Chapter Seventy-Six. Riley, Present Day
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
RILEY, PRESENT DAY
It’s been over a month, and it’s still hard to believe that Betty is gone.
When grief strikes me, I find solace in remembering how she looked when I went to wake her the morning after we arrived at the Grand Canyon. Betty died with a smile on her face.
Sometimes I find myself talking to her out loud, telling her I wish she’d taught me her secret to making daiquiris, because mine never turn out as well, or that the nosy neighbor with the shaggy dog is getting on my last nerve.
I tell her that Alex has transferred to a smaller school and is doing much better, especially now that a young woman who graduated two years ago has come forward to accuse Josh of inappropriate sexual contact.
The investigation is ongoing, but it doesn’t look good for him.
Usually I have these one-sided conversations with Betty in the morning as I drink coffee, since my insomnia has become a thing of the past.
Now I put my empty mug in the sink and turn up the thermostat a couple of degrees, because winter is making itself known today.
I’m about to jump in the shower when my cell phone rings. It’s Danny. I hesitate, then decide to answer.
“Oh, babe, you saved my life,” he practically shouts. “I’ve screwed up so many things, but the one thing I did right was marry you. Riley, you are the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Maybe I’m gullible, but I believe he means it. Danny and I had big problems, but lack of love wasn’t one of them.
“I still can’t believe what you did for me,” he says.
I used most of the money Betty left me in her will, which she’d inherited from her husband, to pay off Danny’s debts.
I couldn’t live with myself knowing Danny was in danger.
I used another chunk to pay for the rest of Alex’s college expenses and to cover her loans, which I knew would’ve made Betty happy.
“I’ve been good for two months,” Danny tells me. It’s code; he hasn’t gambled in that long. “Please hear me out, beautiful. I’m thinking—dinner. I’ll come your way. I’ll find a Thai restaurant to take you to, like old times. No, better than old times. A fresh start.”
I close my eyes and press the phone closer to my ear. My throat is thickening with unshed tears.
“I want to change, Riley. But it’s so damn hard. I don’t think I can do it without you.”
I could fill a notebook with the things I miss about Danny: the way he never seemed to get in a bad mood, the cowlick that made a tuft of his sandy hair stand up in the back, and how even in his sleep, he’d hold me tight.
I gather every bit of strength I possess. Then I say, “I love you, Danny. Please don’t ever contact me again. Goodbye.”
I hang up on him and, with trembling fingers, block his number.
Something inside me is shrieking a warning, telling me I’m about to destroy both our lives, that I’ll never find anyone who will want me again. Panic grips me; I’m suddenly desperate to call him back.
But a deeper, wiser part of me—the one Betty taught me to listen to—takes over. It tells me that Danny needs to change for himself, not me. I can’t be responsible for him ever again.
If Danny truly meant it, he’d prove to himself he can control his addiction. He’d go to meetings, get counseling. He wouldn’t use me as a crutch. Acknowledging this doesn’t erase my pain. But this time when I cry, it feels as if my warm, salty tears are cleansing an old wound.
I’ve managed to pull myself together and shower by the time someone knocks on the front door later that afternoon.
I set aside the information I’m reading on EMT training—I’m intrigued by the possibility of a new career—and open the door.
Then I crane my head to look up at the man standing on the front porch.
“I didn’t think you’d be so tall,” I blurt.
He laughs. “Riley, it’s good to meet you. I’m Bill Stevens from The Atlantic.”
“Come in.” I hold open the door and he steps inside. “This is Hank.”
Bill bends down and pets Hank, who wags his tail. I watch as Bill straightens and takes it all in: the old stereo console, the gold-and-navy-striped furniture, the 1960s Sears dinette table.
“Wow, what a place,” he manages to say.
“It threw me, too, when I first got here. But I’ve learned to appreciate it.”
In the will she wrote a few weeks before her death, Betty also left me her home—gifting me space to breathe and time to plan my next steps.
I haven’t changed anything in the house yet, because that would feel disrespectful.
Plus I’ve sort of grown to love the kitchen.
I’m thinking about settling here for a while.
But I’m also considering moving to the city, as long as I can find an apartment that allows dogs.
What a luxury to have choices.
The only thing I’ve added to the house is a framed picture of Betty, Ivy, Kathleen, and Helen wearing matching white dresses in the library basement.
Sam Trimble gave it to me after Betty died, parting with one of his grandfather’s prized possessions.
Sam is harmless; it turns out he and the blond sisters from the Seekers Collective are just friends, and they were taking him to pick up a prescription, since his car was in the shop, on the day I spotted them.
Sam invited me to join him for the sisters’ grand opening of their new café—featuring a tarot card reader and mentalist who purportedly can bend spoons with his mind—but I declined.
There’s only so much you can take of listening to a guy who keeps talking about wanting to write a screenplay.
“Wait till you see the kitchen.” I beckon for the reporter to follow me.
“This is fantastic. Can you actually cook in here?” he asks, inspecting the stove.
“You’d be surprised. I can whip up a mean grilled cheese on this stove.”
“I haven’t had a grilled cheese in forever. I love them,” Bill replies.
“With tomato soup for dipping?” I ask.
“Like there’s any other way,” he shoots back.
I find myself checking his ring finger. It’s bare. That doesn’t mean anything—he could be one of those guys who doesn’t wear a ring. Or he has a girlfriend. Or he’s gay.
I can almost hear Betty’s voice: You’re doing it again.
Bill leans forward, resting his forearms on the island. “Mind if I record this?”
I shake my head. He taps his phone a few times and smiles at me. “Ready when you are.”
A lot of journalists wanted to talk to Betty and me after everything happened with Sandra.
We didn’t agree to a single interview, though.
Betty wanted to tell her life story, but she wanted to tell it to me first. While we drove across the country, Betty talked for hours about the events that shaped her: the glass candy jar at the carnival, the experiments in the library basement—the very place where I’d discovered the files were missing—and her best friends who’d been destroyed.
After Betty died, I called back the one writer who’d left a different kind of message.
He insisted he didn’t want to focus on the salacious details about Sandra kidnapping a sorority girl, which the other outlets had fixated on, but the deeper picture.
He wanted to know Betty’s story—and Helen’s, Ivy’s, and Kathleen’s.
“I don’t know where to begin,” I confess.
“Just talk to me like you’d talk to a friend who doesn’t know anything about this.” Bill smiles encouragingly.
I walk over to the wall and take down the picture I had framed, putting it on the island.
These women in white were deliberately broken, then discarded. Their names were scrubbed from history; it’s as if they never truly existed. Telling their story to as many people as I can is my way of bringing them back to life.
I begin: “She was called Girl Four. But she wasn’t a number. Betty Sadler was the most extraordinary woman I’ve ever met.”