13. Gemma
Chapter Thirteen
GEMMA
I was leaving my last yoga class for the day, driving home and looking forward to spending some quality time grooming Charlie. I found that to be a soothing activity. The dashboard in my car lit up with an incoming call. My older brother’s name flashed on the screen.
I tapped the button to answer the call. “Hey, Neal.”
“Hey, sis. How’s Alaska?”
“Beautiful. I hope you can come up for a visit sometime soon.”
“I’m planning on it. I’d like to make it before the snow flies.”
“How’s life treating you?”
My brother was one of my favorite people. He was smart, kind, and funny. He was also a kick ass attorney and handled cases specifically relating to environmental issues, his big passion.
“Life’s good. Busy with work.”
“What else is new?” I teased in return.
Although I couldn’t see him, I could feel his shrug and hear his smile in his voice. “Fortunately, I like working. You got a minute to chat?”
“Of course. I wouldn’t have answered if I didn’t. I’m in my car, just finished teaching my last class for the day, and I’m headed home to take care of the horses.”
“All right, then. I wanted to give you a heads up before you heard from anybody else.” Neal’s voice became somber.
An anxious foreboding slid like icy water down my spine, spinning around and tightening in my chest like a cold fist. “What’s up?” I asked, my voice sounding tense to my ears.
“The DA just filed charges against Coach Winston. It’s all over the news tonight in Portland.”
That cold fist clenched more tightly in my chest and a familiar sick feeling coated my belly. “What?” My lips felt numb as I formed that single word.
“They filed federal charges against Coach Winston. It’s a whole slew of them, some related to university code violations, and others criminal, including sexual assault against minors. It’s a big case. I wanted to warn you before you heard about it on the news,” Neal explained, his voice carefully level.
“Holy shit,” I said slowly.
“I told you my contacts let me know they were working on an investigation. If you want to talk to somebody, you could give them a call. There might not be any charges related to your case, but you could be a corroborating witness.”
My brother paused, and I sensed he was waiting to see how I would respond. I didn’t know how to respond. I took a deep breath, trying to quell the anxiety spinning inside.
“You don’t need to do anything,” he added. “I thought you might want to know that’s an option. They put a call out for any other victims to contact them. If you want my support, I can reach out to attorneys that represent victims like you and put you in touch with one. I’d be happy to do that.”
My brother’s calm and measured tone let me know he was worried. It also reminded me yet again that I was the one in my family everyone worried about. I hated that.
I took another breath, finally replying, “I’ll think about it. I never expected this to happen. I honestly can’t believe it.”
“What happened to you in high school, and the reports you and Janet filed did get the ball rolling. Even if it didn’t feel like it at the time. He’s been under scrutiny since then. Things like this take a long time. What can I do to support you?”
“You always support me, Neal. Just letting me know this was coming is huge. I’ll think about what I want to do and talk to you before I do anything.”
“Okay, call me when you’re ready to talk on it some more. Should we talk about the weather now?” he teased, mentioning an old joke between us. Whenever things got tense, we tried to talk about the weather.
I needed that just now. “It’s beautiful here today. I still haven’t gotten used to the long days.”
“What time does the sun go down there?”
“Close to my bedtime,” I replied with a laugh.
My chest was still tight, and I felt a little sick, but I didn’t want to process my feelings with my brother at the moment. He knew me well enough to know that.
“Send me a picture of the sunset one of these days.”
“You got it.” I turned onto the road where I lived. “I’m almost home, so I need to go. I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”
“Of course. Love you,” my brother replied.
“Love you too.”
The line clicked off, and the music from the radio filled the speakers again. I took stock of how I was feeling. I felt strange, a little scared, and a little relieved at the same time.
As I went through my evening rounds of feeding the horses, I was grateful for the activity. I needed something to ease the restlessness threatening. It had been years, and I’d done a lot of work to get to a place where I was calm and steady most of the time.
