Once, only once, had he invoked Holly. “You didn’t like her much,” he said, and she had become heated, told him she didn’t want to discuss Holly. But he knew he was right. Elizabeth hadn’t liked Holly. She was fearful of being displaced by her and-she was right to be. Holly was the one he wanted. Elizabeth was the one he got. Further proof that life wasn’t fair. And proof that he was long overdue for a lucky break. Not just overdue, but utterly deserving.
40
ELIZA EASED HER BODY INTO BED, joints aching as if she had completed a marathon. She had, in a sense, run a marathon of mothering today. A biathlon, if one threw Trudy Tackett into the mix, only what would you call the second event?
Without saying a word, Peter reached for her shoulders and began to knead them. She was grateful he didn’t want to talk further about the afternoon, that he knew to leave her in peace.
“You didn’t call,” Trudy had said, almost accusingly. It seemed to be Eliza’s day to face down older women who were disappointed in her, in her manners, in her parenting. “I waited, but when I didn’t hear from you within the first few days, I knew you weren’t going to call.”
“I didn’t have anything to say.”
“To me. It’s my understanding that you’ve been speaking quite a bit to another old acquaintance of ours.”
Eliza was almost grateful then for the humiliation of the trip to North Bethesda Middle School. It gave her a reason to speak to Iso, if not Albie, in the controlled measured tone she needed. “Iso, go to your room. I don’t think you’ll be surprised to find out that you’re grounded again. We’ll talk more about this later. Albie, Reba’s been cooped up for a while, as have you. Why don’t you take her into the backyard?”
Both children did as they were told, although Iso seemed puzzled, as if her mother’s reactions were hard to fathom. Eliza waited for the whine of the back door, the slam of Iso’s bedroom door. But the latter was actually closed with quiet decorum. It was so quiet that Eliza went halfway up the stairs to make sure the door was shut, then came back and closed off the dining room.
“What did you tell her?”
“She told me. I’m the mother of a childhood friend-according to you. She has lovely manners. Is that the English education? She talked a great deal about London.”
“Yes, she misses it.” Or so I just learned, Eliza thought. Did Iso confide in everyone but her mother? Could Trudy tell her about this seventeen-year-old Simon with whom Iso had been exchanging texts and calls on her pilfered phone? “What did you tell her? What do you want, Mrs. Tackett?”
“I want to make sure that you’re not up to anything.”
“Up to anything?”
“I know you’re speaking to him. Don’t deny that.”
“I didn’t deny it. Not that I’m accountable to you.”
Trudy Tackett’s composure was hard fought, which became apparent as it cracked. “You most certainly are. My daughter would be alive if it weren’t for you.”
“No,” Eliza said. “No.” She cocked her head. Was that a door opening in the hall? Had Albie and Reba returned to the house? She lowered her voice. “I couldn’t save Holly. I’m sorry if it seems that way to you, but it’s true.”
“Save her? You were an accomplice. You lured her into his truck. If it weren’t for you, she never would have spoken to him. She knew better than to engage with some strange man. You made everything possible.”
“Mrs. Tackett-it’s not my fault that I was there. It’s not my fault that I had gotten used to doing what he told me to do. I was fifteen, not much older than your daughter.”
“Holly was young for her age. She was a child, no matter what she looked like, and you offered her up to that monster.”
Eliza held Iso’s cooling mug of tea in her hands. The worst thing about this conversation was-she understood. She knew what Trudy Tackett felt, and she couldn’t fault her for it. If Iso had been harmed under the same circumstances, Eliza would be inconsolable, desperate to find reasons, someone to blame. Where would her anger and rage go? It would cut a path to the sea.
“I’m sorry. You have to believe that. But you also have to believe that I was as much Walter’s victim as anyone else.”
“Then why are you talking to him? And considering a visit, last I heard.”
She must know someone inside the prison. Certainly, neither Jefferson Blanding nor Barbara LaFortuny would confide in Trudy Tackett. “It’s what he wants.”
“Why do you care about what Walter wants? You were his victim, as you said. What hold does he have on you?”
She was tempted, of course, to tell Mrs. Tackett what Walter had promised, to let her know that she was on the side of the angels, beyond reproach. She hadn’t killed Holly, but she hadn’t saved her, either. Was that the same thing? She had resolved to live. Was her decision to live the same as willing Holly to die? It was a question beyond psychology, beyond philosophy, beyond theology. She had chosen to live, which she believed meant doing whatever Walter said. Holly was the one who had fought and run.
“I don’t, not really. I have my reasons to see him, but they’re my reasons.”
“He’s not to be trusted.”
“With all due respect, I don’t need you to tell me that, Mrs. Tackett.”
“You’re not to be trusted.”
That was unfair. At least, she thought it was unfair. She felt feverish, then all-over chills. The flu season had started early this year. Great, all she needed was the flu, when the visit to Walter was so near. Would a prison stop her from entering if it was determined that she was contagious?
“Mrs. Tackett, I don’t know what you want, and I’m not sure I could provide it even if I did. I can’t make Holly alive. I can’t. Don’t you think I’ve revisited, time and again, what I did. What I didn’t do? But I was a victim, too. I was.”
Even to her own ears, she sounded unpersuasive.
“Your children-they don’t know, do they?”
“No.”
“Is that because you’re ashamed?”
“It’s because I want them to feel safe.”
“No one is safe in this world, ever. I proved that to you today, didn’t I? Your daughter let me into your home, simply because my name was familiar to her. I could have been anyone. I could have done anything. I could have hurt your child.”
A sudden memory. The Lerners were in a beach town where parking was at a premium and the street was crowded. Eliza couldn’t have been more than seven. Her father started to back out of his parking place just as a little boy burst away from his mother and ran behind the Lerners’ car. Her father stopped in time, but the mother turned on him, screaming. Later, as they crossed the main boulevard, the same woman leaned out of her car and yelled: “I ought to run over your kids, see how you feel about it.”
“Your husband was an army surgeon, wasn’t he? Assigned to hospitals where he treated casualties from Vietnam, as I recall. Was it only when your own daughter was killed that you figured out the world wasn’t safe? Or was that simply when you began to care?”
“You think you care. You think you know. Believe me, you don’t.”
“That’s probably true.”
Mrs. Tackett bit her lip, apparently more offended by Eliza’s concession than anything else she had said. She gathered her purse and stood to leave. “The book-the book said you might have been his girlfriend.”
“The book is wrong. He raped me.”
“But Holly and the other girl”-the other girl. Couldn’t she hear herself? Was it asking too much that she know Maude’s name? “They never found any proof of sexual assault.”
“He wore a condom. At least he did with me. I can’t speak for the others.”
“A rapist who wore a condom. But we only have your say-so for that.”
“My say-so? Do you think I’m a liar, Mrs. Tackett?” She felt the color rising in her cheeks, a pulse pounding in her temples, her neck.