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With a small pit in my stomach, I shot off a text to Lincoln.
– Does the sen. have a team like us?
It was only maybe two minutes before he got back to me.
– Just an image consultant.
“What’s the matter?” Jenny asked, voice hitched a bit.
“I just wanted to make sure Bertram doesn’t have anyone like us on his team.” Her eyes went big. “He doesn’t,” I assured her, giving her thigh a squeeze. “Anyway, back to your story. Sweetheart, you didn’t fucking deserve a single one of those beatings, let alone a whole life of them.”
“I see that now, I do,” she said, voice a little firmer when I likely gave her a look that said I didn’t believe her. “I mean, I don’t agree with you about the guilt. There is some fault on me about what happened to my parents. And there is almost ALL the guilt on my shoulders about what happened to Eli. I could have told the cops the truth right when they first questioned me, before Bertram even got a chance to get to the hospital, asking them to give me time to recover.”
“You were barely eighteen-years-old, Jenny,” I told her, shaking my head. “You should have been worried about what college to go to or what house party you’d be going to that weekend, not whether or not your husband might damn near kill you for speaking the truth. You were alone in a world full of monsters and scared. No one would hold this against you. Not if they knew what was happening to you. And, if it is any consolation, it’s not like the Mallick family is full of fine, upstanding citizens. They beat people for a living. And while I am not one to judge, Lord knows, he was, at his core, guilty. Not just because he almost killed Teddy. But because he’d done this countless times before without ever serving any time. I think that is why he didn’t try to defend himself. It’s why he didn’t go back into the family business after he got out. If the cops weren’t as corrupt as they were back then, he’d have been locked up – and all his brothers, hell, even his parents – long before you even came along.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better,” she told me, shrugging. “If it weren’t for me, he might have gotten off.”
“No,” I said, voice vehement. “There’s no way Bertram would have let that happen, let him get away with it. He’s too strong on law and order. It’s his platform. He’s one of those fucks who wanted mandatory sentences for first-time offenders of even low-level, non-violent crimes. He couldn’t have allowed the man who beat his son to go unpunished. That would never have been allowed to stand. Even without your testimony.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. We will never know because I did testify, perjure myself, condemn him. Let’s… not talk about it anymore,” she suggested, looking away.
It was a sore subject.
One she had firm beliefs about.
Ones I might never be able to change.
I wondered if maybe she would agree, someday, to meeting with Eli, hearing reassurances from the mouth of the man she blamed herself for imprisoning.
See, I knew his story after he got out.
I doubted she did.
Maybe if they sat down, and he explained it to her, about the dog, about meeting the love of his life, about creating a family, repairing burned bridges, about how none of it would have ever happened if not for that whole situation, maybe that would change her view of it all, maybe she would see that sometimes even awful things happen for a reason, even if you can’t see it at the time.
But that was an idea for another time.
“Are we staying here tonight?” I asked, and maybe my voice was hopeful.
“I think we have to get back to my house,” she said, and I didn’t imagine the disappointment in her voice. She no more wanted to go back there than I did. “Staff,” she added with a grimace. “We’ll already have to say we slipped out early for my appointment,” she added, reaching over her shoulder to rub a knot. Even just the thought of going home was making her tense.
But she was right. There was the staff to worry about. And their direct line to Senator Ericsson’s ear. Until she was sure enough in her situation to get rid of them, we had to keep up appearances.
As much as I wanted the freedom to be able to be with her the way I wanted – and the way I wanted was all in – I knew that there was no way we could do that. Not yet. It wouldn’t look right. It was too soon. It might draw suspicion.
So as long as she was under that roof with those people, she needed to keep up appearances.
