Blue

by Danielle Steel

  “Seventeen little boys and respectable men are lying?” Andrew asked them with a look of outrage. “How do you figure that? Your man is a sociopath. He’s a pedophile who’s making a mockery of everything the priesthood represents. I’m not even a priest anymore, and I’m indignant at the idea that he claims to be. How can you defend him? And knowing what you did, how could you cover up for him and send him to another city so he could do it again? The destruction of those children’s lives is blood on your hands. You are just as responsible as he is, and I don’t know why you’re not forcing him to enter a guilty plea. He’s going to be convicted at trial and go to prison. You’re wasting everybody’s time,” Andrew accused them. The meeting grew increasingly heated for three hours, and finally, admitting it was going nowhere, Monsignor Cavaretti adjourned it. He said they would have to discuss the matter further and meet again.

  Andrew’s eyes were ablaze with fury when they left, while Ginny walked along beside him and agreed with everything he had said.

  “What’s the point of defending a man we all know is guilty? All they wanted to know today was if we’re weakening. But Cavaretti knows me better. I’ll go to my grave making sure Father Teddy is stopped and convicted, and I will fight for the best settlement for Blue I can get.” Andrew felt they owed it to Blue, and so did Ginny, and they had no intention of giving up. Cavaretti and the other monsignors knew that now. And they had all the other victims to contend with, too. It was going to be a costly case for the church, particularly because they had hidden Ted Graham’s transgressions and done nothing about them, or to stop him; they had just closed their eyes and moved him on. It was one of the worst elements of the case. They had had the power to protect all those children, and they hadn’t, and now lives had been ruined because of it, if the boys didn’t recover from the trauma. And some of those who were grown men now hadn’t.

  Things seemed to calm down again for a while after the futile meeting, and for the next two weeks, Andrew was busy with other cases, and she didn’t hear from him. They managed to have one very nice dinner at an Italian restaurant, and they enjoyed talking to each other and relaxing and not discussing the case for a change. They had agreed not to, and stuck to it. They were just two adults who liked each other, having dinner. And they had a good time, but she didn’t hear from him afterward. And she helped Blue with homework every night. He was a whiz at everything that involved music and was composing concert pieces of his own, but he needed help with the academic subjects. She worked on English and history with him, but chemistry wasn’t her strong suit, so she really had to concentrate and jog her memory to explain it to him.

  She was on the way home from the gym one afternoon, where she had started exercising, when she stopped to buy magazines and saw a photograph of herself on the New York Post and another one on the National Enquirer. They had both used old photographs from her TV news days, and they were about five years old. She hadn’t seen the paper yet that day, bought them both immediately, and read them the minute she got home. The New York Post story was closer to the truth but had strong implications she didn’t like. It said that she was a party to a sexual abuse case, which involved a priest who had molested seventeen young boys in both New York state and Illinois. He was out on a million dollars bail, all of which was true and a matter of public record, and the article listed all the charges accurately. Then it went on to say that her involvement was due to a homeless boy she had taken in and housed who was one of the victims. It did not state his name, since the names of the victims were protected and would not be released.

  The article went on to say that Virginia Carter had virtually disappeared from public life and TV news when she and her husband had had too much to drink at a Christmas party four years before, as a result of which her husband had been killed drunk driving, and so had their three-year-old son, and she had been in seclusion ever since. The article didn’t say it but heavily implied that she had psychiatric problems as a result of her husband and child’s death, and she herself had also been under the influence the night they were killed, and no one had seen her since the accident. It made it sound like she’d been drunk for the last four years.

  Then the article questioned what she was doing with a homeless boy, and how she had gotten tangled up in the latest scandal in the Catholic Church. It described similar stories of pedophile priests who had been convicted. In conclusion, it said that the defendant in the case, in which Ms. Carter was mysteriously involved, would be tried sometime in the next year. Church officials were unavailable for comment, the attorney of record for Ms. Carter’s ward was Andrew O’Connor, a former Jesuit priest, and Ms. Carter herself remained MIA. And the last words of the piece were “To be continued…stay tuned for breaking news,” which had been the closing line on her broadcast when she did the news.

