The Best of Friends

Andrew offers to explain his secret “friendship” to Lindsey. Two years ago, he says, he joined an online community for married people who are seeking “companionship.” He emphasizes that it’s not a dating site, and his relationship with the other woman was never physical. He didn’t tell Lindsey about it, he says, because he didn’t want to hurt her: He just wanted a space where he could be himself again, away from his friends and family. He and this woman have not shared their names or any personal details; he knows her only as MayDay39, and his codename is L, short for his profile name, LonelyInLondon. Lindsey guesses that this alludes to a vacation they took in London two years before, which was “magical” for her but apparently isolating for Andrew. He swears that their messages were not sexual, but as he refuses to give her his login information, she suspects that he has fallen in love with this woman.

With Bryan sprawled in front of the television in his bedroom, Dani crawls into bed with Caleb to soothe his troubled sleep, which is often broken by terrible nightmares. Gently, she massages his starved frame and thinks of how cruel it was to force him to live in this house again after the horrific shooting. Luna, she reflects, probably thought the same; the only reason she came back this month was so she could “buffer” Jacob against the terrible memories. As Dani looks back on her years of weakness and complicity, never once challenging Bryan, she slowly comes to a decision. Waking Jacob, she tells him to get up, then whispers to him what his father did to Luna. He stares at her in horror, and she tells him that they have to leave. Quickly, he dresses himself, and they make quietly for the door. Making up her plans as she goes, Dani decides to take him to her mother’s house.

Fleeing the house after Andrew’s confession about his “other woman,” Lindsey visits Jacob in the hospital and tells the whole story to his limp body. Feeling “destroyed,” she shares her caustic opinion that Andrew had planned to leave her but is too sensitive and “good” to admit it. Only Jacob’s shooting, she says, has made him stay, out of pity and guilt: “He’s so good even when he’s bad. It makes me hate him more” (152). She strains her ears for a sign that Jacob understands her on some level but hears only his respirator and machines. Weeping with frustration, she hits him three times, slapping his legs and backhanding him hard on the cheek. His “lifeless expression” does not change. The horror of what she has done washes over her, and she collapses into delirious sobs.

Kendra shows Lindsey the cellphone video of the shirtless Jacob taken by Sawyer, insisting to her that the two of them were in a “relationship.” Lindsey, however, shrugs, suggesting that maybe they were making it for a girl. Flabbergasted, Kendra wonders if Lindsey may be “homophobic.” But Lindsey suggests that, even if they were “hooking up,” it has no relevance to the shooting: “Everyone hooks up with everyone else now […] It’s a completely different world” (155). Stunned by her friend’s cool acceptance of casual sex between their sons, Kendra wonders if her house was the scene of sexual “free-for-alls,” with both boys and girls. She remembers how she used to worry about Sawyer getting a girl pregnant, which could ruin his future: Unlike Jacob, he wasn’t a good student, which is why she and Paul steered him toward sports and away from girls. This all seems bitterly ironic now.

Lindsey’s apparent indifference to all of this grates on her, and finally Kendra asks her why she’s acting like a “robot.” With this, Lindsey’s calm façade finally breaks down, and she bursts into tears. Kendra rushes to her side, hugging her and telling her that she’s her “best friend”—even, she thinks, “if Jacob killed Sawyer, because he’s stuck in purgatory, which seems like a fitting punishment for gutting me and destroying my family” (157).

The morning after Dani’s late-night trip with Caleb to her childhood home, she sits in the kitchen with her mother, surrounded by warm memories of her early years and of her father, who died of cancer 20 years ago. Her gentle upbringing by loving parents could not be more different from the situation she’s just escaped from; but her mother, who has not yet been told the details, assumes she’s just going through a “rough patch” that will soon be straightened out. In a nervous rush, Dani tells her mother the full story: how Bryan struck Luna, how he’s been abusive for years, and how sorry she is for always pretending that everything was fine. Lastly, she asks her mother to have no contact with Bryan. Her mother grasps her hand to calm her, telling her to take all the time she needs. Dani says all she cares about right now is Caleb feeling safe.

Running late after her meeting with Kendra, Lindsey rushes to the conference room to meet with Jacob’s doctors. She still feels bewildered by her husband’s emotional “affair” and doesn’t quite trust his word that it wasn’t sexual, since she still hasn’t seen his texts to “May.” When she enters, Andrew is already there, and she ignores him. Dr. Merck, Jacob’s surgeon, and Dr. Levlon, the anesthesiologist, greet her, and Merck jumps right in, suggesting they take Jacob off life support. The doctors have been recommending this ever since Jacob failed the “coma recovery scale” three days after his injury, and Lindsey and Andrew have steadily refused, always hoping for a turnaround. However, things have changed: Since Jacob has been declared braindead, the insurance company is exercising its right to stop paying to keep his body alive. The doctors stress, apologetically, that there’s nothing they can do. Andrew proposes that he and Lindsey find a way to pay the medical expenses out of pocket, but Diana, the human resources specialist, says the cost would be enormous: over $11,000 a day. Andrew still refuses, saying the hospital can’t “steamroll” them into this cruel decision. Diana agrees that they have every right to mount a legal challenge, but it would only gain Jacob a month of “life” at most while draining them of all their money. She asks if this is fair to their other children.

