Maggie sat on one of the barstools at the kitchen island and pulled Grace over to sit on the one next to her. “Tell me.”
“Remember how when we were little, Jess and I were so close?”
“Of course. You two were inseparable in the summers.”
“Until we got to high school. Then I’d only spend a week or so here because we either went somewhere on vacation with Dad, or I was on a study-abroad trip.”
“Right. You went to France in your junior year and Spain when you were a senior.”
“So I’d come up here with you and Natalie for the first week or so of the summer, and then I’d leave. That’s when Jessie and I started to drift apart. I’d leave and she’d have a job, so even when I was here, we didn’t spend as much time together. We still considered ourselves best friends, but the truth was, by senior year in high school, we didn’t spend much time together. And after we both started college, we just didn’t see each other at all. I started working in Dad’s office in the summers, and when I was in law school, I interned with the DA, remember?”
“I do.”
Grace got up and poured herself a glass of water. She leaned back against the counter.
“That last summer—right after we’d both graduated high school—I only spent one day with Jess. It was the day before I left for Spain. I called her and asked her if she wanted to go to the beach. We met up on Cottage Street Beach like we used to do.” Grace nervously took a sip of water. Even talking about it made her feel sick. “We were talking about what we were doing for the rest of the summer, and how it felt to be out of high school and going off to college, and all of a sudden, Jessie burst into tears. She told me she’d had an affair with her basketball coach, how he’d told her he was in love with her, and always made excuses for her to come to his office after practice. How he talked her into having sex with him. She knew it was a mistake and regretted it as soon as it happened, but he wouldn’t let her break it off. He told her he’d taken pictures of her while they were having sex, and he threatened to send the pictures to her parents.”
“Oh my God, Grace. I can’t even . . .” Maggie’s face was white, and her hands shook.
“I told Jess she had to tell her parents anyway: ‘You can’t let him get away with what he’s done to you.’”
“What did she say?”
“She said she would, that night. She promised me.”
“But she couldn’t have. If Liddy’d known Jess had been a victim, she’d have gone right to the police.”
“Which means Jess lied to me and Liddy doesn’t know. Mom, I think Jess was horrified when the story broke. I think she looked at the long list of girls who’d been abused by this guy and thought if she’d told back when it happened to her, he wouldn’t have been around to assault anyone else. I believe she felt responsible for every one of them, and I think the guilt was more than she could bear.” Grace stared at the floor. “If she couldn’t face her parents with the fact it had happened to her, she damn well wasn’t going to face them after all these other girls had been hurt. She wouldn’t have wanted them to know she could have stopped it before it happened to someone else.”
“So she started saving the pills she was given for her back pain until she could take them all at once. Poor Jess.” Maggie pressed a hand over her heart. “Oh God, this is just all too horrible.”
“Mom, do I tell Liddy? Is it better for her to know, or better for her to always be wondering?”
Maggie shook her head slowly, side to side. “I don’t know.”
Grace excused herself from dinner. She had no appetite. Restless, she walked to Jasper Street. She wanted to sit out back and watch the sun sink behind the pond and the trees and try to find some semblance of peace. But when she got there, Linc’s truck was in the driveway. She went inside and found him in the front room.
“You’re here late,” she said.
“I hope you don’t mind. You asked me about a fireplace, and it’s occurred to me there should have been several. Given the age of the house, it just doesn’t make sense there isn’t one.”
“Let me know if you find one.”
He was staring at the ceiling. “I might be able to find some evidence of chimneys on the roof.”
“Good luck.”
Grace wandered outside and down to the pond. She stood with her hands in her pockets, thinking about Jessie. On the one hand, she felt an overwhelming sadness. On the other, she was infuriated Jess had taken her life and she’d broken her promise to Grace.
“You think you’re at fault for what happened to all those other girls? You aren’t responsible. He’s responsible,” she whispered as night began to close in. “You were seventeen years old, Jess. How could you have known he’d do this again and again?”
Grace remembered making her mother drive past the Bryants’ house on their way to the airport for her flight the morning she left. She’d called Jess and told her to go out front so they could wave goodbye.
“Mom, slow down,” she’d told Maggie when she saw Jessie standing at the foot of the Bryants’ driveway.
Grace had rolled down her window and mouthed the words, Did you tell her? Jess had smiled and given her a thumbs-up.
But Jessie had lied. If Liddy had known the truth, Bowers would have been in prison a long time ago. Or he’d be dead, and Liddy’d be in prison.
Grace wrapped her arms around her middle and cried.
“Hey, Grace—you okay?” Linc stepped out the back door. “Stupid question. Of course you’re not.”
For a minute, Linc appeared to not know what to do. He stood by and watched helplessly, then slowly put his arms around her and held her until the tears stopped.
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.” She looked for something to blot away the wet spot her tears had left on his shoulder.
“It’s okay. I’ve gotten used to tears. JoJo cries a lot. She even cries in her sleep. I know she misses her mother, but I can’t make it better for her. I can’t make Brenda come back.” His frustration was clear in every word. “But I hold her and let her cry, so she knows someone cares she’s hurting. So I’m good at that. You can always cry on my shoulder, Grace.”
“Do you think it’s better for the kids to know or to not know why their mother left them? Would it be better for them to know the truth?”
“If I knew for certain, I would tell them,” he said without hesitation. “Truth trumps lies every time.”
“Even if the truth is very hurtful? Even if it makes the pain worse?”
“When something terrible happens to you, right off, there’s going to be pain whether you’re told the truth or a lie. If you’re told a lie, it’ll hurt all over again once the truth comes out, and sooner or later, it always does. If you know the truth, maybe you can begin to understand, and if you can understand, maybe you can forgive the person who hurt you.” He leaned back and looked into Grace’s eyes. “The kids might be a little too young to understand now, but they’ll grow up. Better to grow up with the truth.”