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“Lost your way to the plastic surgeon?” I arched an eyebrow.
“Save me the hilarious commentary, Jesse. I’m here because we need to go to the lawyer ASAP. Do you think this is some sort of a game?” She was trying hard not to bark, dangling over the edge of a breakdown.
I tilted my head, silently producing Darren’s letter from the back pocket of my jeans and handing it to her. “Is this why you’re here? Because your pedophile rapist of a husband left me all of his shit, and you’re freaking out?”
She held the letter between her manicured fingers, not unlike it was a ticking bomb, and flipped her sunglasses to the top of her head. Her eyes skimmed the paragraphs, running in their sockets and widening with every passing second. I saw all the white around her blues. All the lies behind her fake-truths.
“Jesse…”
“Remember when I was twelve and had my first period? The one that didn’t come back until eight months later? I was puking in the bathroom and there was blood on my thighs, and you saw it, because you asked Hannah to clean it afterwards?” My voice was calm. Dry. The words slid from my mouth effortlessly, and even though I wasn’t in a state of hysteria, I still felt them. They hurt, but they no longer burned.
I was healing.
“I didn’t know. I mean, I wasn’t sure,” she stammered, taking a step in my direction. I took a step back, ripping another bite of the apple. It was shiny. Red. Beautiful, really. I understood why Snow White had fallen for the trap. But I was standing right in front of my very personal witch, refusing to make the same mistake.
“Yeah, you were.” I sniffed, kicking a little rock between us. “So, you found me. Mazal Tov. Now it’s time for us to go to the lawyer. You’re acting like you should be looking forward to this meeting. Spoiler alert: you shouldn’t.”
“Jesse, baby, honey.” She laughed, going for the hug—going for the freaking hug—and I sidestepped, avoiding what could have made me throw up the apple right on her glossy neon stilettos. I stuck up a hand between us, shaking my head.
“Get away from me, Pam. You want us to go to Darren’s lawyer? No problem. Send me a text message with a time and a place. I’ll be there.”
“What are you planning to do with the money?”
I shrugged. “Burn it, maybe.”
“Jesse, you’re being ridiculous! This is real money we’re talking about. Your father would be—”
I pushed her away before she could finish the sentence, smoke nearly shooting out of my nostrils. “Don’t. Whatever you do, don’t tarnish his name. He’s not to be blamed for any of the bullshit that happened.”
“Oh. That’s rich. The drunk philanderer was a saint, huh?” She threw her arms in the air. I laughed. She didn’t get it, and it occurred to me that she might never.
“Far from it. He was a cheater and an alcoholic. A savior and his own worst victim. He wanted to help people, but was doing a spectacular job at ruining his own life. But all is forgiven, Pam, because he tried. He tried to be good. You?” I stepped toward the door, shaking my head. “You don’t want to be good. You want to win. Maybe that’s why you keep on losing.”
“You need to leave me with something!” she called out.
“I am,” I said, yanking the door open. “I’m leaving you with the consequences of your actions.”
My father had once told me that Alexander Pushkin was born into Russian nobility and died in a duel with his brother-in-law, a French aristocrat, who’d tried to seduce his wife. I remembered thinking people had really crazy lives back then, but I didn’t think that anymore. As I sat inside my Rover, outside the Todos Santos Police Station, strangling the steering wheel with my hands, I realized that his life had been no odder than mine.
Because we all had crazy stories.
I’d been raped twice.
Born to a mother who’d never really loved me.
Taunted and ridiculed in high school, manipulated by my own therapist.
All those things were true, but while they had happened, so had other things. Great things. I was blessed in so many ways:
Finding Gail.
Finding a job.
Finding literature, and words, and sentences that inspired me to be better, both to other people and to myself.
Finding Bane.
I threw the door to my vehicle open and walked into the station on autopilot, slinging my backpack across my shoulder. I couldn’t believe I was doing it. It hadn’t changed one bit since the time I provided a statement more than two years ago.
A sleepy receptionist with big dark curls and kind eyes looked over from the reception counter, scanning me. “How can I help you, sweetheart?”
“I need to amend a statement I gave two and a half years ago.”
