June 2019
Jude was at work, crouching over an iMac and fiddling with the connection, when a news story about Ella popped up on the screen, along with her photo. He stood, dizzy, his heart stalling. She was out of prison. In trouble. And his name—his father’s too—were in bold letters for the whole world to see.
Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion.
“Hey, you okay, dude? You look kind of green,” a coworker said from the cubicle next to his. Jude, unable to speak, gathered his things and went home.
When he arrived, Angie was in the living room reading What to Expect When You’re Expecting, balancing it on her bulging belly. She stared at him as if she didn’t know him. He slumped down on the couch, bracing one hand on the end table to steady himself.
“Angie,” he said. “I don’t know what to say.”
“How about, when were you going to tell me? I thought we were everything to each other. I thought we had trust, that nothing was off-limits for us,” she said. “Why couldn’t you have told me?”
“I wanted to forget—”
“Surprise. You can’t now. And, oh joy, guess what? It’s trending on Twitter.”
Jude’s body felt as if it belonged to someone else.
“You didn’t even tell me the real reason you changed your last name! When I asked you why your name was different, you said you just liked the sound better!”
“My dad did it to keep the media away from me.”
“Don’t you know there are no secrets these days? Everything has a record. Secrets might get buried, but they can be found.”
She picked up her phone and held the screen in front of him. Jude froze as he stared at another old photo. There she was, Ella at fifteen, flanked by two cops, her eyes terrified, her hair matted against one side of her head, her shoulders hunched. She looked so small and afraid. Everything he had buried about her, every feeling, now surfaced, suffocating him with new grief.
“She’s not quoted in the article,” Angie said. “But her mother is, and she mentions you.”
Helen! The woman who had opened her home to him, who had given him a garden when he needed it most. Helen, whose whole world had been Ella, and who had built that world out to include him, too.
“I don’t understand,” Jude said.
“Neither do I,” Angie said abruptly. She slipped her swollen feet into a pair of sneakers by the couch. “And I’m going for a walk. I need some time to think.”
AS SOON AS she left, Jude felt the past swirling through his mind, a twister threatening to destroy him. Helen had told a journalist the whole story at a bar in Ann Arbor. Ella’s boss had issued a statement about how foolish she had been to hire someone she hadn’t properly vetted.
But what shocked Jude the most was the fact that the news said Ella had been released early after another journalist had taken up her cause. It had to come to light that the detectives on the case had coerced a confession. Her lawyer had had little criminal experience, and he had made mistake after mistake, going so far as to let Ella plead guilty at the arraignment. The journalist found that the toxicology report had been compromised, and evidence had been hidden. Jude had known none of this. He had held the belief firmly in his mind that she was gone from him, from his life, locked away for twenty-five years.
But Jesus, she’d been out of prison for over a year! He tried to imagine what her life must have been like, getting free. He wondered why she had gone to Ann Arbor. He understood why she hadn’t reached out to him.
Had his father known she was out? Jude put his head in his hands. His dad had to have known all about this. He called him.
“We have to talk,” he said as soon as his father answered.
“The Union League,” his father said, his voice dry and clear, as if he knew what was coming.
ON THE WAY to the club, Jude couldn’t think straight. He had left Angie a note: My father wants to talk over lunch. I’ll be home this afternoon. He couldn’t concentrate on anything but Ella, and every moment he felt a darkness growing closer and more ominous.
Jude had never been to the Union League, but he had certainly heard about it. The restaurants he frequented were casual, less fussy. This was exactly the kind of place his father loved—polished wood floors and white tablecloths, orchids on each table, the space soundproofed so that all Jude could hear was a dim hush. The women were in dresses and the men in suits, and here was Jude in jeans and a T-shirt. He hadn’t thought that what he wore would matter, but then, knowing his father, of course it would. People didn’t eat here; they dined. He wondered if that was why his father had chosen it, to make him uncomfortable.
“Reservation is under Andrew Stein,” Jude said to the maître-d’, who suddenly brightened.
“Of course,” he said. “Let me provide you with a jacket first.”
He motioned to someone who brought a blue sports jacket over and Jude shrugged into it. “Right this way,” the maître-d’ said.
