by Claire Adams
I’ll call you later, I messaged back, and then I turned my phone off and tossed it into my beach bag.
“Everything okay?” Amy asked. She was stretched out on her towel, but looking over at me, her sunglasses perched on top of her head.
“Oh, it’s fine,” I said. “Just my mother harassing me.”
Amy laughed. “My mother was harassing me last week; she wants me to do this CrossFit thing with her. She’s always getting onto some new fitness kick and wanting me to do it with her. What’s your mom harassing you about?”
“She wants me to come down to Boston with Cole and Declan. She’s like, really trying to get me to do it. She’s acting like it’s the only thing in the world she wants, and I’m ruining her life by denying her the experience.”
“Oooh, I would love to go down to the city,” Amy said. “I don’t go down there nearly enough. It’s kind of intimidating to me, actually. But it probably wouldn’t be that way if I went down there more often.”
“Boston is a huge clusterfuck,” I said. “So far as cities go, it’s fine, but I grew up there, and I’m not dying to return anytime soon.”
“Even if it’s just for a visit? When my mom starts pestering me about the workout stuff, I usually go to the gym with her a couple times, and then she’ll leave me alone for a while, until she gets on some other kick. It’s not that bad, though.”
“I don’t know...there’s other factors involved.”
“Like what? If I’m prying, you can just tell me so, but I’m kind of an expert when it comes to ways to get your mother to stop harassing you.”
“It’s not really my mom that I have the problem with. We’re total opposites, but we have a decent relationship. It’s my stepfather that’s the problem.”
“Oh,” Amy said. “Stepfathers... I don’t have any experience with them.”
“Well, you’re lucky then. My stepfather tried to sexually assault me when I was a teenager,” I said. “Nothing ended up happening, but it’s basically ruined our relationship, which I think is kind of a given.”
“Have you talked to your mother about it?”
“I tried. And since nothing happened, and because it was so long ago now, she doesn’t believe me. I don’t know if she would have believed if me I told her right when it happened, either, but it makes things difficult. I just have no desire to be around him.”
“That’s understandable. You know, something sort of similar happened to me when I was a freshman in college,” Amy said. “I went to this party, and there was this guy there that I sort of knew from one of my classes. I had a little too much to drink—okay, I had way too much—and he kind of ended up taking advantage of me.”
“Oh, shit,” I said. “What an asshole. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. I felt pretty messed up about it for a while. I even went to see the campus counselor and everything. For almost six months, actually, but it was helpful.”
“That’s good.” I wondered if maybe it would’ve been helpful if I had gone to talk with someone, if that would’ve helped me move past it. It seems a little late for that now, though.
“It was. And I actually ended up talking to the guy about it. I didn’t feel threatened by him or anything, like he was going to hurt me physically, so I confronted him about it. And he apologized.”
“He did?”
She nodded. “He was drunk, too. I’m not saying that makes it better or anything, but it definitely helped me get over it. Maybe if you talked to your stepfather about it, it might help. I can understand why you wouldn’t want to, either, though. I think it helped me. Confronting him about it.”
“Yeah, I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll have to think about it.”
And I did continue to think about it. We stayed at the lake all day, going in for a swim when we started to get too hot, then returning to our towels to work on our tans. The whole time, in the back of my mind, I was weighing the pros and cons of bringing this up with Bill. Would it make things better, as Amy seemed to think? Or would it make things worse? Or maybe it wouldn’t change anything at all.
By the time I got home later, my skin felt warm and tight, and I could tell that my shoulders were slightly burned. But it had been nice to relax all day, to have a girlfriend to talk to. And I’d been thinking about what she’d said and what Cole had said the other night, and maybe they had a point. Maybe I was being too stubborn about this whole thing.
After I took a shower and changed, I called my mother.
“Finally!” she said when she answered. “I was beginning to think that you were ignoring me.”
“I’m not ignoring you. I was at the beach all day with my friend from work.”
“That sounds lovely! I went to the pool for a while. It was really too hot for me to be sitting outside for too long, though, so I didn’t stay for a while. But the lake sounds nice.”
“It was.”
“So... what do you think about coming down here? Maybe on Saturday? If we set an actual date, then I think it will happen, instead of just talking about it and saying that we’re going to plan something. How does that sound?”
“I gave it some thought,” I said. “And really, you should be thanking Cole because I don’t actually want to be doing this.”
“Well, that’s certainly a way to make me feel appreciated,” she said huffily.
“I’m just letting you know where I stand with this, okay? And that it’s not necessarily going to be easy for me. But I’m going to try, all right?”
“Sheesh,” my mother said. “You’re making it sound like you’re going off to a torture chamber or something. I just want to do something nice for you, okay? Isn’t that allowed? Why are you trying to make me feel bad for doing this?”
I sighed. “I’m not, Mom,” I said. “It’s just... it’s just more complicated, I guess, than you realize.” Or want to realize, I thought. “But I appreciate that you want to do this for us, and Declan is really looking forward to going to LEGOLAND.”
