Three Weeks Later
I WENT TO visit my father in prison. He was denied bail. His ability to have a secret life in another state for nearly twenty years didn’t bode well in a hearing to decide if he was a flight risk. It was unexpected, and Charlie fired the lawyer immediately.
Maybe I went because of the guilt. Maybe it was because Charlie was so convincing. Maybe it was because, with both of our secrets exposed, prison Dad seemed a little like Vermont Dad.
I sat in a room full of tiny tables and loved ones, waiting for my father to join me. It was so fascinating and surreal to be around real-life criminals. I was a criminal, Hunter was a criminal, my father was a criminal, but it wasn’t the same as a guy with tattoos crawling up a neck with the circumference of a basketball. He probably just sold drugs while we were out there killing people, but somehow he was scarier.
The door buzzed, and an officer opened it so that my father could enter. He was growing a bit of a beard, slow and steady, gray and even. He joined me at the table, and I had to give him my full attention.
I studied his face and took note of what memories came first. Him pulling the trigger, obviously. It was recent, traumatic. The night they found my mom, when he told me so matter-of-fact, his affection a hand on my shoulder, not a hug. The day Mark ended things and I went home, unable to save the tears for my room, and he said nothing as I ran by him blithering and incoherent. I tricked my father into killing someone. It certainly wasn’t taking the high road, but seeing him in that prison jumpsuit, it felt like a road I could live with.
“Thank you for coming,” he said with kind of a smile.
“Sure,” I said. “How’s it going?”
“It’s not horrible. It is prison, but I’ve had a lot of time to just be alone and think. The guards treat me well. I haven’t had any issues other than the inherent restrictions of incarceration.”
I was OK with that. Prison was enough of a punishment to satisfy my sick brain. I didn’t need him shanked or something.
“Have you heard from Linda?” I asked.
“Not really. She’s in a facility in Florida. She has a cousin there. I don’t suspect she’ll be visiting anytime soon.”
“No, I imagine not,” I said. Poor Linda. To my father and me, Linda died with Jenny. It was all so artificial. If she had any chance of getting better, it was away from us, and neither my father nor I had any desire to argue that point.
We both fell silent. Small talk was never our specialty.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” he whispered.
There it was. He couldn’t hold it in any longer. That was the question. Of course that was the question. It was the same question everyone had. Why didn’t I say something when my teacher kissed me? Why didn’t I say something when I grew up and could really understand how wrong it was? Why didn’t I say something when Jenny was found? It just felt extra rich coming from him.
I shrugged like a child.
He waited for me to say something, but nodded when he accepted I wasn’t going to.
When I did speak, I went in a different direction. “It was crazy when you came charging through with that gun. I didn’t really think you were capable of that. I guess Jenny was special. You’d do that kind of thing for Jenny.” I delivered my point with all the jealous inflection I intended.
“I would do that for you too,” he said. “If I had known . . .” He trailed off.
“First of all, we know that’s not true,” I said. “I came to your house that night asking for a freaking ride home. A ten-minute ride. You called me selfish or dramatic or some bullshit. You know, if you had just given me a ride because I was your daughter and I was asking, you wouldn’t be sitting in here right now.”
He inhaled, ready to double down on me being dramatic—old Dad reasserting himself. Then, as if under the guidance of some prison life coach, he exhaled calmly before he spoke.
“You’re right. I don’t know how to explain it. It was like someone took Jenny from me, stole her right from under me. Just one day she was gone. No more. It drove me mad. I went up the hill that night, and they wouldn’t let me anywhere near the kid, thank God. I was pacing, I was out of my mind, and then I heard that glass shatter.” He stared down at the table, shaking his head. “And I saw that man holding a knife to you and you told me it was him. That grown man. That man we trusted with our children. I snapped.” On that he lifted his eyes to meet mine.
“Virginia, I lost you over a long period of time. The result was the same, but it caused a different reaction in me. Things were hard after your mom, and then when you started high school, it just became unsalvageable, you and me.”