Feeling her whole life is “unraveling,” Lindsey tells Andrew that maybe the doctors have a point. Andrew reacts with horror and accuses her of letting her “emotional state” sway her. The hospital people, uncomfortable with this talk, leave them alone in the room to discuss it. For half an hour, they cling to each other and cry. They think of Wyatt and Sutton, who will need money for school and college. For four hours, they sit together in an agony of indecision. Finally, as if resigned, Andrew chokes out an apology to Lindsey, adding, “I always knew I was going to be punished for it” (168), a reference, Lindsey thinks, to his “affair.” Finally, the doctors return, saying they can’t wait any longer and that it’s time to talk about “next steps.”

Dani and Caleb have been sheltering at her mother’s house for a full day, and she still has not heard back from Luna. Bryan has not tried to contact them either, which is highly unusual for him. While Dani, her mother, and Caleb are watching television together, Caleb suddenly “giggles” at a joking remark by Dani, shocking the two women: It’s the most “normal” sound he’s made in over three weeks. Dani is euphoric, and attributes it to his removal from the house where his friend died. Excitedly, she calls Kendra to share the good news, but before she can say a word, Kendra tells her that Lindsey and Andrew have decided to let Jacob pass away. Dani is stunned by this sudden change of plans; at the same time, she tries to stifle her “childish” jealousy that Lindsey shared this with Kendra and not with herself. She tells Kendra that they should do whatever they can to comfort Lindsey, which includes being with her when her son is taken off life support. Kendra, however, doesn’t think she can do this. Dani tells her not to worry, that Lindsey will understand.

Kendra has been off Xanax for two days, and is avoiding anything stimulating (music, books, pictures, social media) from fear of having another panic attack. Paul agrees with her about the “sexual tension” in Sawyer’s phone video of Jacob and has made a discovery of his own. Searching through social media video taken at the Delta Tau house prior to the night of the shooting, Paul found one of Sawyer, shirtless, “grinding” against a young woman at a drunken party. Jacob is in the background, face twisted with “anger and rage,” giving Sawyer a “murderous” look.

Five hours after Jacob has been taken off life support, he continues breathing on his own. Lindsey and Andrew keep vigil with him—holding him, reading to him, singing, and weeping. The two of them wait grimly for his final breath, and as the hours pass, Lindsey listens “to the sounds of him breathing on his own with amazement like [she] did when he was a newborn” (177). At the eight-hour mark, the nurse tells them that this is unusual, since most children take about six hours to pass after life support is withdrawn. But he says that some children “hold on,” and that it sometimes helps if their loved ones give them “permission” to go. Inwardly, Lindsey knows that she has been doing the very opposite, mentally pleading with Jacob not to leave her.

Kendra and Paul manage to identify the young woman grinding against Sawyer in the party video, but she’s a student visiting from Berkeley: probably just a “random chick,” Paul says, rather than a friend of Sawyer. While watching the video, they’re transfixed by the look of rage on Jacob’s face, which seems wildly out of character for him. Paul suggests passing the video on to Detective Locke, but Kendra hesitates; she distrusts Locke because he has been keeping information from them. But Paul points out that Locke can investigate this new lead much more easily than they can. Kendra receives a text from Lindsey that Jacob is still breathing on his own, which looks more and more like a “miracle.”

Dani shows her support for Lindsey by waiting at the hospital for Jacob to pass, but after 10 hours, she feels she can’t stay much longer. Her mother has been texting her constantly about Bryan, and Dani worries that if she doesn’t get home soon, her mother may invite Bryan over and try to play “matchmaker,” as she’s done in the past. Her mother always hoped for more children than just Dani and welcomed Bryan into the family as a surrogate son. Bryan is sending her mother “sweet,” manipulative texts, full of “concern” about Dani, and her mother is showing signs of being won over by him.

When Dani finally leaves the hospital, Bryan waylays her in the parking lot and tries to maneuver her into his car so he can drive her “home.” Refusing to let him touch her, Dani orders him out of her way so she can drive back to her mother’s. But Bryan laughs in her face, accusing her of having had a “breakdown” and abducting Caleb. Only after Dani threatens to call 911 does he finally let her go, after digging his fingers into her arm and shoving her. Trembling, Dani drives back to her mother’s, praying that Bryan doesn’t follow.

