The phone rings, waking Kathryn from a pleasant dream. In the moment before she remembers that everything has changed, again, she answers the phone.
“Hello?”
“Hello, is this Kathryn Capen?”
“It is.”
“This is George Dalrymple, I’m a reporter with the New York Times. I’d like to ask you a few questions about your son and his client, Rashid Siddique.”
She is suddenly wide awake. “What?” She looks at the clock, 6am. “What do you know about my son?”
“The Department of Justice has released a statement that Michael Capen is representing his father, Rashid Siddique, in a hearing to determine sentencing for the 2010 double freeway bombing.”
She pauses, allowing the reality to settle. “I have no comment.”
“Are you sure? This will be a big story, if you don’t speak for yourself, others will likely write their own interpretations of your position. Likely it won’t be pretty. They’ll probably speculate that you had some knowledge of Rashid’s exile, perhaps you even helped him.”
His aggressiveness irritates her. “I will excuse your bad manners. And again, I have no comment.” She hangs up. She wants to go back to sleep, but knows this call will be followed by others. Her mind lurches to Andrew. She calls him. Her heart sinks when he answers not from the fog of sleep, but with an anxious alertness. “They’ve called you?”
“Yes. What am I supposed to say?” He sounds like a little boy.
“Nothing.”
“I mean really, Mom, a week ago, I was just some guy going to school, seeing a girl. I was normal. And now, I suddenly learn my dad is a terrorist, my brother is a sympathizer, and my mother has been lying to me my whole life. I mean…what the fuck am I supposed to tell the reporters?”
She pushes back the sheets to get out of bed, a few black hairs still on the pillow. She cringes at another truth she has refrained from telling either of her sons. “You don’t tell the reporters anything. Don’t even answer their calls.” She goes to the window, looks out to the ocean, an indistinguishable grey under the morning clouds.
“And then what? I just go back to my classes like nothing has happened?”
She sees a van pull off the street and into the driveway of her complex. The news television station call letters and the satellite mast provoke a maternal instinct. “Andrew, listen to me, I think you should pack a few things, it’d be easier if we weren’t here for a little while.”
“Pack? And go where? What about my classes?”
“Grandma’s house has a long driveway and a gate, we can be buffered there.”
“Mom, you’re not exactly sounding rational here. I’m not running to Grandma like I did something wrong. I’m just doing my thing and my whole family is going ape shit around me. If I’m going anywhere, it’s over to my girlfriend’s place, at least Hema is who she says she is.”
“I really think it’d be better if we were there together, you and me with Grandma.”
He lets out a snort. “Better for who? I think you’ve lost the right to claim you have any idea of what’s best for me.” Silence. He disconnects.