Page 24 of Stand

“Ladies and gentlemen, if you could take your seats,” said the school principal at the microphone.Thank God.

“Well, you just have to give me your number so we can catch up while you’re here! High school was so much fun with you, Sam!” Janine twisted her hand into Sam’s and out again, then sailed back to her husband and her seat before Sam could remind her that she was leaving town in a few hours.

Ty snorted and sat down.

Sam had to say something. “Look, I’m not like her.”

Those flint eyes looked up at her. He said nothing, which was worse.

“I mean, yes.” She sat down with a thump next to him. “I know. I know what I was like. I know that’s not… not something you get a pass on. I’ve been meaning to say that I—”

But she broke off, partly because the teachers were filing onto the stage and the music had started up again and partly because she knew that an apology at this point was a joke. Despite the mild air, her cheeks burned.

The long-forgotten phrases came back to her as she focused on the ceremony. Alyssa walked up to the stage while the principal told the assembled crowd that she’d won prizes in social studies and math this year. Sam wanted to say something to Ty, to congratulate him, but he’d become so unapproachable since Janine’s arrival, he might as well have been on the other side of the field. Matt’s crowd at the back whooped and hollered though, and Sam’s heart warmed to see the grateful and happy smile Alyssa directed toward him. The memory of Megan’s day receded. This was a good day, and Sam had been permitted to take part in it. Alyssa wasn’t the only grateful one.

But then Alyssa’s smile disappeared, and she stopped on the top step leading down. Another voice, clear over the politely quiet parents, said, “Hey! Alyssa-Belle! I’m here, honey! Look, look, it’s me, it’s Mom!”

Ty was on his feet with the first syllable. Everyone in the vicinity looked to the back of the crowd and then at him. Ty’s mother breathed, “Ohno,” and craned her neck to look behind her.

The principal gamely carried on calling out names while Ty walked with a bent back to the end of his row and up the aisle. Alyssa, Sam saw, looked about to break. Her classmates moved aside so that instead of taking her place in the front with them, she became hidden in the sea of caps and gowns.

Sam sat there for a moment longer, but she couldn’t stand it; she had to help him. His mother wasn’t moving, and everyone else was just observing, commenting. The Cavanaughs were a cautionary tale in this town, she could see. No one actually stepped forward.

She ducked down and made her own way out of the row. “Where are you going?” Mrs. Cavanaugh hissed, but Sam didn’t bother telling her. Before she’d even made it to the aisle, she heard a woman’s strident voice cutting through the list of names. The principal faltered but again continued on.

“Don’t tell me!” she was saying. “Don’t you say a fucking word! She’s my daughter!” Now she threw her hands out to the watching, silent crowd. “Do you believe this? Put a restraining order on me! Doesn’t even invite me to my own daughter’s graduation! Youwanther to hate me! You’ve been doing this for years! Pushing them from me!”

Sam heard Ty’s quiet murmur, and just as she got to the back of the crowd, a loudsmackechoed over the field.

The principal stopped altogether. Everyone was looking to the back now. Sam could see Matt’s blond head over all the rest and pushed her way through to him. “No, Matt,” she said, not even sure why. She didn’t want him to see this.

“You’ve always done this!” came the voice again, then a soft thump and a gasp from the onlookers.

“Julia, for God’s sake,” Ty said, and now she could see them. Julia had backed him up against one of the folding chairs in the back row, which had pushed away, effectively trapping him in a U-shape of chair legs and people trying to get out of the way. Julia was hitting any part of him she could reach, screeching now about how no goddamn restraining order was going to stop her from seeing her kids. Ty put his hands up as far as his chest but for some reason was not protecting his face. The small abrasion under his eye was bleeding.

Sam took half a second to listen to the crowd around them. Some were telling Julia to stop, but some were grinning at the show. Phone screens were glinting in the late sunlight. Sam’s anger filled her up.Those assholes should be doing something.

Julia slapped Ty’s head again; he ducked, but she still landed a good whack on his ear. His hair was disheveled. Sam had an inexplicable urge to smooth it down for him, to get him back to that Ralph Lauren guy from the beginning of the evening, who had just wanted to enjoy being proud of his daughter like any other dad.

Three things happened at once. Julia threw a punch at Ty’s head, a cop arrived, and Matt threw himself in front of his father and took the punch on the cheekbone. There was a sickening crunch, and he fell backward into the mess of chairs and people.

Julia screamed, an animal sound of outrage, not grief. Ty yelled Matt’s name and dropped to the ground to disentangle him from the chairs. Sam found herself in the middle of the circle, behind Julia, her arms around the woman’s biceps, pulling her arms back and linking her own hands together so Julia couldn’t hit anyone else.

Julia bucked, bending her knees and jumping up again to try to dislodge her, and as Sam’s chin cracked against Julia’s shoulder for the third time, she wondered what the hell had happened to her life. She’d just come to town for a wedding.

Someone was trying to pull her away, but she hung on tight. Only when the authoritative voice said, “Ma’am, if you don’t let her go, I’m going to have to arrest you too,” did she realize it was the cop and released her hands. Her arms were shaking, her chin throbbing. She braced herself, expecting Julia to go for her now that she was free, but the cop had the woman in cuffs before Sam had even stepped away. Julia instead was using her energy to scream at Ty, “Look what you made me do! I’m going to fuckingkillyou!”

Another cop came, parting the crowd, and the two of them took Julia away between them, her screaming curses all the way. Matt was sitting up now, leaning heavily against his father, hiding his face with one long-fingered hand—probably so the crowd wouldn’t see that he was crying. Just like his father had done the other day.

Her heart suddenly felt too big for her chest.

An EMT crew arrived with a stretcher, and although Matt shook his head, Ty spoke quietly to him, and he finally agreed to get on it. Ty began to walk away with him, then looked over the crowd to the stage, where everything had stopped. The principal was still at the microphone, the students still waiting at the foot of the steps to cross the stage. From this distance, it was impossible to see Alyssa.

Sam moved up behind Ty. “I’ll find her. I’ll bring her,” she said.

Ty just said, “Right. Home. Not the hospital.” He threw her his car keys and hurried after the stretcher.

Chapter 7

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