“I thought he would be. I think we’re all going to have a really nice time. We can go out to lunch, maybe see a movie, do a little shopping...”
She kept talking, unable to contain the excitement. Part of me found it a little hard to believe that she really was so excited about it, but she seemed genuine. Was she really just happy for me?
“This is going to be so much fun, just you wait and see,” my mother was saying.
“I’m sure it will be. Okay, well, I’ll text you when we’re leaving on Saturday, okay?”
“I can’t wait!”
I got off the phone and went out to sit on the deck. Dusk was settling, and though I couldn’t quite see into Cole’s backyard, I could hear that he and Declan were out there. I got up and walked over.
“Am I interrupting anything?” I asked.
“Hey, Allie,” Cole said. “Not at all; we’re always happy to see you.”
“Hi, Miss Allie!” Declan yelled. He was halfway up one of the crabapple trees. “Look how high I can climb!”
He worked his way down and dashed over to give me a hug, then ran back over to the tree. Cole and I went and sat on the deck.
“So,” I said, “I was just talking to my mother. And she would like us to come down there this Saturday. We can go to LEGOLAND, and then I’m sure there will be a restaurant she wants to do lunch at, and probably some stores she wants to shop at, and some sights she’ll want to show you.”
“Sounds good,” Cole said. “Hey, Declan!” he yelled. Declan came running over from across the yard. “Want to know what Allie just asked? She wanted to know if we would like to take a trip down to the city on Saturday and visit with her mom and stepdad and go to LEGOLAND.”
Declan’s eyes widened. “LEGOLAND?!” he said. “Really? We can go there?”
“Only if you want to.”
“Yes!” he exclaimed. “Yes, I really want to! They have so many LEGOs there! More than you could even imagine!”
Cole laughed. “Well, I
think you have your answer,” he said.
So the countdown to our Boston trip was on. Luckily, the kids kept me busy at work, so I didn’t have to think about it much during the day, but later, when I was at home, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of very intense trepidation. I kept flip-flopping about whether or not I would talk to Bill; if I brought it up, it probably wouldn’t go over that well. He would probably tell me I had no idea what I was talking about.
But then I thought about how much it had affected me over the years, and that if there was even a chance that I might be able to move past it if I confronted him, then I should take it. After all, what was the worst that could happen? He’d deny it and nothing would change. At least I would know that I had tried.
We took Cole’s car, and he easily navigated the busy city streets. Unlike most other cities, streets in Boston were not laid out on a grid, and people who weren’t familiar driving in the city usually got lost, flustered, and ended up taking many wrong turns. But Cole was unbothered by the weird twists, one-ways, and dead-ends, and we got to my mother’s apartment and even found a parking spot within a block.
My mother and Bill lived on Beacon Hill in a brownstone. I had mixed feelings coming back here, but I wanted to put all that to the side and just focus on having a good time. The front door flew open as we were still getting out of the car.
“We’re so glad you guys could make it down!” my mother said. “Come on in!” We followed her into the house and then the foyer. She hugged me first, then hugged Cole, and then actually leaned down and hugged Declan. She did seem genuinely happy. “Are you guys hungry? I put out a few snacks; why you come on in and you can have a quick bite, and we can talk about what we’re going to do today.”
Declan was looking around, taking in all the artwork my mother had hung on the walls, including the marble table in the foyer with a towering orchid growing out of a ceramic pot.
Bill came down the stairs, he and Cole shook hands, and he said hi to Declan. He gave me an awkward half-hug.
“Do you have a minute?” I asked. Cole and Declan were following my mother down the hallway toward the dining room, so it was just Bill and me standing there in the foyer. I hadn’t decided beforehand exactly when I was going to talk to him, but it seemed like it would be better to just get it over with. Otherwise, I’d be thinking about it all day.
“Sure,” he said, a surprised look crossing his face. “Why don’t we go into my study?”
His study was right off of the hallway, so I followed him in there. It was a small room with built-in bookshelves, a leather couch, and his desk in the corner by the window. It felt strange to be in a room alone with him. But the dynamic had changed; I wasn’t a kid anymore, after all. I was an adult, and he was an adult, and he suddenly seemed older to me, more tired than I remembered, and it seemed weird that I had ever thought of him as this menacing person.
He sat on the couch. I remained standing.
“What is it you wanted to talk about?” he asked. “Is everything okay?”
The air was heavy around us, and not just because it was humid out. As I stood there, I remembered that night when I was 15, but I was also remembering some of the good times that we’d had, how before I’d become a teenager, I had been thankful for Bill, glad that I had a father in my life, even if he wasn’t my real dad. I felt this odd juxtaposition of emotions swirling inside of me.
“Things haven’t been okay for a long time,” I said. “For almost 10 years.”
“Really?” he said. “I’m sorry to hear that. But your mother and I thought that things seemed pretty good with you.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment. I folded my arms across my chest. He clasped his own hands over his trim waist. “You’re going to have to be more specific, Allie,” he said. “Because I’m really not sure what you’re getting at here.”