“That’s so fucked up,” I couldn’t help but say. “You wiped your hands of me when I was fourteen? Teenagers are supposed to be intolerable. Did you ever think maybe I needed you then more than ever? You realize that now, right? That maybe I was a nightmare because there was something going on with me? Something maybe parents should have fucking noticed?”
“Do you really blame me for what happened to you?” He stared at me, not being combative, just truly asking.
I sighed and leaned back in the chair, letting the intensity calm a bit. “Fuck,” I grumbled, rubbing my hands over my face. “I don’t know. Not completely. Obviously not completely. Do you blame me for what happened to Jenny?”
It caught him off guard, to be thrown right back at him like that. “I know I shouldn’t,” he answered. “Not even a little bit.”
“But you do,” I admitted on his behalf.
“I think we’re all to blame,” he settled on.
I nodded. He was right.
“I would like to work on this,” he said. “Me and you. If you’re interested. I know it’s not a quick fix, and I know I’m stuck here in prison without much to offer, but it is an offer.”
“OK,” I said. “I’ll think about it.”
I WOULD THINK about it. I was his only child again; he cared again. Somewhere along the way, I had to decide if I was entitled to profit from Jenny’s death. It seemed wrong, but that had never stopped me before.
I PULLED INTO a parking lot conveniently shared by a hair salon, a pharmacy, an ATM, and a pizza place. It was about halfway between Wrenton and Hartsfield and had become a regular meeting place for Brandon and me. By “regular,” I mean we had met there a few times since the “truth” came out. The dynamic had changed, but not enough for either of us to walk away completely.
The pizza place looked like every other pizza place I’d ever been in, red counters, boxes stacked to the ceiling, a cash register from the early ’90s. It had a vaguely Italian name, the menus were laminated and had turned a shade of yellow from being in endless greasy hands, and customers drank from those thick ruby-red tumblers with free soda refills.
Brandon was there first, waiting for me like always. He greeted me with a kiss on the cheek. “Hey,” he whispered right before his lips made contact.
“You smell nice,” I said, peeling away and grabbing the seat across from him. I always loved catching Brandon in the window of time post-shower before his bodywash wore off. They say when you’re in love with someone, you can smell them, a secret scent that you unlock. I could smell Mark. It wasn’t a describable smell. It wasn’t lilacs, or cotton, or body odor. It was more of a marker. I couldn’t smell Brandon, not in a consistent way.
“How’s your day going?” he asked.
I shrugged. “They canceled the winter formal,” I said, sharing a story I had overheard at the gas station.
“That’s interesting,” he said, and I knew he wasn’t interested at all.
“Everyone around town is on high alert. They brought in a state counselor to meet with students. They’re doing a complete deep dive,” I continued.
“I didn’t know you were so invested,” he said, coming across as insulting despite his intention.
A waitress came to take our order at the perfect moment to prevent me from snapping. Of course I was invested; it had happened to me too. It was not really something I could apply my patented dissociation to.
Brandon was a good guy. He really was, but he was struggling with my past. It was a lot. He felt betrayed that I didn’t tell him before I told the world. He knew he shouldn’t hold that against me, but it didn’t change how it made him feel.
It was hard for me too that he knew. Anytime I was moody or difficult or lazy or anything he didn’t enjoy, I knew he was thinking it was because of the Mark thing. I could tell because he would get annoyed and short with me; then something would click and he would change his demeanor and become super affectionate. I hated it. I was allowed to be difficult because that’s just who I was, and he was allowed to be mad at me for it. In my mind, getting a free pass on being a bitch because my teacher had sex with me in high school was the most offensive way of him saying he thought my life was completely defined by Mark. It wasn’t necessarily fair that I analyzed all of Brandon’s intentions that way, but it was how my brain worked and it was the only brain I had.
The waitress finally left, and Brandon turned back to me. “So, I have some news.” He lifted his arms onto the table and leaned toward me, smiling so big the news must have been Powerball related.
