CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
Richard was everything I needed him to be after my mother died.
We flew to Florida with Aunt Charlotte for the burial, and he rented a hotel suite with adjoining rooms so we could all stay together. I remembered how my mom had looked when she was happiest—in the kitchen, clattering pans and tossing spices into a dish, or on her good mornings, singing me a goofy song to wake me up, or laughing as she wiped away the water Duke had splashed on her face after we’d bathed him. I tried to picture her on the night of my wedding, walking barefoot in the sand, her face turned toward the setting sun, as I said that final good-bye. But another image kept intruding: my mother as she’d died—alone, on the couch, with an empty bottle of pills by her side and the television blaring.
There was no note, so we were left with questions that could never be answered.
When Aunt Charlotte broke down at the gravesite, blaming herself for not knowing that my mother had taken a bad turn, Richard comforted her: “None of this is your fault; it isn’t anyone’s fault. She was doing so well. You were always there for your sister, and she felt your love.”
Richard also sorted through the paperwork and arranged for the sale of the little brick rambler where I’d grown up, while Aunt Charlotte and I went through my mother’s personal belongings.
The rest of the house was relatively neat, but my mother’s room was a mess, with books and clothes piled on every surface. Crumbs on her bed told me she’d recently been taking most of her meals there. Old coffee mugs and water glasses crowded her nightstand. I saw Richard’s eyebrows lift in surprise when he noticed the disorder, but the only thing he said was “I’ll have a cleaning service come.”
I didn’t take many of my mother’s belongings: Aunt Charlotte suggested we each select a few of my mother’s scarves, and I chose a few pieces of her costume jewelry as well. The only other possessions I wanted were our old family photographs, and two of my mother’s battered, beloved cookbooks.
I also knew I needed to clear out a few things from my old bedroom, which had been turned into the guest room. I’d deliberately left some items on the shelf in the back of my closet. While Aunt Charlotte wiped down the refrigerator and Richard was on the phone with a real-estate agent, I brought in a step stool and reached onto the dusty ledge. I tossed a sorority pin in a trash bag, then threw in my college yearbook and my final transcripts. I put my early-childhood-development honors paper into the trash bag as well. I reached to the very back of the shelf for my diploma, still rolled into a cylinder and tied with a faded bow.
I threw it away without even looking at it.
I wondered why I’d even saved any of it, after all these years.
I couldn’t look at the pin or yearbook without thinking of Maggie. I couldn’t look at the diploma without thinking about what had happened on the day I graduated.
I was knotting the top of the bag when Richard entered my old bedroom. “I thought I’d run out and pick up some dinner.” He looked at the bag. “Want me to toss that for you?”
I hesitated, then handed it to him. “Sure.”
I watched him cart away the last remnants of my college days, then I looked around the empty room. The water stain still marred the ceiling; if I closed my eyes, I could almost picture my black cat curled up beside me on my pink-and-purple-striped comforter while I read a Judy Blume book.
I knew I would never see this house again.
That night back in our hotel, as I soaked in a hot bath, Richard brought me a cup of chamomile tea. I took it gratefully. Despite the heat of the Florida day, I couldn’t seem to get warm.
“How are you holding up, sweetheart?” I knew he wasn’t just referring to my mother’s death.
I shrugged. “Okay.”
“I worry you haven’t been happy lately.” Richard knelt beside the tub and reached for a washcloth. “All I want is to be a good husband to you. But I know I haven’t always been. You’re lonely because I work such long hours. And my temper . . .” Richard’s voice grew husky. He cleared his throat and began to gently clean my back. “I’m sorry, Nellie. I’ve been stressed. . . . The market’s been crazy, but nothing is as important as you. As us. I’m going to make it up to you.”
I could tell how hard he was trying to reach me, to bring me back. But I still felt so chilled and alone.
I stared at the water dripping slowly from the bath tap as he whispered, “I want you to be happy, Nellie. Your mother wasn’t always happy. Well, mine wasn’t, either. She tried to act like she was, for me and Maureen, but we knew. . . . I don’t want that to happen to you.”