His father presided over one of the biggest tables, set in a sunny corner by a window, a menu in his hand. He was in a suit and tie, as if he were still judging cases in court rather than acting as dean.
“Well, hello,” Jude’s father said. He handed Jude a menu. “The steak is fabulous.”
“Vegan, remember?”
“They make an excellent wild mushroom risotto.”
“Sure, okay,” Jude said. He waited for his father to bring up Ella, but Andrew remained silent. Jude felt everything boiling within him. Why was his father deliberately avoiding what he surely must know was the very reason for this lunch? Say something, he told himself, but then his father was beckoning to the waiter again, asking for sparkling water.
Andrew kept his eyes on Jude the whole time. He asked if Jude and Angie had looked at any preschools yet.
“Angie hasn’t even had the baby yet. It’s a little early,” Jude said.
But Andrew shook his head. “Never too early,” he said. “I can make a few calls for you. I already set up a 529 account to pay for the baby’s education.”
Jude sat back, staring at his father in disbelief.
And that was when he noticed how much older his father looked. When had his neck turned to crepe? There were wrinkles and dark circles under his eyes, and his father, usually so fastidious, had a faint stain on his dress shirt.
The food came to the table, everything served quietly. I’ll ask him about Ella now, Jude thought, but he picked up his fork instead, wanting his father to bring it up first.
Jude talked idly about his job, but sensed his father was only half listening.
At last, he couldn’t take it another second. “We have to talk about Ella,” he said firmly, and his father’s face darkened. “Did you know she was let out of prison early? Did you read the news about her being outed now as a felon?”
Jude’s father’s shoulders stiffened. “If I had known we were going to talk about this, I wouldn’t have invited you to lunch.”
“You knew we were going to.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Yes, there is. Did reporters call you?”
“No.”
“I don’t believe you,” Jude said. “What did you tell them?”
His father sighed. “Nothing you don’t know.”
“Did you know she was out of prison?”
“Did you think I wouldn’t know?” he said quietly. “You’re my son. I wanted to protect you from that girl. And now here it is again in the news. Do we really need to have a conversation about it?”
“Ella. Her name is Ella. She got out early. Why?”
“She was very lucky. And so were you.”
“What? Why was she lucky? How was I lucky? I was destroyed. My whole life was.”
“No, no you weren’t. Are you destroyed now? No, you aren’t. Look at your life and tell me it’s destroyed. You have a wife who loves you. A decent job. A baby on the way.”
“How long before reporters get to me?”
“They’ll stop. They’ll latch on to the next thing.” Andrew leaned back in his chair. “Did you know that the police were ready to put you in prison? Do I have to remind you what would have happened if I hadn’t stopped them?”
“This again—” Jude said.
“Okay, you want to talk, we’ll really talk. Do you know how worried I was about you, about the amount of time you were spending with Ella? You two were little sticks of dynamite just waiting to go off. I always believed I was protecting you both by separating you. Don’t you know that?”
“I hated you for that.”
“You think I didn’t know? Do you know how much it hurt? I love you. You are my son! I was so desperate to do better for you. And I wasn’t going to let you ruin your life. I couldn’t.”
“You were desperate to do better for me?” Jude asked, astonished. “Do you hear yourself? Did that include blaming me for mom’s death? Did that include drinking and then beating me so badly we had to go to the ER?”
Jude’s father put his fork down.
“I’m sober now,” he said. “And I regret all of that.”
“Oh yeah, and you regretted it back then, too, until the next time you raised your fists to me—”
“Lower your voice,” his father said quietly, glancing about the room. “I’m a different person now. The truth is I’m glad Ella was let out early. Relieved. She’s still young, she still has her whole life ahead of her. Honestly, I wish her nothing but the best.”
“Really. She’s still a felon.”
“You have your whole life ahead of you, too.”
“A life you don’t approve of.”
Jude’s father sighed. “I was wrong about Angie,” he said. “All I saw was a too-young girl who got pregnant, making you a father way too soon. I couldn’t come to terms with you—a young man who could have become anything you he wanted—working in IT.”
“I’m happy—”
“Let me finish.” Andrew put down his fork. “The world is hard. I was so broken when your mom died that I did everything wrong.”
