“I know that,” he says loudly. “I was hoping you didn’t.”
“How the hell could I not know?”
“Because there are so many ways to think around these things!”
Again he holds his hands out, palms toward me this time, and takes a deep breath. “Let me start over again,” he says. “You want an apology, and believe it or not, I came all the way down here to deliver it to you. I guess you’ve been steaming about this for thirty-odd years, wondering why I didn’t have the stones to offer you one. Well, that’s the answer. How you viewed it—that’s not something I knew. I figured it probably wasn’t favorable. I’m not stupid, but I didn’t know that for a fact. And what if I said I’m sorry about what happened and you said, ‘What are you talking about?’ Because sometimes—not mostly, but sometimes—it was consensual.”
I tip my head, looking at him in utter disbelief. There’s something befuddled in his expression, as though he has truly puzzled over this. “It was never consensual,” I say.
“Well, sometimes it seemed like it was.”
“You imagined that. I never wanted it. Not once.” I brace my arm against the pew and lean toward him to be sure he doesn’t miss a thing I say. “You choked me, you scared me, you robbed me of ever feeling normal, and worst of all, you screwed up my mind. You don’t get to keep any of that, so don’t congratulate yourself, but for a long time there you screwed me up pretty good. And if you’ve carried around some idea in your head that I wanted it sometimes—well, allow me to relieve you of that notion. I knew that if I tried to say no, you would make my life an even worse hell. A person can’t consent if she has no choice.”
His mouth pulls into a tight, grim line, and I see his Adam’s apple move as he swallows. “Listen, I didn’t come here to give you a pile of excuses. Flat out, I shouldn’t have done it. I’m sorry. I’m embarrassed and I’m sorry. And I hate to say it, but you’re not the first woman to come to me years later and lay into me about something of this nature. At the time I had a different idea than I do now about how that type of interaction works. That’s all I’m going to say.”
His apology should wash over me like clear water, but I find it hardly matters. What feels good is to speak the truth of it to his face. To make him return in his mind to those moments and sit in them with me, drinking in the fact that he was unwanted. Yet I know I can’t make this unhappy reunion all about the rearrangement of that power. “You filed a claim in a sexual abuse lawsuit against the diocese,” I say.
A shadow of surprise crosses his face, but he says nothing.
“Was that a true claim or a false one? Just be honest. If it was false, I won’t report you.”
“How did you find out about that?”
“You’d be amazed at how many people are nosing around in our family’s past on a day-to-day basis. Ricky demanded to talk to you right before they burst in and arrested him, remember? They leave no stone unturned.”
Clinton nods and clears his throat. “Yeah. Well, it was a genuine claim. And in my defense—in my defense, Clara, please—I did everything I could as a witness for you because I didn’t want to see you put away for murdering that sorry old bastard. It’s a wonder nobody else got to him first.”
He rubs his hands together, and I notice his wedding ring is gone. That shouldn’t surprise me, but everything about the passage of time outside these walls always manages to, anyway. “I’m sorry that happened to you,” I say.
He looks up at me with a wince. “Christ, Clara, don’t say that.”
“Well, I am. Nobody should have to suffer that. Not even you.”
The light has fallen lower, throwing piercing beams across the pews toward the altar. It’s December, and even in the desert night is creeping earlier and earlier. Clinton looks up at me, a momentary glance that is brief and unguarded. “My father didn’t know, but my mother did. When I finally worked up the nerve to tell her, she freaked out about it, but next thing I knew she left anyway. These days I think they’d call her bipolar. I don’t know if they had a name for it then. Crazy. People like that were just crazy. Whatever it was, it sure didn’t do me any good. Can I tell you something?”
I consider that, because I can. “Yes.”
“During the whole lawsuit thing, most of us in the group went to these support group sessions. The guy who first contacted the lawyer works for this organization that runs them. I wasn’t going just because it would look good in court or anything like that. I was going because once somebody from school got in touch with me and pointed out the elephant in the room, which is that a whole bunch of us went through this shit, I started having a lot of feelings about it again. Victim feelings. Maybe the third time I went, we were going around the circle and that guy talked about how the experience drove him go to work for this organization because he wanted to do everything in his power to prevent another person going through what he’d been through. And I thought, wow. There are two kinds of people in this world, you know?”
“What do you mean?”
He tosses up a hand as if it’s obvious. “Well, that guy realized his life’s work was protecting children and serving victims. And mine was proving to myself that I was not gay, goddamn it. Because that sick fuck really had me worried about it for a minute there.”
I nod. Clinton looks restless, his gaze darting to the door and then to the window. “When did you get divorced?” I ask.
“Six or seven years ago. I’ve been married twice.” He catches my eye again and lifts his eyebrows. “It just didn’t work out, is all. I’m not gay.”
“You still need to be sure I know that, huh?”
He scowls, but has enough grace to look embarrassed. “Just don’t look back on this conversation and think I came crying that I wasn’t to blame. If I could take it all back, I would. I have a daughter myself. I’d kill anybody who did that to her. I’m sorry.”
Father Soriano shifts back into the room, resting his back against the wall with his arms behind him. “I’m glad to have your apology,” I say. “Thank you for offering it. I hope you’ll understand if I accept it on my own time.”
I reach for my crutches and begin to get up. Clinton reaches toward my arm, but I hold up a hand. “No,” I say, polite but firm. “Don’t touch me.”
“Clara—wait. Listen, if you still have any legal bills—”
I narrow my eyes at him. “I don’t want your money.”
He stands, pressed awkwardly into the pew to stay out of my stumbling range. “Not mine. My dad’s not doing so well, you know—he’s been in that home for a couple of years now, and they keep warning me he’s in a decline. Once he goes, I know they’ll get in touch with you. Obviously I’d rather negotiate than sell the house.”
“Why would you sell the house? And why would they get in touch with me?”
He looks at me with wary incomprehension. “Because of the will. It’s in there that the house be sold and the profits divided, but I really don’t want to sell the place. I could buy out your share, but if you don’t need the money all at once we could work something out that might be better for everybody.”
I quickly glance at the priest, then back to Clinton, as if I might gain insight from the gazes of either of these men. “It’s your father’s house, isn’t it?”
“Mostly, but since they refinanced with the money from selling your mom’s old place, not completely.”