I looked at him then, but his gaze was distant, his eyes cloudy, so I stared at the silvery scar above his right eye.
Richard never talked about his parents. This admission meant more than all of his promises.
“My dad wasn’t always good to my mom.” His palm kept moving in circles on my back, in a gesture a parent would make to soothe a child who was upset. “I could live with anything except being a bad husband to you. . . . I have been, though.”
It was the most honest conversation we’d ever had. I wondered why it had taken my mother’s death to bring us to this place. But maybe it hadn’t been her overdose. Maybe it had been what happened two days before we’d learned about it, when we’d come home from the Alvin Ailey gala.
“I love you,” he said.
I reached out for him then. His shirt grew damp from the bathwater transferred to it by my wet arms.
“We’re both orphans now,” he said. “So we’ll always be each other’s family.”
I held on to him tightly. I held on to hope.
That night we made love for the first time in a long while. He cupped my cheeks between his palms and stared into my eyes with such tenderness and yearning that I felt something inside me, something that felt like a tight, hard knot, release. As he held me afterward, I thought about Richard’s gentle side.
I recalled how he’d paid for my mother’s medical bills, how he’d attended Aunt Charlotte’s gallery openings, even if it meant skipping a client dinner, and how he always came home early each year on the anniversary of my father’s death with a pint of rum raisin ice cream in a white paper bag. It was my father’s favorite flavor, the one he ordered when we went for drives together on my mother’s lights-out days. Richard would serve us each a scoop, and I’d tell him details about my father that would otherwise grow dusty and forgotten, such as how despite his superstitions, he’d let me adopt the black cat I’d fallen in love with as a little girl. The ice cream would melt on my tongue, filling my mouth with sweetness, on those nights. I thought about how Richard had generously tipped waiters and taxi drivers and donated to a variety of charities.
It wasn’t hard to focus on the goodness in Richard. My mind fell easily into those reminiscences, like a wheel latching comfortably into the grooves of a track designed for its rotations.
As I lay in his arms, I looked over at him. His features were barely perceptible. “Promise me something,” I whispered.
“Anything, my love.”
“Promise things won’t get bad for us again.”
“They won’t.”
It was the first promise to me he’d ever broken. Because things got even worse.
As our plane lifted off and began to head toward New York the next morning, I stared out the window at the topography that grew ever smaller and shuddered. I was so grateful to be leaving Florida. Death surrounded me here like concentric rings. My mother. My father. Maggie.
The sorority pin I’d thrown away hadn’t belonged to me. I was supposed to give it to Maggie after she was officially initiated into our house. But instead of the celebratory brunch we’d planned to throw for the end of pledge week, my sisters and I attended her funeral.
I’d never told my mother what happened after Maggie’s service; her reaction would have been too unpredictable. I’d called Aunt Charlotte instead, but I hadn’t confided that I’d been pregnant. Richard only knew part of the story, too. Once when I woke up in his bed after a nightmare, I explained why I wouldn’t walk home alone at night; why I carried pepper spray and slept with a bat by my side.
As I’d lain in Richard’s arms, I described how I’d gone to offer condolences to Maggie’s family. Her parents had merely nodded, so dazed they appeared incapable of forming speech. But her older brother, Jason, who was a senior at Grant University like me, had gripped my outstretched hand. Not to shake it. To pin me in place.
“It’s you,” he breathed. I smelled stale liquor on his breath; the whites of his eyes were streaked through with crimson. He had Maggie’s pale skin, Maggie’s freckles, Maggie’s red hair.
“I’m so sor—” I began, but he squeezed my hand more tightly. It felt as if he were grinding the bones together. Someone had reached out to hug Maggie’s brother, and he released his grip, but I felt his eyes following me. My sorority sisters stayed on for the reception in the church’s community room, but I slipped away after a few minutes and stepped outside.
As I walked through the door, I encountered exactly what I’d sought to avoid: Jason.
