Chapter 38
“Then do it,” Clem told her. “I got nothing better to do. Well, other than muck out some stalls, put out some hay and fix the leak in the roof of the barn.”
“You mean that I’ve got to muck out some stalls, put out some hay, and fix the leak in the roof of the barn,” Jaret said dryly.
Clem smiled at him. “If you’re offering.”
“Well, I’m certainly not letting you do any of that.
But that can wait until we learn why Lily came halfway across the country by herself on a bus, then bought a car off a stranger, and ended up on the roof of our barn.
” Jaret gave Lily a stern look and she got the feeling he didn’t approve of any of those things.
“I only ended up on the roof because Chuck thought he was a bull and charged toward me,” she said. “As for the rest of it, well, I need to go back to when you were recovering from your operation.”
“Right,” Clem said. “You said that Rick was lying when he told me that you slept together behind my back.”
Jaret gave her an interested look.
“And that Mother helped him come up with that lie and that when you said you were going to tell me the truth, she attacked you.”
“She attacked you?” Jaret asked, looking concerned.
“I don’t understand why they did that . . . actually, I guess I do. It was to isolate me from everyone. I didn’t have anyone else who truly cared about me and they thought they would ensure that any relationship between us was severed.” Lily let out a sad laugh. “Guess they succeeded.”
“Not necessarily,” Clem said.
Did that mean that Clem could forgive her? That maybe they could build a relationship again? Well, she hadn’t kicked her out of her life entirely, had she?
“Did you tell anyone that she attacked you?” Jaret asked.
“I didn’t remember that it even happened until I had a nightmare a while ago.
Then it came back to me. She drugged me and when I woke up, I was in a small, private hospital.
She told me that I’d had some sort of episode where I attacked her.
She had scratches on her arms, and photos of the wrecked living room.
She said that I tried to kill her. And I sort of had these memories of doing that.
I could remember screaming at her. I could remember trying to hurt someone.
I spent a few days under Dr. Wallace’s care, and he gave me these pills to take.
He said that I had to take them to keep myself steady, that my central nervous system was all out of whack and was causing me to become violent. ”
“Jesus, no one would blame you if you did attack that witch,” Clem said.
“What were the pills, Lily?” Jaret asked.
“They were meant to be a mild sedative. At least, that’s what it said on the bottle. But it turns out that they were laced with Devil’s Breath.”
“What the heck is Devil’s Breath?” Clem asked.
Lily explained what Devil’s Breath was and how it made her suggestible to things. Compliant. How it could erase memories or change them.
“Jesus, so your mother and this doctor were drugging you to make you do what your mother wanted?” Jaret asked.
“Yes, but there was actually more to it,” she said. “Mother also did it for the money.”
“The money? Clem asked. “What money? She didn’t have any money left. How was she paying for those pills once she lost all her money?”
“Doctor Wallace offered her a deal. He’d supply the pills and pay her if she’d let him have me for a couple of nights every fortnight. Sometimes, I remember her saying that I was going in for a checkup. Other times, I don’t even remember going to the clinic.”
“What was he doing in that clinic?” Clem asked in a quiet voice. “What was he doing to you?”
Lily couldn’t answer.
They both stared at her. Clem was pale, her eyes wide, and Jaret just looked concerned.
“What was the doctor doing to you?” Clem repeated in a low voice.
Lily moved her gaze back to her hands. She couldn’t tell them this part while looking at them.
“He was videoing me,” she whispered. “In a special area of his private clinic. He’d strip me down and move me into different positions, he’d touch my body, do things without my permission.”
“What . . . what the fuck?” Jaret said. “Did he . . . did he . . .”
“Rape me?” she asked. “No. No, he didn’t go that far, mainly because that was a condition my mother made.
I don’t think the other women he videoed were that .
. . lucky.” That wasn’t the right word to use.
She wasn’t lucky because he didn’t rape her.
“But he did other things that I never consented to. Things that make me feel . . . violated. Since I saw one of the videos, I’ve been in a weird headspace.
I’ve had nightmares, panic attacks; I’ve had to talk to a therapist just so I could learn how to function again.
I haven’t had much self-esteem or self-confidence for months.
Probably longer. Harvey was trying to build that up again, but then we learned all of this and any sense of self-worth I had has disappeared. ”
That’s partly why she’d run when she’d heard Fiadh and Amanda talking. Because their words just validated her feelings of being unworthy.
