The year She Fell

by Rasley, Alicia

  A shadow passed over her face. “I wish . . . I wish there had been a way that she—”

  “Was kept in the dark? I don’t think that was going to work out. She was already suspicious.”

  Laura came in then, trailing the kid. He was finding himself in clover, I guessed—a rich grandmother, a couple nice aunts, and even a helpful half-sister. The new father maybe wasn’t so easy, but at least he hadn’t prosecuted.

  I didn’t think young Brian ought to get off so easy. So I fixed him with a cop scowl, and he glanced away, and sat himself on the window seat, out of range.

  Pretty soon Theresa arrived back with Ellen and Tom O’Connor, who was probably wondering how his long-ago indiscretion led to all this coming to light. At least his action seemed pretty minor comparatively. Even Ellen looked halfway to forgiveness, sitting in the love seat next to him. Not touching, but close enough.

  I opened up the folder. “There wasn’t much retrievable on the hard drive. No logs of chats. “

  “So—” Ellen’s hands were gripped in her lap. “But it must have been important, if Urich went out in the dark to get rid of it. I mean, that’s a sign of guilt, isn’t it?”

  I knew what she wanted—what I wanted too, to tell the truth. Something concrete that said he deserved to die. Laura didn’t need that, I guess. She had a certain ruthlessness I kind of admired. As far as she was concerned, Urich had done plenty to deserve death, starting with seducing a fourteen-year-old girl.

  I withdrew the single page. “There wasn’t much on there. But the tech found this.” I rose and took the sheet to Mrs. Wakefield, and Theresa shifted to sit beside her.

  For the benefit of the others, I said, “It’s an email from a couple months ago. He’d dumped all his Outlook files, but there was a—the tech called it a shadow. A saved draft, deleted differently. An anonymous hotmail account. Anyway, it’s to a girl he’d been in correspondence with. It sounds like she was talking about telling her parents. I don’t think she’d figured out who he was exactly, but she had some idea he was important. And I guess he’d threatened her back. This seems like it’s his second email on the subject, backtracking from a threat he’d made in the earlier email.”

  Mrs. Wakefield was staring at the page, and finally Theresa took it from her hand. She scanned it and then, slowly, read it out loud. “No, I’m not threatening you. I said with that other girl, it was just an accident. But accidents happen when you start talking out of turn.”

  I looked at Mrs. Wakefield. “After she had to give away a second baby, Cathy knew something was wrong. That something was broken in her, that she’d go so far. She came to you and said she wanted to go to the authorities, report this former teacher of hers. You didn’t think it would work, and you were probably right. It’s hard enough to make a case like that, but there would be statute of limitations problems since it had been more than a decade since the original crime. But Cathy couldn’t let it rest. So she must have arranged to meet him. He’d want it away from the college, away from where someone might see them together. So they went back to where they used to climb together—the river gorge. He probably thought he could persuade her to keep quiet, that she had as much to lose as he did.”

  “But she wasn’t going to give in,” Mrs. Wakefield said. “And she would have told him that. Told him that she didn’t care how much damage it did, she was going to make sure he didn’t do that to another girl.”

  “And maybe he shoved her. Just in anger. But she went over the guardrail—”

  Ellen drew in a breath, and her husband reached out and took her hand. But Mrs. Wakefield was tough. She’d already been through worse than this in her imagination. She said evenly, “And then when he realized what he’d done, he tried to fix it. He got her rope and harness out of her car, and set it up so it appeared that she’d buckled the harness wrong. An accident.”

  “Or suicide made to look like an accident,” Laura said. “So no one wanted to look at it too closely.”

  “And he kept on doing it—going after young girls,” Theresa said. She set the page down on the table and looked away. “At least this girl.”

  “There were probably others along the way.” I looked at Mrs. Wakefield. “You said his ex-wife wanted nothing to do with him. Maybe she found something suspicious. Maybe he wasn’t stupid enough to be going after the youngest girls anymore, but the high school students he found in recruitment chats—he probably approached them later using a different identity. Maybe it was all just in email—or maybe he arranged to meet one or two. But it was enough that he thought we might find something incriminating on his computer.”

  “What are you going to do now?” Ellen said.

  I shrugged. “Not much I can do. He’s dead. We don’t know his victims, and not likely to find them now. And even if we did, we can’t prosecute a corpse.”

  “He got what he deserved,” Laura said coldly. “Not enough. But he won’t hurt anyone else.”

  Very quietly, Theresa said, “Is there some way you can get word to that girl? That he’s dead and won’t bother her anymore?”

  I agreed to give it a try, and Theresa rose. “It is over, isn’t it?”

  Ellen said, “I hope so. Some things have changed, but not everything. We’re still—still a family, aren’t we?”

  “Of course.” Mrs. Wakefield’s voice was strong. But I saw her glance at Theresa, and after a moment she said, “Are you going back to the cloister now?”

  Theresa shook her head slowly. “I don’t think so. The prioress told me she thought I was hiding there, hiding from something. And that’s not a vocation. I think—I think maybe I’ll stay here for a while. With you. Help with the house. Maybe get a job at a clinic in the county. For now.”

  Mrs. Wakefield let her breath out—the only sign she’d ever give of anxiety. “That would be nice, dear. You’ll always have a home here, you know.”

  Theresa rose, smoothing her skirt front with her hands. “Mother, you need to rest. Let me take you to your room.”