To Jude’s surprise, his father looked as if he were about to cry.
Andrew waved his hand. “You don’t understand. You’re my son. You’re the most important thing to me.”
“What about justice? What about Ella? Aren’t those two things important, too? I never had to go to prison, because you were rich and powerful. Ella did because her family was poor. You had all these connections, and the media just loved the story—Poor Girl Tries to Kill Boyfriend’s Rich Dad. Remember those headlines?”
Jude’s father shook his head. “No, that’s not true. Not totally true. The cops were looking for someone to blame, they needed someone because of who I was, because it had all been too high-profile in the news—”
Jude put his fork down, his appetite gone.
“In the hospital, when they thought I was dying, I wasn’t thinking of myself, of what might happen to me. All I could think about was what would become of you. How would you live? What would happen to the life I wanted for you? You were like a tumbleweed, and there was that wild girl, her crazy mother—”
Jude’s mouth went dry. “Ella. I told you. Her name is Ella. And her mother wasn’t crazy. She was kind to me. She loved me, Dad. Really loved me, like a son. Her name is Helen.”
“That might be true, but you weren’t hers to make into her son.”
“Dad—”
“They kept asking me who gave me the tea, how did it happen. I knew the news of the incident would hit the media, but I could control the narrative. I would rather have died than see you go to prison. And believe me, you wouldn’t have lasted on the inside.
“I felt sure Ella wouldn’t be sent away at all. She was such a young girl, no priors, no evidence. But the police insisted on blaming someone. And so, I told them. But then she confessed, Jude! She confessed!” Andrew laced his fingers together, now unable to look at his son.
“You told them what?”
“I told them that Ella had given me the tea. That I had seen her put the leaves in the cup—”
“She confessed. That’s old news—”
“She did confess, that’s true, but only after I told the cops that I had seen her making the tea, only after she had been questioned for hours. You were never questioned seriously, Jude. I saw to that. I had Frank there, one of the most high-powered lawyers I know, to protect you, to guide you, to smooth things over with the detectives. People will confess to all sorts of things just to make the questions stop. And I didn’t want that for you.”
“I don’t understand—what are you telling me?” Jude tried to remember that day, how Ella had gone missing. He had texted her repeatedly, but she wouldn’t respond. He could still see the cup, the tea leaves, but he couldn’t remember what he’d done with them, if he’d done anything at all. All he remembered was his desperate attempt to find Ella. He’d searched and searched the apartment for her, but he couldn’t find her, and he had felt so betrayed. How could she have left him there alone? I’d do anything for you. That’s what she had said, and he believed her. Anything. I’d do anything. Terrified, disoriented, he had run outside, searching for her, and then by the time he came back, he barely had time to look around before he saw his father hit the floor.
“What are you telling me?” Jude said again.
Andrew took Jude’s hand. He breathed deeply and then sat up straighter.
“I know you think I don’t love you, but I do. This has been awful for me, too. I would have done anything to make sure you were safe,” he said. “Anything.”
Jude felt his body trembling. For a moment he saw Ella in front of him, heard her voice. I would do anything for you.
“That night, neither of you brought in the tea, you just disappeared after dinner. After a while I started to clean up the kitchen and came upon the tea. I thought it might be calming, so I drank it.”
“You drank it on your own then,” Jude said. “She didn’t give it to you—”
“You’re not listening. The tea was made. That’s legal intent. In the hospital that night, the cops kept asking me about you, wanting to pin blame on someone. They thought I was dying, and I knew… Well, deathbed confessions are always solid. Can you imagine what would have happened if they had pinned the blame on you? You would have gone to jail. It would have been in all the papers—”
“What are you talking about? It already was—”
“But that way it would have been different.”
“And do you think that what happened after that wasn’t ‘different’?” Jude said, his voice rising. “Ella was gone. I had to change my name. I couldn’t tell anyone anything! I was fucking destroyed!”
“Would you have survived in prison?” his father said. “I don’t think so. Would you have wanted to be known all your life as the boy who tried to kill his father?”
“I called nine-one-one.”
