Chapter 32 Erin
Erin
Dad liked Fabian too. We went to dinner together when Dad came to visit, and although he didn’t quite approve of us living together without a wedding ring, I had to remind him I was twenty-six years old, and Fabian made me happy.
He accepted I was an adult and treated Fabian like a son.
He and Dad liked to get into theological discussions.
I didn’t dare raise the subject of children, but one day out of the blue three months later, Fabian started talking about names for kids.
A friend of his had named his son Bart, as in Simpson, not as in short for Bartholomew, and Fabian asked me what I would call ‘our children’.
He was talking casually as he stirred more parmesan into the risotto, but I knew him well enough by now to know that he never made eye contact when he was making big decisions.
I played along, throwing out comical names to make him laugh.
A few days later, he went missing for several hours in the evening.
I couldn’t get him on his phone. He came home after ten, claiming he’d been at a PTA meeting that he’d told me about.
I knew it was a lie, but I let it go. Perhaps he was planning a surprise proposal.
But that was just the beginning of the lies, sudden absences, trips away with the guys.
It took me a while to realize because I desperately wanted everything to be okay.
I’d convinced myself I was in love, but after another two months I knew that he was emotionally withdrawing from me.
I confronted him. The worst part was that he was relieved to be caught.
He would have happily lied to my face for God knows how long.
He was seeing his ex-fiancée, and he was still in love with her.
I admit I lost it. I threw his stuff out into the hall and changed the locks.
Cisco was embarrassed. He said he’d planned his wedding outfit.
I told him bitterly that he could wear it to Fabian’s wedding to Natasha.
Aunt Rachel called Fabian up and unleashed holy hell upon him. I didn’t try to stop her.
There was something wrong with me. I attracted bad men, and I could no longer trust myself.
Once his stuff had been cleared out, I was relieved to find that I did not miss him.
I missed the companionship, I missed the affection, but I did not miss Fabian.
My heart was surprisingly intact. Maybe I hadn’t fallen in love after all.
Maybe I wasn’t capable of it. Milo’s fault.
Once again, I buried myself in work. I had been promoted to editor, but I had to do all the assistant administration work as well.
I was still at the Schoolroom imprint and there was no sign of me moving to the fiction side of the publishing house.
It was frustrating but I was forced to accept it, having no other alternative.
The publisher acted like one big family when it suited them, but I felt like an unwanted step-grandchild.
I decided to look around to see how other publishing houses worked.
I got a phone call from Margie Kelly a few weeks later.
I couldn’t believe her audacity. I hung up when I realized who she was but somehow she got my cellphone number and she kept calling over and over again.
Eventually, I took the call. She begged to meet me.
She said she had some information I needed to know, but I said no.
I told her never to call me again. In the aftermath of Fabian, I was still at a low ebb.
I was vulnerable and spent two sleepless nights wondering if Milo was going to be released early.
Was he going to try to reconnect with me?
Was he out already? I called her back and agreed to meet in NYC. She said she’d take the bus.
Margie was two years older than Milo, but in the intervening years, she hadn’t changed that much. Her dark hair was lightened, and she was wearing no make-up at all. She chain-smoked as we walked through Central Park, lighting one cigarette from another. We eventually sat down at an outdoor café.
‘You know he didn’t do it, right?’ was her opening salvo. ‘Somehow, they got a fake DNA result and framed him.’ Milo had served almost eight years by now.
‘Margie, first of all, that is impossible and I’m leaving if this is how the conversation is going to go.’
She wouldn’t stop. ‘Did your sister have a pair of denim shorts? Cos that’s what she was wearing when my brother knocked on your door that day.’
As she continued to talk, I shouted over her. ‘Margie, DNA does not lie. You can convince yourself as much as you want but it doesn’t change facts.’
‘Your pop, though, he’s got money. He could pay to get the right results.’
I grabbed her arm. ‘You have to stop sending those letters, okay? Stop it. You’re not going to persuade anyone. They’re pathetic.’
‘What? What are you talking about?’
‘Don’t bother trying to pretend, Margie. I know it’s you.’
‘No idea what you’re talking about. But your dad and the DA’s office. They’re connected. They faked the DNA evidence.’