More than 12 hours after being taken off life support, Jacob continues to breathe on his own, and a flustered Dr. Merck says he’ll order more tests if Jacob makes it through the night. He reiterates that there’s almost no chance that Jacob has any brain activity. However, he adds that if Jacob continues to live, he could begin to suffer muscle cramps due to dehydration, which alarms Lindsey, who thought that his braindead state precluded any pain. Realizing that doctors don’t have all the answers after all, she feels her world “spinning.” Dr. Merck tells her and Andrew that their son’s continued survival was most “unexpected,” but he doesn’t know what it means or what will happen next.

Back at her mother’s house, Dani finally tells her the truth about Bryan and his long history of threats and abuse, and her mother asks her skeptically why she pretended for so many years that things were fine between them. Dani says that she felt too ashamed to tell people the truth, and she was afraid she wouldn’t be believed. She hides the more embarrassing reason: that she deeply loved Bryan, and still does, in a way.

All through high school, she had a huge crush on Paul. To this day, one of her biggest regrets is giving Kendra permission to date Paul, as she never suspected it would lead to a serious romance, let alone marriage. Then, in college, Dani met Bryan, who showered her with attention and took her to expensive places. She “soaked it up like a water-starved plant” (192).

Tremblingly, she tells her mother all the horrible things Bryan has done over the years: the vicious name-calling, the threats, the holes he punched in the walls during his drunken rages. Once, when Dani caught him in a lie, he turned it around on her, saying he’d never be able to “trust” her again until she told him how she found out. Dani’s mother, struggling to reconcile this new, sinister image of Bryan with the sweet-talking gentleman she knew for so many years, seems doubtful, even after hearing about him hitting Luna. Dani changes the subject to Caleb, who has been bonding with his grandmother over card games. Dani reflects that the fractious home she made with Bryan was quite different from the warm, fun-loving one she grew up in. It’s as if “Bryan’s darkness grew larger until it eventually overtook the light” (194). Maybe, she thinks, Sawyer died in their house because death was already in the air.

Pacing the hospital halls while Jacob gets a CT scan, Lindsey broods over her husband’s “affair,” feeling herself close to panic. The test results, when they come, offer no relief: Mr. Merck tells her Jacob “is brain dead and the likelihood of any recovery is nil” (196). Uncertain what the future holds, Lindsey and Andrew follow Merck’s suggestion to okay pain medication for Jacob for when his muscles cramp. Seized by a sudden thought, Lindsey asks the orderlies if she can take her son outside. Perhaps, she thinks, if Jacob gets out of this drab place and into fresh air and sunlight, he’ll blossom: It could be that his soul is floating outside, waiting for him.

When Detective Locke visits the Mitchells to discuss the case, Paul invites him to stay for lunch, though Kendra still distrusts him. Smiling to herself, she serves him takeout from a fancy restaurant, presenting it as her own cooking. Meanwhile, Locke tells them the results of the toxicology tests. At the time of the shooting, he says, all three boys were “wasted” from a combination of alcohol, marijuana, and Adderall. Locke says that Adderall abuse is rampant at the boys’ private school, which reminds Kendra of her guilty secret: When Reese was diagnosed with ADHD over a year earlier, his doctor prescribed him Adderall, and Kendra began sneaking the drug into Reese’s daily vitamins. Paul has always been adamantly opposed to psychotropic drugs of any sort. She felt that Reese, who struggles at school, needed it to stay competitive, and it seems to have improved his grades. Now she worries that Reese may be taking illicit Adderall on top of the dose that she gives him every day.

Kendra shows Locke the “sexy” video she found on Sawyer’s phone, but Locke tells her he’s seen it already and doubts its importance: “Kids are much more fluid with their sexual expression and identity these days” (203), he says. The video of Jacob glaring angrily at the party, however, troubles him, since it seems to gel with the boys’ recent arguments. The problem, he says, is that it’s unclear from the video if Jacob is actually staring at Sawyer or someone else.

Lindsey and Andrew wheel Jacob’s hospital bed outside and tilt it to raise his head toward the sky. Moving as one, they catch his limp body when it starts to fall forward, and Andrew calls her “Linds” for the first time in years. Tearing up, Lindsey asks him if they can take Jacob home, rather than return him to the oppressive gloom of the hospital. To her surprise and delight, he agrees, saying he doesn’t want Jacob to die in there. He adds that maybe Jacob doesn’t want to either, which may be what he’s trying to tell them. The two of them glow with love and excitement at this bold decision: Neither of them “has done a single impulsive thing in their lives” (206). Lindsey’s “heart swells,” but sinks again at the thought that Andrew’s heart may now belong to another woman.