He stood alone on the front steps, tapping a pack of Marlboro Reds against his palm. They made a steady smacking sound. I tried to duck my head and move past him, but his voice stopped me.
“She told me about you.” He flicked a lighter and inhaled deeply as he lit his cigarette. He exhaled a stream of smoke. “She was scared to go through pledge week, but you said you’d help her. You were her only friend in the sorority. Where were you when she died? Why weren’t you there?”
I remember stepping back and feeling Jason’s eyes hold me, just as his grip had done.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, but it didn’t douse the rage in his expression. If anything, my words seemed to fuel it.
I began to retreat slowly, clutching the railing so I wouldn’t fall as I edged down the stairs. Maggie’s brother kept his eyes on me. Just before I reached the sidewalk, he called out to me, his voice harsh and raw.
“You will never forget what you did to my sister.” His words landed with as much force as fists. “I’ll make sure of it.”
I didn’t need his threat to hold on to Maggie, though. I thought about her constantly. I never went back to that beach again. Our sorority had been put on probation for the rest of the year, but that wasn’t why I took a job waitressing at a campus pub on Thursday and Saturday nights. Fraternity parties and dances held no more appeal for me. I set aside part of my tips, and when I had a few hundred dollars, I tracked down the animal shelter, Furry Paws, where Maggie had volunteered and started anonymously donating in Maggie’s honor. I promised to keep sending money every month.
I didn’t expect my small donations to absolve me of my culpability, my role in Maggie’s death. I knew I would always carry it with me, would always wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t veered away from the group of girls walking to the ocean. If I’d waited even just one more hour to confront Daniel.
Exactly a month after Maggie’s death, I awoke to hear one of my sorority sisters shrieking. I ran downstairs in my boxers and T-shirt and saw the overturned chairs, the shattered lamp, the obscenities spray-painted in black across our living room wall. Bitches. Whores.
And the message I knew was meant for me only: You killed her.
I sucked in my breath and stared at the three words proclaiming my guilt for everyone to see.
More girls came downstairs as our chapter president called campus security. One of the freshmen burst into tears; I saw two other girls pull away from our group and whisper to each other. I thought they were sneaking glances at me.
The smell of stale cigarette smoke permeated the room. I saw a butt on the floor and I knelt down to look at it. Marlboro Red.
When the guard arrived, he asked us if we had any guesses as to who might have vandalized our house. He knew about Maggie’s death—by then most people in Florida did.
Jason, I thought, but I couldn’t say it.
“Maybe one of her friends?” someone ventured. “Or her brother? He’s a senior, right?”
The guard looked around the room. “I’m going to need to call the police. That’s procedure. Back in a minute.”
He stepped outside, but before he reached for his car radio, I intercepted him. “Please don’t get him in trouble. If it was her brother, Jason . . . we don’t want to press charges.”
“You think it was him?”
I nodded. “I’m sure it was.”
The guard sighed. “Breaking and entering, destruction of property . . . that’s pretty serious. You girls should start locking your doors.”
I looked back at our house. If someone came in and climbed the stairs, my room was the second one on the left.
Maybe being questioned by the police would inflame Jason even more. He might blame me for that, too.
After the police came and took photographs and collected evidence, I put on shoes so the glass from the smashed lamp wouldn’t cut my feet and helped my sisters clean up the mess. As hard as we scrubbed, we couldn’t remove the ugly words from the wall. A few of us went to the hardware store to pick up paint.
As my sisters considered the various shades, my cell phone rang. I reached into my pocket. Undisclosed number, the screen said, which probably meant the call originated at a pay phone. In the instant before the dial tone sounded in my ear, I thought I could hear something.
Breathing.
“Vanessa, what do you think of this color?” one of my sisters asked.
My body was rigid and my mouth dry, but I managed to nod and say, “Looks great.” Then I walked directly to another aisle, the one containing locks. I bought two, one for my bedroom door and one for my window.
Later that week, a pair of police officers came to the house. The older of the two officers informed us that they had questioned Jason, who’d admitted to the crime.