  She sat there staring at the piece. It had gotten the facts right, but it had implied that she and her husband were drunks and that he had killed their child while drunk at the wheel, and that she had disappeared immediately afterward, implying subtly that her psyche had been shattered. She hadn’t been in the news since Mark had died. Someone had talked to them, and she had no idea who but she didn’t like it. The reporter could get the list of charges from the court’s public records, but the list of details had come from a person. She hated to be in the spotlight again, or to drag Blue into it with her, even unnamed, because she’d once been better known than she was now. She hated the tabloid feeling to the article, and being in the news at all.

  And the Enquirer went straight for the throat as it always did. It ran an old photograph of her on the front page next to a giant question mark where it said, “Back from the grave with a fourteen-year-old homeless boyfriend?” And it managed to make the court case sound as though she were somehow involved in it in a seamy way. She hated everything about it, and called Andrew as soon as she finished reading.

  “Did you see the Post and the Enquirer today?” she asked in a tense voice as soon as he came on the line, and he laughed.

  “No, they’re not usually top of my must-read list. I read The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the London Financial Times when I have time. Why, what do the other two say?”

  “I’m on the cover, and the Enquirer wins the prize. They’re asking if I’m back from the grave with a fourteen-year-old homeless boyfriend. And the Post seems to know a lot about the case. It talks about my husband driving drunk the night he and my son died in the accident. It makes it sound like I’ve been in a psychiatric hospital ever since, which I never was, and it’s questioning what I’m doing now with a homeless kid, involved in a sex scandal in the church. So who do you think is talking?”

  “Interesting question,” he said thoughtfully. “You know more about that stuff than I do. I don’t think Cavaretti would ever plant a piece like that. He’s giving us a hard time, but he’s a responsible man. Maybe Blue’s aunt said something to someone, and they found her, and they probably looked the rest of it up once they had your name. It’s probably somewhere on the Internet, from the time of your husband’s death.” Then he lowered his voice and spoke softly. “I’m sorry, Ginny. I’m sure this must be painful for you. But it’s just tabloid garbage—no one reads it.”

  “Yes, they do. You don’t, but lots of people do. Imagine calling Blue my fourteen-year-old homeless boyfriend. For God’s sake, what’s wrong with these people? It makes me feel embarrassed that I was ever a member of the press.”

  “That’s how I feel about Ted Graham, having been a priest,” he said quietly.

  “What if Blue sees this, or if they start hounding us? They can make our life miserable. I don’t want them naming Blue as part of Ted Graham’s case. He has a right to privacy, he’s just a child.”

  “You’d better tell him,” Andrew said seriously, “because someone will if you don’t. You should defuse it.”

  “I hate to show him crap like this,” she said, sounding acutely unhappy. But she did what Andrew said and to
ld Blue about it when he got home. She told him that it was just junk. And they talked about the night Mark died, and she admitted that he’d been drinking more than she’d realized at the time, but he hadn’t been obviously drunk, or she wouldn’t have let him drive. But there was no denying that his blood alcohol level had been well above the limit.

  “You must have felt terrible about that,” Blue said sympathetically, and in order to be honest with him, she said that she had felt guilty ever since for letting him drive that night. She cried when she said that maybe if she hadn’t, they’d still be alive, and Blue felt awful for her. She was more upset than he’d ever seen her. He didn’t know what to say, so he tried to lighten the mood. “They think I’m your boyfriend?” His voice cracked when he said it, and they both laughed.

  “I hate this kind of stuff,” Ginny said as they sat side by side on the couch, looking at the papers on the trunk she used as a coffee table. “I don’t know who talked, but I don’t like it. I never did. They hounded me for months after Mark died to see what I was doing. All I was doing then was crying. Do you suppose your aunt had something to do with this?” Ginny looked pensive as she said it, although it seemed unlikely.

