Police Chief Edward Kapenash said the cause of the accident was excessive speed. “I don’t have to tell you how this kind of accident stuns and saddens a community. Here at the NPD, our thoughts and prayers are with the Alistair family.”
The Chief said that no mechanical problems had been found with the Jeep. He said the four youths were driving home from an informal graduation party on Steps Beach and that the exact reason for Miss Alistair’s excessive speed was still under investigation. The Chief said that both front airbags deployed but that Miss Alistair, who was not wearing her seat belt, died of a broken neck. Hobson Alistair was also unbelted, the Chief said.
A spokesperson at Mass General said that Hobson Alistair was in intensive care and that there had been no change in his condition since Sunday morning.
Jordan read the article, reread it, and read it again. It was spare and factual; Lorna had done as he’d asked. The quote from the Chief was good. There was no mention of alcohol; that was a gift from the Chief, Jordan supposed. No mention of a tox report, pending or otherwise.
Okay, he would run it.
It was just as Marnie and Jojo were pulling together the final layout that Jordan received a call from Al Castle.
Al said, “Zoe asked me to give you a message.”
Jordan’s heart leapt. This was all he’d been waiting for: a message from Zoe.
Jordan said, “What?”
“She doesn’t want anything in the paper,” Al said. “Not one word.”
“Excuse me?”
“She doesn’t want a single thing about this in the paper. That’s what she said: ‘Not one word.’ ”
“Not one word.”
“That’s what she said.”
“I can’t not say anything, Al.”
“You own the paper,” Al said. “You don’t have to answer to anyone.”
“So what are you suggesting?” Jordan asked. “You think I should drop the story? Pretend it didn’t happen? Ignore it?”
“That’s what Zoe told me to tell you: ‘Not one word.’ ”
“But the piece I’m planning to run is benign. Just the facts about the accident. It barely says anything.”
“Jordan,” Al Castle said. Here it came: the elder-statesman speech. Al had just six years on Jordan, but he might as well have had sixty. He occasionally used a tone of voice that was meant to remind Jordan that he had been a selectman for twelve years and chairman for the last nine of those, which somehow made him a repository of wisdom. “Zoe is barely hanging on to her sanity. She has only said about two sentences to me in the four days that I’ve been here, and she’s asked for nothing but this. She doesn’t want you to report on the accident at all. Now…” Al paused. “Zoe is your friend too, and so all I can do is ask you to please heed her request. She’s lost her daughter, Jordan.”
“I’m aware of that, Al.” Jordan didn’t like to get shitty with Al, it had only ever happened once or twice that he remembered, but now he began to wonder whether this gag order had actually come from Zoe or if it was coming from Al himself. Al wouldn’t want the accident written up in the paper because his daughter had been in the car. His daughter had been the one with the bottle of Jim Beam. “I can’t not print anything,” he said.
“Sure you can,” Al said. “It’s your paper.” And with that he hung up.
Half an hour until deadline, and Marnie and Jojo kept knocking to see if Jordan had made a decision yet about the front page. He’d told them he was on the fence about the layout. He hadn’t said anything about the content, or about killing the piece altogether.
He didn’t know what to do. Believe Al Castle? Al Castle wouldn’t have lied about Zoe’s words or made them up. He could be a pompous ass at times, but he didn’t lie. So Zoe really must have asked him to tell Jordan not to print a word. Not one word. She was the mother of the victims. She was his lover. He had to separate the two. If she were any other woman, would he concede?
He was a newspaperman like his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. Zoe was basically asking him to wage war on his genetic makeup. She was asking him to change the code in his chromosomes.
He deleted the file. He called Lorna in and told her he was killing the story. She nodded calmly. Jordan opened his mouth to explain, but Lorna pivoted and left his office. He didn’t know if she was angry or if she was merely saving him the indignity of trying to explain. He then told Marnie and Jojo he was killing the lead story and replacing it with a general graduation piece. They both stared at him baldly for a moment, and then Marnie excused herself, which meant she was going out back to have a cigarette. Maybe all three of them would quit. Marnie and Jojo didn’t have children, but Lorna had two boys-did it matter either way? Jordan decided not to issue an explanation. He owned the paper, as Al had pointed out; he made the decisions, and this was his decision.
Back in his office with the door closed, he quieted his revolting instincts by saying to himself, This is the one thing I can do for her now.
Fifteen days after the accident, a week after Hobby regained consciousness, Zoe held a funeral service for Penny. Zoe wasn’t a religious person, she didn’t belong to any church, but she had asked Al Castle to arrange for the service to be held at St. Mary’s. She asked Jake to be a pallbearer, along with Patrick Loom, Colin Farrow, Anders Peashway, and some of Hobby’s other teammates. Eight strapping, handsome, and very young men carried Penny’s coffin out of the hearse and lifted it onto the carriage that rolled down the aisle. Hobby attended the funeral on a hospital gurney that orderlies placed between the front pew and the altar. Hobby was half boy, half mummy, but he had his mind back, and he cried openly in a ruined voice. Jordan had heard a rumor that Hobby had asked to speak but Zoe had said no. She couldn’t handle it. Jake had also asked to speak, as had Annabel Wright and Mrs. Yurick the music teacher, but Zoe had said no to them all. The priest said a few words about Christ and forgiveness and the glory of the hereafter, but Jordan-who was sitting with Ava, halfway back on the left-felt that it was all wrong. It was too stiff, too formal, too religious and scripted. It had nothing to do with Penny. Couldn’t Zoe see that? Zoe was sitting in the front pew alone, wearing a black suit that Jordan had never seen before, a suit befitting a corporate boardroom, and that was wrong too, he felt. It was a disguise; this funeral was a masquerade. Zoe was hiding. Where was she, really? Because that woman up there wasn’t anyone he recognized.
Well, yes, of course, he thought. Losing a child changed a person. Look at what it had done to Ava.
The church was packed. There was an apron of mourners gathered around the outside of the building, spilling across the street and down the block.
Why not let Jake speak? He had spent days writing something. Jordan asked to read it, but Jake wanted him to wait and hear it at the service along with everyone else. Then when Zoe said no, Jake was crushed. Jordan had almost intervened on his son’s behalf and spoken to Zoe directly for the first time since the accident-but then he thought, She’s punishing Jake because he survived. But why not let Hobby speak? Jordan realized that if this service contained too much of Penny, Zoe wouldn’t be able to bear it.