The Forgotten Girl (32 page)

Jason looked over at Regan. She stared straight ahead, her lips slightly parted.

“I don’t understand,” Regan said. She went from looking at Mrs. Tyndal to looking at Jason, her neck rotating to the left in an almost mechanical fashion. “Jason, you told me that
she
shoved Logan down the stairs.”

“Colton told me that, and I told you. He said that’s why she wasn’t around Logan as much when we were growing up. Basically he implied that Mrs. Tyndal wasn’t allowed to see Logan, that they were afraid she would harm him.”

Regan turned back to the woman before them. “That’s not true, is it?”

Mrs. Tyndal spoke without any real trace of emotion. She seemed resigned, accepting. “It’s not true at all.” She raised her hand quickly. “Well, let me say, I did drink too much back then. I admit that. I was a lonely housewife. I found different ways to get through my days. But I never harmed my child. Never. Not in that way. I harmed him in other ways, mostly by letting his father have such an influence over his life. I know that now. But I never laid a hand on him.”

“What happened?” Jason asked, his voice low even to his
own ears, his eyes staring at the pristine carpet. When the woman started to speak, Jason forced himself to look up and meet her eye.

“The boy had a temper,” Mrs. Tyndal said. “Temper tantrums, we called them back then. I guess today he’d be at a shrink and taking a lot of medication, but we didn’t do those things back then. Especially not if your father was a prominent businessman who didn’t want people to talk. But it could be bad with Logan. I was with him all the time. I had to discipline him. His father would come home and take his side. Indulge him. That made it tough to parent, as you can imagine.”

“Sure,” Regan said.

“I remember what it was,” Mrs. Tyndal said. She pointed at Jason. “You boys, you used to play with these things. These giant monsters . . . they used to shoot things at each other. What were they?”

Jason knew. “Shogun Warriors.”

“Yes, that’s it. No computers back then. Not many video games.”

“No.”

“I guess one thing about video games, there wasn’t a mess to clean up. Logan never cleaned up his messes. He left it there, and Pauline took care of it for him most of the time. I didn’t want my boy to grow up like that, thinking that someone else would always clean up for him. I didn’t come from money. I didn’t understand it. I just wanted Logan to be”—her voice caught a little—“normal, like everyone else. Like the kids you were both turning out to be.”

She hesitated a moment. Jason felt embarrassed for her. His own face flushed. They’d shown up unannounced and opened a quarter of a century of old wounds for her.

“Well, I told him to clean up his mess that day. Like I had
done many other days. This was after school, maybe just before dinnertime. His father was coming home, and I admit, I’d been drinking. I wasn’t drunk, but that sounds like hairsplitting, doesn’t it? That’s when I knew I had a problem of my own, when I used to make that fine distinction over and over again.
I’m drinking, but I’m not drunk.
Not a way for a mother to be.”

The television started playing loud in the other room. A sitcom from the sound of it. People laughed uproariously, an odd counterpoint to the conversation they were involved in.

“Are we disturbing your husband?” Regan asked.

“No,” Mrs. Tyndal said. “He knows all of this. Or he knew it at one time. I’m afraid he and I are in the middle of a long good-bye.”

“I’m sorry,” Regan said.

“It’s what we do as we get older.” She adjusted herself in her chair, then said, “I told Logan to clean up that day, and he wouldn’t do it. He just wouldn’t. Like an idiot I tried the oldest trick in the mother’s playbook. I told him to wait until his father got home. Even as I said it, I knew it wouldn’t work. It sounded like an empty threat as it left my mouth. His father . . . he wasn’t going to do anything. We all knew it. Most of all, Logan knew it.” Her mouth drew into a tight line as though she were biting back on decades-old anger. “He laughed at me, Logan did. He just laughed at me, a cutting, mocking laugh.” She shook her head. “I got angry. Angrier than I should have. I should have walked away, or sent him to his room. Something. I wish I’d done something different. But isn’t that the story of so many things? We wish we’d done something different?”

“Amen,” Regan said.