‘My father would never do that. You know that he liked Milo? We all loved Milo. I was going to marry him. Did he tell you that? Right up until the day that he raped my kid sister.’
‘But –’
‘Stop, Margie, this is pointless. Your brother is responsible for so much pain. Ruby has –’ and then I stopped myself speaking further.
‘Where is she? How come she’s not turning up on Google?’
‘Are you trying to find her? Why? Leave her alone. She’s had a tough time.’
‘So has Milo, as I’m sure you can imagine.’
‘I don’t think about him any more,’ I lied.
‘He’s sick.’
‘So?’
‘You don’t care?’
I said nothing.
‘It’s serious. He could die in there.’
‘Milo has cancer?’
‘Yeah.’
I inhaled deeply as a lump formed in my throat. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘You could go see him.’
‘I can’t, I’m sorry.’
‘He wants you to go see him.’
‘No.’
I got up from the table and walked towards the exit. Margie shouted after me. ‘First your sister has him incarcerated and kills my ma, and now you’re going to let him die in there? He still loves you. But you’re fucking monsters, both of you. And the DNA is wrong. I don’t care what you say.’
I broke down in the office and had to hide in the printer room for half an hour before I could pull myself together to go back to my desk.
The next day, Grandma died in Dublin. I managed to get cover at work.
I went to Boston, and Dad and I flew to Dublin together from there.
Mom needed us. And I had not met my niece, Lucy, yet.
I had stubbornly refused to go to Dublin, but she was eighteen months old now and I was forced to accept that Ruby wasn’t ever coming home.
Kathy wanted to come to Ireland too, but Dad told her it wouldn’t be appropriate.
We left her sulking with her knitting needles.
On the six-hour-long flight to Dublin, I asked Dad about the trial, how the DNA was gathered, and how it was matched to Milo.
The mere mention of it made him wince. I had not been present for it, except to be a witness at the end, one of the worst days of my life.
Dad opened a miniature bottle of bourbon.
‘I’m not sure, but in court the forensics woman who had tested the semen found inside your sister said the DNA matched with Milo’s.
It was a 99.2 per cent match.’ He took a long sip of his drink.
‘I don’t know whether they match it to a hair sample or a swab or his blood.
Some of the evidence, I couldn’t stay to listen to it.
It was distressing, and I felt bad too, you know.
I let him stay over in our house. It’s part of my faith to trust everyone, but it let me down when it came to that man.
Your aunt Rachel stayed for the whole thing.
She said that if it wasn’t for the DNA, he could have got away with it.
I feel bad for calling the cops and for the fact that Ruby had to go through the whole court case, but at least he won’t do it again.
I think it may have re-traumatized her and led to her alcoholism, but there was no other way to stop him legally. ’
I asked him casually how well he knew the Boston District Attorney.
‘Met him a couple times at the Mayor’s Gala and at some fundraisers.
I didn’t take to him much. Seems like a slippery kind of guy.
A sniffer.’ That was the term Dad used for a cocaine user.
By the way he was talking, I knew he would not and could not have interfered in any way in the trial.
I already knew via Google how DNA was sampled and tested and matched.
I only asked Dad to see if there was any way he could have meddled in the process to make sure Milo was found guilty, but Dad was nothing but honest, and if he ever bent the rules, it was to benefit somebody.
Now I knew there was no room for doubt. Margie was wrong.
I felt bad for her, but she was another victim of Milo. She just didn’t know it.
I told Dad about Fabian. He was furious with him for his betrayal.
‘That man has no right to call himself a Christian.’ That got me thinking about my own Christianity.
Was it the right thing to do to turn my back on Milo when he was sick?
Maybe I should advocate for him? I asked Dad.
At first, he was horrified, but then he suggested that we pray together.
We did so with clasped hands, in our aeroplane seats, as the bar trolley passed us by.
After about ten minutes, Dad loosened his grasp.
‘Let Ruby decide,’ he said.
‘What?’ I gasped.
‘Tell her the truth and ask her if it’s okay to visit. If you do it behind her back, she might be hurt again, and we don’t want to risk her sobriety.’
I felt a stab of guilt. Maybe Ruby would say no.