than he did to Brandon, who tried hard when it came to sports, but let’s be honest, we were talking a different league. Janice’s kids played squash and did moguls. At Milton Farms, the varsity basketball team was co-ed.

Not to mention, I didn’t come with a couple of mil in the stock portfolio … And her kids didn’t beat their heads against the wall until they turned blue when you took away their Xbox.

I pulled into the driveway and noticed the gleaming blue new Carrera parked in front of the garage. Jim’s old Targa was like a relic compared to it. I parked, still reeling a bit from what had just happened on the road. Jim must have heard me drive up because he met me at the door on the wide front porch with his arms wide, as if I was bringing the beer to a Super Bowl party. “Hey, Hil …” He shot me that walruslike, everything’s-cool-here smile through his thick brown mustache. “You’re sure looking nice.”

“Thanks.” He put a hand on my arm, and we stood there awkwardly before he leaned in and gave me a kiss. “Thanks for letting me come by.”

“Come on in.” He was in painter’s pants and beat up Cole Haans. He looked like he’d added an extra ten pounds. “You sounded anxious. The boys are upstairs doing homework. Pinot …?”

I would have loved a glass of wine. Shit, a couple of them would have gone down smoothly about now. My heart still hadn’t calmed a beat. “No, it’s okay,” I said. “Thanks.” I didn’t want to be any more relaxed than I had to be.

“Come on in the study.” He shuffled through the foyer that had a perfectly polished Biedermeier table and antique candelabra, framed pictures of the boys and Janice.

Who suddenly appeared as if on cue from the kitchen. Her blond hair in a short ponytail, in a form-fitting fuchsia lululemon yoga outfit, holding one of the boys’ crested Brunswick jackets. “Hil …”

“Hi, Janice. Been a while.”

“It has.” She came over and gave me a kiss. “Sorry the place looks like it does …” I noticed a couple of suitcases at the bottom of the stairs. “The kids are on break Friday if we can get through exams and squash practice, and then we’re headed out to Vail.” She blew out a weary breath and wiped her brow as if she’d been shoveling the driveway. “Crazy, right?”

Other than the suitcases, the place looked like it was being photographed for Architectural Digest in the morning. And it was nice of her to frame so vividly how differently our lives had vectored. Brandon and I had gone to Epcot in Orlando two springs ago.

“Yeah, crazy.”

“Well, I’ll let you two go over whatever it is you’re here to discuss …” As if she had no clue in the world about what that might be or why I would be here. “How’s Brandon, by the way?”

“He’s actually doing great, Janice. Thanks. He’s almost caught up to grade level in math and you ought to see what he’s drawing these days. The place has really had such an amazing effect.”

“That’s so inspiring. We’ll have to have him for a weekend when we get back.”

“I know he’d love that,” I said. Actually he’d hate that. He always felt like an outsider, unable to compete with her boys at almost anything. And over the past two years, those invitations had become fewer and fewer, always revolving around the boys’ sports practices and family trips. Jim rarely even showed up at school on parents’ day anymore.

Janice held up the jacket and sighed. “Doesn’t anyone ever hang things up around here … Always nice to see you, Hil. Let’s be in touch.”

“C’mon,” Jim, said, mercifully pointing toward the study, “let’s go in here.”

We went down a step into the sunken wood-paneled room with a brass-hearth fireplace that looked like something out of a Martha Stewart catalogue. The wall with the windows was painted a textured green, with two brass sconces bracketing each window. In between them hung a painting of a guy in an ornate Chinese robe with a Fu Manchu mustache down to his waist.

“Janice’s side of the family?” I asked. Truth was, I couldn’t find a single trace of Jim in the entire house. Except maybe in the back, in the McMansion of a play shed he had built, where I knew they kept a couple of small ATVs for the boys to race around the pond, the lacrosse nets and sticks, the pool rafts.

“Distant cousin.” He chuckled. “You never met?”