“What?”
“I got an offer from Boston PD. They want me to come work for major crimes.”
“OK,” I said before realizing my reaction wasn’t reflecting the gravity he had applied to his announcement. “Congratulations,” I added, then smiled because I thought I was supposed to, reminding me of the first day we met. I didn’t understand why I was supposed to be excited. Boston was far. Not airplane far, but no-meeting-halfway-for-pizza far.
“I want you to come with me,” he said, reaching forward and placing his hands on top of mine. “Let’s do this together.”
Ehhhhhh. I didn’t know what to say. He wanted me to say, “Oh my God, yes, of course!” I think that’s what I was supposed to want to say too, but I couldn’t. To be swept away by Brandon, whisked away to some fresh start—it was unrealistic and a cheap way out that I could never stomach. I wanted to leave Wrenton; I had wanted to for a long time, but not like this. Following Brandon, living through his accomplishments? None of my packing-the-car-and-leaving-town fantasies included a knight in shining armor who had to show up because I couldn’t do it without him. I was overanalyzing. Sometimes good things just happen to a person. It was OK. It didn’t make me weak. Still, it felt unearned. It felt gross.
“Say something,” he said, his excitement level having dropped significantly at my silence and probably my face.
“Where did this all come from?” I asked. “I didn’t even know you were looking to move.”
“I wasn’t, but someone retired, and I’ve been getting some attention because of Jenny’s case so they thought of me.”
“Glad to see you are profiting so much from her death,” I reacted. “Sorry, I know you didn’t mean it like that.”
“You’re deflecting. What’s going on? You don’t want to go. I can tell,” he said, defeated.
“Not really,” I admitted.
He slid his arms off the table and into his lap as he leaned against the metal chair back.
“Is this ever going to work?” he asked.
“I think it is working.” I smiled and he reciprocated. We really did like each other.
“Don’t throw up in your mouth when I say this, but I want more,” he said.
I mocked dry heaving for him, then softened because I appreciated the sentiment he was masking with humor. “I know,” I said. “You just asked me to move away with you. That part was obvious.”
He laughed, and I hesitated on my decision. Sarcasm-infused sexual tension was where we thrived. I could stay in that forever, but he couldn’t. If I hadn’t framed Mark, if my secret hadn’t come out, would I be saying yes? Or, if I hadn’t said those words, would I be saying no because Mark was alive and single and I could never let that go, even given everything I had learned about him?
“Think about it,” he said. “Come with me. Leave this all behind. I want more for you.”
“Ew, don’t say that,” I said. “That makes you sound like a dick.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, you’re saying I’m not enough, but don’t worry, you can fix me.”
“No, no, no,” he said, leaning forward again, smiling, and begging for forgiveness. “I think you’re the best. Seriously, I enjoy you so much.”
“You enjoy me?” I grinned.
“Yes.” He laughed. “I enjoy you.”
“I enjoy you too,” I admitted.
He reached for my hands again. This time, I turned my palms over and let it be mutual. We made dramatic Romeo-and-Juliet eyes at each other for a hot second. It was a momentary escape, but I knew what I was to him now: a victim. Someone to save; someone who needed to be coddled and shielded from the outside world. I understood now more than I ever did before that it wasn’t a way to build a relationship and, frankly, wasn’t a way to exist as a person.
Before I could say something twisted to end the quiet, heartfelt moment, he spoke up. “When you’re ready to leave, no matter where you’re headed, will you let me know? Just let me know you’re leaving?”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll send you a tit pic.”
I DIDN’T GET HOME until after 10:30. Brandon and I had stayed at the pizza place for over two hours, talking and laughing like we hadn’t just broken up. I guess it meant we weren’t that into it in the first place. I was forever grateful to him nonetheless. It was nice to know I could have a relationship other than with Mark. That seemed important.
I pulled the bottle from the freezer and brought it to the couch. My phone buzzed with an unknown number, and I turned it off before setting it facedown on the table. I was back to drinking on Saturday nights. I’d said I wasn’t going to do that anymore, but all things considered, I allowed myself the indulgence.
