I turn to look at him but he has his eyes on the road ahead. I have the sense of something out there, something shimmering and dangerous, like an animal under the surface of the water.
“‘Who was it?’ she asked me. I couldn’t say it. I’d never said it to anyone. I couldn’t say it. I just … I asked her the same question and she started to cry. She said she’d never told anyone either. That she’d been … raped.” There’s a long, heavy silence. “That’s what we were talking about.”
Silence.
“I didn’t know,” I say.
“She said she’d never told anyone. I hadn’t either. We … We were friends after that. Everyone at the café thought I fancied her. Bláithín thought I fancied her. It was terribly cruel, when I think of it now. Here was Erin, who knew the most intimate, secret thing about me, something I hadn’t even told Bláithín. And I invited her out with us, let Bláithín see that there was this thing between us. In some ways, I don’t think we ever recovered from that.”
“Who was it?” I ask into the quiet car.
“Erin never told me,” he says. “But me? A neighbor. I went round to feed his cows sometimes, make a little dosh. I learned, in therapy—there’s been a lot of therapy—that I have it better than a lot of victims. I stopped it. I put my foot down after it … after it happened once. I made excuses not to be alone with him and it never happened again. I never told anyone, until I told the therapist. I’m okay now, but it took a long time. Splitting with Bláithín, it was … I could only see the marriage clearly once I’d reckoned with … it.”
He starts the car up. I reach out and put a hand on his arm. I leave it there, rubbing little circles on his skin.
We’re almost to the hotel. We pass the big AIB building. I take a deep breath.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It’s embarrassing. There’s a certain amount of shame. Erin told me never to tell anyone. I had the feeling it was someone close to her, that if it got out, it would be disastrous for her. She said something about how everyone would be mad at her if she ever told. Once she was gone, I couldn’t ask permission. I’m sorry,” he says. I turn to look at him.
“I’m so sorry,” I say. “I had no idea. About Erin. About you. I’m so sorry.”
He looks down at me. “It’s okay. It really is. I’m okay.”
“Erin didn’t say anything…” I’m thinking horrible thoughts suddenly. Uncle Danny. My dad. No. “She didn’t tell you who it was?”
“No. Not a word. It seemed raw, especially as the summer went on. It felt like she was starting to deal with it. I recognized the signs. I knew she hadn’t, well, gotten past it, you know? Because I hadn’t, either.”
“Oh my God.” I’m staring straight ahead at the houses along the little side street. He turns the car on again and pulls out, turns back onto the Main Road. We’re silent as we drive up Baggot Street.
I reach for his free hand and he takes mine gratefully.
“I wanted to tell you,” he says. “But I didn’t know how to start. I almost did once.”
“What stopped you?”
“I think I was pretty sure I was in love with you. I thought it might make you not love me back, I guess. That you’d think something was wrong with me.”
“I don’t,” I say, rubbing my thumb along his. “I could never.”
“She told me once that she had hurt you. She didn’t tell me what it was, but she felt guilty about it. She said that it … the rape … made her do bad things. Made her hurt people. Do you know what she meant?”
I nod.
We’re almost to the hotel when I say, “I don’t want to go up there. Can we go to your house?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Bláithín’s bringing Adrien back, but I don’t care. I just want you there.”
We ride through the quiet streets of Dublin in silence.
Christmas. A grim, gray December day. My mother’s been dead for six months. We’re barely functioning, barely able to acknowledge the day. Father Anthony visits Christmas Eve and prayed with my dad but I can’t bring myself to say the words with them. I stay in the kitchen, baking my mother’s soda bread, trying to do it right. I can’t get through it without crying.
On Christmas morning, we go down to Uncle Danny’s and have breakfast, open a few presents. I give Erin a velvet scarf, decorated with butterflies. She puts it on, wears it all day. She’s quiet, thoughtful, and we watch The Sound of Music, which is our Christmas tradition. Around three we head over to the bar. Uncle Danny opens it for a few friends, more than a few usually. This is our other Christmas tradition, and Jessica and a bunch of Erin’s high school friends come out and so does my friend Helen, who lives in Portland, Oregon, now.
It’s late when Uncle Danny asks me to take Erin home. “She had a few too many, I think,” he says. “Get her into bed if you can.”
By the time we’re in the car, heading for the bay, she’s not too bad, babbling about Jessica’s new boyfriend and smoking out the window of my car.
“Can you put that out?” I ask her. But she ignores me, telling me about how Jessica met the guy at the supermarket.
“I was thinking, Mags,” she says. “About moving to Ireland. Wouldn’t that be awesome? Patrick’s cousin is from Dublin and he said they always need people to work in pubs. He said I’d be great at it because I know everything already, from the bar. I think I’m going to do it. You can come visit me. Weren’t you supposed to spend the year over there before you left school? Maybe you can come and live with me.”
I don’t say anything, but she can feel the energy shift in the car. I just drive, focusing on the feel of my foot on the gas pedal, the way my back presses into the seat of my mom’s Honda.
“What?” she asks after a minute, challenging, hurt.
“Nothing.” I keep driving.
“Say it. I know you want to.”
“Erin, you can do whatever you want. This is probably not the craziest thing you’ve ever done, even.”
“You think it’s crazy?”
“I think it’s pretty par for the course, if you want to know the truth. This is what you do when things don’t work out for you one place. You run away. I should have seen it coming, actually, after you broke up with whatshisname Patchogue guy.”
“Fuck you, I’m not running away.”
“Okay. Whatever you say.” We’re on Ocean Avenue now and I turn down Bay toward our houses. It’s dark and cold outside. She pushes her cigarette butt out the slit at the top of the window and rolls it up. I just want her out of the car.
“Fuck you, Maggie. What if this is what I’m supposed to do? What if things work out for me over there?”
I don’t mean to, but I must make a sound, a little Ha! because she screams and says, “See! You don’t think I can do it. You think I’m a fuck-up.”
“You are a fuck-up. Why should this be any different?” I’m furious, the rage filling me up and exploding out of me. “Do you know how awful you make everything for everybody? Uncle Danny? He never knows if you’re going to be alive or dead when he gets home. My dad? All your friends? Everyone thinks you’re a fuck-up. Everyone’s tired of your bullshit. Don’t you know that by now?”