In Things Unseen Read online

  Milton did.

  “Often,” Kramer went on, “what we do with guilt that can’t be relieved any other way is, we redirect it. We attach it to something altogether different from what we’re actually feeling guilty about and punish ourselves accordingly. In your case—”

  “I killed a little boy in my car.”

  “Yes. That’s one theory that could explain what’s going on here.”

  “Except that it doesn’t explain why the boy’s mother remembers his death, too. If it’s my delusion—”

  “Without having heard what she said to you myself, I would venture to guess she was humoring you. Telling you what you wanted to hear in order to set your mind at ease. If you seemed as convinced to her that this accident really happened as you do to me, I can see how she might have thought it better to indulge you than argue with you.”

  Milton rewound his conversation with Diane Edwards, checking this last suggestion for merit before flatly dismissing it. “No. She wasn’t indulging me. She wasn’t pretending to remember. She does remember.”

  “In that case—there’s one more possible explanation for what you’re experiencing. No less far-fetched than the others, perhaps, but no more so, either: the nonlinear nature of time.” Seeing Milton’s confusion, Kramer quickly added, “That is, the idea that time does not run along one single, uninterrupted path, but is comprised of many paths that may on rare occasions intersect. In other words, maybe what’s happened to you is that your life was once moving along a timeline in which you killed this little boy—Adrian Edwards—and now it’s moving along another in which you didn’t. Does that make sense?”

  “No,” Milton said angrily, thinking, This was a mistake. He had come to his synagogue to speak to his rabbi about a spiritual matter, and for all the Talmudic insight Kramer was bringing to the table, Milton might as well have consulted his mail carrier.

  “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to confuse you,” Kramer said.

  “Well, you are. I came here to get some answers, Rabbi, and all I’m getting from you are more questions!”

  “All right. Let’s start over,” Kramer said, the incongruity of his singularly secular outlook having perhaps become conspicuous even to him. “Let’s assume for a moment that God did do these things. Raised the boy from the dead, left only four people in the world to remember his death, and all the rest. Yes?”

  Milton didn’t say anything, waiting for the rabbi to go on.

  “What is your question for me, Milton? How can I help you?”

  “You can tell me what to do. How to go on with my life knowing what’s happened, that God has performed this. . .this. . . .”

  He couldn’t say the word.

  “Miracle,” Kramer said.

  “Yes. This miracle. If it’s true, it’s a wonderful thing. A beautiful thing. Isn’t it? This little boy is in the world again. His parents have their son back and I. . .I can finally forget that terrible day in the park. I can allow myself to forget.”

  “Yes.”

  “But his mother says no one should know. That we should all just keep quiet about what’s happened and be glad.”

  “And she’s right. Obviously.”

  “Obviously?”

  “If He wanted the world to know, it would know. That only four people do know seems proof enough that such is God’s will.”

  Milton thought this over. “So if I were to tell anyone else about it—Lisa or Janet—”

  “You’d be operating in opposition to that will. Exactly.”

  Milton let Kramer’s words sink in. “And you? I’ve just told you.”

  “Like I said when you first asked, the things I hear in this room never leave this room. It’s all held in the strictest confidence. So your secret—and God’s—is safe with me, I promise you.”

  Milton nodded, satisfied. Kramer was a good and honest man, and he would have had nothing to gain by sharing Milton’s confession with others.

  “Look at it this way, Milton,” he said. “Whether what you’re dealing with is truly a miracle or not, your responsibility for Adrian’s death is now and forever moot. You’ve been absolved, either by the love of God or your own subconscious. And that is something to be grateful for, in and of itself. Right?”

  “Yes,” Milton said, nodding again. It was true.

  “You said you were going to see the boy later today.”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you thought about what you might say to him? What questions you might ask?”

  The glimmer in Kramer’s eyes gave away his own curiosity on the subject.

  “No. I’m not sure I’ll say anything to him. His mother says he doesn’t remember anything anyway. I want to see him, that’s all. Seeing him will be enough.”

  “And then?”

  “And then I’ll do as you suggest and leave it alone.”

  Kramer smiled. “Do you think you’ll be able to do that?”

  “I don’t know.” Milton shrugged and returned the rabbi’s smile with a small one of his own. “But I’m going to try.”

  * * *

  Like Milton, all Allison wanted to do was see Adrian Edwards.

  There were other things on her to-do list—talking to the boy’s parents, for one, and giving the old man Weinman a first name, if she could, for another—but what she found herself most anxious to do Thursday afternoon was get a good, hard look at Adrian. He was the epicenter of the storm she was writing about, after all, and she wanted to find out if there was anything remarkable about him that photographs alone did not convey.

  She drove to Yesler Elementary, intending to park some distance from the campus and use the binoculars from her trunk to try to catch sight of the boy out on the yard. Eventually, she would have to go back to the office to seek an interview with the school’s principal, but so soon after her interview with Betty Marx, Allison could guess what that would buy her: a polite no comment and an escort to the door. Today, she would stay off school grounds and hope Adrian Edwards showed himself.

