Chapter Thirty-Three #2
“We stayed in the car, not talking, until the sun came up. That’s when Tom brought me to the farm.
Irene, Grace’s sister, was there getting Grace and William’s things for the hospital.
She said they’d been badly hurt. When we last saw them, they were outside of the barn.
I still can’t believe William went back in.
” Jessica runs her nails up and down her thighs, her black jeans shadowed where her fingers leave their mark.
“Irene didn’t even ask where I’d been all night; it was like she’d forgotten about me.
I decided to go home, and Irene seemed relieved she didn’t have to take care of me.
She drove me to the bus station and offered to call my parents.
She had to tell them about Grace and William anyway. ”
“That’s it? You just went home?”
“About a week later, cops came to interview me in Portland. I said what Tom told me to say: I was with him that night, watching TV at his house. They believed me. It was my parents who suspected I was lying, and they grounded me for months because they thought I was hiding something. I left home as soon as I finished high school.” Jessica continues scraping her nails across her body, focusing on her neck, leaving red welts across her skin.
She shifts closer to Diana, only inches away.
Diana smells cigarettes and Jessica’s citrusy perfume.
“All these years, Tom and I both kept this secret. I’m only here, telling you all of this, because he’s gone. ”
He really is gone, Diana understands. And there is no way to get back the Tom she knew before all this started, before she found that letter.
Her next question shocks them both. “Who’s Ava’s father?”
“Diana,” Jessica says, using her name for the first time. “Tom loved you. Even from the little he said about you, I knew he loved you.”
He told her that he loved her every day, didn’t he? Before he left for work each morning, before he fell asleep at night. And in the letter, too: When you speak of me to Duncan and Phoebe, tell them their father was imperfect, but he loved them, and you, more than anything.
Diana clutches the plastic crate to keep her body upright. “You didn’t answer my question. Tom is Ava’s father, isn’t he? That’s why he gave you that money: $60,000 over the years and $250,000 right before he died.”
In the distance, Diana hears cars honk and voices call out.
On the other side of the bar, people are going about their days, driving through traffic, listening to the radio.
Here, a woman she’s only just met is about to confirm another terrible secret, one that will obliterate Diana’s understanding of her husband and her marriage.
Her stomach twists, and though she knows she’s right, she waits for Jessica to say the words.
“When Tom and I reconnected that day in the courthouse, I wasn’t in a good place,” Jessica whispers. “He tried to help me. The money he gave me was for rent and groceries, my phone bill, my car. I never used it for drugs.”
Jonathan’s words return to her: I’ve decided if the money wasn’t for the firm, it was for something else, something important to Tom. Jessica was important to Tom, enough for him to steal from Jonathan and lie to everyone. Diana lets go of the crate and wraps her arms around her roiling midsection.
“Sometimes, I think Tom only tolerated me because of what I knew about Carson,” Jessica continues.
“Other times, I thought he cared for me. We slept together a few times, always when he was upset about something. A case at work, his guilt about the fire, a fight with you. He was always mad at me afterward, and I wouldn’t hear from him for weeks.
When he found out I was pregnant, he was furious.
He wanted me to get rid of it. I wouldn’t, though. I wanted the baby.”
Diana feels a shooting pain in her chest, as if one of the last strands holding her together has snapped, and she falls against the building, breathing heavily. The brick wall grazes her skin through her thin cotton dress, and the nausea increases.
“Tom wouldn’t have anything to do with me after Ava was born.
I didn’t see him again until she was about six months old and had gone to live with my parents.
Raising her on my own was too hard, and I was still using.
It wasn’t safe for Ava to be with me.” Jessica shakes her head so hard at some unspoken memory of Ava’s infancy that the bun on her head falls, and curls spring loose around her ears.
“After that, Tom and I saw each other every few months or so. When Ava was around seven, I got arrested for possession. Tom got me probation, and that’s when I broke it off. I was so screwed up. I couldn’t face him anymore.”
Jessica brushes away her tears, taking off the last of her makeup.