THINGS HAD CHANGED between Hunter and me. Go figure. We met up a few times, cementing our stories, pretending everything was fine, but we couldn’t get back to those nights in the pub. She cried a lot at first, apologizing with every fourth sentence until I begged her to stop. Apologies meant nothing; they were just words, and words between two liars are even less potent. It sounds ridiculous, but Hunter and I could trust each other with our fate, just not our feelings. To be emotional or vulnerable with each other now seemed dangerous, but she never questioned I would keep her secrets. I struggled with the morality of keeping what she had done to Jenny a secret. I should hate her. I should blame her and want her punished, but I knew better than anyone that she had been punished. Most of her life had been a punishment, and there was no on/off switch. Living with what she had done was going to be punishment for the both of us.
I never wavered on keeping the secret that Mark had preyed on her as a child too. It was not my place to share. I knew firsthand what it was like to hold on to that secret and what it was like to let that secret out. I would never deprive her of the choice.
It had been cathartic to tell at first, just getting it off my chest, but it was short-lived. I had replaced it with new secrets that left me with all the same fears of being found out, anxiety over what people would think, constant questioning of my decisions, and a guilt that could always find a way to taint any happy thought I had—business as usual in my brain.
What was worse was it didn’t help to have people tell me how gross it was or to feel sorry for me; it didn’t make me feel any better. The truth was that everything horrible about Mark was foreign to my own experience of being with him. Those were the memories that wouldn’t change no matter what I learned after the fact, and without him around anymore to remind me of what he was truly like, those memories prevailed. That’s what people couldn’t understand.
What I wanted was for someone to tell me it was OK what had happened, not what Mark did but my part. I wanted to hear that they understood, that it could have happened to anyone, that I shouldn’t be embarrassed. Telling me over and over again how disgusting and wrong it was did nothing to heal me because I was a willing participant. I wasn’t locked in some shed for sixteen years. I was in love—a twisted, manipulative, predatory love, but I was there. I had agency. I made choices—choices that contributed to Jenny’s death in more ways than one.
The thing that left it particularly unsatisfying was that telling my secret did nothing to bring justice to the world. There were no other little girls to protect with my confession. Mark Renkin was already dead. I had already taken care of that.
Death was the easy way out for him, but I didn’t do it for him. I did it for us.
A KNOCK AT THE DOOR somehow stirred me from my drunken slumber. Thus far, I was still refraining from the pills, knowing I couldn’t trust what I would say or do if I blacked out.
It was after midnight; there was no way it was a reporter or a nosy neighbor. My inebriated brain didn’t consider who it was or if it was safe to answer; it was proud enough to understand a knock on the door means go answer it.
“Hey,” the lanky teen in the camouflage coat greeted me as I opened the door.
“Hey,” I said, rubbing at my eyes and trying hard to will myself to sobriety.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said, backing away, less interested in letting him inside as much as desiring to no longer be standing.
He eyed the vodka on the table, and it seemed unjust to judge someone else’s choices after showing up unannounced in the middle of the night. JP took a seat on my tiny couch, and I knew better than to join him and instead sat at the foot of my bed.
“What are you doing here?” I finally realized I should ask.
“I’m leaving,” he said.
“You just got here.”
“No, town. I’m leaving town. Are you drunk?”
“Probably,” I confessed.
“I just . . .” He rubbed his hands along his thighs, building up to say something. “I wanted to get something off my chest.”
“OK . . .”
“Jenny wasn’t having sex with Mr. Renkin. She did lose her virginity that night, but it was with me. We were running away and she wanted to. We were going to have a whole life together. I know it happened to you, so I’m not saying he was innocent, but you said they were having an affair and it just isn’t true.” He shook his head, looking down at the floor and not at me.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Positive,” he whispered.