  Only when she arrived did Allison give any thought to the time: just after three. Kids were pouring out of Yesler’s front entrance in a swarm, the end of their school day at hand. Allison feared her chance to see Adrian had already come and gone. But before she could park the car, she spotted her quarry in the crowd across the street, walking down the steps to the buzzing carport.

  He hustled straight to a green, late-model Acura sedan and climbed into the front seat. The big, squinty-eyed man behind the wheel leaned over, either to plant a kiss on the boy’s head or ruffle his hair—Allison couldn’t tell which through the glare of the car’s windshield—and then the Acura was on the move. It paused briefly at the carport exit, waiting for traffic to clear, before turning right onto 76th Avenue and cruising away.

  Somebody behind Allison hit their horn, reminding her she was blocking the street, and reflexively she hit the gas and sped off, taking care to keep the green Acura ahead of her just close enough to follow.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  MICHAEL RECOGNIZED MILTON Weisman immediately. For obvious reasons, the old man’s face had been scored into his memory like a razor-cut tattoo. His hair was thinner and he’d lost some weight, but other than that, he looked to be the same pathetic creature Michael had seen on television, being hounded by reporters outside the man’s front door days after the accident. Today, as Michael and Adrian entered the burger restaurant, Weisman was sitting in a booth at the back, watching the door with all the anticipation of a dog awaiting its master.

  Spotting them, he started to stand, but Michael discreetly shook him off, tilting his head to one side to indicate he and the boy would order their food before joining Weisman at his table. The old man sat back down but his eyes never left them. Michael didn’t need to see him to know it; Weisman’s gaze was like a knife at his back.

  Michael still
wasn’t sure he could do this. He had never been able to show Weisman the modicum of empathy Diane had come to grant him, and even now, with his offense against them null and void, Michael still felt entitled to view the man who had killed their son as a bumbling old fool. But Diane was right: it wasn’t their place to deny him this meeting with Adrian. Like Diane, Laura Carrillo, and Michael himself, Weisman had been given open eyes with which to see the great miracle God had in all His mercy performed, and whatever peace of mind it would bring him to sit in Adrian’s presence, if only for a minute or two, was surely his due.

  Michael guided Adrian over to Weisman’s booth, carrying their food tray, and once more the old man rose to acknowledge them, smiling through his obvious unease. Adrian smiled back. Michael had told his son on the way over they were going to dine with a friend, but he hadn’t said who the friend would be. Adrian had no reason to recognize the old man, other than as someone he may have seen at the park, and Michael was curious to learn what his reaction to Weisman would be.

  “I’m sorry, but my wife couldn’t make it,” Michael said. “I hope you don’t mind that I came instead.”

  Weisman shook his head, then returned his gaze to Adrian. “This must be Adrian.” He was shaking.

  “Yes.” Michael set their tray down. “Adrian, this is Mr. Weisman. He’s the friend I told you about.”

  Adrian offered Weisman his hand, as he would have upon being introduced to any other stranger. “Pleased to meet you.”

  Weisman shook his hand, wobbling on his feet, and Michael thought he might collapse at any moment.

  “Let’s sit down and get this over with, shall we?”

  Michael waited for the old man to do as he suggested, then slid alongside his son into the opposite side of the booth.

  “Call me Milton,” Weisman said to Adrian. For all the attention he was showing the boy, Michael might as well have stayed in the car.

  Adrian nodded.

  “We can’t stay long,” Michael said. He wanted Weisman to know up-front this meeting had been his wife’s idea, not his own . “We’re going to have to eat and run, I’m afraid.”

  “Okay,” Weisman said.

  “Are you crying?” Adrian asked.

  Much to Michael’s chagrin, the poor devil was.

  “Yes. I am.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Because I’m old, I guess. And because it’s so good

  to—” Weisman stopped, catching a mistake before he could make it. “Because it’s so good to finally meet you. Your parents have told me a lot about you.”

  “They have?”

  “Yes, they have.”

  “Like what?”

  Caught in a trap of his own making, Weisman had no choice but to laugh.

  * * *

  Weinman, Allison thought. The old man who’d allegedly run Adrian Edwards over with his car at Lakeridge Park last March.

  She sat alone at a table at the opposite end of the restaurant, having followed Adrian and the man she assumed was his father here, careful to keep a safe distance. None of the three people at the booth she was watching would have recognized her, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

  Laura Carrillo had suggested Weinman was a participant in the death hoax she believed the Edwardses were playing on the world, and if this old man was him, this meeting seemed to lend credence to that idea. Allison couldn’t hear their conversation, however, so she couldn’t confirm who the old man was or what he and Michael Edwards were discussing.

  Still, she had a hunch this was Weinman (or Weisler?). His hangdog look, and the interminable handshake he’d just shared with Adrian, seemed to suggest the kind of weariness that often made older people careless, sometimes fatally so. This man may have never caused a serious accident, in or out of a car, but portraying one who had would not have been out of his reach.