“I know that. And I know you didn’t really hate me. Maybe then, in that moment, you did, but not in the wider scheme of things. You were just a kid who was pissed off about having to leave his girlfriend. You cooked up this scheme, but you were never going to—”
“Stop,” Jude said. “Stop telling me how I felt or what I would have done.”
Jude’s father went quiet. “It’s all in the past now.”
“She went to prison! And it’s not in the past—it’s happening again, right now! They’re calling our house! Calling Angie! Now we’re having to relive it!”
“No, we aren’t! Not if we don’t want to! Why torture yourself like this? You want me to tell you something? I’ll tell you something. You didn’t remember anything, and that worked in our favor. Because what the cops saw was you, an innocent, loving son, frantically calling nine-one-one to save his father’s life. A devoted boy who not only came to the hospital but who stubbornly refused to leave until you knew I was okay. They couldn’t get you on conspiracy, and certainly not attempted murder, because legally, you hadn’t done anything. You had just been a bystander. And as far as legal intent was concerned, it was your girlfriend who had foxglove growing in her backyard.”
“That was my garden! Helen let me grow things because you wouldn’t.”
“You think it was all my fault? What about you, son? You let your girlfriend take the rap and admit to something she hadn’t done.”
Jude froze. “What?”
“It wasn’t her,” Jude’s father said carefully.
“What do you mean, it wasn’t her? You just said… you just told me—”
“It was you.”
The words hung in the air. Stunned, Jude pushed away from the table.
“Listen to me,” his father said quietly. “Hear what I’m saying. It was you. God help me, it was you who made that tea.”
“How can you say such a thing? I was the one who saved you. I don’t remember—”
“I know you don’t, but I do. I was in the other room and could clearly see you put leaves in the teacup and then pour the hot water and stir it, though I had no idea what was in it, obviously. I was in the dining room, waiting for you two, and then I heard you calling for her. You ran out of the house after that girl to find her. You left the tea.”
“You lied! You were a judge and you lied! I didn’t give you that cup! Ella didn’t give you that cup! You picked it up and drank it yourself. And you sent her to prison.”
“You made the tea,” Judge Stein repeated quietly.
“But who knows what I would have done with it! Maybe I would have tossed it into the sink! Doesn’t it mean anything that I left that cup? That I went to find Ella instead? How could you lie like that?”
“The police didn’t have just my statement; they had a signed confession, written by her.”
“She was in prison because of you,” Jude said, his voice hoarse with anger. “She was outed because of you. You were the one. You didn’t want to be known as the father whose son hated him enough to try to kill him. You didn’t want it to come out—the beatings, the alcohol. You couldn’t allow any of it to sully your fucking reputation.”
“No, not because of me,” his father said. “And you know what? You would’ve heard she’d been released if you really cared. It was in all the papers and on TV at the time. Everyone was talking about it. I never brought it up because I hoped you weren’t still carrying a torch for her. All I wanted was for you to heal, to get on with your life. So stop pretending like you still care about her now.”
Jude felt a flash of shame. All this time he believed Ella had done it, that she was the one who had gone through with the plan, had added the foxglove, made the tea. And even though they had planned that together, he never thought it would become real. When he learned that she had confessed, it had tainted everything he felt about her. He hadn’t looked for her after they moved to Philadelphia, hadn’t wanted to think about all that had happened. And now he knew that she wasn’t guilty. He was the guilty one, not her.
“She isn’t exonerated,” his father said. “And she’s still technically a felon, and that’s probably why that paper fired her. They felt they had to.” He tried to touch Jude’s hand, but his son moved away.
Jude stared at his father. “Do you realize what you did?” he asked quietly.
“I do. I saved you. I protected my son, whom I love.”
“You took away the one person I loved, really loved. The one person who truly loved me. Who always looked out for me. She and Helen—they were my family, Dad. My real family.
“You have to come forward, tell the truth,” Jude said. “And I will, too.”
Jude’s father went still. “That’s not possible.”
“You mean you won’t admit you made a false statement to the police.”
“For this case to reopen, they’d still need new evidence. We all have to just live our lives now.” His father tried to touch his hand again, but Jude stood up.
“I love you,” his father said. “And I’m sorry you’re so upset. But you can’t convince me I did the wrong thing.”