“I went for him,” Mrs. Tyndal said. “I tried to grab his arm. I missed first, and then I got ahold of him. A good tight grip. I
realized I was squeezing too tight, that I was going to leave a bruise, so I let go. And when I did . . . we were right at the top of those stairs in the center of the house. You remember them?”

Jason nodded. “I do.”

“Logan put both of his hands on me, right around my waist. He was a strong kid, always was. Feisty. And the alcohol made me a little unsteady on my feet. That contributed to the whole thing. But he pushed, and down I went. I fell backwards, and my feet swung up in the air above my head. I went down those stairs like someone doing a couple of reverse somersaults. Until I hit the wall at the bottom.”

A rushing sound filled Jason’s ears. He tried to pinpoint the source by cocking his head and listening to see if it was an airplane passing above the house. But it wasn’t. The sound came from inside of him, and it was coupled with the sense that he was being overwhelmed.

“I’m sorry,” Regan said. She seemed on the brink of letting her emotions spill out. “Were you hurt?”

“In the end, I had a concussion,” she said. “Self-diagnosed.”

“What did you do?” Jason asked, the noise in his ears still there but lessening.

Mrs. Tyndal hesitated, a smile on her face that was more sad than anything else. “I called the police. I didn’t know what else to do. I was dizzy and a little shaky. So I called the police. Then I called Peter. Mr. Shaw. When he found out I’d called the police, he flipped.”

“What was Logan’s reaction after you went down the stairs?” Regan asked.

Mrs. Tyndal’s eyes grew distant behind the big glasses. The television continued to play from the other room, an announcer’s voice asking the viewers if they wanted to save money on their
car insurance. “When I figured out what had happened, when I first gathered my bearings and looked back up to the top of the stairs, Logan was up there on the top step looking down at me. He had a look on his face that I didn’t understand. There was some fear there. I could see that. But it was . . . How do I want to say this? A happy fear?”

“Gleeful,” Regan said.

“Yes. I guess so.”

“Like he was afraid of what he had done, but at the same time, he’d enjoyed doing it.”

“Yes, I think you’re right.” Mrs. Tyndal scooted forward in her chair and held her hand out toward Regan like she wanted to pat her on the leg and offer comfort. But it was too far for her to reach. “I forgot that you’ve seen that very same look.”

“What happened with the police?” Jason asked.

“Peter Shaw couldn’t have the police coming to his house,” Mrs. Tyndal said. “And he certainly couldn’t have the police coming to his house because of something that his ten-year-old son had done, something that if everyone found out . . . well, you can imagine the way people would talk. We couldn’t have that. Not in Ednaville. Not about his son. Peter arrived at just about the same time as the police. And the police had to be told something. It was a different time, over thirty years ago. A man with Peter’s influence could make the police go away, and he did. I know he told them some story out of my earshot, something about me.”

“He said you were drunk,” Jason said.

Mrs. Tyndal nodded. “I have a feeling he showed them the bruise on the boy’s arm. It all added up.”

“And after that, you got divorced?” Regan asked.

“We were going to get divorced anyway. That was coming.
The only question was how much time I was going to be allowed to spend with my son. Peter was determined to see that I only spent a limited amount of time with him. I wanted to see Logan get into therapy and find some help. He clearly had some problems. Anger management. Narcissism. I’ve read the books over the years. I know some of the terms. But Peter didn’t want any of that. He said Logan would be better if I was out of the picture. He said
I
was the bad influence. Me and my drinking.”

“He needed the discipline,” Regan said.

“He needed something.” Mrs. Tyndal held her hands in the air, turning them palms up. “It wasn’t going to be me giving it to him on a daily basis. I was shaken after that incident with the stairs. Not scared, really, but shaken. To my core. I didn’t know how responsible I was for what happened that day, but I knew some of it belonged to me. I stopped drinking after that, after I moved out.
I
went to therapy. I got better.” She shifted in the seat again. “But Logan didn’t. I saw him as much as I could. I loved him. But I could tell he wasn’t getting the help he needed. He was becoming more and more . . . I don’t know. . . .”

“Reckless?” Jason said.

