Chapter 84 Erin
Erin
Ruby turned up in Boston. She handed herself in and confessed but was released on bail.
Kathy told me she had turned up on her doorstep.
Ruby told her who she was and what she’d done.
Kathy had known about the ‘rape’. Dad had told her all about what Milo Kelly had allegedly done.
Even though she said she was horrified by the true story, she had taken Ruby in and let her stay there.
‘Your father would not have turned her away,’ she said.
I couldn’t argue with that. She agreed to let Ruby stay for a while but warned her the house was shortly going on the market.
Kathy passed on an apology from Ruby to me and asked if I wanted to come and see my sister.
I told her to tell Ruby that I would see her in jail.
I was so angry. She hadn’t called or texted me.
Cowardly. Now that I knew she was facing the consequences, I had no wish to see her as a free woman.
From what I could glean, she hadn’t implicated our mother in her confession.
Milo got a lawyer, who I paid for. He had to be cleared of all charges. My family owed him everything, but it could never be enough.
I drove to Margie’s house in Salem. That was a difficult encounter, but eventually she listened to me. She realizes that we are all victims of Ruby’s lies. I apologized for all my suspicions, but I convinced her that I have only Milo’s best interests at heart now.
Vince and I divorced finally in late 2025. We parted as friends, and Nick, now that he knows everything that happened, wished me luck. He told me that Milo still loved me. I clung on to that hope.
Ruby had a public defender this time but she was just as convincing in court as she was before.
She was only an immature teenager at the time who had led a sheltered life, and in the intervening years she had been raising a daughter.
She used the fact of Lucy’s rape to elicit sympathy from the judge.
As a mother of a real rape victim, she had realized how important it was to come forward and tell the truth even though Michael Kelly had now been free for as long as he’d been imprisoned.
It was infuriating. Her crocodile tears did not fool me.
Ruby was sentenced to only five years after a plea deal.
I find that extraordinary. The mitigating factors were that she was so young at the time and that she confessed voluntarily.
How is that fair? She only confessed because she was caught.
I would have turned her in. I would have had her extradited from Ireland if I’d found her there.
She will have to pay Milo a huge amount in compensation.
I don’t know what she can afford. I was going to pay whatever she couldn’t but I was going to make sure he got every penny he could from Ruby.
I didn’t care if she ended up homeless after her pathetically short sentence.
Her husband, Jack, and Mom came over from Dublin for the sentencing hearing.
Jack is doing okay, I think. He is selling the unnecessarily big house.
He told me Ruby was the best actress he had ever seen, but he didn’t mean it as a compliment.
He can’t get over the manipulation. He and Lucy are closer than ever, and I have told them they are welcome in my home any time.
Mom is trying hard with me, but I’m not ready to forgive her yet.
I have told her it’s going to take time.