The Lesson of Her Death

wizard who had been watching out for her for years. He was all-knowing and he was kind, and—what with all the money—he was pretty darn rich too, it seemed.
    Sarah was nobody’s fool. She was going to do exactly what the wizard suggested. She also noted to her vast joy that although she would probably take this advice and go to Chicago, he had given her enough money to surely take her halfway around the world.
    The front door slammed and the feet were up the six stairs in three fast
thuds
before Diane could get to the front hall.
    She dried her hands as she continued to the stairs, pausing beside the coat rack and a wooden plaque of a goose wearing a blue bonnet and scarf. She straightened it absently and called, “Honey! Sarrie?”
    There was no answer.
    A moment later: “Honey, come on down here.”
    A weak voice said, “I’m taking a bath, Mommy. I’ll be down before supper.”
    “Honey, Mrs. Beiderson called.”
    Silence.
    “Sarah—”
    “I want to take my
bath
, Mommy. Can we talk about it, you know, later? Like,
please?”
    “Come on out. She told me what happened at school.”
    They continued this tug-of-war for a few minutes, Diane slowly edging up the stairs toward the girl’s room. There was no lock on the door but Diane was reluctant to invade her children’s territory. “Come on, honey. You can help me make dinner.”
    “I don’t
want
to!” Sarah answered shrilly.
    In these words Diane heard reason start to shatter. This was the time to back down.
No hysteria, please. Not that
. Sarah’s attacks nailed her mother with tearful pity. And they also made her seethe; unable to distinguish between the moments Sarah was truly panicked and the times she was faking, Diane invariably backed down.
    Coward
…
    The phone began ringing.
    She glanced at it. “All right, Sarah, we’ll talk later.”
    As she walked into the kitchen Diane noticed that it was five P.M. She knew who the caller would be.
    She was married to him.
    Bill would ask about the kids and how Diane’s day had gone and then he’d get suddenly sheepish and tell her he had to work late. Again. Every other day for the past month he skidded home just as supper was landing on the table and on more than a few occasions he had missed the evening meal altogether.
    And worse news: he now had a murder case.
    She remembered seeing the thick black type of the headline in the
Register
and reading the scant words about that poor dead student and feeling a wave of utter regret—for herself as well as for the poor parents of the murdered girl. She knew she was going to see even less of Bill until the man was caught.
    She picked up the beige phone.
    It was not her husband.
    She heard odd sounds in the background, like eerie electronic rock music, the sort she chided Jamie for listening to. She assumed it was one of his friends.
    “Corde residence,” she said, wholly polite.
    “This’s Mrs. Corde?” The voice was tenor-pitched but it seemed smoother than an adolescent’s, more confident. She knew all of Jamie’s friends and this didn’t sound like any of them.
    “Yes, this is she. Who is this? Say, could you please turn that music down?”
    The volume of the music diminished. “You’re Jamie’s mother?”
    “You want to speak to Jamie?”
    “I’m calling from New Lebanon High? I’m the senior advisor of the freshman section of the yearbook and—this is really a hassle—but we lost a bunch of the bio sheets of some of the students, you know. We’re way past the deadline and I’m calling people and filling in the forms over the phone.”
    “Well, Jamie won’t be home for another couple hours.”
    “Could you just give me some information about him?”
    “Well, I don’t know.…” Diane said. She knew the risks mothers ran making decisions for their teenage boys.
    “Today’s the last day we can get anything typeset.”
    “What do you want to know?”
    “Who’s his homeroom teacher?”
    This seemed harmless enough. She said, “That’d be Mr. Jessup.”
    “And is he on any teams?” the advisor asked.
    “Wrestling. He also does gymnastics but he doesn’t compete. And he’s going to do the triathlon next year.”
    “Triathlon. So he’s a bicyclist?”
    “You can’t hardly keep him off it. He’d ride it to the dinner table if we let him.”
    The boy laughed overloud at what he must havethought was a stupid joke. He then asked, “What kind of bike does he have?”
    “It’s Italian. A fifteen-speed. I