The press has been calling, about the excommunicated women, about the two violated boys. We have to hide the paper from my oldest, keep the television set unplugged. I do not return the reporters’ calls. If they manage to confront me on the way to or from the office, I refer them to the lawyer the Church has purchased on my behalf.
Feshtig keeps leaving messages on my work machine, saying he would like to speak further with me, that he felt we were making progress. He has seen the papers, he says, and knows I must be going through a difficult time. At first I have the secretary put him off gently but when he keeps calling I block his number. I know now I have told him too much.
The twins come home from school to tell my wife what the other children are saying about me. Some say their parents know I am a good man, a provost of the True Church, and that I would never do such things. Others say their parents claim I am a devil.
My wife tells me this later. The twins never mention it to me but only seem remarkably reserved in my presence.
For my wife it is more difficult than for me. She has ingrained within her too much of a sense of propriety to defend me properly. She tells them that I have done nothing, but she knows too much to show sufficient enthusiasm. I try to keep her from the press but they get to her somehow, and everyone in the neighborhood is asking her about it as well. They are wearing her down. They are going to make her slip.
She has become a liability.
“We have to talk,” I say.
“Fine,” she says. “Talk.”
“Just you and me,” I say. “We need to get away.”
She listlessly submits. We leave the children with her parents, go for a ride.
“Where are we going?” she asks.
“Nowhere. Just driving.”
We drive for some time up the canyon before she opens her mouth. “I am wasting my life,” is the first thing she says.
“No,” I say. “It isn’t like that.”
“I shouldn’t be with you,” she says. “For my sake, for the children’s sake.”
“You can’t leave me now,” I say. “The press would eat us both alive. You need me.”
She starts to cry then. I keep driving up into the mountains, paying attention only to the road.
She stops crying. “You killed that girl, didn’t you?” she asks.
“You want to know?”
“No,” she says. “I don’t want to know.”
“Why did you ask, then?”
We drive for a long time. I take the car off onto a dirt road, down through rows of pine.
“Where are we going?” she asks.
“Driving,” I say. “Still driving.”
I pass one that I think will do the trick, angling out toward the road as it does.
“Take me home,” she says.
“I won’t take you home,” I say.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Nowhere.”
“I don’t want to be with you anymore,” she says. “Let me out of the car. I can’t stand being near someone like you. I hate you.”
“You love me,” I say. “You can’t help it.”
“I know you killed that girl,” she says. “I can’t prove it, but I know you did it.”
“I didn’t do it.”
“I know you did!” she yells. She has begun to shake now. “I know it!”
I let her say it. I circle the car around and she makes no effort to get out. Returning in the direction we came from, the wheels spit chips of gravel all over the road. While she is shaking and her head bobbing about I reach over and press in the release button on her safety belt, carefully disengage the clip without her noticing. I let the road pass.
“I will tell you the truth,” I say.
“No,” she says. “Please, don’t.”
“I want to tell you,” I say. “Lord knows I have to tell someone.”
She starts screaming, her screams coming in throbs. She is shaking so hard I can feel it through the seat despite the rough road. She is half mad already. I increase the speed.
“Don’t tell me!” she screams. “I’ll tell, dear God, I’ll tell everyone!”
“You aren’t going to be able to tell anyone,” I say.
I can see the angled pine. I push the gas pedal down.
“I killed her,” I say. “God was beside me.”
She is screaming. I drive straight at the tree, turn the wheel hard at the last moment. The car skids and starts to slide sideways. She can see it coming and I can too, and then the tree tears through the front and side of the car and the impact throws her past me and through the windshield.
Sweet Jesus, cradle me.