“Somehow, no … Of course we didn’t get invited to the wedding …”

“C’mon, Hil, you didn’t drive all the way up here to take shots at me. Anyway, you sounded worried on the phone.” He leaned forward, his beefy forearms on his knees. “You want to tell me what’s up?”

“Listen, Jim, something’s happened. I need to go over a few things with you.”

“Brandon?” He actually sat up and seemed concerned.

“No, Brandon’s fine. He’s doing multiplication and division now. Everything’s going real well. And you should see his artwork. He’s doing amazing things, Jim. I think he’s got a real talent.”

“That’s really good. I know I should come and see it. I mean to. It’s just I’m always—”

“Look—I know he’s not exactly the son you’ve always wanted. He’s not exactly someone you can take boogie boarding at the beach or out to the driving range like Lucas and Trey. Though God knows he does try. But now I need some help, Jim. I don’t know if I can cover the costs any longer. At Milton Farms. I’m four months behind in tuition and next year is coming up. I can’t keep going back to Neil and Judy. They’re getting on. Dad’s starting to go downhill. They survived the storm okay, but they’re underwater on a couple of big boats. They kind of zigged when the rest of the world zagged …”

“Guess I know how what feels like,” he said with a glum smile.

“Anyway, they’re gonna be needing whatever they have for themselves. And you’re Brandon’s father, for God’s sake—” I gazed around.

Jim’s eyes drooped guiltily and he sat back, the cat out of the bag now, as if it was ever really in. “I’m sorry about Neil. No one likes to hear that.”

“Thanks. I appreciate that. My dad always liked you.”

He folded his thick fingers in front of his face. “You know I had to close up Double Eagle, don’t you, Hil?”

Double Eagle was his construction business. “No, I didn’t. I’m sorry, Jim.”

“I was gonna call you about it. Then I figured, hell … you’d probably just think I was trying to wriggle out of another check.”

“I’m really sorry to hear that. I know that company was a big part of you.”

I thought back to those early years when he was making three, four hundred grand a house, several times a year, much of which long ago went down the drain in the financial meltdown, the houses sold at a loss or borrowed up to the hilt against. “But, Jim—look at how you live. I need some help now. You can’t hide behind that anymore.”

His toothy smile turned downward. “I don’t have to tell you the story here, do I, Hil …? Look, I understand how most of this has always fallen on you. I know you’ve had to change your life. And, no BS here, I admire you for what you’ve done. I do. It’s just that right now … you’re bringing in a helluva lot more than me.” He snorted cynically. “Right now the UPS man is bringing in a helluva lot more than me.”

“Well, as of the other day”—I fixed my eyes on him— “that’s all changed.”

“What do you mean, changed?”

I told him about Cesta and Steve having to cut things back. That I basically got four weeks’ salary and a month on the health plan. “I’m behind on everything, Jim. We were basically living check to check the past year as it was. Now …”

He nodded, his mustache curling into a frown. “I’m really sorry, Hil. That sucks.”

“It does suck. But that doesn’t make anything go away. I’ve cut back on a hundred things over the past few years to keep everything together for Brandon and me. I hoped we had some equity still in the house, but there’s zero in the current market. I had it appraised. The whole thing’s underwater, which, let’s face it, is pretty much how you left me. And anyway, what would be the chance of refinancing now with no job even if there was something to pull out? I’ve been working full time, putting everything toward our son, while you’re what, zipping the kids off to squash practice in that new Porsche I saw outside …”

He rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. “That’s a little cold, don’t you think, Hilary?”

“No. No, it’s not cold, Jim. Look, I’m sorry … I know it’s hard to close the company. I know it’s like closing a chapter on yourself, an important one. I get that. But it was no picnic for me getting fired and seeing the past four years go up in smoke. My savings are shot, Jimmy. You’re Brandon’s father. This isn’t about my fucking shoe allowance or jetting down to St. Barth’s for my tan … Jim, I need you to stand up. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

I was trying to hold it together. Promising myself not to cry or let my emotions come through. But my eyes started to sting and there was no way of holding them back. “I can’t go it alone anymore. I tried.”

