“Dad and I used to talk sometimes about what that school did to you,” she continues. “I don’t think either of us regretted anything more than how we let them treat you.”
“You didn’t let them,” I say. “You weren’t in control of it.”
“I didn’t want to put you through some horror show. Once I got you back home, I thought, ok, whatever happened is over. I didn’t know—”
“Mom, please.”
“I should’ve sent that man to prison where he belonged.”
“But I didn’t want that.”
“Sometimes I think I was looking out for you. Police, lawyers, a trial. I didn’t want them to tear you apart. Other times I think I was just scared.” Her voice cracks; she holds a hand to her mouth.
I watch her wipe her cheeks even though they aren’t wet, even though she’s not really crying because she won’t let herself. Have I ever seen her truly cry?
“I hope you forgive me,” she says.
Part of me wants to laugh, pull her in for a hug. Forgive what? It’s fine, Mom. Look at me—it’s over. It’s fine. Hearing my mother implicate herself makes me think of Ruby and the frustration she must feel sitting there, listening as I cloak myself in blame. After a while, she gives up repeating the same lines, knowing there comes a point when they no longer matter, that what I need isn’t absolution but to hold myself accountable before a witness. So when my mother asks me to forgive her, I say, “Of course I do.” I don’t tell her again she couldn’t have stopped it, that it wasn’t her fault and that she didn’t deserve it. I swallow those words instead. Maybe somewhere deep in my belly, they’ll take root and grow.
It keeps snowing. I do my best to dig out my car, drive the gravel road, but when I gun the engine to get up the hill and onto the highway, the tires just spin. I turn the car around and spend another night. While we watch TV, commercials for the Winter Olympics play, the spray of snow from a freestyle skier, a gleaming bobsled careening down an icy track, a figure skater launching her body into the air, arms crossed tight and eyes squeezed shut.
“Remember when you used to skate?” Mom asks.
I try to think: fuzzy memories of cracked white leather, the ache in my ankles after an hour of balancing on the blades.
“For a while, it was all you wanted to do,” she says. “We couldn’t get you to come inside, but I didn’t want you on the lake without me watching. I was too scared of you falling through. Dad went out with the hose and flooded the front yard. Do you remember that?”
Vaguely, I do—skating after dark, maneuvering around the tree roots that jutted through the rough ice, trying to work up the courage to attempt a jump.
“You weren’t scared of anything,” Mom says. “Everyone thinks that about their kid, but you really weren’t.”
We watch the skater glide across the rink. She turns on the tips of her blades, suddenly backward, arms outstretched, ponytail whipping across her face. Another change of direction and she’s on one leg, launching off into a tight spin, her arms stretched above her head now, her body seeming to grow longer the faster she spins.
In the morning, the sky is blue and the snow so bright it hurts our eyes. We sprinkle kitty litter and rock salt on the road and the tires are able to grab. At the top of the hill, I stop and watch Mom walk slowly home, pulling behind her a sled stacked with bags of litter and salt.
* * *
The air is sharp with ammonia as I walk through rows of kennels, the concrete floor painted gray and hospital green. One dog starts barking, setting off the rest of them, a range of voices echoing against cinder block. When I was a kid, Dad and I used to joke that when dogs bark all they’re saying is I’m a dog! I’m a dog! I’m a dog! But these barks are desperate and scared. They sound more like please please please.
I stop at a kennel holding a mutt with a blocky head and ghost-gray fur. The sign hanging on the kennel lists the breed as Pit bull, Weimaraner, ??? The dog’s rose ears pitch forward as I press my hand against the cage. She gives my palm a sniff, two licks. A cautious tail wag.
I name her Jolene after she tips back her head and howls along to Dolly Parton on her first night home. In the mornings, I take her out before I even brush my teeth, and we walk from one end of the peninsula to the other, ocean to ocean. When we wait at crosswalks, she leans into my legs and mouths my hand out of pure joy, her panting breaths clouding in the cold air.
We’re walking on Commercial Street, past the city pier, when I see Taylor emerge from a bakery doorway, coffee and wax paper bag in hand. It takes a moment for me to believe it’s truly her and not my brain’s wishful thinking.
She sees Jo first; her face lights up as Jo’s tail thumps against my legs. Then a double take when she notices me, as though to make sure her own mind isn’t playing tricks.
“Vanessa,” she says. “I didn’t know you had a dog.” She drops to her knees and holds her coffee above her head as Jo launches forward and licks her face.
“I just got her,” I say. “She comes on a little strong.”
“Oh, that’s ok.” Taylor laughs. “I can be intense, too.” In a singsongy voice she repeats, “That’s ok, that’s ok.” It makes Jo’s back arch, her entire body wriggle. Taylor smiles up at me, flashing small straight teeth. Her canines are pointy, like little fangs, same as mine.
“I know I failed you,” I say.
It’s the chance meeting that makes me say it, having her in front of me when I didn’t expect it, didn’t prepare. Taylor frowns but doesn’t look up at me. She keeps her eyes fixed on Jo, scratching behind her ears. For a moment, I wonder if she’ll ignore me, pretend I never said it.
“No,” she says, “you didn’t fail me. Or, if you did, then I did, too. I knew he’d hurt other girls and it still took me years to do anything about it.” She looks up at me then, her eyes two blue pools. “What could we have done? We were just girls.”
I know what she means—not that we were helpless by choice, but that the world forced us to be. Who would have believed us, who would have cared?
“I saw the article,” I say. “It was . . .”
“Disappointing?” Taylor rights herself, adjusts her purse. “Though maybe not for you.”
“I know you invested a lot in it.”
“Yeah, well. I thought it would bring me closure, but now I’m angrier than before.” She scrunches her nose, fiddles with the lid of her coffee cup. “Honestly, she was kind of sleazy. I should’ve known better.”
“That journalist?”
Taylor nods. “I don’t think she actually cared. She just wanted to ride the wave, get a good byline. Which I knew going into it, but I still thought it would make me feel empowered or whatever. Instead I feel taken advantage of all over again.” She smirks, scratches Jo behind the ears. “Been thinking about starting therapy. I tried it before and it didn’t really do much, but I need to do something.”
“It’s helping me,” I say. “But it didn’t fix everything—hence the dog.”
Taylor smiles down at Jo. “Maybe I should try that, too.”