Epilogue
Olivia
Six months later
Olivia was deep in concentration doing a final spell-check on an email when the door to the guest room flew open.
“You’ll never guess who I just got off the phone with.”
Olivia looked up from her laptop as Bennett let himself into the guest room, where Olivia was sitting cross-legged on the
bed. It was midafternoon, Alex was napping and Rosie and Norah were having their hour of quiet, solo playtime, which had been
a lifesaver during the pandemic she still couldn’t quite believe they were in the middle of. Sunshine was streaming through
the window and the AC was running.
It took Olivia a minute to refocus her attention.
“Phelps?” she guessed. Bennett and Phelps had been talking a lot more since lockdown, especially after Phelps was laid off.
“Doug,” said Bennett.
Olivia’s gut squeezed. She closed her laptop with a clack. Unpleasant memories washed over her in waves. She had a new strategy
though, thanks to her new therapist: let the waves come, open herself to them, in fact, and remember she would still be there
when the waves stopped.
“Doug called from jail?” she said.
“Yeah. It was a collect call, and thankfully I accepted and . . . you’re not going to believe this, but he wanted to tell me he didn’t actually do it.”
“What?”
“I know. Unbelievable, right? He had this huge convoluted story about an unlicensed gun, and something about Hellie washing
her hands, and this whole tangent about Ted’s suspicions about—and you’re not going to believe this—Allie of all people, and—” Bennett shook his head vigorously, like he was trying to clear away the cobwebs Doug had cast. “I mean,
if there were any doubts, the toxicology report was the nail in his coffin.”
“Right, the hospice drugs he stole from his grandma. Didn’t that nurse testify she saw him stealing them?”
“Doug says it’s bullshit and she was just a bitter man-hater.”
Olivia shook her head. “Poor Doug. He’s truly living in a different world from the rest of us.”
“Something really screwed him up.” Bennett laughed without humor. “Drugs, I guess. He wasn’t always this way. He’s the one
who started this whole New Year’s tradition, remember?”
“So sad.”
Bennett sat on the edge of the bed and bounced lightly. “It did make me think . . . it could be good to see everyone again.
You know?”
“We’re in the middle of a pandemic.”
“We need something to look forward to. Come on. New Year’s is six months away. The numbers are totally going down. It’ll be
over by the fall.”
Olivia carefully probed the edges of this idea in her mind. Their house was big enough to host . . . It would be a totally
different kind of party—no drugs, no drama . . . They could send the kids to her parents’ house for the night . . .
“I don’t know, Bennett. I don’t think anyone wants to relive what happened.”
“But we had nine awesome parties before that. We can’t let the last one have the last word. These are still our friends. Anyway, it won’t be the same at all. We’ll do super tame stuff.”
Olivia raised an eyebrow. “Making hats and eating salmon was pretty tame—”
“—and Phelps has already agreed to cook, as long as he’s not hosting, and Will actually said he would come, and guess what
Phelps found? Remember that old game we did with the secret wish in the bottle? And we promised to open them five years later,
but we forgot, and then Phelps thought he lost the bottles . . .”
“Bennett, no. We should destroy those bottles.”
“Well, let’s at least think about it. I’m picturing a ‘just us’ year. Keep it small. Phelps, Hellie, Bunny, Will, Ted, Allie—”
“Allie?”
“She went through all that stuff with us too.”
“She wouldn’t want to come.” Olivia didn’t even want to go.
“Probably not. But it would be a nice gesture.”
“And I don’t think Ted should come. I really don’t want hard drugs in the house.”
“Okaaaaay,” said Bennett, nodding slowly. “I can understand your hesitation on that count . . . but we don’t have to finalize
the guest list today, right? We can think about it?”
“If there’s a party.”
“If there’s a party,” repeated Bennett with a grin.
Olivia pursed her lips. “We’ll think about it.” Anyway, Bennett was delusional. There was no way the pandemic would be over
by Christmas.
There was a cry from somewhere in the house.
“I’d better check on that,” said Bennett, standing. He glanced at the computer, sitting closed on Olivia’s lap. “Hey—work
going okay?”
She’d gotten a ton more freelance work in the past few months, to the point where she’d actually had to turn down jobs for the first time.
It was a little weird to be thriving during a pandemic that was hurting so many others, but for her mental health, she’d had to decide that wasn’t her guilt to bear.
“Fine,” she said, blowing Bennett a kiss as he exited.
Once the door was closed again, she opened her laptop and faced the email she’d been working on for the past six months.
She’d rewritten it so many times.
First, she told her whole story, every detail she could remember. The email ended up being twenty pages long, and when she
reread it, Olivia felt like she’d thrown up all over the computer. She trashed it. The second time, she went right to the
core, stripping the story down to the simple facts. She hated that version just as much. She rewrote. Rewrote again, trying
to understand not only what the story was, but how much of it was hers, and how much of it could—should?—belong to someone
else. It was painful work. Emotionally draining work. Necessary work.
Bennett knew she was writing it. He just didn’t know she was going to send it today.
She’d tell him tonight. And then, they’d toast, she decided. In a minute, she would get up and put the bottle of champagne
in to chill, the bottle she’d bought in January when she decided she had to do this. What had happened to her was nothing
to celebrate. But moving forward in courage was. It had taken her long enough—seventeen years, at this point. But like the
wintering corn, it wasn’t too late.
She skimmed it one final time.
Dear HR Department,
I attended IU from 2003–2007 and I’d like to report Professor James Larkin for grooming and rape. I was a student in his Art
History 101 lecture class my sophomore year . . .
When she was done with her final read-through, she sat for a while, hands folded in her lap, looking at the email, not the individual sentences or words she’d agonized over, but the whole of it, sitting there, the black letters on the white background. Her story.
She thought about her years of oblivion, and that painful New Year’s five and a half years ago when she realized what had
happened to her. The shame and depression that followed. The hard work of dismantling that shame. Now, the even harder work
of trying to figure out what to build in its place.
Nothing had changed for Olivia this year, and yet everything had. She had the same husband and kids, the same house, the same
job—but she felt entirely different. She was no longer behind the glass, in a zoo of spectators. She had stepped out of her
gilded cage, and now the world was right in front of her in all its terrifying and marvelous immediacy.
She had no idea what would happen after this email went into the world, what balance of justice or healing or further hurt
she might experience, but her palms were scorched from holding the burning embers of her past. She had to open her hands and
release them no matter what happened, whether they would be doused, or smolder . . . or ignite a forest fire.
She was scared.
She was relieved.
She could finally breathe.
She hit Send.
* * * * *