“That,” Mrs. Tyndal said. “Reckless and self-centered. A dangerous combination.” She focused her look on Regan. “When you came to me and told me what happened on that graduation night, it was a confirmation of everything that I feared about Logan. I didn’t think he was going to have a good end.”

“And you respected my wish not to tell anyone,” Regan said. “To not get those boys into trouble for what they’d done.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered, would it? It wasn’t going to bring Logan back. And those boys were protecting you.” She swallowed and licked her lips. “I grieved for him, my boy. For many years, I grieved. Alone, mostly.”

“I don’t understand something,” Jason said.

They both turned to look at him. He moved his body so he was sitting up straighter. “I don’t have children, so maybe I don’t understand. But I’m wondering how a mother could let the men who killed her son go. How were you okay knowing that nothing was going to be done to those two?”

Mrs. Tyndal stared at Jason as she formulated her answer. He’d never seen it before, but the resemblance to Logan was there. The brightness of the eyes, the toughness, the intelligence. Logan inherited it from his mother and not his father.

“It was my fault,” she said. “None of this would have happened if I had fought harder for Logan’s well-being when he shoved me down those stairs. I enabled him as much as his father, so I felt I bore a share of the responsibility for what happened to Regan that night. I wasn’t in a position to ask for anything
else.”

“Are you willing to tell all of this to the police?” Jason asked. “You’re the only person who can corroborate Regan’s and Derrick’s stories about our graduation night.”

Mrs. Tyndal didn’t hesitate. She turned to Regan. “I’m willing to do it if it’s okay with you.”

“It’s okay with me,” Regan said. “That’s why we came here.”

“That’s what I was wondering,” Mrs. Tyndal said. “What does it matter if everyone knows the story now? After all, you’re asking me to tell the world that my son was a . . . that he sexually assaulted a woman.”

“I just don’t think those guys, especially Derrick, should have the world think they did things they didn’t do,” Jason said. “It doesn’t seem right for their families. For their children. It all started because they were protecting you.”

“No, it doesn’t seem right,” Regan said. “We’ve all been keeping these things to ourselves for decades. Maybe it’s time we just got it all out.”

*   *   *

Mrs. Tyndal’s husband came back to the doorway, still holding the newspaper. He didn’t say anything, but he stood there staring at Mrs. Tyndal.

“Are you hungry, Andrew?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“I’ll be out there in a minute. Why don’t you sit at the table?”

He turned and left, the newspaper rattling as he walked away.

“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Tyndal said, turning back. “I have to feed him. He does better with a routine.”

“We’re sorry,” Regan said. “We’ve taken too much of your time.”

“It’s okay. It’s just that duty calls here.” She scooted forward in her chair and with a little bit of effort pushed herself to her feet. She wobbled once she was standing, and both Jason and Regan reached out to steady her. But she waved them away. “I’ve got it,” she said. “It’s just old age.” She tugged her shirt back into place, smoothing the material. “Have you seen my ex-husband lately?”

“I saw him,” Jason said.

“I hear it’s bad,” she said.

“It is.”

“He has enough money to have round-the-clock care,” she said, a trace of bitterness creeping into her voice. “Andrew and I are pretty much on our own. He has children, but they don’t live around here.” She reached out and patted Regan on the arm. “It’s good that the two of you have each other.”

Regan took a half a step back. A flush rose on her cheeks, and she said, “No—” but then cut her words off. She just smiled instead, a look that seemed forced.

“I’m married,” Jason said. “To someone else.”

“Oh.” Mrs. Tyndal raised her hand to her hair. “I just thought . . .”

“No, not us,” Regan said.

“Well,” Mrs. Tyndal said. “I know you two were always good friends.” Something clattered in the kitchen, the sound of a dish hitting the floor. Mrs. Tyndal didn’t flinch. “I think I need to excuse myself.”

“Thank you,” Regan said. “For then. And for now.”

The two women hugged and held each other a long time before Jason and Regan stepped outside and walked back to the car.

*   *   *

They drove back to Ednaville, mostly in silence. Jason didn’t know what else to say, so he talked about the case, the thing that had come to dominate their lives.