“Do you remember what you did to me that night?” I asked.
He didn’t try to deny it or confirm it; he said nothing.
“Let me refresh your memory,” I said. “I was 15. Mom went out for the night. I was lying in bed, trying to go to sleep, and you came in and climbed up into bed with me. Ring any bells?”
Finally, he looked at me. He rubbed his hand across his mouth and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” he said.
I stared at him. “What?”
“I’m sorry.”
Wait—he was sorry? That had been the last thing I’d been expecting him to say, because if he was apologizing, that meant he was acknowledging that something had happened.
“I was drinking a lot back then,” he said. “I don’t know if you remember that or were even aware of it. What I did was wrong, and I’m sorry. I should have apologized to you sooner, but I just...didn’t.”
“Then why did you pretend like you had no idea what Mom was talking about when she brought it up to you?”
He looked at me blankly. “She never brought it up with me.”
“But she...” I didn’t finish my sentence. I tried to recall my phone conversation with her—I was pretty much 100 percent certain I could remember her saying that she had talked to him about it, and he said he had no clue. Hadn’t she? Yes, she had. At least, that’s what she told me, but from the sounds of it, she hadn’t broached the subject with Bill at all. And that made sense, really. She didn’t want to believe it, and since nothing had actually happened, in her mind, it would be better if the whole thing just went away.
“You were like a dad to me,” I said. “I always thought it was cool that we were able to get along, that you weren’t some stepparent that I hated.”
“And I appreciated that fact, too.”
“Appreciated it a little too much.”
“It was wrong of me. To be honest, I barely even remember that night; that whole period was kind of a blur and not in a good way. Things in my professional life were not going particularly well at the time.”
“So you thought it would be good to mess up things in your home life, too?”
He shook his head. “That’s not it. I had a lapse in judgment. A severe lapse in judgment. But I do remember enough to know that nothing happened.”
“Yeah, because I didn’t let it! If I hadn’t stopped you, you probably would’ve raped me.”He winced at the word. “Allie,” he said.
I did feel as though some of the wind had been taken out of my sails, though. I’d gone into this conversation thinking that he was going to deny everything, that he was going to act like I was making this whole thing up. Instead, though, he’d apologized. Now what?
“I don’t think we’re ever going to have some close relationship or anything,” I said. “That’s not on the table anymore. But I guess I would like to be cordial.”
“If that’s what you want, I am more than happy to oblige. I don’t want to think that something I did to you has been negatively impacting your life this whole time. That was never my intention.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have climbed into bed with me in the first place.”
“You’re absolutely right—I shouldn’t have. And I’m thankful that nothing happened. You stood up for yourself, and that was a good thing. It just wasn’t a good time in my life then. I know that’s not an excuse.”
“Okay,” I said. “I guess that’s all I really wanted to talk about. Thank you for at least admitting it.”
When I stepped out of the study, I did not feel as triumphant as I had imagined I would. The whole thing just seemed kind of pathetic. He’d gotten drunk and tried to do something stupid, and I had let it affect me up until now. Put in that perspective, it seemed silly that I had let it bother me so much. I didn’t have to be close with Bill; I didn’t even have to have him in my life any more than was necessary.
I walked down the hallway and into the dining room, where Cole, Declan, and my mother were sitting at the table. Declan had a juice box my mother must have bought specially for him, and there was
a platter of pastries, a bowl of fruit salad, and some little mini quiches. Cole shot me a glance as I came in, but he didn’t say anything.
“Wow, Mom,” I said. “This is quite the feast.”
“Oh, it’s just a little something. Sit down and help yourself.”
I wasn’t that hungry, but I took a plate and put some of the fruit salad on it and a croissant, since it was mostly air.
“Declan is very excited about going to LEGOLAND,” my mother said. She looked at him. “I’ve never been there before.”
“I haven’t either,” Declan said. “Do you like LEGOs?”
“I haven’t played with them much, I must admit. But I am very much looking forward to going to LEGOLAND and finding out more about them!”
I tried to hide my surprised expression by taking a bite out of the croissant, which was very good. I couldn’t remember my mother taking such an interest in a child, other than myself when I was younger, but even then, I had always felt like she was half-distracted, thinking about something else.
Declan finished eating his fruit salad and slid off his chair.
“Hey, don’t go too far, buddy,” Cole said. “We’re almost done here.”
“Oh, you two take your time. I’ll give Declan the tour,” Mom said, dropping her linen napkin next to her plate. “Do you play the piano, Declan?”
“No,” he said.
“Would you like to give it a try? We’ve got a piano in the living room that no one has played in... well, it’s been a very long time.”
“Do you play it? Can you teach me a song?”
“I might still remember ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb,’” my mother said. She gave us a Mary Poppins grin as she followed Declan out of the room.
I set my croissant down and stared after them. “Have I stepped into some sort of parallel universe?” I asked.
Cole looked at me, then looked toward the living room where they’d just disappeared to. “She’s really good with kids,” he said. “I see where you get it from.”
