The Best of Friends

Two weeks later—one day after Sawyer’s funeral—Kendra’s close friend Lindsey (the novel’s second narrator) fumes over the Schultzes’ recent decision to hire a lawyer. Lindsey’s son Jacob lies comatose in a hospital, a bullet in his brain, and Kendra’s son is dead; but Dani Schultzes’ son, Caleb, the third boy involved in the shooting, is “safely tucked in his bed […] unharmed” (5), which makes Lindsey wonder if the lawyer has been hired to protect him from possible culpability. The double shooting appears a freak accident, the result of drunk teenage boys “screwing around” with a gun. However, Lindsey finds it suspicious for Caleb’s parents to hire a lawyer.

Though two weeks have passed, Lindsey’s son, Jacob, remains unresponsive, hooked up to machines, monitors, and a breathing tube, his head and face swollen. Lindsey tells herself that he’ll eventually pull through, and she wants to be there for him when he opens his eyes, though her presence at the hospital takes her away from her two younger children: her 14-year-old son, Reese, and her daughter, Sutton, who’s in kindergarten.

Dani, the book’s third narrator, whose son, Caleb, emerged physically unscathed from the shooting, feels a “gnawing” annoyance that her husband, Bryan, has hired a lawyer without consulting her, since it has hurt her standing with Kendra and Lindsey. Feeling her stomach in “knots,” Dani also resents her two friends, particularly Lindsey, for being angry with her about the lawyer: Her friends know that Bryan always gets his way in their disagreements. Bryan’s lawyer, his friend Ted, has long struck Dani as arrogant and condescending, somewhat like Bryan himself, and she hates being around him. But, since the shooting happened in their house and with their handgun, Bryan insisted on hiring legal protection.

At the local police department, Dani and Bryan, with Ted in tow, arrive with the other two couples (Kendra and Paul, Lindsey and Andrew) to be questioned about the tragedy. It is still shrouded in mystery: The lone witness, Caleb, has not spoken a single word since the night of the shooting. After two weeks in a psychiatric ward, Caleb is back home with Dani and Bryan, but in a zombielike state, punctuated by frequent crying and screaming fits, particularly at night, when he has terrible nightmares and sometimes wets the bed.

The meeting with the other parents in the police station is fraught with tension, and Paul angrily protests Ted’s involvement. Lindsey’s husband, Andrew, a doctor, tries to make peace between the three couples, getting them to embrace. Dani recalls the blissful life the six of them once shared. She and her two best friends were “lucky” enough to live the life they’d always dreamed about as children, “living in the town [they] grew up in, marrying amazing men, and raising [their] children together” (14). Their group hug is interrupted by Detective Locke, a former high school classmate of theirs, who has come to conduct the questioning. A man of few words, he draws Kendra and Paul aside for the first interview.

As Detective Locke questions the grief-stricken Kendra about her son, she finds it hard to concentrate on what he’s saying, partly due to the side-effects of the anxiety medication she has been taking. When Locke asks her, with “hawklike precision,” if Sawyer ever mentioned being angry at Jacob, she denies it and says she noticed no recent changes in his behavior. But even as she answers, her “loss claws at [her] chest” (17), and a frantic volley of screams explode from her, as Paul tries in vain to comfort her.

Taking her seat in the interview room, Lindsey remembers Detective Locke as a quiet, clean-cut teenager who seemed destined for the military, where he served before becoming the lead detective of Norchester, the Southern California town where she and her friends live. Though all the forensic evidence suggests that Jacob shot himself in the head, Lindsey insists to Locke that if Jacob was depressed, she would have known due to her close and open relationship with him. She reminds the detective that the fingerprints of all three boys were found on the gun. Both Lindsey and Andrew, who has taken time off from his job as a rheumatologist to be with her, dismiss the idea that Jacob intended harm to himself or his friends. Perhaps they were all on LSD, didn’t know the gun was loaded, or were playing a “truth-or-dare” game that went horribly wrong.

Kendra, who now spends most of her time in her dead son’s bedroom, feels glad that Sawyer mostly ignored her requests that he clean the place and wash his clothes. As a result, the room still teems with his “personality,” and she takes comfort in “inhaling” him from his unlaundered shirts and bedclothes. She remembers the “unbelievable love” she felt upon first giving birth to him, as well as the dawning fear that the loss of him might annihilate her. Now, it feels as if all the fears, anxieties, and “terrorizing thoughts” she’s had over the years have come horribly true. As she sprawls on the floor, her younger son, Reese, calls to her through the door, and, after accidentally calling him “Sawyer,” Kendra wishes he would go away.