“If she tells the police, then that will help Derrick’s situation some and explain the circumstances of Logan’s death. At least they won’t think Derrick killed Logan. He covered up but didn’t kill him. He still could find himself in a mess of trouble.”

“Yes.”

“The police will know what Logan did, but I don’t know if it will all become public. Maybe his dad will never know. Or understand.”

“I guess not. Maybe the whole thing will be a closed case.”

“Of course, Hayden . . .”

“It’s been a lot of years, Jason. Maybe they’ll cut her a break. I don’t know.”

“I guess Mr. Shaw had his hopes raised,” Jason said. “He might have had them raised no matter what—he’s been in such denial. Besides, you know what I say about Hayden.”

“What?”

“She always lands on her feet.”

His comment felt hollow. He thought about that cabin in the woods and Hayden’s escape. She never would have made it out of there if it wasn’t for someone helping her. Derrick was there to save her. She had Sierra to live for. Hayden needed those things.
We all need them,
he thought, as they pulled up to Regan’s house.

A car sat at the end of the driveway, a red Prius. The blinds were open along the front of the house.

“Company?” Jason asked.

“That’s Tim’s car.”

“Is he dropping off the kids?”

“Yes,” she said after a pause.

“There’s something else?”

Regan turned away from the house and back to Jason. Her hands were folded in her lap.

“He and I . . . we’ve been talking about trying again. For the kids. For stability.”

“Oh. That’s great. Isn’t it? Are you happy about it?”

“I am. I know you’ve been through something somewhat similar. Tim and I have known each other a long time. Since just after college. And the kids . . . they need two parents.”

“Does Tim know about . . . about Logan and all of that?”

“No,” she said quickly. “Sometimes it’s nice to be with someone who doesn’t know absolutely everything about me.”

The front door opened and her children stepped out. They didn’t cross the lawn, but they waved at the car, and Regan waved back.

“Okay,” Jason said. “Well. I don’t know what else to say, then. Except I guess I’ll be seeing you around town.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” She smiled. “We can still get coffee from time to time. It’s not like we won’t have things to talk about.”

“Do you ever wonder . . . do you ever wonder what would have happened if we had dated back then? If we’d actually tried to be a couple?”

Regan considered this for a moment. Really considered it. “I remember all those days we walked home from school together. Something could have happened then, couldn’t it?” Then she said, “It’s so hard to comprehend really. Despite everything, I’m not sure I’d change the way things went. My children, my job.” She laughed a little. “We might have ended up hating each other. You know how that goes when friends try to date.”

“Right. My life has turned out pretty well, too. All things considered. I need to remember that.”

“Sure.” She opened the door, but before she went to rejoin her family, she leaned back into the car. “Thanks for everything, Jason.”

“I’m not sure I did anything. Not really.”

“You’re my friend,” she said. “And I’m sorry if I was so hard on you about Logan, saying all the time that you idolized him too much. It’s not a bad thing to hold on to memories of people from the past, people we care about. It can really help sometimes.”

She closed the door and went to her family.

*   *   *

Jason drove through the streets he’d driven through so many times. The town looked cleaner somehow in the bright, early summer sun. Freshly scrubbed. He saw the old, familiar place with new eyes. It felt more like home than at any time since they’d moved back. Maybe because he knew more, maybe because he
saw it for what it really was. Not a nostalgic time capsule and not the solution to all his problems. It was just a town he knew well, and he wanted to stay there with Nora.

And, he thought, Hayden and Sierra were in that life as well.

He pulled into his driveway and sat, staring at the house. The door swung open. Sierra emerged onto the porch with Hayden behind her. Jason felt his heart lift just seeing them. He smiled through the windshield.

As he came up the walk, Sierra reached out for him, hugging him. He held his niece tight.

“Where’s Nora?” he asked, letting Sierra go.

With that, Nora stepped out onto the porch, and the two of them hugged.

“Well, well,” she said. “Look who’s here. Did you get everything taken care of?”

“I did,” he said. “At last. And it’s really good to be home.”