Had Hunter been wrong? Or did she lie on purpose? She didn’t seem like she was lying, but it was laughable that I thought I would be able to tell. No, she saw Jenny leave his house that night. What else was she supposed to think? She had no motive if she didn’t believe it. She saw Jenny with her own eyes; she had an excuse for believing it to be true.
Did I just believe it because I wanted to? Because of course Mark would be cheating on Hunter. Of course he had to be abandoning her like he had done to me. Of course it would have been Jenny who replaced me. What Hunter said had to be true. That night, when she said so much, it had to be true.
If I had known Jenny wasn’t having an affair with Mark, if I weren’t so eager to believe the accusation, would things have played out differently? Would Mark still be alive? Would Hunter be in prison and my father in Vermont? What would I have done? These were questions I could never know the answer to, but would never stop asking myself.
“I’m not looking to start a whole thing. I just thought you should know,” JP explained, trying to reassure me once he realized my silence was creating a mounting tension. He seemed so genuine. I was happy Jenny had had him in her life given everything else, every other self-motivated monster in her circle, including me.
“But if they weren’t together, why did he kill her then?” he asked, flirting back on the edge of maybe looking to start a whole thing.
Why did he kill her? It was a rational question, one I hadn’t prepared for, but it was all so fucked up, a backup motive rolled right off my tongue. “Jenny knew about me and Mark,” I admitted. “I found out way after the fact that she found something in my apartment—evidence. It didn’t seem relevant to bring it up, given everything else, but if she had tried to blackmail him . . . if she had threatened him . . .”
“Yeah, she was really ballsy. She might have. We got into some trouble that night. We had a plan to get some money, but it didn’t work. I don’t know what happened, but I told her to leave and his house is so close. If she thought that was an option . . . I don’t know. When I came back later that night, her body was just there, on the ground, in my backyard.” His voice was breaking up a bit, and I could tell he was picturing her in his mind, whatever she had looked like then.
“You moved her body?” I asked.
He nodded. “No one would believe me. I didn’t know what happened to her, and I just . . . Something really bad happened before that and I couldn’t call the cops. If she went over there and did something stupid, maybe he lost it. I don’t know.”
He started to tear up at that point. It didn’t make me uncomfortable. I liked that someone was crying for Jenny, authentically crying over the loss of her.
“I didn’t want to move her,” he insisted. “I just had to because no one would believe me. I tried to be gentle. I promise, I really did.” He looked to me for forgiveness, and I nodded.
“What happened earlier that night?” I asked.
He just shook his head, an obligation to keep the secret to himself. It wasn’t much of a secret. I had a good guess.
“Was it Gil?” I asked. “Did something happen with Gil?”
He turned, eyes wide, like my awareness was impossible. It seemed obvious, but maybe the alcohol just dulled my surroundings and made everything clear in my brain. I slid off the bed and joined him on the couch so that he could speak at whatever volume was comfortable for him.
He told me everything. At least, I have to believe it was everything. It was a pretty candid admission. It helped knowing a whole horrible set of events had taken place that had nothing to do with me or my past. It helped knowing Gil wasn’t still out there. It helped knowing I now held JP’s secret—an insurance policy against him telling anyone else the truth about Jenny and Mark or digging further into that night. It helped that I was still drunk.
What didn’t help was when JP told me that Jenny tried to call me that night for help. He breezed over it—merely a bullet point as he rattled off how the night with Gil played out. “She tried to call you, but there was something wrong with you and then . . .” There was something “wrong” with me. The understatement of the century. Jenny needed my help and I didn’t deliver. Hell, I didn’t even remember. Maybe that’s why I called my father. Maybe I was trying to help her. Stretching to that conclusion was too generous. I just had to accept that no matter what I learned about my involvement in that night, no matter how much time passed, there could be more, and it could get worse.
JP stayed the night on the couch just like Hunter did that first night. In the morning, he left without a word, just as she had—the door waking me up as it closed. My head throbbed, and when I never saw him again after that, a tiny part of me always worried that I had just made it all up.