“I don’t think I want your love anymore. Or your money. Or anything from you.”
“Jude, listen. I saved you. We have a good relationship now.”
Jude gathered his things.
“You,” he said, pointing at his father. “You’re not welcome in my home or anywhere near Angie. You didn’t just screw up Ella’s life, you screwed up mine, too. You did all this, and you did it deliberately.”
Jude stared at his father. Memories of happy times with both his parents flashed through his mind, followed by some of the terrible things that had come later, after his mother’s death.
“I have to go; I can’t talk to you.” Jude pushed his chair in as his father motioned to the waiter, mouthing for him to put the meal on his tab.
“Okay, you cool off and then—”
“No, you’re not listening. Don’t contact me again.” Jude shucked off the jacket and threw it on the chair.
“I’m your father. I’m going to be your child’s grandfather.”
“No. I know you think that you did it all for me, and that’s what’s so sad.”
“Jude, I never meant to hurt you—”
“Oh no? I have the scars to prove that you did.”
Jude’s father was silent.
“I’m leaving,” Jude said, and he strode from the restaurant.
“Jude, wait—” his father called, but Jude kept walking and didn’t look back, didn’t stop even when he was outside in the busy shock of the world again.
All this time, and Ella had been innocent. And he, Jude, had been guilty, a coward, unable to see the truth that was right in front of him. He hadn’t even thought to question it.
Ella. She was out there somewhere. Had she made a life, the way he had? Was she still in Ann Arbor? Or back east with Helen? At the thought of Helen, he doubled over with nausea. Helen had loved him, had treated him like her son. He had loved her back. And he had betrayed her, too, and he hadn’t even known it.
Well, he knew it now.
Maybe his father was wrong and Ella’s name could be cleared. Weren’t there organizations that helped people like her? He would find them. He could help her. Even if his father refused to testify, couldn’t Jude? He would take responsibility for what he had done. He had put the leaves in the cup, he had poured the water and left it, and that, his father said, was legal intent. In any case, didn’t she have a right to know? What would she do if she knew?
WHEN HE GOT home, Angie was waiting, her hair damp from the shower, a gauzy dress skating around her ankles.
“You look beautiful,” he said, his mouth dry. She walked toward him.
From the dark flash of her eyes, he could tell she was still pissed. Both their cells rang, and they both ignored them. “How was lunch with Darth Vader?” she asked flatly.
He could lie if he wanted. He could tell only the parts she needed to hear, had to hear. But he was exhausted. He felt as if a chink in his life had opened, and now he wanted to widen it, to bring Angie through. He wasn’t going to lie to her, not anymore. He’d had enough lies, enough secrets.
So he told her what his father had said, taking his time, watching as she didn’t react. Not until he finished, and then he saw her swallow hard.
“Every time I think your dad has changed, he shows how much he hasn’t,” she said quietly.
“I need to tell Ella she’s innocent,” Jude said, and as soon as he said it, he knew that was what he had to do. He watched Angie’s face, but she remained still, giving him nothing.
“Do you have her number?”
He hadn’t thought of just calling her. It seemed too important, too necessary to face her. “I’m going to go see her. I owe her that.”
“You know her address?”
“Someone doxxed her online. Her address is there for the world to see.”
He saw her face tense with worry. What kind of asshole was he?
“I shouldn’t go,” he said. “Not with you pregnant.”
“I’m not due for weeks,” Angie said. “And look at you. You’re a mess. I think you need to go.”
He nodded, then watched Angie’s mouth crumple.
“Do you still love her?”
The question startled him. He had locked that answer away in some parallel world. He waited a beat too long and Angie raised one hand.
“Don’t answer. I don’t want to know,” she said. “Just do what you need to and then come back to us.”
He cradled her stomach and kissed her damp cheek.
THE NEXT DAY, Jude flew to Detroit and then rented a car to drive to Ann Arbor. He didn’t know if what he was doing was crazy, only that he had to do it, and he hoped that it would make things better for Ella. But he couldn’t help imagining that it might make things worse. What would it be like to see her again?
