And here was Jen, carrying his card from state to state, like some sort of groupie. She considered calling him every time she read the newspapers after a horrific mass assault. The assailants were very frequently a young man, teens or early twenties, isolated and in pain. Inevitably, there had been signs from childhood that he hadn’t fit in, and Jen could not stop herself from reading those signs as a road map, a point of comparison to Abe.
Jen reminded herself that she, not Scofield, was the world’s foremost expert on Abe.
She would agree with anyone that Abe’s disposition wasn’t particularly sunny, but Abe wasn’t cruel. And as far as the hamster story went, Jen reassured herself that Abe had always been fine with their cat—if not affectionate, then at least neutral.
He wasn’t like those young men in the news, Abe just needed to learn how to cope a little better, but—
What if he never did?
What did people say about the young man who had taken hostages in the supermarket and the other who had brought assault weapons to the fraternities he had been rejected from?
They had been loners, too.
Forgotten shadows in the back of the class, most likely. At root, desperate to connect.
When Jen read about these lost souls, she felt for them as much as the victims （which was warped: empathy shouldn’t extend where they’d gone）。 Mostly, though, she felt for their poor parents. What warning signs, what chances to intervene had they missed?
Two other women walked past Jen’s car, Lolita copies in hand, but she couldn’t let herself go inside until she called Scofield.
Call him. Nothing else has worked.
It rang. Once and then again. When the message switched to voicemail, there was his voice—still so young!—and a beep.
“Dr. Scofield, hello. My name is Jen Chun-Pagano and you saw my son about seven years ago. Long enough ago that you probably don’t remember us.”
Jen gave her number, cut herself off, hung up.
Just a rule-out, she told herself. Just to confirm that Scofield was as unhelpful as she and Paul remembered him to be.
* * *
The women were already circled around Harriet Nessel’s living room when Jen creaked open the screen door. Thirty heads turned to stare.
“Jen, sweetie,” Janine said, “grab yourself a glass of Lolita Lemondrop from the kitchen and come on back.”
“Yes, please,” Jen said, a little too desperately, and the women laughed. The desperate need for alcohol was a running joke with this group.
When she returned to the living room, giant mason jar in hand, Jen settled into an empty spot on the piano bench next to Annie Perley, who pointed at the Lolita Lemondrop and mouthed, Lethal.
Jen smiled, nodded, took a gingery sip. It was delicious, actually, with a warm heat that lingered in the back of her throat.
Janine was explaining excitedly that they would start with introductions! Everyone had to say their favorite book or genre and then something fun and unexpected about herself!
“For instance,” she said. “I’m Janine!” She stabbed her index finger into her chest with surprising torque. “And my favorite book is The Giving Tree! My something unexpected is that I have a tattoo”—she winked exaggeratedly—“but I’m not telling you ladies where.”
Through the years, Jen had developed a little game where she imagined how other people might handle raising Abe. The women of book club—there had been a man in the group last year, but he was notably absent tonight, scared off, perhaps, by last spring’s startlingly passionate discussion of that menopause book—had such canned and untested beliefs about “parenting,” namely that any and all behavioral issues should yield to Respectful Discussion and/or Diminished Screen Time and/or Organic Diets.
Janine was a bragger, especially about her daughter Katie. Would she be putting a spin on whatever material Abe gave her?
He’s not quite Lizzie Borden yet, but the ER doctor said his blade skills were very advanced. And you should see his work with blasting agents!
Abe offered plenty of legitimate opportunities for bragging, Jen reminded herself. He was smart, he was creative, he had goals—currently to program an entire video game from scratch. He could be thoughtful, too. He’d reminded her about tonight’s meeting.
And he had never tortured their cat. At least so far as she knew.
“Someone’s communing with her Lolita Lemondrop,” Janine sang out, and Jen realized that all of those politely inquiring faces had turned toward her.
“Jen,” Janine said, “surprise us! Tell us your secret!”