“He was drunk that night and he’s sorry,” the officer said. “He’s working out a deal to get counseling.”
“As long as he never comes around here again,” one of my sisters said.
“He won’t. That was part of the arrangement. He can’t come within a hundred yards of this place.”
My sisters seemed to think it was over. After the officers left, they dispersed, heading to the library, to classes, to their boyfriends’ places.
I stayed in our living room, staring at the beige wall. I could no longer see the words, but I knew they still existed and always would.
Just as they would always reverberate in my head.
You killed her.
My future had seemed bursting with possibilities before that fall. I’d been dreaming about cities where I might move after graduation, considering them like a hand of cards: Savannah, Denver, Austin, San Diego . . . I wanted to teach. I wanted to travel. I wanted a family.
But instead of racing toward my future, I began making plans to run away from my past.
I counted down the days until I could escape from Florida. New York, with its eight million residents, beckoned. I knew the city from my visits to Aunt Charlotte’s home. It was a place where a young woman with a complicated past could start anew. Songwriters composed passionate lyrics about it. Authors made it the centerpiece of their novels. Actors professed their love for it in late-night interviews. It was a city of possibilities. And a city where anyone could disappear.
On graduation day that May, I donned my blue robe and cap. Our college was so large that after the commencement speeches concluded, students were divided up according to their majors and awarded diplomas in smaller groups. When I walked across the stage of the Education Department’s Piaget Auditorium, I looked out into the audience to smile at my mother and Aunt Charlotte. As I scanned the crowd, someone caught my eyes. A young man with red hair, standing off to one side, away from the other graduating students, even though he also wore a shiny blue robe.
Maggie’s brother, Jason.
“Vanessa?” The dean of our department thrust my rolled-up diploma into my hand as a camera flashed. I walked down the steps, blinking from the light, and returned to my seat. I could feel Jason’s eyes boring into my back for the rest of the ceremony.
When it ended, I turned to look at him again. He was gone.
I knew what Jason was telling me, though. He’d been biding his time until graduation, too. He wasn’t allowed to come within a hundred yards of me at school. But there were no rules about what he could do after I left campus.
A few months after graduation, Leslie emailed a newspaper link to a few of us. Jason had been arrested for drunk driving. The ripple effects of what I’d done were still spreading. A tiny selfish burst of relief went through me, though: Maybe now Jason wouldn’t be able to leave Florida and find me.
I never found out more—whether he went to jail or rehab or was simply let off with a warning again. But about a year later, just before the doors of my subway car closed, I saw a slim frame and shock of red hair—someone was hurrying through the crowd. It looked like him. I burrowed deeper into the cluster of people on my subway car, trying to hide myself from view. I told myself that the phone was in Sam’s name, that I’d never changed my driver’s license to a New York one, and that since I was renting, he wouldn’t be able to find a paper trail that led to me.
Then, a few days after my mother surprised me by placing an engagement announcement in my local Florida paper that listed my name, Richard’s name, and where I resided, the phone calls began. No words, just breathing, just Jason telling me he’d found me. Reminding me in case I’d forgotten. As if I could ever forget.
I still had nightmares about Maggie, but now Jason entered my dreams, his face twisted in fury, his hands reaching out to grab me. He was why I never listened to loud music when I jogged. His was the face I saw the night our burglar alarm blared.
I became acutely aware of my surroundings. I cultivated my sense of gaze detection, to avoid becoming prey. The sensation of static rising over my skin, the instinctual lifting of my head to search out a pair of eyes—these early-warning signs were what I relied upon to protect me.
I never made the connection that there could have been another reason why my nervous system became exquisitely heightened immediately after my engagement to Richard. Why I obsessively checked my locks, why I started getting hang-ups from blocked numbers, why I’d pushed Richard away so hard when my loving, sexy fiancé had held me down to tickle me on the night we watched Citizen Kane.
The symptoms of arousal and fear can be muddled in the mind.
I was wearing a blindfold after all.