  “She could have. She wouldn’t go to the newspaper. But maybe she shot her mouth off and someone else did. She likes to talk a lot and gossip. Maybe she wanted to get even with you for going after Father Teddy. She’ll never forgive you for that. She still thinks he’s a saint. I don’t know who else would do it. I never knew you were that famous, Ginny,” he said, a little in awe of her.

  “I used to be. Mark was, too. No one cares what I’m doing now.” And she liked it that way. And she knew from experience that you never found out who talked. The tabloids just picked up bits and pieces and wove them into a story, whether true or not, but they had a lot of the facts right this time.

  “I’m sorry. If you hadn’t tried to help me, they wouldn’t be writing this junk about you. It’s all my fault,” Blue said unhappily.

  “Don’t be stupid, Blue. It’s Mark’s fault for being drunk that night and driving, and killing himself and Chris. And mine for disappearing for four years. And yours for having the courage to speak up about Father Teddy, which was entirely the right thing to do and still is. It’s all our faults for being alive and breathing. Everything is someone’s fault, and so what? None of this bullshit matters. It’s Father Teddy’s fault for molesting a bunch of innocent kids, and the church for protecting him. Every day, good stuff and bad stuff happens to us. It’s what you do about it and how you handle it that matters. You just can’t let it break you. You have to keep fighting. And guilt and regrets never get us anywhere.” She smiled at him, got up, and put the two papers in the garbage, but he looked deeply sorry that because of him she had been embarrassed. “That garbage will be in someone’s hamster cage tomorrow.” He nodded but didn’t look as though he believed her.

  The topper on the day was when Becky called her after dinner.

  “For chrissake, Ginny, none of us needs the headache of you in the tabloids again! It was bad enough after the accident, when they made you sound like a couple of drunks. Everyone kept asking me if you and Mark were alcoholics.” Her words smarted far more than what was in the tabloids, and Ginny winced as she listened. “You don’t know how hard it is for me and my kids and Alan to see you on the cover of the Enquirer while they talk about your fourteen-year-old boyfriend.”

  “I don’t have a fourteen-year-old boyfriend,” Ginny corrected her, but Becky was so quick to blame and attack her about everything she did. “Are you under the impression that I gave them an interview?” Ginny snapped at her.

  “You don’t have to. Your life is a soap opera. You were always in the tabloids when you and Mark were on the news. Then he got drunk and killed Chris, and you were with him. Now you have a homeless kid move in with you, and go after a parish priest on some kind of crusade that’s none of your business, and suddenly there you are on the front page of the Enquirer with a ‘fourteen-year-old boyfriend.’ You have no idea how embarrassing that is for the rest of us. Do you know how many people I’m going to have to explain it to? And poor Alan at work. We lead quiet, respectable lives, and somehow you’re always slipping on a banana peel and falling ass-backward into the news. I wish to hell you wouldn’t do that.”

  “So do I,” Ginny said, suddenly furious with her sister, who was uncharitable and mean-spirited at best. And Blue listened to her on the phone with a look of pain. But Ginny didn’t see it. “You know, I wish you’d grow up one of these days and notice that there’s a world out there bigger than the matchbox you live in. While I’m working my ass off to save kids in Afghanistan, you’re driving to the grocery store and the dry cleaner in Pasadena, and you think that’s all there is in life. Your house and your swimming pool, your kids and your husband. I may make an ass out of myself sometimes, but at least I’m living. I had a husband and a kid, too, but I wasn’t as lucky as you are, so now I’m trying to make a difference in other people’s lives, instead of sitting home and crying about them. And all you do is bitch about what I do and tell me it’s not ‘normal.’