As Dani enters the hospital to visit Lindsey and Jacob, she notes the heavy police presence and thinks of how the shooting, so rare for their community, has ignited a media frenzy and given fuel to “both sides” of the gun-control debate. Wild rumors about the tragedy are rampant, and the media is “crucifying” her and Bryan for keeping a gun in the house. She recently took Luna’s phone away to keep her off Instagram. Luna was furious since she’s almost a year into college.

Jacob’s body has been moved from the ICU to Rehabilitation, since he’s now “medically stable,” though the machines and ventilator keep him alive. His bandages were removed, revealing his swollen face and a large “U” of stitches looping over his scalp. Though the doctors have detected no brain activity, Lindsey and Andrew have refused to take him off life support, angering his brother, Wyatt, who refuses to visit. Lindsey insists that all of Jacob’s visitors and nurses talk to him, believing that he’s aware of them on some level. 

Dani thinks of Jacob’s prowess at soccer before his injury: He and Sawyer were the top scorers in the tricounty area, while Caleb was “edged” into being a goalie. She worries that Caleb may die by suicide, which is common among teenagers whose friends have died by suicide—“suicide contagion.”

Dani remembers Lindsey’s insistence on having a third child (the “spoiled” five-year-old girl Sutton), which went against the trio’s “perfect” plan to have just two kids each, around the same age, so they could all pair off as friends. As they talk, Dani is troubled by Lindsey’s singsong, “positive” voice and her frozen “Stepford wife” smile. Her claims not to be angry at Dani for bringing a lawyer into the case, Dani thinks, are lies. When Lindsey alludes to Detective Locke’s request to interview the other siblings, Dani answers noncommittally, hiding the fact that Bryan has forbidden her from letting Caleb or Luna talk to the police without a lawyer present.

Lindsey feels relief at Dani’s departure, noting that Jacob’s appearance always unsettles visitors, adding to her stress. A third of Jacob’s skull was removed for his surgeries, making his swollen face even more “nightmarish.” Though she has been massaging his legs and diligently performing his “mobility exercises,” his legs are rapidly losing their tone, and bedsores cover his body. She and Andrew have agreed to a tracheostomy procedure to relocate his breathing tube from his mouth to an incision in his throat, which will make him more comfortable and less prone to infections. She assures him: “Tomorrow is the next step in your healing” (33).

Late that evening, as Dani returns home from the hospital visit, her husband Bryan “grabs” her and testily demands a full report. Smelling whiskey on his breath, Dani stalls, and manages to slip past his bulky, menacing form to the staircase so she can check up on Caleb. Her traumatized son has made little progress over the past three weeks, communicating only through small gestures and scribbled notes. Dani regrets taking him straight from the psychiatric ward back into the house where his two friends were shot, but Bryan insisted. When she leaves Caleb’s room, Bryan demands to know what she told Lindsey about whether a lawyer will be present for the questioning of their children. Hearing that she gave Lindsey no firm answer, he explodes at her.

Bryan reminds her that the gun used in the shooting was theirs, and Caleb’s fingerprints were all over it. Dani never wanted a gun in the house, but Bryan, who grew up on Chicago’s South Side, demanded they have one for “protection.” She thinks of how unusual it was for the boys to have a sleepover at her house; usually, they hung out at Kendra’s, since she and Paul were often away, giving them privacy. Hearing that Bryan wants his lawyer to “prepare” Caleb and Luna for their police interviews, she meekly protests that maybe they shouldn’t be legally coached but should just answer truthfully. Bryan scoffs, “We’re not going to let this incident ruin any of our lives” (39). Dani instantly caves, plastering a “good-wife smile” on her face. Angry at herself, she remembers why Luna, who has had “disdain” for her since age 14, couldn’t wait to leave for college.

Paul, who’s losing patience with Kendra’s grief, asks her bluntly to pay more attention to Reese, who needs to be fed. As Paul turns and leaves Kendra in Sawyer’s room—a place he avoids—Kendra scrolls through Sawyer’s cell phone, hoping to find a “clue” to the tragedy in his video messages. She doesn’t understand how the shooting could have been an “accident” if it went off twice, shooting two different people.

