Chapter 13: The Informant

I held the phone between us and told my wife to help me write.

"I can't," Melanie said. "My hands won't work."

"Then tell me what you usually send her."

She wiped her face and looked at the screen.

"Short things," she said. "She likes short. 'He's weak.' 'He'll fold.' She reports every word to Bradley."

I typed: He bought it.

"Not that," Melanie said. "She'll want proof. Say he cried."

"Cried."

"Bradley has wanted to see you cry since he was nine."

My jaw tightened, and I kept typing.

He cried in the kitchen. He's done. He leaves Sunday night, and he wants to take Eric to his mother's on Saturday for one last day.

Melanie read it twice.

"She'll believe the last part," she said. "It's what a broken man asks for."

I sent it.

The phone sat quiet in my hand.

Melanie stood in the hall in her muddy socks, and she did not come closer.

"You can say it wasn't my fault," she said. "I heard you. I'll hold onto it for the rest of my life."

"Good."

"But you can't forgive me for the other thing. Not tonight."

"What other thing?"

"Eight years of letting you love him and never saying a word."

I looked at her for a long moment.

"I'm not going to say it's fine," I said. "It isn't fine. I carried a boy to school for seven years, and nobody told me whose he was."

She flinched.

"I'm not asking you to be forgiven for what he did," I said. "That's his. The lying is yours, and we'll have that out when he's in handcuffs."

"Handcuffs."

"Did you ever tell anyone?"

She hesitated.

"One person. Six months ago, when I couldn't pay him and keep quiet anymore. I went to a detective downtown."

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