  “And to be honest, I don’t give a damn what you think about my taking on the Catholic Church with Blue. You’re always looking down your nose at me. And let me tell you, that boy has more balls than either of us. Do you know what it took for him to come forward? And go against a priest, for chrissake? While you tell me how immoral it is to go after a priest who sexually molested seventeen little boys! And where do you get off always disapproving of me? Well, let me tell you, I’m goddamn sick of it. Who died and made you queen?”

  Blue was staring at her when she finally finished, and Becky was nearly choking. But Ginny’s speech had been a long time coming and was overdue. She was tired of her sister criticizing her for everything she did. “I’m done,” Ginny said, feeling better after she’d said it.

  “So am I,” Becky said, in a voice shaking with fury. “I’m through being embarrassed by you, or explaining you to people, or making excuses for you because they think you’re weird. And don’t drag me into this mess with you. You may not mind being in the tabloids, but I do. Just leave me alone!” she said, and slammed down the phone.

  “Is she really pissed at you?” Blue asked, with eyes filled with remorse, convinced it was all his fault, no matter what Ginny said.

  “She’s always pissed at me about something,” Ginny said, smiling at him. “She’ll get over it.”

  “It’s all my fault,” he said miserably, and when he went to bed, Ginny reassured him again and kissed him goodnight. “If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be in the newspapers, and they wouldn’t have said that stuff about Chris and Mark,” Blue said as he looked up at her from his bed.

  “It doesn’t matter. Whatever anyone says, they’re still gone. You didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, you’ve done everything right since you came into my life. Now stop worrying about it and go to sleep.” She smiled at him and kissed him again.

  She tried not to think about it herself that night, or the fight with her sister. Some of it had needed to be said. And finally, after playing it over in her head several times, she fell asleep.

  —

  The next morning when she got up, she made herself a cup of coffee and read The New York Times online. There was nothing in it about her, although there was a very good op-ed piece about priests who molested kids and how they all needed to be brought to justice and not hidden by the church. She would have liked to send it to her sister, but she didn’t want to start the fight all over again. They had said enough.

  She waited for Blue to get up so she could cook him breakfast, and suddenly she realized he was going to be late, and she hadn’t heard his alarm go off, so she went to his room and pulled up the shade. She turned to smile at him, and saw that he was burrowed under the covers. She gently poked his shoulder with her finger and told him it was time to get up. But what she poked was not his shoulder. It was a pillow. She gently p
ulled the covers back and saw that he had stuffed the bed. And on top of the pillow he had left a note for her. She read it, and it nearly broke her heart.

  “Dear Ginny: All I ever do is cause you trouble. I’m sorry about the newspapers and what they said, it was all because of me and Father Ted. And I’m sorry about your fight with Becky, and that she’s mad at you because of me, too. You don’t have to be my guardian anymore if you don’t want to. Thank you for everything you did for me. I’ll never forget it. I love you, Blue.” Tears rolled down her cheeks as she read it, and then she looked around the room and in his closet. He had taken his rolling overnight bag, a couple of jackets, some shirts, socks, and underwear, and his Converse and running shoes. His toothbrush and toothpaste were gone, and his comb and brush. All his schoolbooks were piled up on his desk, and then she saw that his laptop was gone and his cell phone, so she could at least communicate with him. She called him immediately, and he didn’t answer. She left him a message and sent him a text. “Where are you? None of it’s your fault. Come back. I love you, Ginny.” But he didn’t answer that, either. She sent him an e-mail that said the same thing, and then with a trembling hand, she called Andrew. She didn’t know what else to do.

  “He ran away,” she said, sounding upset and frantic.

  “Who did?” He was busy and distracted.

  “Blue.”

  “When?”

  “Sometime last night. I just found his bed stuffed with pillows, and he’s left me a note.”

  “What does it say?”

  “He apologizes. He feels terrible about the stuff in the newspapers yesterday. And Becky and I had a fight about it last night, and he overheard it. She said I’m an embarrassment to her. Blue blames himself for everything.” She was on the verge of tears again.