Before I could protest, my daddy bundled me into his Cadillac and was roaring off the property when I hadn’t even clicked my seat belt. The first ten minutes of the ride were dead quiet, the only sound the faint whomp of the tires on pavement. It was the first time I regretted that the car was nearly soundproof. A little wind noise would have been welcome.
I spoke before my dad did. The last thing I wanted to talk about was Seth Collins. The second to last Aubrey Theriot. But I wanted answers more than I wanted comfort.
“Bree?” I whispered my question. There were so many others, none appropriate. I knew how the birds and the bees worked. When I was about fifteen, I’d walked in on Daddy and…Mam. There wasn’t enough mind bleach to get that memory out, but I’d made peace with the fact that they’d had sex at least three times. Now I was dialing back that number and a new mental image was taking its place.
“Your mother…Margaret and I were going through a tough time. Aubrey…she’s a good listener. One thing led to another…”
“I know where babies come from, Daddy.” I had to swallow the feeling of rejection before I could get the words past my lips. “Why didn’t Bree keep me?”
The question would have been better put to Aubrey herself, but she wasn’t here to answer for her crimes. My father was.
“By that time, your mother’d had a few miscarriages. Michelle was more of a miracle than we’d ever realized.” I bit my lip. My bitch of a half-sister was not the definition of a miracle. “The doctors said your mother wouldn’t be able to carry another baby to term. Secondary infertility was what they called it. Margaret was devastated. Aubrey has lived at the estate her whole life. Her mother lived there and her mother before.”
Without the historical context of successive generations of women working for a single-family sometimes going back to before the Confederacy, none of this would make any sense. I would have been hard-pressed to explain any of it to most of the girls I went to college with. In fact, I never did.
“What did you say that would have made her give me to Mam?” That last stuck in my throat like thick peanut butter. I had to swallow hard just to breathe.
“I’m…I’m not proud of this.”
“What? What aren’t you proud of?” My mind spun out very far. My father lived life balls to the wall. It was the Texan in him. He lived big and unapologetically. Regret wasn’t a word in his vocabulary.
“Aubrey was young, and her mom was sick.”
“Please tell me you didn’t pay her for a baby. Slavery ended over a hundred years ago.”
“We did not pay her. Your mother laid out a very convincing case for having us raise you and not a single mother living on a housekeeper’s salary.”
“What was the lynchpin?” There had to be something compelling enough to separate a mother from a child. Money wasn’t enough.
“That we’d raise you as white.”
I sat back so hard, my head bounced off the headrest. Now that, I hadn’t seen coming. Because of course, how I’d seen myself wasn’t how I was…anymore. I’d lived in Louisiana my whole damned life. Four years in Massachusetts hadn’t erased my understanding of the very strict rules that governed life down here.
Specifically, the one-drop rule.
No one would say it out loud anymore. It wasn’t politically correct, but it still applied. I could do what others did and call myself French or Creole or whatever, but last night I’d gone to bed white.
Tomorrow, I’d wake up Black. I flipped down the visor. My skin was still pale, my eyes blue, my hair straight and inky black. The genes expressed weren’t what made up the building blocks of me.
My head pounded with the reassessment I’d have to make about everything in my life. Is that why Christopher had broken up with me? Had he seen what I couldn’t?
Had Seth Collins known about me? Seen me as an easy mark? A Black woman he could do anything to without repercussion?
I don’t know how long I was quiet before I noticed Daddy’s car was coming to a stop. We were under a huge overhang that wouldn’t have been out of place in any large hotel. The building itself was a huge block of windows and concrete. The squared-off edifice did not evoke empathy.
Baton Rouge Police Department was emblazoned above the portico.
There was no valet, but Daddy turned off the car under the portico anyway. He was not a man who spent time looking for his own parking spaces.
“Let’s go, Nicole.” The bark was an order.
“Do you think this is a good idea?”
“That man has to pay. He’s not going to get away with defiling my daughter. Not today.”
After I glanced at the car he’d parked with impunity, I sucked in a very deep breath and followed him through the automatic doors.
“Can I help you?” a bored-looking man asked, who was for sure younger than me.
“I need to talk to a detective.” My father’s voice was a command of instant respect. The young officer stood quickly, snapped to attention.
“For…sir?”
“My daughter was violated.”
The man’s face turned crimson as he averted his eyes from mine.
“Let me call up to Sex Crimes.”
My own face would be that color soon if I didn’t get a moment. I stalked down a corridor following signs for the lavatory. After I squeezed something out of my bladder, I washed my hands, then patted at my cheeks with damp palms.
Under the flickering fluorescent lights I stared at my face. How could I be so different, but look the same? All of Seth’s comments hit me then. He’d known the thing my sister had known, my entire family had known. Was I the only person in the dark?
I was coming out of the ladies’ room, when a man in a brown suit exited the elevator. From across the lobby, I watched my father introduce himself and shake the police officer’s hand. They talked for a minute while I watched. Only when they turned in my direction, did I start back across the tiles toward them.
“Nicole? Let’s go up and have a talk in a conference room.”
I shook his hand and followed them up. Someone got me water and I got as comfortable as I could in a wooden chair.
“I’m Detective Neil Bowers. I’ve been in Juvenile and Sex Crimes for about four years. I’m going to have to ask you what happened. It’s going to be uncomfortable, but this won’t be the last time you have to tell your story.”
I covered my eyes with my hand. Took a deep breath. Put my hands in my lap. Sighed.
“Oh, okay.”
Bowers slid a pad of paper toward himself. Clicked a ballpoint with his left hand and started writing something.
“Tell me your name, address, age.”
“Nicole Theriot…Long. I’m twenty-two.” I gave him my address. Bowers’ frown was immediate.
“Metairie is a long way from Baton Rouge.”
“I’m sorry. Habit. I’m actually living here now.” I gave him the street and apartment number for my studio at New Day.
“Alrighty then…” Bowers trailed off, then turned and cupped his hand to my father’s ear. Daddy patted me on the back, then left the room. He came back in with an awkward half-smile on his face. Seeing me see it, Bowers quickly rearranged his face into something more somber and appropriate.
“You’re living at New Day, huh.” He snapped the thumb and middle finger of his right hand. Your dad, James Long, is J.T. Long? Man, I didn’t recognize him.” He blushed in a way that said my father wasn’t his flavor of pastor. “You must have met Seth Collins? Now that he’s preaching most of the time….He’s done us proud here in Baton Rouge. I think one day he’ll preach the word of God to as many people as Jim Bakker did or even Pat Robertson. That sermon he did on the Sunday after Thanksgiving is exactly the thing that we all needed to hear.”
His words were like a fist to my gut. The chair scraped against the floor as my body slumped against the wood that curved around my back.
“What I’m going to ask you now may make you uncomfortable, but rest assured I’ve heard everything. I won’t be shocked or surprised or embarrassed. So let’s start at the very beginning. Do you know the first and last name of your attacker?”
If I could have slipped all the way down to the floor and hid under the table like I’d done when I was a little kid, I would have.
I closed my eyes for a long second. Opened them. Met Bowers’ straight on.
“Seth Collins.”