Clem got up when she finished and started pacing back and forth. Jaret stared at Clem for a long time, looking pained. Then he turned back to Lily.
“Lily, I’m so sorry that happened to you.”
Lily nodded. She didn’t really know what to say in return. She was sorry it had happened to her as well, and she wouldn’t wish that on her worst enemy.
“That fucking bastard! Please tell me that he’s been stopped,” Clem said. Stilling, she clenched and unclenched her hands.
“He’s dead,” Lily said. “We don’t know who did it, but he probably had enemies. Mother lost her mind after telling me what she’d done. Her part in all of it. Harvey’s brother ensured that her bail was revoked.”
“It’s not enough for her to be in a psych unit.”
“It is, though,” Lily said. “She has nothing. She is nothing.”
Clem stared at her for a long moment. “You’re right. That is perfect. She abused you just as much as he did.”
“Yeah, she did,” Lily said hoarsely, barely able to hold back her tears.
“It must be really hard knowing that happened to you, but having no memory of it,” Jaret said.
“My mind plays tricks on me. It brings up what I think are memories, but I don’t really know if they are or not. I have nightmares where I wake up screaming and Harvey . . .”
“Harvey what?” Jaret asked.
“Harvey always holds me. He holds me tight because he knows that’s what I need, or I’ll feel like I’m crawling out of my skin. And then he’ll talk to me, tell me stories about his childhood until I go back to sleep.”
“So he’s taking good care of you?” Clem asked.
“Harvey takes such good care of me.”
“But you left him,” Jaret said. “You left him and came here because you thought you weren’t good enough for him?”
“I know I’m not good enough for him.”
“Did you tell him you were coming here?” Jaret asked.
She shook her head no. “I snuck out of his house. I’m really ashamed of that now. I should message him and tell him I’m all right.”
“I think you should do that too,” Jaret said. “I also think that you should stay here with us. Don’t you, Clem?”
That was a really generous offer, and one she couldn’t take him up on, not when it was Jaret who had asked her and not Clem.
Her sister was silent as she stared out the window above the sink. Her hands were clenched around the countertop.
“Thanks for the offer, Jaret. But I can’t stay. I’ve got to get my life sorted out. Find a job, somewhere to live, something to do.
I thought about giving up. After all, what was the point of being here?
But I don’t want my life to mean nothing.
So far, I feel like I’ve done nothing. I’ve just been a pawn, and that’s partly my own fault because I should have fought harder.
I should have been stronger like Clem, but I’ve never been that. ”
“What kind of bullshit is that?” Clem snapped, turning.
“Clem,” Jaret said warningly.
“No. You stay out of this. She’s my sister. I don’t interfere in your family stuff.”
Jaret gave her an incredulous look. “You interfere all the time in my family stuff.”
“Hush. I want to talk to Lily. What’s this bullshit about you not being strong?”
“I’m not strong. I’m not like you.”
“Do you know how many people would have given up after what you’ve been through?”
“I just told you that I nearly did.”
“Yeah, nearly. But instead, you bought a bus ticket, traveled across the country by yourself to come talk to me. How’d you get the money to do any of this? Did you steal it from Harvey?”
“Of course I didn’t. I still had some jewelry and my handbag. I pawned them for a surprisingly good amount of money. That meant I could buy a bus ticket, stay in a couple of motels, and afford that car.”
“Have you got any money left?” Jaret asked.
Hmm, she didn’t really want to reply to that.
“Enough.”
Clem let out a small bark of laughter. “That means you’ve got nothing.” And then she pointed at Lily. “You’re staying here. No arguments.”
“Clem, you really don’t have to do that. All I wanted was to see if maybe we could think about building a relationship, if perhaps you might think about forgiving me.”
Clem wiped her hand through the air. “Nope, nope, none of that.”
Disappointment flooded Lily, even as she told herself that she deserved that reaction.
“No forgiveness needed, and we’re not building a relationship, we already have a relationship. You and me, we’re sisters. We might be different, and there might be things in the past that we wish we’d done differently, but now, we look to the future.”
“Clem, you can’t just forgive me just like that,” Lily told her. “There were things that I did years ago that I shouldn’t have.”
“I grew up in the same household as you did, Lily. I know it wasn’t easy to get through it, and you did what you could.”
“When I could, I’d try to keep her attention off you and on me, so that she wouldn’t pick on you as much. But I could have done more. I should have done more, Clem.”