Chapter 68
THEN
It rained from dawn until dusk. That slow, relentless kind of rain that slides down your neck and settles into your bones, turning everything heavy—your clothes, your limbs, your thoughts.
I’d felt off all day—headachy, nauseous, like I was on the edge of something.
A cold, maybe. Or something worse. A knowing.
That morning, I’d told Cess I’d be late. I’d taken to lingering at school, waiting for the bike shed to empty out before I collected my things. But today I had a legitimate excuse: I owed the library three overdue books and figured returning them would soothe my conscience.
But when the final bell rang, I couldn’t face it. The idea of spending another minute in that building turned my stomach. I headed straight for the bike shed, mounted my bike, and pedaled home through the rain like my life depended on it.
The moment I entered the gates I saw his car. Parked right in the driveway like it belonged there. My whole body seized up. I nearly turned around. I should have turned around.
Even now, all these years later, I don’t know why I didn’t. Maybe I was too tired to think straight. Maybe some twisted part of me hoped it would be different this time. Or maybe—most likely—it was plain old stupid curiosity.
I dragged my bike up the path and onto the porch. Ness’s umbrella was propped beside the door, dripping a quiet, steady rhythm onto the tiles.
When I opened the door, I heard him immediately. His voice carried on the polished boards, booming like a thunderclap.
“You filthy whores.”
I froze.
“Get out of here, Elliott!” That was Cess, fierce and unyielding.
“Get out?” my father cried. “This is my house.”
“Actually, it’s my house,” Cess replied.
“Not until a judge declares it so!”
I remained in the doorway, soaked through and trembling. I didn’t call out. Didn’t move. Every instinct told me to run—but instead I crept up the stairs like a ghost.
“What would your sister say, Cecily?” My father was roaring now. “Engaging in this unnatural behavior. And after I left my impressionable daughter in your care.”
I gripped the banister so tightly my fingers hurt.
By the time I reached the top of the stairs, my heart was beating so loud I could barely hear them anymore.
The door to Cess’s room was wide open. My father’s umbrella was leaning against the wall outside, dripping onto the carpet, and I found myself focusing on it.
That umbrella had been a present from my mother.
My father had loved it. He’d made a big deal about the workmanship—the handmade wooden frame, the sterling silver handle.
The fact that she’d cared enough to get him this struck me for a moment, but only a moment.
Because then, inside the room, I saw them.
Cess and Ness.
They were on the bed, wrapped in a sheet—barely.
Cess’s arm was around Ness, their bodies pressed close, hair mussed, cheeks flushed.
It didn’t make sense. Or maybe it did, but only in some far-off, abstract way, a way I hadn’t allowed myself to consider.
Seeing it with my own eyes was different.
Shocking. Terrifying. Wrong, my mind screamed, even though some deeper part of me whispered that maybe it wasn’t.
“She’s not your daughter.”
Cess’s voice cut through the fog in my head as she stood and faced my father.
She wasn’t cowering. She wasn’t even flinching.
“You don’t get to call her that anymore.
You’ve done nothing to earn the role of a father.
You abandoned that child emotionally from the moment she was born, blamed her for the death of her sister, ruined her reputation in the community, and then, just months after bullying her mother to suicide, you take up with another woman.
And don’t get me started on how you’ve cast suspicion on her for her teacher’s murder even though another woman has confessed.
It’s no wonder the child has to retreat into a fictional world to find solace. ”
“That child lives in a fictional world because she’s mad. Mad Mabel! ”
I flinched. And that small, traitorous movement drew all their eyes to me.
“Mabel.” Ness’s voice. Soft. Aching.
My body flushed hot, then cold. I wanted to disappear, vanish into the floorboards. My throat had closed up. I felt like I might vomit.
“I … I wasn’t feeling well,” I managed, barely above a whisper. “I came home early.”
My father’s face twisted in disgust—at me, or Cess and Ness, I wasn’t sure. “Good. Pack your bag, Mabel. We’re getting out of here.”
His voice turned my insides to liquid.
“It’s all right, darling,” Cess said to me, calm as ever. “Ness, can you take Mabel downstairs, please?”
Ness moved—slow, careful, like she didn’t want to spook me. She bent to pick up her clothes from the floor.
But I didn’t wait. I turned and ran.
I wasn’t a runner. I was clumsy, always had been. But I flew down those stairs like hell was at my heels. The screen door slammed behind me. I didn’t stop running until the house was a blur in the distance and the rain had soaked me straight through, like it was trying to wash the whole thing away.
I heard Ness calling my name as I left, but it was quickly drowned out by the driving rain.
The adrenaline, the thunder of my heartbeat, and the blood swirling in my ears did little to offset the horror I felt, but at least they gave me momentum as I fled the scene, leaping over the fence between our house and the neighbor’s, and then the fence after that.
Idly, it occurred to me that, had I completed the back-fence challenge all those years ago, I would have got one of Mrs. Casey’s milkshakes for sure.
I had no plan. I didn’t know where I was going. All I knew was that I had to get as far away from there as I possibly could. Far enough that I could go back in time and unsee what I’d just seen, unhear what I’d just heard. Of course, I ended up seeking out Daphne.
“What’s wrong?” she cried when she saw me.
My face was slick with tears. Usually I processed my emotions internally, where I knew they wouldn’t be ridiculed. But this day, my feelings didn’t get the memo because as I fell into her arms, I let out a sob.
“Ness,” I said, through gasps. “I saw her … with Cess. And my … my father saw too.”
I could see Daphne’s confusion. “You saw Cess and Ness? What’s so strange about that?”
I couldn’t explain it. How did one explain something they didn’t understand themselves?
I understood queer men existed. Several times I’d overheard my father talking about Roger McGuinness, the old man in the football jersey who hung around the train station, calling him “camp” or a “fag” and my mother told me it meant that he was queer.
I must have continued to look perplexed because she added: “It’s when men have impure thoughts about other men. ”
“More than impure thoughts,” my father called out.
Neither of them had talked about it any further, telling me it was sinful for young ears, so I’d had to obtain the rest of my knowledge on the matter from the schoolyard.
From what I cobbled together, there were men who engaged in intercourse with other men, typically while drunk.
Some had wives, others were single. All were to be avoided, though I was unclear why, as no one had suggested that these people were violent.
I’d never heard of a queer woman, and I’d certainly never suspected Cess or Ness of such a thing.
And so I didn’t tell Daphne any more about what I’d seen, and she didn’t offer any wisdom or explanation that would have made sense. But Daphne did provide me with the one thing I needed in that moment—refuge. I’d always be grateful for that.