Chapter 76
I’d tried calling Ruby first, but she wouldn’t answer. I called Mom instead. It was the middle of the night in Dublin, but I didn’t care about that. As soon as I told her what I suspected, Mom started blubbing.
Mom had known. That was what hurt the most. She had found out the night before the sentencing.
She was scared stiff. She had sacrificed her marriage to keep Ruby’s secret.
She preserved Ruby’s lie and let Milo be sent to prison to protect Dad’s investment clients, his congregation, Ruby’s reputation, and to have an excuse to go home to Ireland.
Did she even think about me? My love for Milo was not a childhood romance.
Mom chose Ruby. There was no Sophie’s Choice scenario. There was no moral dilemma. There was right and wrong. And Mom chose wrong.
It had nearly destroyed me. Years of loneliness and the fear of truly trusting anyone until I met Vince, a perfectly nice man who couldn’t believe his luck when a woman sixteen years his junior agreed to marry him because she was dying of loneliness.
Perfectly nice and perfectly dull. He knew at his core that I did not love him.
Our marriage was over but neither of us had the courage to declare it.
And then there was Ruby’s twenty-six years of lying. I called her again, some twenty times. She didn’t pick up. I drove around for an hour. I could not discuss this with Vince. I needed to see Milo.
I walked into Billy’s Diner and asked to speak to Milo. He came out from the kitchen and looked surprised to see me.
‘Milo, I need you to take a drive with me.’
He looked confused. ‘Why? And where? I’m working.’
‘Please, Milo.’ I started to cry. He put his hand out but stopped himself from touching me.
‘Is it Nick? Is he in trouble?’
I couldn’t stop crying, my body heaving in spasms of distress. I shook my head.
‘Erin, you better sit down.’ He pointed to a table at the back.
‘You don’t understand. I can’t do it here.’
‘Do what? Tell me.’
I ran towards the door, but Milo came after me. He called to someone, ‘Hey, Marky, I gotta go. Close up for me, okay?’
I got in my car and Milo sat beside me. ‘What’s this about?’
I pulled away from the kerb and managed to control myself. I remembered what he’d told me about his theory, but I’d found it disgusting and unbelievable. Now I needed him to repeat it. After he told me, I cried again.
‘What do you know, Erin, did she admit it?’
I took him to Kathy’s house and introduced him as my friend, Michael.
I told Kathy we had come to get the mirror.
It was after ten o’clock. Kathy questioned if I was okay.
I guess I looked like shit compared to a few hours earlier.
I asked for aspirin and a glass of water.
Milo accepted a coffee, and we made polite conversation for about two minutes before he and I climbed the back stairs.
I showed him where the mirror was and the hole in the wall behind it.
I demonstrated how the tape had covered it, and then we went into my room and I showed him the spot on the wall above the bookcase.
Milo went quiet. He sat down heavily on the floor and his face was ashen. I tried to comfort him. ‘Milo, I’m sorry, I should have believed you.’
I tried to put my arms around him, but he shook me off.
‘I was right,’ he said.
‘Yes, you were, and I’m so sorry.’
His face lost its colour. ‘It’s been twenty-six years. My mother jumped into the Charles River because nobody would believe me. You and me, we had planned a life, kids, a whole future. All those years in a stinking cell. Why?’
There were tears streaming down my face. I wanted to hold him but he left the room, and I heard him go down the stairs and out the back door. I followed, expecting to find him standing by my car, but he was gone.