“Before he died, Tom called me three or four times. In his voicemails, he said it was important. He was sick and had to speak to me. I thought maybe he finally wanted to meet Ava, so the next time he called, I answered. We didn’t speak for long.
You’d gone out on a walk with your sister, he said.
Your brother-in-law was downstairs watching the kids.
Tom was supposed to be napping. He laughed about that.
He said what was the point of napping when he’d be dead soon enough? ”
Diana so rarely left Tom’s side after his diagnosis. She should remember taking a walk with Andrea and asking Evan to look after Duncan and Phoebe, but she cannot find that time in her memory.
“He called because he needed another favor. The first favor I’d done for him was keeping his secret all these years.
The next was to get well. He asked me if I couldn’t get clean for myself, could I do it for him?
He’d pay for it. He didn’t tell me where the money was coming from, and I didn’t ask.
He’d found a place in Arizona that was going to have openings that fall.
It was a big commitment. Inpatient and a few months in a halfway house.
I’d be gone for more than a year. He’d already talked to my parents about it, and they were willing to do whatever was needed to help me, including managing the money he wanted to give me. ”
Diana is finding answers to questions she didn’t even dream of asking, connecting the facts of this story together, one fitting into another with a sharp click.
“I used all that money for rehab and therapy for me and my daughter,” Jessica says. “Do you want me to pay you back? I live with my parents and Ava in Portland and wait tables. The tips are good, but I can’t even afford my own place, much less come up with that much money.”
Diana’s eyes sting from the strain of holding in her tears. “Tom wanted you to have it so you’d get well. And you’re better, right?”
Pride shines in Jessica’s eyes. “I am better. He never saw me like this. He only ever knew the broken version of me.”
Tom might have been happy with this version of Jessica. After all, she kept his terrible secret all these years and loved him despite his mistakes. She never stopped seeing him as that boy who walked her through the apple trees.
Tom never gave Diana the chance to understand who he really was. Perhaps he’d been right in his letter, after all: If we had been different people, or maybe if our relationship had been different, I might have told you all this sooner. I tried, but I wasn’t sure how you’d react.
Remembering the contents of that letter brings Diana another realization. “Tom said other people knew what he did that night at the farm and that they might come looking for me. That was you, right? There isn’t anyone else?”
“Not that I know of.”
“He wrote that letter because he thought you’d find me after you were done with rehab. He told you to stay away from me and my children, didn’t he? He made you promise?”
Jessica nods.
“But he was concerned you wouldn’t stay away, so he had to scare me. He needed to make sure I’d be too frightened to talk to you. That way I wouldn’t learn about your affair and Ava.” Diana clears her throat. “He took a big risk with that letter, and it backfired spectacularly.”
“I told Tom he should be honest with you, with everyone,” Jessica says. “He said—and I remember this because I thought he was wrong then and still think he’s wrong—‘The past stays in the past.’ We might want the past to stay there, but it never does, you know? The past is always with us.”
Neither woman says anything for several minutes. Jessica stands up and stretches her arms over her head, the firm skin of her stomach flashing above her jeans.
“Is that it?” Diana asked, rising up next to her and very much hoping that’s everything.
“Yes, that’s it.” Jessica steps so close that Diana sees the gold flecks in her brown eyes. “Who else are you going to tell? Or are you going to keep all of this a secret, too?”
“I . . . I’ve been so worried about finding out the truth that I haven’t thought about what happens after,” Diana says carefully. “If I go to the police, you might get in trouble for not coming forward sooner or for lying to them about the fire.”
Jessica tosses her cigarette pack into the trash. “That’s your call. I just hope you can do right by me.”
They return to the front parking lot, standing together in the unrelenting sun.
“Thank you for talking to me,” Diana says.
“Can I give you a ride somewhere?” Driving off to the suburbs and leaving Jessica here alone seems wrong, an inadequate response to the courage it took for her to open up, even if what she said has broken apart Diana’s world.
“No, thanks.” Jessica stuffs her hands in her jacket pockets and walks off without saying goodbye. She crosses the street and moves deliberately up the hill. Diana watches her until she turns left and disappears.