Detective Locke brings video equipment to Kendra’s house so he can interview Reese at home. However, Reese has little to offer, having always been excluded by Sawyer and his friends, though he’s only two years younger. Irritable and socially awkward, Reese doesn’t “play well” with others, and his enormous head and “emaciated” physique don’t help his popularity. Sawyer, Kendra thinks, “spoiled” her by being a “perfect baby,” and she still seems to harbor some resentment at Reese for his difficult birth, which required a Caesarean section. Suddenly, Reese, explaining a “fight” he had with Sawyer on the day of the shooting, says that Sawyer, on top of his constant drinking, used the ADHD medication Adderall recreationally. He adds casually that he himself is an Adderall dealer at school. Horrified, Kendra shakes him, demanding to know if he ever gave Adderall to Sawyer. Paul abruptly ends the police interview.

As Locke interviews Lindsey’s son, Wyatt, at the station, the 14-year-old says that the three friends—Sawyer, Jacob, and Caleb—fought often in the days leading up to the shooting. Wyatt, who also plays soccer, says that their fights created a lot of tension in the school team, and that it was over “girls.” He claims to know nothing more. Andrew blurts out that the boys were fighting in his presence, too, in the days before the shooting. Lindsey stares at him in shock, since he’d previously told Locke that he had not noticed anything. Embarrassed, Andrew says that he didn’t mean to lie, but he didn’t think it was relevant, since teens often fight.

As Dani leaves to meet Bryan at a restaurant, Caleb flies into one of his “inconsolable” crying fits, the terrible kind that Bryan has termed his “somewhere-else cry.” Luna tries to calm him by walking with him around the room. Dani feels grateful for Luna’s presence and remembers when Luna was her “best friend” before she began to shun her in her teens. Arriving at the trendy, noisy restaurant Bryan chose for their meeting with Ted, Dani sees that Bryan has been drinking steadily and will probably need her to drive him home. He can’t afford another arrest for driving under the influence. Bryan takes a subtle dig at her for being late, and she apologizes. Ted then mentions how much Luna has “grown up,” and smirks suggestively. Dani responds with a look of disgust. Bryan pinches her sharply under the table, not releasing her until she apologizes to Ted. Dani remembers the first time Bryan pinched her like that, back when Caleb was a baby, and how he scoffed at her when she complained: “Quit acting like I punched you in the face” (55). Since she failed to stand up for herself that first time, the abuse has never stopped.

After Reese’s interview with Detective Locke, Kendra airs her worries to Paul about Reese’s “drug-dealing,” which she fears may have had something to do with the shooting. Paul tells her that Reese probably didn’t give the boys any Adderall, but also suggests that it might be time for them to follow Bryan’s lead and get a lawyer. Detective Locke, he suggests, has been deceiving them about his knowledge of the case; for example, he knew about the boys’ fights at school before he questioned Reese, as if setting a trap for him. When Kendra calls Paul’s suspicions “paranoid,” he says, “Maybe we should be paranoid” (59).

Though Dani longs to leave the restaurant and return to Caleb, Bryan has kept her there for hours, putting his hand on her whenever she moves. Dani recalls Caleb’s interview with Locke, in which Caleb collapsed into “hysterics” after the detective introduced himself. According to the professionals, Caleb’s “acute stress disorder” will go away eventually, but it’s been almost three weeks. His eyes remain glassy and distant, and he spends much of his time curled in a fetal position. Obeying Bryan’s menacing grip on her leg under the table, Dani robotically tells Ted she believes the shooting “accident” was the result of “goofing around,” “just boys being boys” (62). Nevertheless, Ted wonders why Caleb was so “terrified” during his police interview. He lists the most damning aspects of the case: the security camera footage, which proves that the three boys were alone in the house during the shooting; the fingerprints of all three boys on the gun; and the fact that the gun belonged to Bryan and Dani. Incensed by Ted’s implication, Bryan leans forward and hisses, “There’s no way Caleb did this” (63).

At the hospital, Luna visits Jacob. Outside the door, Andrew bemoans to Lindsey his own stupidity in not telling Locke about the boys’ fighting right away. The weeks of stress have made Andrew panicky and given him psoriasis. When he grouses to Lindsey that they should have hired a lawyer right away, she feels an odd satisfaction: She has long chafed at Andrew’s mild, accommodating personality, which makes him a good doctor but a frustrating partner. Lindsey, a little jealous that Andrew knew more about Jacob’s emotional life than she did, asks him how he could tell that the boys were fighting. He says that about a month earlier, Jacob, “livid” over a text from Sawyer, cursed and angrily broke his phone. Andrew did not press him. Then, a week later, when Andrew drove the three boys home after soccer practice, they were unusually quiet and tense.