Chapter 29
Chapter 29
Blaise
NOW
We spend the entire day in bed.
“I’ve never done this before,” I tell him around three.
My head is on his chest as he runs his fingers through my hair. He’s obsessed with the silky feel of it.
“Done what?”
“Spent a whole day in bed with someone.”
“What do you think of it so far?”
“I can’t wait to do it again.”
“We’ll do it as often as you want.”
“You’ll get fired.”
“I’m self-employed. I can do what I want.”
“You’ve got looming deadlines.”
“It’ll get done. It always does. Don’t worry about it.”
“I need to find a job if I’m going to stay here.”
“I could use a manager.”
“I’d do that for free. I need to find something to help pay the bills.”
“How to say this…”
I shift so I can see him. “Say what?”
“So the work brings in quite a lot of money. Like enough that we’re set. You don’t need to worry about helping to pay the bills. You can do whatever you want to.”
“You said you built the cottages to help pay the taxes on the property.”
“I did, but it wasn’t as if I couldn’t have paid the taxes without the cottages.”
“Oh.”
“If I’m being honest, it was getting kind of lonely living here with just Fenway, even though she’s very good company. I thought it would be nice to have some people around. That’s the real reason I built the cottages.” He adds a sexy smile. “Look how it turned out.”
“With you lazing away an entire day in bed.”
“Best day I’ve ever had.”
“Me, too.”
“I still need to get some sort of job.”
“You’re crazy good at organizing things, right?”
“So I’m told.”
“I need that. Badly. I have like six hundred emails I’ve been ignoring for weeks. My agent has called three times, and I don’t want to talk to him because he makes my head hurt. There’s talk of a show of my work at RISD that I don’t want to deal with. I’ve been thinking about hiring someone to manage it all for a long time. The job is yours if you want it, and it would be a paid gig with full benefits.”
“What does your package include?”
The look on his face is priceless. “I’m being serious, and no matter what you might think, I’m not creating a job for you. I need you, in every possible way.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.” I lean over him to check the clock on the bedside table. “I need to shower and get to Bristol.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“That’s ok. I won’t be gone long. Are you sure you don’t mind if I take your mother’s car?”
“I’m sure. I take it out at least once a month to keep it running, and it’s got plenty of gas.”
“I’ll take very good care of it.”
“I’m not worried.”
He walks me to the garage a half an hour later and hands me the keys. “Be careful.”
“I will. Get some work done before you get fired.”
Smiling, he kisses me. “Hurry back. I already miss you.”
“No one has ever said the kinds of things you say to me.”
“That’s good to know. I’ll have to stay at the top of my game.”
“You’re doing great so far.”
“Let me know if that changes.”
“You’ll be the first to know.” I have to tear myself away from him when leaving is the last thing I want to do. “I’ll text you when I’m on the way back.”
“I’ll be here.”
I kiss him one more time before getting into his mother’s burgundy Volvo SUV where a lingering scent of something light and floral makes me miss a woman I’ll never meet. I want to know more about both his parents, so I’ll feel like I know them.
The drive to Ramona’s takes me over two bridges—one of them new and spacious, the other old and rickety. The old one freaks me out like it did when I was a teenager, and first driving over it to get to a soccer or lacrosse game.
I hated driving on that bridge then, and I hate it now. I also hate how early it gets dark now that Daylight Savings Time has ended. It’s already dark at five fifteen as I drive into the quaint town of Bristol, known for hosting the nation’s oldest Fourth of July parade. We went to the parade every year when we were younger, until we grew up and preferred time with our friends to family outings. Outings with all six of us seem like a million years ago now.
Ramona lives off Metacom Avenue, in a tidy neighborhood made up of raised ranches. Hers is painted white with blue shutters and mature landscaping. I park in the driveway, behind a silver minivan.
She greets me at the door, looking much as I remember her from high school—petite with short hair and wire-framed glasses. “Come in. It’s nice to see you after all this time.”
“You, too.”
Her home is right out of a decorating show. “This is gorgeous.”
“Thank you. It’s a bit of a hobby, but it’s not easy to keep it looking nice with three kids underfoot.”
“You’re very talented.”
“Aw, thanks. It keeps me from going crazy dealing with work and kids and all the other stuff.”
“What do you do for work?”
“I run a chiropractor’s office.”
“I bet that’s busy.”
“Sure is. Can I get you some coffee, tea, water or Diet Coke?”
“Water would be great. Thank you.”
She brings the water for me and a Diet Coke for herself to the table where we sit across from each other. “I really need to give this up,” she says of the soda, “but I’m addicted.”
“I used to be. I gave it up about five years ago.”
“I need to get serious about that, but we’re not here to talk about Diet Coke.”
“It was a relief to me to hear you’d come forward, too.”
