Vanhi withdrew her Harvard application. She applied again for regular admissions, this time with her real scores and essays. Three months later, she would receive an envelope in the mail, containing her rejection slip: Dear Ms. Patel: This year Harvard received a record number of applications. We are very sorry to inform you …
On that day, she would stand outside, no longer needing her cane, and feel okay. The world did not stop spinning. No one was hurt or gone. She would read the letter again, take a deep breath, then go inside to tell her mom.
Mary became student body president, after Charlie dropped out of the race. Caitlyn Lacey had won homecoming queen, and her new boyfriend, Joss Iverson, was king. People whispered that she’d gotten a “sympathy bump” because her lake house burned down. Talk about first-world problems, Kenny had said. Kurt was recovering. His life would never be the same, in ways both good and bad, although the balance between the two seemed to swing wildly from day to day. He hoped, no, he knew, one day that would even out.
The ashes of Charlie’s restaurant were long gone. Insurance wouldn’t pay to rebuild. The fire was too suspicious. Charlie dropped out of school and took a full-time job to help reopen the restaurant. His father had fought him hard on that, but Charlie refused to back down. Now the construction was moving along. Charlie and his father sat at the kitchen table, night after night, sketching out different possibilities for the new space. They fought over everything, but it was a mild, soft bickering.
Mary had come to see Charlie in the hospital. She fussed over his wound and kissed him gently. He told her everything. He learned that Tim would recover, but slowly. The Game had never delivered on Peter’s attempt to expose Tim’s parents, and their scheme went on. But Charlie figured Tim had suffered enough. Charlie hoped they got caught. But he wasn’t going to do it.
The night the Vindicators were on the rooftop of Turner High, Mary had been far away, in a part of town she’d never been to. It started when she’d received the call about Tim. The police had found him, nearly dead, on a street in the Byerly neighborhood. She had no interest in seeing him. But she was compelled to go somewhere else. Her mom had tried to stop her on the way out.
“They’ll sue. They’ll want money. Everyone will know. You’ll ruin us.”
“Maybe.” Mary’s voice wavered. “Maybe not.”
Her mother slapped her hard across the face.
Mary left. She drove to the address she’d memorized a long time ago.
An old lady answered the door. “I know you.” She put a hand to her heart. “I’ve seen your picture in the paper. You poor girl. What my Sammy did to you.”
Before she could say more, Mary held her and said, “No. No. That’s all wrong. I’m going to tell you everything. And when I do, you can do whatever you want. All that matters is you know the truth about your son.”
Inside, the house smelled of mothballs and tea. The old lady brought Mary a hot chocolate and sat her in a lumpy chair next to an end table with a lamp.
The old lady studied Mary, then hugged her and whispered, “You poor thing.” She touched the bruise on Mary’s cheek, which was hidden under makeup. “You tell me because you need to. And whatever it is, sweet girl, it will be okay.”
The thing Charlie remembered most vividly from that strange time was coming home from the hospital and seeing his dad in the kitchen for the first time, right back at the table, as if they’d retaken their exact spots from their last, awful fight.
His dad had said the oddest thing: “Now you know. Are you glad?” It was the first and only time they spoke about the dirty laundry.
Charlie had wanted to forgive his father completely, right then and there. To say that it was okay that he had cheated on them, that he’d lied and disappeared and gone weak at the exact moment Charlie and his mom needed him most. Charlie wanted to believe that it was none of his business and that he would have been better off not knowing, so things could go on as they had before. But he couldn’t say that and he didn’t believe it and he saw his father now clearly. Charlie saw himself now clearly, too. One day his dad would die and be gone. It would be unbearable. Charlie wanted to believe in perfection, something pure and eternal, but he didn’t and he couldn’t, on this plane or any other. But he could be okay with that. They would still find redemption, both of them, but it would be in each other. Charlie wanted to say all this but didn’t know how. So he hugged his father, harder than he had in years, hugged him and felt the stubble on his cheek and smelled his father’s soap and put his fingers through his hair and cried and held him so, so close, because he was here, because he loved him, because he was real.