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When Phyllis finally moved, it was to put her cup in the sink, grab his hand and tug gently. “Let’s go into the other room,” she said.
Though he had no idea why, Matt blindly went.
When they got to the living room, she turned off all but the Christmas-tree lights. They gave the warmest glow he’d ever seen. Almost like firelight with comforting flashes of color. A strange serenity spread through him as she pulled him over to the sofa with her and sat.
The woman was some kind of sorceress.
One Matt could easily become addicted to.
“I led her on.” His voice was hushed.
“Not intentionally. And not at all if she’d been rational. You can’t be blamed for her irrationality.”
“Yeah, try taking that to court.”
“Tell me the rest.”
He leaned into the couch, one ankle crossed over his knee and stared at the lights. “It was her word against mine. She claims she remembers waking up in my office a couple of times, remembers me sitting there, holding her shoulders, talking softly to her.”
“You were trying to wake her.”
“And at one point to get her to sit up.”
Again he went back to that day. And it was always the same. “Hindsight says I should’ve called someone in to sit with us. Hell,” he said harshly, “hindsight says I should’ve played the entire thing differently.”
“What, left her to rot in the hell that was her life?”
“Being pregnant at fourteen is a better alternative?”
“But you didn’t make her pregnant.”
Maybe not, but…
“If I hadn’t encouraged her to see herself as a desirable woman, chances are good she wouldn’t have turned to sex for the love and acceptance she needed.”
“But you didn’t know that.”
“And that’s the point. I had no business getting involved with her. I should’ve been the best damn teacher I knew how to be—and sent her to a counselor for the rest of it.”
“You were twenty-four years old, Matt.”
“Old enough to be accountable, as the jury quickly decided.” He paused, rubbed his hands on his thighs. “The best I can tell, Shelley must have dreamed that she and I slept together that day and then somehow the dream got mixed up with the bits of reality she remembers. Next thing I knew, I was being sent up for ten years to pay for a crime I only partially committed.”
Phyllis placed her hand on his. “You didn’t commit any crime at all. You cared. And in any book that counts, that will never be a crime. I can’t speak for the justice system, Matt, but any real judging is a judging of the heart, of intention and motivation.”
He looked into her eyes, so close to his own, and felt a soothing of the pain that had been festering inside him for six long years.
He wanted to kiss her. Needed to kiss her.
“So what happened?” she asked, bringing him gently back to earth, reminding him that kissing wasn’t what they were about.
“When the baby was six months old, old enough for a conclusive paternity test, it was proved that I wasn’t the father.”
Phyllis nodded. He knew he should look away. Had to look away. But not yet. The warmth surrounding him was so new, so foreign, so compelling that he couldn’t deny himself just yet.
“The case went back to trial…”
“I’m surprised that was even necessary with such conclusive proof.”
