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“No, not tonight. You go.”
Vic returned to the great room and switched on the TV again. Friday night was true crime night, and he had a series of shows he watched until bedtime. It was the one thing he and Rose agreed on.
She came out half an hour later, her face ruddy from the hot water, smelling like pine soap and floral shampoo. “So, are you in the mood to tell me what secrets you were going to tell the boys last night?”
“Okay. I don’t have to tell you that this could hurt my boys if it was talked about in town.”
“I got it, Vic. I love your boys, okay? I won’t gossip about their mother with Gus. I learned my lesson with the baby’s diagnosis.”
“Ugh, now I wonder if you can be trusted,” Vic said, his voice a little louder than usual. “I’d forgotten that you’re the one who started that crap.”
“Great, now you’re mad.”
“Why would you tell anyone our private business?”
Vic was referring to Katrina and Dave’s baby born with Down syndrome. Rose had told the dockmaster, Gus, and his wife, Grace, who was a friend of Amber’s. Grace had told her about it, and Amber had made a mean comment about it to Dave in retaliation because he had broken up with her to be with Katrina.
“I don’t know. I had a lapse of common sense. I apologized already to everyone.”
“Not to me, you didn’t,” Vic said.
“I’m so sorry. You know I love the little guy, Vic. I play with him whenever he’s around me. He’s a riot!”
“He is a handful.”
“I’m going to fix a snack. Do you want a beer?”
“A beer sounds good,” Vic said, trying to relax.
She brought cheese and crackers in on a tray and two beers.
“Okay, I’m ready to listen.”
“Emily took her own life.”
Rose stopped what she was doing and looked at Vic, her hand creeping up to cover her mouth.
“I don’t believe it,” she said, tears spilling out. “Yes, I do. I believe it because I believe Emily’s story. I have to tell you something before I explode. Val admitted to Elizabeth that he forced Emily to have sex. She told me last night.”
Leaning forward, Vic put the bottle back on the tray. “How did it come about? The conversation, I mean.”
“Elizabeth didn’t believe that Val’s adorable teenage niece, Emily, would give him the time of day, and she confronted him. He admitted he forced her. He didn’t beat her. He said he pushed her back on the front seat of the car, pulled the crotch of her panties over to the side, and did it. He raped her.”
Vic looked down at his hands, and his face contorted as his shoulders shook, tears cruising down his face. Rose sat down next to him and held him for a while.
“I almost remember the night, Vic. John Angel and I were headed to Saint John’s Parish for a movie. He was spending the weekend. I don’t remember who he was staying with, though. Not out at the cottage, that’s for sure. There was no room. He was going to pick me up from the Benoits’ house. We were meeting there, so he might have been staying at Gus’s. Gus would do that as a favor to me.
“Anyway, Emily was meeting friends in town, and they were going to the pizza place and then to play cards. Val had offered to drive her. She looked adorable, wearing white sandals and a white cotton pique mini dress with pink roses embroidered around the neck. So cute. I remember looking down at her toes and pointing. ‘How cute! Your toes match your roses.’
“No one gave it a second thought that her uncle was going to take her to the corner to meet up with her friends. It was totally innocent. I don’t recall if I saw her later that night, either. Or what her behavior was like afterward. I’ve been racking my brain to remember.
“John and I couldn’t take the separation any longer, and we got married. I had to go to Pensacola with him because that was where his job was. We lived with his parents. I formed new relationships. I wasn’t invited to your wedding, and when I heard about it later, I figured Emily had done the same thing I had—she’d gotten on with her life.
“My aunt left Cypress Cove to live with me and John in Pensacola. John still loved the cottage, and he went every fall for a week. After Maggie was old enough, I let her join him, and she says now those visits with John when my father was still alive are cherished memories.”
She fussed with the snack, taking their empty beer bottles into the kitchen. “I wish I could remember more. Emily never said a word to me. I’m going to keep sorting through Emily’s papers and maybe something will show up.”
“I wish there was a letter from Val admitting it or apologizing to her. Anything.”