He was surprised by how lively the town was, how teeming with kids, even in the summer. It had a kind of music that he couldn’t place, like a low hum that moved through his body. It was the kind of place he and Ella had talked about moving to when they were planning to run away. A city, but not a big, impersonal one.
He followed the GPS to her address, then climbed the stairs to the top floor and knocked.
“Henry?” a voice said. Ella’s voice. Who’s Henry? The door to her apartment opened and there she was, looking so beautiful it crushed his heart. He couldn’t tell who was more startled.
She frowned at him.
“Jude?” she asked. And he nodded.
“What are you doing here?”
She looked as confused as he felt, like the world had turned upside down. She motioned him to sit on the stairs, below her.
“I’m not inviting you in,” she said. She was and wasn’t Ella. He was fifteen again and wanted to crush her against him. Do you love her? Angie had asked. He had thought that he didn’t, but here, beside her, he wasn’t sure anymore.
The hair he had loved was so long now, almost to her chest, but still wildly curly and flaming red. Her freckles that he used to connect like constellations were still a bridge across her nose. She looked older, though, a woman now, not a girl. She was dressed in dark colors, not the bright ones she used to wear.
“Why are you here?” she said.
“I needed to see you—”
“Why? You never bothered to write or call me before.”
“I got friends to mail you the letters I wrote, to call—”
“I never got anything from you. And I mailed you letters, too. Are you going to lie and say you never got them?”
“I never got them. And it isn’t a lie.”
Her mouth became a line. “Why are you here, Jude? Did you read about me in the paper, like everyone else? What is it you want?”
“Ella—”
“You used to say you loved me so much you’d die without me, remember? You loved my house so much you basically lived in it. And you loved my mom. My mom always seemed to love you. Maybe more than she did me.”
“Ella—”
“Funny how nothing is as it seems, right?”
“Is Helen all right?”
There was that dry sharp laugh again. “Helen outed me,” Ella said.
“I know. But she loves you. She’d never—”
“She did.”
“Ella, you have to hear me. You were innocent.”
Ella started laughing, the sound like a bark, and then she abruptly stopped.
“Really? This is what you came for?” she said. “Nothing about me is innocent anymore. I did something criminal and I paid for it. I’ll never stop paying for it.”
“You aren’t hearing me. You didn’t do anything. My father told me. He saw it—”
Ella stiffened. “Your father. He hated me. Who cares what he told you?”
Jude pressed one hand against his forehead.
“There’s something you don’t know. You didn’t do it. You’re replaying the memories the detectives gave you. You didn’t do this—” His stomach burned. “I did.”
Ella didn’t move. “What are you saying?”
“Me and you, Ella. We talked about killing him! That’s all we did. Talked and fantasized. We were kids! That night we were so sleep-deprived that we were hallucinating! The tea, the foxglove, was all just part of the fantasy we told each other to make us feel better, to make us think we could have a life together! And that night—that horrible night—I was stuck in that fantasy, I was acting it out like I was sleepwalking.”
“I made the tea,” she said quietly. “I gave him the cup. It was a terrible, confusing night, but I did it.”
“No, you didn’t. You ran off that night,” Jude said, his voice breaking. “I’m the one who grew the foxglove, who made the tea, who knew the plant’s every fucking property so well I could have recited it by heart. I loathed him and loved you. And all it took to reverse my hatred was for him to almost die, for him to say he loved me. And you suffered for it.”
Ella didn’t move. “Why would he tell you now? He despised me.”
“Because it’s not about you, Ella. It’s about him. He wanted me to know how much he had sacrificed for me, what he did on my behalf.” He paused. “You have a right to know.”
Ella stared at him, then started to cry, not moving to wipe away her tears.
“All this time, and I’m innocent?” She shook her head. “They kept telling me and telling me what I did, who I was, and finally I believed them.” Her hands shook. “And you believed them, too—”
“I didn’t know what to believe—”
She was crying steadily now.
“Want to know something funny? The cops told me confessing would make the judge go easier on me.”
“I swear to you. I’m the criminal. And my father’s the criminal, and I’m not seeing that bastard again. If you want me to go to the press, I will,” Jude said. “We can both go. Or go to one of those places that helps exonerate people. I’ll tell the truth. I’ll make it right.”