  The temptation to approach the trio’s table was almost too much for Allison to resist. Three of the central players in the story she was working on were right there, all but begging her to ask the questions she was dying to pose. She might not get such a chance again. But she forced herself to stay put and bide her time, fearing she could lose all hope of talking to any of them if she set upon them in a group and things went sour. She liked her chances of getting something useful out of Weinman or Adrian in a one-on-one encounter, but Michael Edwards’s reluctance to speak with her, in any setting, was a message she could read from his body language alone. For now, Allison would only watch, to determine as best she could how these people were related and what nature of business had brought them here.

  Later, when they went their separate ways, she would choose a target and make her move.

  * * *

  Milton kept thinking about the handshake.

  The little boy’s right hand had felt like lamb’s wool: soft and supple, and warm. It had been all Milton could do to let it go. When the boy entered with his father, all need for further proof had left Milton in an instant. This was Adrian Edwards, the child whose life he had taken last March. Milton had seen him at the park only half a dozen times or so prior to that horrific day, and always at some distance, but there was no doubt in his mind. Adrian Edwards was alive again.

  All that followed the handshake, then, was superfluous. Milton had come here to be convinced the miracle was real, that the God Milton had barely acknowledged as a remote possibility all his life was in fact far more than that, and he’d just been given all the evidence of both he would ever need. The small talk he was making with Adrian and his father now, alluding to a working relationship with Michael Edwards that didn’t exist for the benefit of his son, was only to fill time. It was awkward and comically pointless.

  Still, Milton went along with the charade, maintaining his part of the artificial repartee (“So, how do you like school?” “And work is good for you, Michael?”). He watched Adrian and his father eat, only sipping coffee himself, and felt the last vestiges of a guilt he’d thought he would carry to his grave melt away. He still had questions, many questions, but he no longer felt the need to have them answered. Ignorance of things he could never understand anyway seemed a small price to pay for four lives drawn from the abyss.

  Eventually Adrian and his father cleared their plates and finished off their drinks. Michael Edwards, even more uncomfortable in Milton’s company than Milton had been in his, said, “Well, we have to take off. It was good seeing you, Milton.” And that was it. He and the boy started sliding out of the booth.

  Milton got to his feet and held out his hand, this time to Adrian’s father. More tears were coming but he held them at bay for now. He shook the man’s hand and said, “Thank you.”

  Edwards nodded, and perhaps—or perhaps not—softened a little.

  Milton turned to the boy, and the two shook hands again, no doubt for the last time. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Adrian. Tell your mother I said good-bye, will you?”

  “Good-bye?”

  It had been a poor choice of words. Milton and Michael Edwards exchanged a look. “I have to go away for a while and I probably won’t be back.”

  Adrian nodded and, much to the adults’ relief, asked no further questions.

  * * *

  Allison looked up from the plate of fries she was lathering with ketchup just in time to see Michael and Adrian Edwards leave the old man’s table. They headed for the door and the critical choice she’d deferred was suddenly upon her: Weinman or the boy and his father? In the ten seconds she had to decide, her instincts chose the old man. It was a safe bet that Edwards, ambushed in a public place by a woman he didn’t know, would refuse to talk to her and deny her any access to his son, no matter how she represented—or misrepresented herself. But Weinman was likely an easier nut to crack. Not only because of his age, but because he struck Allison as vulnerable. Throughout his brief meeting with Adrian and his fat
her, he had appeared to weep at least once, and the affection he had for the boy never left his face. Nothing about him had been consistent with Allison’s idea of a co-conspirator to a massive fraud, unless he was in it for love and not money. He looked frail and shaken, and people like that were often as easy for a good reporter to pry open as the cap on an aspirin bottle.

  Allison left her table and started toward Weinman’s.

  * * *

  “Mr. Weinman?”

  Milton looked up to see a middle-aged blonde woman peering down at him. He’d been looking out the window, following Michael and Adrian Edwards’s path through the parking lot to their car, and hadn’t noticed the stranger’s approach.

  “Weisman,” he said, not yet stopping to wonder how this woman might almost know his name.

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s Weisman with an S. Not Weinman. Milton Weisman.”

  “Oh. Of course.” The stranger turned up the smile she was already wearing, and Milton wasn’t sure he liked the look of either version. “I’m sorry.”

  “Do I know you?”

  “My name is Allison Hope. We’ve never met but. . . .” She looked around as if checking for eavesdroppers. “I think we should talk.” She gestured at the empty side of his booth. “May I?”

  She sat down before he could answer.

  “What do we have to talk about?” Milton asked, not yet afraid but inching in that direction.

  “The two people who were just here. Michael and Adrian Edwards. That was Adrian, wasn’t it?”

  Milton stared at her, confusion growing.

  “I thought so. It’s wonderful to see him looking so well, isn’t it? Considering the accident and all?”

  “The accident?” Milton didn’t know how he’d gotten his mouth to move.

  The woman who had identified herself as Allison Hope raised an eyebrow. “You, your car, Lakeridge Park. Last March.”