  Mrs. Wakefield accepted her hand and slowly got to her feet. But instead of walking towards the hall, she came to me. “Thank you,” she said.

  And then she and Theresa left the room.

  Tom O’Connor stood up then too. He looked over at the boy. “Well, come on. Let’s go introduce you to your sister.”

  The boy’s face lit up, and he didn’t look so much like a punk. Just as well, if he planned to come back to my town. He bounded out the door, and more slowly, Ellen and her husband followed. I have to say, the former felon in me admired this. I mean, the guy got away with it—well, there was that kidnapping incident, but otherwise, looked like he got off scot-free. Hell, Ellen got away with siding with the kidnapper and leaving Tom to rot in an old jail cell. Looked like they’d just, I don’t know, agreed to move on. Found a way to stay together.

  That was what Michelle and I couldn’t manage. The “I” mattered more than the “we”, once we got to that point. And by then, we just didn’t bother to find that way to stay together.

  Love had to matter more than that. I had to make it matter more than that.

  Now it was only Laura and me, standing on the faded rug in the formal parlor. The afternoon sun was streaming in through the wide windows, and Laura’s hair and face were touched with a golden light. She looked beautiful and unattainable—but she was mine, goddamnit. I’d made her mine. Again.

  “So how long are you staying?” I said. My voice sounded rough.

  She moved a little closer to me, her hand rising as if to brush my chest. But she didn’t touch me. “I have to go back to the beach house.”

  “To the renovations.”

  “Yes.” Now her hand splayed across my uniform front. “I need to make sure it’s all done in time to sell the house.”

  Hope opened up in me. A dangerous feeling. But what else was there, really? “You decided you don’t want the house?”

  “I don’t actually love the beach,” she said. “Too sandy.
I’m more of a mountain girl, when it comes right down to it.”

  “So—”

  “So maybe I’ll make this my retreat. Come back when I’m not working, and for long weekends. Keep Mother and Theresa on their toes.”

  “Maybe you’ll start a trend.”

  “Yes—like Demi did with that Montana town. Maybe all the Hollywood types will decide Wakefield’s just the sort of quaint place they can go to relax.”

  “Oh, great. That’s all I need. Sunset Boulevard east. Cocaine and paparazzi.”

  Finally she came into my arms, her head against my chest. “Let’s do it right this time, okay?” she whispered.

  “Okay.” And then, as she lifted her face for a kiss, I said, “This time looks like we’ve got your mom’s blessing.”

  For just a second, she looked stricken with horror. But then I kissed her, and it was all okay. Again. This time.

  For Readers’ Groups

  Discussion Questions

  The Year She Fell is set in the mountains of West Virginia, a beautiful but impoverished state. Discuss the situation of the Wakefield sisters, growing up rich but surrounded by poverty.

  Both Ellen and her sister Theresa have religious vocations, but while Ellen's faith is low-key, Theresa's requires constant sacrifice. What about their personalities and experiences might account for the difference in religious intensity?

  Mitch Price is an artisan, a man who works creatively with his hands in a traditional craft (wood-carving). In his own way, he is as much a throwback as Mrs. Wakefield. How might the remote setting (mountainous West Virginia) lead to an embrace of more traditional forms and roles?

  Jackson McCain was a delinquent who grew up to be a cop. What sort of experiences might account for such a transformation?

  Mrs. Wakefield is a society matriarch of a sort not seen much in these days of grannies in hiking boots. Tom calls his father "a professional Irishman," deepening his accent and Irishness to impress the Americans who come to his pub. Trevor O'Connor. and Mrs. Wakefield are both most comfortable in the personas imparted by their social class and situation. Is that sort of role-inhabiting a thing of the past in our fast-changing society? Contrast this with the discarding of early roles (delinquent and debutante) shown by the younger Jackson and Laura.

  Laura and Jackson never got over their early love, and they reunite as adults. Is this sort of "reunion love" an example of self-deception, or can what attracted us at 16 still be alluring in midlife?

  In his reckless youth, Tom betrayed Ellen. Do you think it's possible to forgive and forget in a case like theirs? Is she a fool if she believes him when he says he loved only her?

  Cathy is the great enigma, and her death the mystery that her sisters must solve. Consider the damage she has done to each sister. Does her reason absolve her of guilt? How much should childhood trauma excuse adult misbehavior?

  Were Mrs. Wakefield's attempts to protect her family admirable or lamentable? Chief McCain thinks she's crazy, as are most rich women. Do you agree that wealth distorts reality for the wealthy?

  All families have secrets, though the Wakefields have more than most. Have you discovered secrets in your own family? What did your parents and grandparents hide from you, and why?

  About Alicia Rasley

  Alicia Rasley grew up in the placid old mountains of SW Virginia. She was the second of eight children of a math professor and a scientist, and could rebel best by majoring in English. She teaches writing at a community college, and is a guest lecturer and writing advisor at a state university. Between sadistic bouts of grading papers, she hangs out and talks sentences with co-blogger Theresa at the Edittorrent blog. She lives for semi-annual trips to England, and her children (Andy, JJ, and surrogate daughter Kate) are gracious enough to travel there with her once in a while. She lives now in the flatlands of Indiana with her husband Jeff, who is also a writer and runs a foundation to benefit villages in Nepal. For a two-writer family, there is remarkably little artistic temperament. But the house is filled with crammed bookcases and overflowing magazine racks.