“I can’t go through this all over again. And your father will deny it all.”
“I can try—”
“With what proof?”
“Me. I’m the proof. I can try, Ella. Let me try.”
“Want to know what I tried? I tried to move on and a lot of good it did. Want to know what my life is like now? My phone doesn’t stop ringing. People text ugly things to me, like murderer. Or just liar. Or any other terrible word they can think of. In Brooklyn and here, I’ve had people slip notes under my door accusing me of all sorts of things. I’ve had to change my number again and again. Remember how we used to constantly text? I never do that anymore. I stay off social media because I’m a pariah there.
“I may have to move, start all over again, and maybe it won’t even be safe after I move. You think proclaiming my innocence is going to change anything, make it better for me? You think people will believe me, or do you think they’ll look at me and they’ll always wonder? They’ll make the story they want to believe.”
There was silence as the truth of her words washed over him.
“What’s your life like now?” she asked, still a hostile note in her voice. “Tell me.”
“I work in IT.”
She looked at him, surprised. “You were going to be a botanist. You had this gift with plants. It was your passion.”
“Not anymore.”
“I don’t believe you. Things like that don’t just leave you. You were born for that. What else do you have?”
“I have a wife. And a baby on the way.”
He saw her flinch. “I don’t remember reading that,” she said finally. “Show me,” she said. “Show me her picture.”
Jude hesitated and then pulled out his phone, showing her a photo of him and a hugely pregnant Angie, laughing into the camera.
“You both look so happy.” The tone of her voice had changed.
He tried to swallow. He thought of the promises he and Ella used to make to each other. That they’d have kids and raise them with love and compassion. That they’d live someplace where their entire back and front lawn could be one big garden, where fresh produce was always on the table.
He watched her, her mouth struggling, as if she were trying to decide whether to tell him something or not.
“Please,” he said. “If you have something to say to me… you know we could always tell each other everything.”
She shook her head resolutely.
“There’s nothing,” she said, her mouth a stubborn line.
He paused, waiting for more. For the first time, Ella looked deep into his eyes.
“Tell me their names. Your wife. What you’re going to call your baby.”
“Does it matter?”
“I want to know.”
“Gus,” Jude said, “if it’s a boy. Giselle if it’s a girl. And her name is Angie.”
“Thank you.”
“This frenzy is going to die down—this craziness will pass.”
“Jude, stop,” she said.
And for a moment she sounded the way she had when they were fifteen and she was trying to tell him not to try to slice his wrists again, to trust in the future. That everything would be okay because she loved him.
“Go home to your family, Jude,” she said. “I don’t blame you for anything anymore.”
“What can I do? I have to do something for you.”
“No. You don’t. I know you want to fix this, to make things right, and I can appreciate that, but it will make things worse for me. You don’t get to do that, Jude. Maybe you just have to live with this. And I do, too.”
When he didn’t move, she got up and reached for her door.
Jude grabbed his phone to text her his number, his email. “This is me,” he said as he typed. “What’s your cell number?”
“Jude, don’t,” she said, putting her hands firmly in her pockets. “Promise me you won’t do anything about this. I can’t have things made worse for me. I just can’t.”
“I promise,” he said. Then he stood up, turning to take one last look at her, before he heard her door click shut and the lock engage.
He drove without direction, blocks across Ann Arbor, and finally pulled into a public park to get his bearings. He walked along listlessly until he neared a playground, where children’s cries filled his ears. Bracing his hands on his knees, he started to cry.
WHEN HIS PLANE landed back in Philadelphia, Jude stumbled toward the cab stand. Even if he never saw or heard from Ella again, he would always have that relationship. They had been family once, he and Ella and Helen.
His mind filled with memories of Helen now. She was the last piece of this, and he didn’t think he could fix that either, but he had to at least try. Her number was unlisted, but he paid one of those services to find it, and a half hour and forty dollars later, he had it and he called. He knew, as soon as he heard her voice, that it was her. He started to cry again and then caught himself. You don’t have the right to cry.
“Don’t hang up,” he said. He could hear her breathing, and then she sighed.
“Jude,” she said. “How did you get this number?” He used to love when she said his name, because she made him feel so safe. Her saying his name was like her saying, I know you.
