Quentin looks at him. "The day after Father Szyszynski was murdered, you and Detective Chao came in to talk to me at the district attorney's office. Do you remember what you told me then about the defendant's state of mind?"
There is a long stalemate. Finally Ducharme turns away. "I said she knew exactly what she was doing, and that if it was my son, I'd have done the same thing."
"So . . . your opinion the day after the shooting was that Nina Frost was perfectly sane. And your opinion today is that she was crazy. Which one is it, Detective . . . and what on earth did she do between then and now to make you change your mind?" Quentin asks, and he sinks into his chair and smiles.
Fisher is playing the insider with the jury, but I can barely even follow his words. Watching Patrick on the stand has turned me inside out. "You know," Fisher begins, "I think Mr. Brown was trying to imply something about your relationship with Mrs. Frost that isn't accurate, and I'd like to have a chance to make clear to the jury what is true. You and Nina were close friends as children, isn't that right?"
"Yes."
"And like all children, you probably told a fib every now and then?"
"I suppose so," Patrick says.
"But that's a far cry from perjury, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"Like all children, you two hatched plots and schemes and maybe even carried through with them?"
"Sure."
Fisher spreads his hands. "But that's a far cry from planning a murder, right?"
"Absolutely."
"And as children, you two were particularly close. Even now, you're particularly close. But that's all you two are-friends. Correct?"
Patrick looks directly at me. "Of course," he says.
The state rests. Me, I'm too keyed up for that. I pace the confines of the small conference room where I have been left alone-Caleb is checking on Nathaniel, and Fisher has left to call his office. I am standing by the window-something Fisher's told me not to do, because photographers down there have some super telephoto lenses they're using-when the door cracks and the sound from the hallway oozes inside.
"How is he?" I ask without turning around, assuming Caleb has returned.
"Tired," Patrick answers, "but I figure I'll bounce back."
I whirl around and walk to him, but now there is a wall between us, one only he and I can see. Patrick's eyes, that beautiful blue, are swimming with shadows.
I state the obvious. "You lied about us. On the stand."
"Did I?" He comes closer, and it hurts. To have so little space between us, and to know I cannot erase it entirely.
We are only friends. It's all we're ever going to be. We can wonder, we can pretend otherwise for a single evening, but that is not the measure of a life together. There is no way to know what might have happened if I hadn't met Caleb; if Patrick hadn't gone overseas. But I've made a world with Caleb. I can't cut out that piece of myself, any more than I can carve away the part of my heart that belongs to Patrick.
I love them both; I always will. But this isn't about me.
"I didn't lie, Nina. I did the right thing." Patrick's hand comes up to my face, and I turn my cheek into his palm.
I will be leaving him. I will be leaving everyone.
"The right thing," I repeat, "is thinking before I act, so that I stop hurting the people I love."
"Your family," he murmurs.
I shake my head. "No," I say, my good-bye. "I meant you."
After court is dismissed, Quentin goes to a bar. But he doesn't particularly feel like drinking, so he gets into his car and drives aimlessly. He goes to a Wal-Mart and buys $104.35 of items he does not need; he stops at a McDonald's for dinner. It isn't until two hours later that he realizes he has somewhere he needs to be.
It is dark by the time he pulls up to Tanya's house, and he has trouble getting the passenger out of the car. It wasn't as difficult as you'd imagine to find a plastic skeleton; the Halloween merchandise at the costume store was discounted sixty percent, heaped into an untidy corner.
