His father drives more slowly than usual, and Ethan knows he's gathering courage to strike up a conversation.
Marc opens his mouth about ten minutes in. Ethan cuts him off. “I can't believe you and mom led me to a slaughterhouse. Did you come up with that whole plan on purpose to humiliate me? It's like you set me up to go down in flames on live TV like that. Don't look at me like you're fucking disappointed. It's your own fault I was arrested.”
“Keep in mind you're talking to the man who just posted your bail.”
“Ooh, I'm scared.” Ethan looks out the window at the flatness and pouts at the injustice of it all. His best friend thinks he is a horrible person; his own parents have turned against him; being forced to interact with idiot police officers all day—calling those assholes 'sir' and acting polite—used up all his self control. His father should be grateful Ethan is even being civil.
“You're perfectly capable of humiliating yourself.”
“So it was on purpose? Fucked up way to teach a lesson.”
“If course it wasn't on purpose.” They drive down Interstate 52 toward Pearville, one of those unremarkable stretches of highway that snake through the Midwest, offering corn and soybean fields as scenery, the flat horizon broken only by billboards invoking Jesus and sentient fetuses and fireworks for sale. The Harrington's black sedan is surrounded by 18-wheelers on all sides. “I need you to tell me the truth about something.”
“I always tell the truth.”
“Not the truth you've convinced yourself of but the actual truth.” Given some signal, the big rigs change lanes all at once in a movement that, despite their size, can best be described as graceful, until the trucks stretch across the width of the highway in one straight line. “Was the Brady girl conscious? In the swimming pool.”
Smooth as synchronized swimmers, the trucks reconfigure again. Ethan watches them migrate to the right lane, bumper to bumper. “Of course.”
“I've seen the video.”
“She was awake the entire time. She was saying yes yes yes, and telling me to keep going, and saying it felt good.”
“Again, I've seen the video.”
“Okay. Well then you know that you can't see her face. And her face was awake and making a shape like this.” Ethan forms an exaggerated 'O' with his lips. He feels like a fish. It's so ridiculous he starts to laugh.
Marc doesn't join in. “I need you to say what you just said to me to Sharon Jacobson.”
“Who the fuck's that?”
“She's our new attorney.”
“No more Wilson?”
The conversation over, Marc applies pressure to the gas and the sedan accelerates silently and effortlessly. Ethan is already bored. He wonders how truck drivers do it, forced to stare at blacktop day after day, crossing and recrossing flatlands like this one, spending miles and miles with yourself and maybe the radio, with only the sky to talk to.