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"I was waiting," she said, shaking her head. "I didn't want to pile on. I was waiting for one of you to come and ask me. I knew you were... struggling."
"I'm here, Char. I'm asking."
"She was raped, Rae."
The words were ugly. They were always ugly. I didn't think it was possible to hear them without cringing on the inside. They were made uglier still by knowing they applied to someone you loved.
"What? When?"
"Tuesday night. She had gone out after work. I came home late after going to see Asher. She was in the shower when I got in. I thought nothing of it. Until an hour passed, and the water was still running. Then almost two hours. Honestly, I was more worried she'd fallen, and hit her head or something," she admitted, shaking her head. "Instead, I found her chilled to the bone, shivering, and silently sobbing. I knew."
"She didn't actually say--" I started, but she cut me off.
"I knew because I've seen the aftermath a few times. Because I know it myself," she admitted, giving me a piece of her past I had never known before. The ache in my chest amplified. "I got her out of the tub, dressed, under the blankets. And then I waited for it to spill out. I knew it was coming."
"What did she say?"
"She said she wanted to get the feel of his hands off of her," Char told me, closing her eyes tightly, tamping down an ugly memory. "I didn't really need more information than that."
"Why didn't you call the police?"
"Because she told me not to. Because she said she couldn't go through that, that she didn't want more hands touching her. I've been through that exam, Rae. I can't blame her. It was her choice. So I gave her one of her pills. I let her sleep. I waited to speak to her in the morning. I tried to coax her into making a statement. She told me no."
"You could have called me," I told her, voice small, maybe even a little accusatory.
"That wasn't my place," Char insisted, voice steely. "If someone trusts you with that, you don't break that trust. I did get her to talk to the hotline, though. I heard her on the phone with them on Thursday night. I thought that was a step in the right direction. I figured the next foot forward would be confiding in you. I never could have known she would kill herself the next night, Rae. I couldn't have known that. You can't blame me for that," she insisted, tears welling up and pouring out.
Mine joined hers as I wrapped my arms around her, as I told her that Sammy had come to see me, that I felt guilty too. And we shared those unfounded sensations of guilt for a long time before we managed to pull ourselves together again.
"She never said who it was?" I asked, swiping at my salty cheeks.
"No. I don't know why. I don't know if it was because she didn't know, or.--"
"Or because she did," I finished.
"Yeah," she agreed, nodding her head. "I wish I had pressed harder. But I didn't want to make it any worse for her."
"Did she say anything? Do you know where she went that night?"
"No. When I asked that morning as we got ready for our day, she said she had a dinner."
"A date?"
"No. No, it didn't sound like a date at all. She was talking about it very formally. Like she had a dinner. You know, like an obligatory dinner or something like that."
"She wasn't dating anyone."
It wasn't a question, but she answered anyway. "No. She'd been single for a long time. No hookups. No nothing. Just happily single."
It could have been anyone.
She could have gone to her dinner, left, and been attacked.
Or she could have gone home with whoever she had dinner with. Maybe she felt like she was to blame because she followed him, because he said she led him on.
I didn't know.
It was killing me not to know who the person was who had caused my sister to cut her life short.
"I just remember one thing she said about him. About the attacker," she clarified.
"What?"
"She said he kept calling her 'princess' the whole time he raped her."
'Princess' was a common word.
An annoying pet name.
Plenty of men used that endearment
But as soon as the words were out of Charlotte's lips, I knew.
I knew like I knew the sun was going to come up the next day.
I knew who she'd had a dinner with.
I knew who called her princess.
I knew who had raped her.
Michael McDermot.
My mind flashed back to every interaction we'd had with the man. He'd been a fixture in our lives as far back as I could remember. When my parents hosted a dinner party--which was often--he had always been invited. When there was a charity fundraiser we attended, he was there.