“I paid to find it.”
“Why are you calling?” Helen asked.
He told her he had just seen Ella and that it had felt like a kind of closure, something he wanted with Helen, too.
“What? You saw Ella? Why? And what closure? What did she tell you?”
He summarized their conversation and when he got to the part about his father, Helen drew her breath in sharply. “Did she tell you I outed her? Or did you read that for yourself? I didn’t mean—”
“None of us did,” Jude said, and then Helen grew silent. “Please don’t tell her I told you about going to see her. There are things we talked about—if she wants you to know, she’ll tell you. Or maybe she’s told you already.”
“That was all the conversation?” Helen said quietly. “She didn’t tell you anything else?”
“Like what?”
“That was it? All you talked about?”
“That’s all I know.”
Helen blew out a breath.
“How are you now?” Jude said.
“Do you need to ask that?”
“I do.”
“Tell me about your life instead,” she said, and he told her about Angie and the baby, his life in Philadelphia.
“I thought you were going to be this famous botanist,” Helen said. “Or do something with gardens.”
Jude swallowed. “Our garden helped convict Ella.”
“When I think about it now, I think that that garden was only ever innocent, Jude. It was such a pleasure. The three of us built something; we had joy in it. We all loved it. Do you know what a gift it was for me to be able to give that to you and to have you accept it? Every time I looked out the window and saw that garden, it just made me feel glad. Useful. Like I had put good out into the world. Every time something new bloomed, it was this wonderful surprise.”
Jude pressed his cell against his face.
“I would love to think of you using your talent, making yourself and others happy.”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Well, think on it,” Helen said. “I’d like to imagine all of us happy. I’m glad you called me, that we got to speak, that we had what we had. Even after everything, I still look back with wonder at that summer.”
“Can I call you again?” he said.
Helen was quiet again for a moment.
“I don’t think so, Jude. I used to look for you everywhere, think that one day I would run into you, that we’d have coffee and laugh and talk about our lives.”
“We still can, can’t we?” Jude said. “I know I’ve made so many mistakes—I hurt everyone.”
“So did I,” Helen said. “And now I know why. I tried to push the life I wanted for myself onto you two kids.”
“No, no, you didn’t. And I loved and wanted that life—you were like a mother to me, and I was so grateful for it.”
“So was I,” Helen said. “But I felt responsible for the way things turned dark for everyone, including me. I need to let that past go. And so do you.”
“Please don’t do this,” Jude said, but already, he could feel her fading from him.
They didn’t say much after that, and he knew it was probably the last time he’d hear her voice.
“Goodbye,” Helen said quietly, and then, before he could say anything else, she disconnected.
Shaken, Jude sat with the phone for a minute, staring as traveler after traveler entered the long line for taxis. He called Angie.
As soon as he heard her voice, he was telling her everything about the visit, spilling out the story, leaving nothing out. When he was finished, he was afraid. “Say something,” he begged.
“That’s quite a story,” she said quietly. “And what did the visit solve? What does she want you to do?”
“Nothing,” he said. “I offered to go to the media. To go to court, because who cares if my father won’t tell the truth? I can and I would. But she said no, that it would make things worse. She made me promise that I wouldn’t. But I’m responsible. I did this. All of this.”
“Your father did it, too,” she said. “And you were fifteen.”
“I was so fucked up that night,” he said. “So desperate and angry and trapped—I hadn’t slept, I was hallucinating. I tried to… I wanted to. ”
“But you didn’t,” she said. “Right? You made the tea but then you stopped. You went to find Ella.”
“But legally defined—”
“Screw legally defined,” she said.
“I’m not sure who I am anymore.”
“Well, I’m sure,” she said, then paused. “What was it like to see her? I’m not stupid. I know people can love more than one person at the same time. Sometimes that first love always stays with you.”
“I’m coming home to you. I went there because it’s my fault, because I needed to be responsible, to do something.”
“But you did do something. You gave her the truth. And it sounds like for her, that was what she wanted. And you gave me the truth, too.”
“Are we going to be all right?” Jude asked. “Have I ruined everything?”
He could hear her breathing.
“Just come home.”