Jim reached over to the side table and pulled out a couple of tissues from a quilted Kleenex box. He handed them to me.

I dabbed at my eyes. “Thanks.”

“So how much we talking about?” he asked. He leaned back on the couch.

“I don’t know … The school alone is close to fifty grand. I’m so behind on the tuition plan they’re starting to give me calls. There’s still the mortgage and the taxes … Look, I see you have a new family and I’m happy for you. I am. But I have my family. And you’re his father, Jim. I’m going to do whatever I can to do what’s best for my son. Your son … Whatever that is.”

His gaze grew a little harder. “Just what do you mean by that, Hilary …?”

“I don’t know what I mean. I’m just asking you, please, don’t make me beg.”

We were kind of face-to-face, the tears cleared, my desperation out on the table. All of a sudden I could see what was turning through his mind. What must have been from the moment I called, because what other reason could there have been for me to ask to come over?

He’d have to go to Janice. He probably didn’t have a dime apart from her anymore.

He probably didn’t even own the Porsche parked in front of the house.

“Look. He cleared his throat. “Things aren’t exactly rosy around here either.”

“What does that mean, Jim?”

He shrugged. “Janice had to take a job. She’s gotten her real estate license. At Pepper Loughlin’s place. You know, it’s on the avenue, where that stationery place used to be …”

I stared blankly.

“In fact, the whole damn house is up for sale. Trust me, her divorce settlement is just about enough to keep the kids in school and take care of our nut. Even the furniture’s up for sale.” He nodded to Fu Manchu. “Distant cousin on the wall included. And the fancy table out front, what’s it called, Biedemeister, or meier? I never know. That as well.”

“Jim, you’re on your way out to Vail.”

“Kind of like our last hurrah.” He snorted. “I mean, you can’t let the kids think things are bad. Not in this town anyway. You know what I mean. I’m tapped out, Hilary. The well is totally dry. Trust me, that Porsche won’t even be in the driveway when we come back.”

I felt a weight crashing through my chest. An elevator falling. The thought snaked through me that if I stayed here even a minute longer, everything would come crashing down and I’d start to cry. “All I’m asking for is what you owe me. Don’t you even care about your son? Can’t you—”

Suddenly the boys ran in. Lucas and Trey, Christopher Alexander III. Like marauding outlaws in The Wild Bunch riding through a Mexican town, except with Brunswick crests on their dress shirts. “Trey won’t give me the Xbox stick,” Luke, who was ten, whined. “And he called me a douche. Didn’t you, Trey?”

“No, I didn’t! He’s lying!” Trey said defiantly, with a glare that read, When we get back upstairs, you’re dead, you traitor.

“You know Hilary,” Jim said, catching Luke by the arm. “Brandon’s mom.”

“Hi,” Trey said, barely shifting his glare from his brother. “Douche bag,” he mouthed silently.

“Hi,” said Luke, not even looking at me, just sticking his tongue out at his brother while in Jim’s hulking grasp.

“Hi, guys,” I said. “You’re both getting so big …” All I could think of under the circumstances. I couldn’t believe I came up with something so lame.

“I’m sorry, Hil.” Jim shrugged, his expression hapless. “I hear things are starting to pick up in some places. Maybe I can start up again next year.”

“Sure,” I said, standing up, trying to hold it together. “Next year.”

“Hey, dudes.” Jim cackled. “Homework done? Time for one last game of Madden?”

“Yay!” the two shouted as one.

“C’mon, Jim, I’ll take you both on. You and douchie here …”

Jim stood up too, carrying Luke like a sack of wheat with those ham-hocklike arms. “I’m really sorry about the job, Hil. How about I’ll be in touch when we get back. Okay?”