Free The Price of Silence by Camilla Trinchieri Page A

months and as I sat below him, I felt small, defenseless and, for a lovely, reassuring instant, I felt that my son was the one trying to protect me.
    “Come to the basement with me, Mom. I want to show you something.” Suddenly he looked nervous, which frightened me.
    “What is it, Josh?” He was already halfway across the room.“What do you want to show me?”
    “I’m going to play some music for Mom,” he shouted to Tom as he passed the study.
    Tom was blowing dust from two tomes in his hands, face flushed from the effort. “Don’t be too long. I could use some help from both of you.”
    “Use the vacuum cleaner,Tom,” I said, hurrying after a loping Josh.
    In the basement, he waited for me to step inside the room, then locked the door behind me. I steeled myself for what might come. He stood rigid in front of me.“What is it, Josh?”
    “An-ling, she had a laptop.”
    “Yes, I know. An old beat-up one she bought from a classmate at the Art Students League.Why?” I knew the reason for his statement, but wanted him to tell me, to cross the divide between us.
    “Did the police take it?”
    “It’s in the East River.”
    Josh’s body sagged in what I could only suppose was relief.
    “Why is the laptop important, Josh?”
    He reached into a carrying case for one of his drums and handed me a sealed manila envelope.
    “What’s this?”
    His eyes skirted away from me. “I’m sorry, Mom.”
    My breath and my heartbeat slowed, as if my body needed to conserve energy for what was to come. Faced with what could be another horrible surprise, another betrayal, I didn’t want to know anything.And yet I had to ask,“What’s in the envelope, Josh?”
    “An-ling, she sent you e-mails.”
    I pushed the envelope back against his chest.“Not funny, Josh.”
    “She did! Look for yourself. She sent you e-mails with a company called BetterLateThanNever. They store your e-mails in their server and send them when you want.”
    I opened the envelope. Inside were eight,maybe ten e-mails from [email protected]. I let out a loud breath. Whatever blow I had expected, it wasn’t this. I pushed aside Josh’s music sheets and perched on a corner of the trunk next to his drum kit.What shattering words had she written? How much more guilt could I carry?
    “If the e-mails were sent to me, how did you get hold of these? How did you know about them in the first place?”
    He cringed.
    “You were curious,” I said.“You figured out my password and went on a scouting mission.What were you hoping to find, Josh? Tell me. I’m not angry. Really I’m not.”
    He met my gaze, his expression again unreadable.
    “You don’t get me, do you, Mom?”
    “I try. I’m sorry.”Now his anger was clearly etched on his face, and it brought out my own, if only because he was right.“Correct me.Tell me how you got these e-mails.”
    “You and Dad both, what the fuck was the idea of keeping the fact that I had a sister secret?” By then her death had been splattered all over the papers. “What the fuck, huh?”
    “Please don’t use that kind of lan—”
    “Why didn’t you tell me? It’s like—”
    “You’re right, Josh. It was a terrible mistake.Your Dad and I thought—”
    “It’s like you and Dad never wanted me to get close.”His face was red,the muscles of his neck taut.“Like what happens to you has nothing to do with me.You know what it feels like, this whole thing—Amy, An-ling, you on trial? It feels like one of those suicide bombers just exploded in my face and I just want to—”He turned his back to me, head bent.
    I stepped forward and tried to hold him, but he slid away. “We didn’t tell you about Amy because her death was too painful.We wanted to start from scratch with you. If we had told you, what would you have thought of us? How could you have loved us?” Josh sat behind his drums, picked up his sticks.
    “Please forgive us, honey.We thought silence was the best way.”
    He kept