Her father reached over and opened the door for her. “Same place you are.” As he twisted in his seat to back out of the driveway, Trixie could see the collared shirt and tie he was wearing under his winter jacket.
They drove in silence for two blocks. Then, finally, she asked,
“How come you want to go?”
“I don't.”
Trixie watched the swirling snow run away from their tires to settle in the safe center of the divided highway. Dots between painted dashes, they spelled out in Morse code the unspoken rest of her father's sentence: But you do.
* * *
Laura sat in the student center, wishing she was even an eighth as smart as the advice ladies who wrote “Annie's Mailbox.” They knew all the answers, it seemed, without even trying. In the days after Jason's death, she'd become addicted to the column, craving it as much as her morning cup of coffee. My daughterin-law started her marriage as a size four, and now she's plus plus plus. She's a wonderful person, but her health is a concern for me. I've given her books and exercise videos, but none of it helps. What can I do? Skinny in Savannah
My 14-year-old son has started replacing his boxer shorts with silky thong underwear he found in a catalog. Is this a style that hasn't hit my hometown yet, or should I be worried about cross-dressing? Nervous in Nevada
On her deathbed, my great-aunt just confided a secret to me that my mother was born as the result of an extramarital affair. Do I tell my mother I know the truth? Confused in California Lauras obsession grew in part from the fact that she was not the only one walking around with questions. Some of the letters were frivolous, some cut through her heart. All of them hinted at a universal truth: At any crossroads in life, half of us are destined to take a
wrong turn.
She opened the newspaper to the right page, skimming past the Marmaduke cartoon and the crossword puzzle to find the advice column, and nearly spilled her cup of coffee. I've been having an affair. It's over, and I'm sorry it ever happened. I want to tell my husband so that I can start fresh. Should I? Repentant in Rochester
Laura had to remind herself to breathe.
We can't say this enough, the advice columnists answered. What people don't know can't hurt them. You've already done your spouse a great disservice. Do you really think it's fair to cause him pain, just so you can clear your conscience? Be a big girl, they wrote. Actions have consequences.
Her heart was pounding so hard she looked up, certain that everyone in the room would be staring.
She had been careful not to ask herself the question she should have: If Trixie hadn't gotten raped, if Daniel hadn't called her office the night she'd been breaking off her affair with Seth would she ever have confessed? Would she have kept it to herself, a stone in her soul, a cancer clouding her memory?
What people don't know can't hurt them.
The problem with coming clean was that you thought you were clearing the slate, starting over, but it never quite worked that way. You didn't erase what you'd done. As Laura knew now, the stain would still be there, every time he looked at you, before he remembered to hide the disappointment in his eyes.
Laura thought of what she had not told Daniel, the things he had not told her. The best decisions in a marriage were based not on honesty but on the number of casualties that the truth might cause, versus the number saved by ignorance.
With great care, she folded the edge of the newspaper and ripped it gently along the crease. She did this until the advice column had been entirely cut out. Then she folded the article and slipped it under the strap of her bra. The ink smudged on Laura's fingers, the way it sometimes did when she read the paper. She imagined a tattoo that might go through flesh and bone and blood to reach her heart - a warning, a reminder not to make the same mistake.
* * *
“Ready?” Daniel asked.
Trixie had been sitting in the truck for five minutes, watching townspeople crowd into the tiny Methodist church. The principal had gone in, as well as the town manager and the selectmen. Two local television stations were broadcasting from the steps of the church, with anchors Daniel recognized from the evening news.
“Yes,” Trixie said, but she made no move to get out of the truck. Daniel pulled the keys out of the ignition and got out of the truck. He walked around to the passenger door and opened it, unbuckling Trixie's seat belt just like he used to when she was a baby. He held her hand as she stepped out, into the shock of the cold.
They took three steps. “Daddy,” she said, stopping, “what if I can't do this?”
Her hesitation made him want to carry her back to the truck, hide her so securely that no one would ever hurt her again. But as he'd learned the hard way - that wasn't possible. He slid an arm around her waist. “Then I'll do it for you,” he said, and he guided her up the steps of the church, past the shocked wide eyes of the television cameras, through an obstacle course of hissed whispers, to the place where she needed to be. For a single moment, the focus of everyone in the church swung from the boy in the lily-draped coffin to the girl walking through the double doors.
* * *
Outside, left alone, Mike Bartholemew emerged from behind a potbellied oak and crouched beside the trail of boot prints that Daniel and Trixie Stone had left in the snow. He lay a ruler down beside the best print of the smaller track and took a camera from his pocket for a few snapshots. Then he sprayed the print with aerosol wax and let the red skin dry on the snow before he spread dental stone to make a cast.
By the time the mourners adjourned to their cars to caravan to the cemetery for the interment service, Bartholemew was headed back to the police department, hoping to match Trixie Stone's boot to the mystery print left in the snow on the bridge where Jason Underhill had died.
* * *
“Blessed are those who mourn,” said the minister, “for they will be comforted.”
Trixie pressed herself more firmly against the back wall of the church. From here, she was completely blocked by the rest of the people who'd come for Jason's memorial service. She didn't have to stare at the gleaming coffin. She didn't have to see Mrs. Underhill, slumped against her husband.
"Friends, we gather here to comfort and support each other in this time of loss . . . but most of all we come here to remember and
celebrate the mortal life of Jason Adam Underhill and his blessed future at the side of our Lord Jesus Christ." The minister's words were punctuated by the tight coughs of men who'd promised themselves they wouldn't cry and the quicksilver hiccups of the women who'd known better than to make a promise they couldn't keep.
“Jason was one of those golden boys that the sun seemed to follow. Today, we remember him for the way he could make us laugh with a joke and the devotion he applied to everything he did. We remember him as a loving son and grandson, a caring cousin, a steadfast friend. We remember him as a gifted athlete and a diligent student. But most of all we remember him because Jason, in the short time we had with him, managed to touch each and every one of us.”
The first time Jason touched Trixie, they were in his car, and he was illegally teaching her how to drive. You have to let up on the clutch while you shift, he explained, as she'd jerked the little Toyota around an empty parking lot. Maybe I should just wait until I'm sixteen, Trixie had said when she'd stalled for the bazillionth time. Jason had laced his fingers between hers on the stick shift, guiding her through the motions, until all she could think about was the temperature of his hand heating hers. Then Jason had grinned at her. Why wait?
The minister's voice grew like a vine. “In Lamentations 3, we hear these words: My soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, 'Gone is my glory, and all that I had hoped for from the Lord.' We, whom Jason left behind, must wonder if these were the thoughts that weighed heavy on his heart, that led him to believe there was no other way out.” Trixie closed her eyes. She had lost her virginity in a field of lupine behind the ice rink, where the Zamboni shavings were dumped, an artificial winter smack in the middle of the September flowers. Jason had borrowed the key from the rinkmaster and taken her skating after the rink was closed for the day. He'd laced up her skates and told her to close her eyes. Then he'd reached for her hands, skating backward so fast she felt like she was falling to earth. We're writing in cursive, he told her as he pulled in a straight line. Can you read it? Then he looped the breadth of the rink, skated a circle, a right angle, a tinier loop, finishing with a curl. I LOVE U? Trixie had recited, and Jason had laughed. Close enough, he'd said. Later, in that field, with the pile of snow hiding them from sight, Jason had again been moving at lightning speed, and Trixie could