Chapter 3
Milo was prone sometimes to dark moods. I was aware of it, that there were days when he wouldn’t want to talk or hang out, not just with me but with anyone.
His best friend in school was a guy called Ben Roche, who advised leaving him alone when he got like that.
It only happened three times in the year or so that I knew him.
And then he would emerge again, apologetic, unable to explain what had come over him.
It was ‘a dose of the blues’ he said. But that didn’t mean he could ever be violent with anyone.
He didn’t even get in any schoolyard fights when he was a kid, as far as I knew.
Dad decided that I should go and stay with Aunt Rachel a few days later.
She was my dad’s younger sister, living in Worcester, fifty miles west of Boston.
Milo was locked up while the investigation was ongoing.
I was not allowed to go and see Milo’s mother or sister, or to call them.
I only had a rough idea where they lived.
I never went to Milo’s house and Dorchester was a big area.
Mom told me that they kept calling our house, but she hung up every time.
I was angry to be banished from my home like that.
I hadn’t done anything wrong. My sister had told a vicious lie and soon the police would find out, and Milo would be freed.
I decided that when that happened, Milo and I would run away together, to New York, and start over.
I couldn’t bear being separated from him.
Aunt Rachel tried to reason with me: ‘Girls don’t make up stories like that, Erin, and your sister is a particularly innocent child.
She and her friends are proud virgins, aren’t they?
’ I was a virgin too, though I didn’t shout about it like Ruby and her friends.
If Milo had wanted to have sex badly, I would have given in.
I told Aunt Rachel this. She was five years younger than Dad and way cooler.
‘But, Erin, rape isn’t about sex, it’s about control.
Now why would your sister lie about something like that? Has she lied before?’
I had to think about that. Ruby was not a habitual liar.
She had told childish lies, denying stealing chunks from Mom’s birthday cake when the evidence was in the crumbs on her face, but we didn’t tell lies in our family.
She was an excellent actress and could impersonate every teacher in Altman, but I was never aware of her lying before.
This made it more difficult for anyone to believe Milo.
It turned out that he had been charged with a misdemeanour by the police two years ago for trespassing in a derelict house.
He had never told me about that, but then why would he?
I never told him that I had successfully shoplifted a pair of jeans from Old Navy until Mom discovered the labels in the trash can in my room and marched me back to the store to pay for them.
It had been a dare among a group of us at the mall.
They didn’t even fit me. It was a stupid prank.
She docked my allowance for ten weeks – four weeks to pay for the jeans and six weeks to make sure I’d learned my lesson.
She never told Dad or Ruby, though. Maybe Ruby had done things Mom hadn’t told us about?
I was supposed to keep it all a secret, but I had to tell Ginnie and Saima.
I did not go back to school that year, and they had been calling the house.
I called them from Worcester. Ginnie said that everyone in school already knew and that most people believed Ruby.
Saima said she believed me, but she asked me why Ruby would make up such a monstrous lie and I couldn’t answer that.
Three weeks later, DNA test results came in.
There was no doubt. Milo had raped my sister.
Dad drove up to Worcester to tell me. ‘You have to accept it, honey. That man is an evil son of a bitch, and he defiled your sister.’ I had never heard Dad use such language before.
I was shaking with shock. I thought of all the ways his DNA could have got on to my sister.
A shared towel perhaps? Dad had to make it clear.
‘Erin,’ he said sternly, ‘the DNA came from semen that was inside Ruby, do you understand what I’m telling you?
’ I understood the words he said to me, but it took a while for them to truly sink in.
How could I believe that snow was white if the guy I loved with all my heart had raped my sister?
But he had, and I was wrong. Aunt Rachel tried her best to comfort me, but I was angry, first at myself and then at Milo.
I was horrified that I had called my sister a liar.
I got a summons to appear as a witness for the defence.
Mom and Dad were outraged but I was over eighteen by then and there was nothing they or I could do to stop it.
I worried myself sick in the weeks leading up to the trial.
I had constant nausea. I did not know what I was going to be asked.
Would Milo have told them about how intimate we had been?
It turned out that he had. In a full courtroom in front of my parents, Aunt Rachel, their friends, Mrs Kelly, Margie, Milo’s friend Ben Roche, Mr Bermingham the school principal, the judge, jury and a whole load of strangers, I had to reveal the private details of my life.
I could not look at Milo. I could not look at anyone.
Then it was the prosecutor’s turn. He asked me who suggested that Milo sneak into my room against my parents’ rules in the middle of the night.
I had to admit that it was me. I had been the one who wanted to get closer to him.
I think he had expected a different answer.
He asked me how hard I had to persuade him, and I told the court that Milo didn’t argue at all.
I watched my mother leave the courtroom in tears.
The prosecutor talked about how this was a sign of Milo’s deceptive behaviour, how he had manipulated his way into my bedroom, against the rules of my parents, who had been so good to him.
He also asked me about his moodiness. Where did I think he went during those times when he refused to talk to anyone?
I didn’t understand what he meant. He went to school and to work and home, like normal.
He asked if I had proof that he went to work and home during his ‘thunderous moods’.
Milo’s lawyer objected to his words and the judge asked me if his moods were thunderous.
I said no. She asked me to describe them.
I said that it just seemed like depression to me.
The prosecutor resumed his questions, asking again if I knew for sure that Milo went home and to work during these moods.
I had no proof. He asked if I knew anything about Milo’s previous girlfriends.
I did not, except that they were older than him.
I don’t know what the relevance of these questions was, but Milo’s defence let them go unchallenged.
There were unsaid implications, though, and they were not good for Milo.
Milo’s defending attorney used my information to demonstrate how gentle Milo had been with me and how he had never pressured me into oral or full penetrative sex.
I wept through this testimony. I glanced quickly at Milo.
He lifted his head from his hands and mouthed the word ‘sorry’ at me.
I hated him by then. I was angry with him for putting me through this.
Months later, right on the day of Milo’s sentencing, Mom said we’d have to go to Ireland for Ruby’s sake.
‘How is Ruby ever going to recover when there are reminders everywhere?’ I thought it was an unnecessarily drastic step but Mom was adamant.
We had to move to Dublin. Mom and Dad argued about it, and this time the arguments were loud and serious.
Doors slammed and voices were raised. We hid in our rooms. Ruby’s friends visited, but they never stayed long.
I couldn’t talk to her. I don’t think she could talk to me either. Milo would never have been in our house if it hadn’t been for me.