And I hear it then, what people—Patty, Carl, Naomi—must hear when they’re talking to me. I hear the crazy. She sounds crazy. Maybe that’s what happens when the bottom falls out, you lose the ability to modulate—to make your words make sense to the rest of the world.
“So are you saying it was a setup or an accounting error?” I pause. “Or are you just saying it’s everyone’s fault except for Avett’s?”
“Excuse me?” she says.
She’s angry. I don’t care. I don’t have time for her, now that I know this conversation is going to a place where she wants something from me. I don’t have anything left to give her.
I look at Bailey, who is watching me with questions in her eyes: Why am I sounding increasingly angry? What does this mean for her father?
“I need to go,” I say.
“Just wait,” she says. Which is when she starts to get to it. What she actually needs.
“Avett’s lawyers are having trouble reaching Owen,” she says. “And we just want to make sure, we just want to know… he isn’t talking to law enforcement, is he? Because that wouldn’t be smart, for any of us.”
“If Avett didn’t do anything wrong, what does it matter what Owen says?”
“Don’t be naive. It doesn’t work that way,” she says.
I can almost see Belle sitting at her kitchen island, on the stool I made for her, shaking her head incredulously, the gold hoops she never takes off slapping at her high cheeks.
“How does it work?”
“Uh… entrapment, forced confessions. Is Owen that stupid?” She pauses. “Is he talking to the police?”
I want to say, all I know is that he isn’t talking to me. I don’t offer Belle that though. I don’t offer her anything. We are in different positions, she and I. She isn’t worried about Avett’s safety. She isn’t sincerely questioning whether the government’s acting in bad faith or whether Avett’s guilty. Belle knows that her husband is guilty. She is just trying to spin it, to do what she needs to do, to stop him from paying for it.
My concern, on the other hand, is how to stop Bailey from paying for it.
“Avett’s lawyers need to debrief with Owen as soon as possible, so the story stays consistent,” Belle says. “We could use your help on this. We all need to stick together.”
I don’t answer her.
“Hannah? Are you still there?”
“No,” I say. “Not anymore.”
Then I hang up. I hang up and go back to pulling up the
old UT-Austin football schedule.
“Who was that?” Bailey says.
“Wrong number,” I say.
“Is that what you call Belle these days?” she says.
I look up at her.
“Why even pretend?” she says.
She’s furious and she’s scared. And, apparently, I’m making that worse as opposed to better.
“I’m just trying to protect you from some of this, Bailey,” I say.
“But you can’t,” she said. “That’s the thing. No one can protect me from this. So how about you agree to be the person who tells me the truth?”
She looks older than she is suddenly. Her eyes are unwavering, her lips pursed. Protect her. The one thing Owen asked me to do. The one impossible thing.