“Same. Sitting on that info all this time was tough. What they did to her…”
“I know. It made me sick, but not sick enough to risk tearing up my own life to support her. I hated myself for that then, and I still do now.”
“I understand the feeling,” Ramona says with a sigh. “I agonized over it at the time, but I just kept reading the stuff they were saying about her and tried to imagine what it would be like if they were coming for me. I just couldn’t do it.”
I reach across the table to cover her hand with mine. “I totally get it. My brother was one of his best friends. He was outraged that she would accuse him of such a thing.”
“That must’ve made it extra tough for you.”
“It did.”
“It was bad enough for me having witnessed seeing them walk toward the woods together. I can’t begin to imagine what it would’ve been like to have witnessed the actual assault.”
I shake my head. “Horrific and heartbreaking.” After a pause, I add, “I was with a friend who convinced me our lives would be hell if we said anything. She practically dragged me out of there.”
“I’m so sorry. Is she testifying, too?”
“No. She has personal connections.”
“Was it Sienna?”
“I, uh…”
“I understand. She was dating Cam then and is married to him now.”
“Right. I’ve told the prosecutor I’m speaking only for myself.”
“I understand. I’d never say anything. Don’t worry.” She takes a sip from her glass. “When I first heard you’d come forward, I was in such a state. That was the first time I told my husband what I’d seen and how it’d affected me. He encouraged me to come forward, too.”
“I’m glad you did.”
“I want you to know… Even though I hadn’t told him or anyone what I saw that night, I never stopped thinking about it or asking myself what kind of person it made me for staying quiet when another young woman was being dragged through the mud. It haunted me.”
“Me, too, and it’s a huge relief to speak to someone who truly understands. It made me question everything I thought I knew about myself.”
“Yes, exactly that. I wasn’t raised to sit quietly in the face of injustice. I’ve been a very active volunteer at a local sexual assault resource center and with the statewide rape crisis hotline. People have complimented me for my commitment, but I’ve never felt I deserved that praise. It seems like the least I can do.”
“I volunteered in that space in the city for years. It was important, worthwhile work, but it didn’t soothe my conscience the way I thought it would. Not like finally coming forward has.”
“Reporting what I saw has been extremely cathartic.”
“But not without its consequences. I keep thinking about his wife and kids, who had a bomb detonate in the center of their lives when he was arrested.”
“You know that’s on him, not you, right?”
“Intellectually, yes. Emotionally? I feel for her and her kids. By all accounts, she’s a lovely person.”
“Who was married to a rapist who probably lied to her about his past.”
“True.”
“What do you hear about Neisy? I’ve thought of her so often over the years, but there’s nothing about her anywhere online after she graduated from high school in Virginia.”
“Houston told me she’s married to her childhood boyfriend. They have four kids and live in the Norfolk area. He’s a naval officer.”
“Oh, wow. I’m so glad to hear she’s doing well. This must’ve been a bomb for her, too.”
“It was, and at first she wasn’t sure she could be part of it. After she thought about it, she called Houston to say she was in—and she wanted the boys who signed that affidavit about her punished, too.”
“That was sickening. I dumped Brody after he told me they were doing that. I hope they all get every bit of what’s coming to them.”
We hear car doors closing outside.
“That’ll be my family coming home from dance class. I have two girls, who are seven and nine and a son who’s four.”
They come in through the mudroom off the kitchen, a flurry of girlish voices and bags dropping as their father tells them to take off their shoes.
The girls have blonde curly hair and cherubic faces. They rush into their mother’s arms and then seem to notice me. “This is my friend Blaise from high school. Blaise, this is Audra and Heidi, my son, James, and my husband, Tony.”
“It’s so nice to meet you all.”
The little boy is shy and hides behind his dad. The girls are super polite as they shake hands with me and tell me it’s nice to meet me, too. A pang of yearning hits me out of nowhere. What would it be like to have a little girl of my own someday? I’ve never had a yearning for children, but now anything seems possible. “I won’t take up any more of your time. I’m so glad we got to talk.”
“Me, too,” Ramona says as she walks me to the door. “Let’s keep in touch, okay?”
“I’d love that.”
We hug and say our goodbyes. As I drive away from her home, I marvel at how two people who barely knew each other in high school have become central players in this made-for-TV drama. It’s crazy dark as I make my way to the bridge. I recall my mother hating this time of year when the New England winter sets in with cold, dreary darkness that lasts for months.
I’m on the bridge, thinking I need to call my mom to check in with her, when bright headlights blind me from behind. I adjust the mirror, but that doesn’t help to reduce the glare. As I crest the top of the bridge, I get hit from behind. The impact sends me into oncoming traffic. I slam on my brakes and spin in a circle as I scream at the thought of plunging into the black, frigid water below.
That’s my last thought before everything goes dark.