Yoga helped, spending time with the horses helped, and trying to find my own fresh start helped. Yet, there was one thing I could never do—erase the past. I wasn’t trying to run from my past. I knew perfectly well that wasn’t possible. But still, sometimes I wished some things had never happened.
I’d never expected my former high school softball coach to face charges. And yet, apparently, he was. I couldn’t help wondering if he would slide out scot-free somehow. He had gotten away with his actions for years.
I had loved my team and loved softball so much. I didn’t even realize I was being groomed. That was a word I learned after the fact. Coach Winston was charming and funny, and he coached my high school team to two state championships.
He was also the first man who kissed me. The twisted saving grace in that situation was I wasn’t the only student he targeted. When I walked in on him with his pants down around his ankles and my friend with her face turned away, I’d been simultaneously struck with fierce anger, shame, and relief. The relief came from realizing it wasn’t just me, that I hadn’t been singularly responsible for what he did.
My friend and I agreed to tell our parents together. Our parents had collectively reported everything to the school and to the police, but nothing happened. Nothing . Happened.
Well, unless you counted the school hiring an additional assistant coach and establishing new rules that none of the coaches for any of the sports teams could be alone with any of the students at any point. Aside from just what a mindfuck it was to have a man who I trusted and admired violate me that way, the nothing that happened to him resulted in bitterness and an almost suffocating sense of powerlessness.
After that, my promising softball career that might have resulted in a collegiate scholarship crashed and burned. Although I thought it was crazy in hindsight, I had actually tried to stay on the team for my senior year. I got injured, and that was that.
That injury led me to yoga classes and eventually to what I was doing now. All along, the specter of what happened with Coach Winston was there. He never took things too far. It had only been three incidents. If there was such a thing as only in a situation like that.
I tried to act like a normal teenage girl. I tried to date. It wasn’t horrible, but I felt so out of place. I never felt like I could relax with anyone. I went on to college and still dated here and there. Sex was a mechanical exercise of going through the motions.
And now, years later, Coach Winston was arrested. After his high school coaching career, he’d gone on to greater glory with a college team and another championship. I wondered if he would somehow escape justice again and slide out from accountability. With the increased scrutiny in the media of mostly men in power abusing that power in sexual ways, I remember thinking none of it surprised me. Despite the alleged greater awareness in our society around these issues, I had little faith genuine change would happen.
I gave Charlie a last stroke along the side of his neck before going to check on Shasta. With the other two horses owned by others, I took care of feeding them, but that was it. Charlie and Shasta were owned by the owners of the barn, and they’d asked me to spoil them accordingly. I loved it.
“Hey, Shasta,” I said when I stopped in front of his stall.
He leaned his head over the stall door and nudged my shoulder with his nose. I stroked his forehead and slipped a treat out of my pocket. When I held it out on my flat palm, he nibbled it up. After he returned to chew on his evening hay, I made sure everything was put away for the night.
“Good night,” I called as I left the barn.
When I closed the barn door behind me, I stopped for a moment, absorbing the sounds of night falling. The swooshing sound of wings beating in the trees nearby, followed by the call of a raven, and an owl hooting in reply. There were no crickets in Alaska, which I thought was kind of amusing. I hadn’t expected to miss the sound, but I did.
My footsteps crunched on the gravel as I crossed the parking area over to the house. Scanning myself, I checked to see how I felt considering the news my brother had shared. I was surprised to discover I actually felt okay. The specter of what happened years before was something I had wrestled with already. Maybe, just maybe, I’d moved beyond it.
As I puttered in the kitchen, making tea and settling in on the couch to watch some television, I contemplated offering to be a corroborating witness if they thought it would help the case. I wasn’t ready to make the decision yet, but I was standing at the edge of it.
I returned to the kitchen to get some honey for my tea. Opening a cabinet, I was suddenly struck with the realization that this very place on the counter was where Diego had sent me flying. He had done what I thought impossible. He’d made me forget myself.