“And other girls are going to see what you see,” Jennifer finishes for me, leaning back into her side of the booth.
Our pizza comes before I can agree, and I’m hoping our hunger will save us from having to discuss Shannon further, but Jennifer brings her right up again.
“You just have to trust him. He trusts you, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, he does.” I look down for a moment, wondering if I’m betraying that trust by not telling him my entire past.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” she says, taking a slice of pizza and blowing on the still steaming hot toppings.
I shrug. “I don’t know… I mean, stuff with Mr. Thatcher has been on my mind, and what if I can’t hide that from John? What if he thinks I still have feelings for the guy, and then maybe he’ll start thinking about Shannon as something more… or Madison… or Alicia?”
“And who is Alicia?” Jennifer’s mouth is half full when she asks the question, but it doesn’t seem as though she was able to control herself.
“Just a girl,” I say, trying to wave her off in my mind. “I was so good this morning, and now I’m just starting to stress about everything, and I don’t even know why because John wouldn’t do that to me—I know he wouldn’t.”
After she swallows and takes a long sip of her Coke, she clears her throat and says, “I think you need to see Mr. Thatcher… just to talk to him. There are so many things that need to be settled.”
“Oh, god,” I say, having an urge to rip my hair out. “Just the idea of it makes me cringe, but I have to, don’t I?” It’s like knowing you have to confront a shoplifter or getting your teeth drilled by a dentist who won’t knock you out first, things you don’t want to do but sometimes have to.
“Eventually, yeah… I think you do. You have a lot of questions for him, I’m sure.”
I nod. “I’m not even sure where I’d start or if I’d just yell at him before I could get any of them out.”
“Well, he totally deserves whatever you throw at him. And make sure you let him know what a jerk he is.”
“He already knows that, I’m sure.”
“He hasn’t heard it from your lips. You never did that victim impact statement the prosecutor wanted you to.”
I hang my head a little lower. “Yeah, my mark of shame.”
“I didn’t mean it that way, not at all. You’d gotten caught up in something so much bigger than yourself, and you just wanted it to end. And it’s not like you were in any condition to go off on the guy.”
“No… I’d like to think I’m stronger now.”
“So much stronger,” Jennifer says with a big smile. “You’re different than you were then, and that’s absolutely a good thing. Let me talk to my mom and see if she can’t figure out who to talk to, to try and set a meeting up for you guys.”
“I don’t know.” A sense of dread creeps through my body at the image of being in the same room with Mr. Thatcher again.
“I’ll go with you,” Jennifer offers. “You wouldn’t have to be alone. There are so many people to support you through this. Maybe even John?”
“No… no… not John. That would be too much.”
Jennifer purses her lips and eyes me for a few beats too long.
“What?” I ask, starting to get uncomfortable.
“Well, maybe you should talk to John about this. Yes, it’s all a lot, but if he’s as supportive as you say he is, he’ll probably want to be let in on everything now rather than later.”
“No, I can’t do that.” The suggestion makes me stiff, even a little angry inside. After looking around the restaurant to be sure nobody is listening, I lean in to Jennifer, and quietly speak. “How can I expect John to not only deal with the fact that I slept with my teacher, but also that I…” I sigh, then stutter and stop.
“You can say it out loud, you know,” Jennifer offers. “It might be good practice.”
I close my eyes, then slowly open them, searching for the strength it takes to say what I usually just try to forget, what I bury so deep that, even in my thoughts, the truth is vague and unspoken. “How will he deal with the fact that I’m… a mother?”
Speaking the word mother is still somewhat alien, and I’m not sure if it frees me or just makes me wish I could stuff it right back up inside of me.
Jennifer stretches her hand out and puts it on top of mine. “It’s not your fault you got pregnant, Emma. You were sixteen, and you trusted a man who should have known better.”
I tilt my head forward. I know she’s right, but the tears want to come anyway because I feel like such a failure. “But I’m a terrible mother… I just gave up…”
“No, you didn’t give up. You made sure there was a loving home provided. Mr. Thatcher was the one who gave up.”
“For the best I suppose?” A cool breeze of relief finally flows through me, able to say out loud that I’d been pregnant, that I’d given birth. Nobody talked about it now. It was supposed to be a secret, but it’s not much of a secret when me being pregnant is why everyone at my school figured out I was the girl in the news reports. I was the reason Mr. Thatcher had gone to jail.
“It really is, but now that you’re an adult, you need to face him and ask the questions you couldn’t ask before.”
“And you’ll go with me?” I ask, now gripping her hand.
“Yes. Just leave it to me, and I’ll figure something out.”
Any horror I’d felt at the idea of seeing Mr. Thatcher again has been replaced with a kind of nervous excitement. I’ve begun to write questions down for him, knowing this may be my only chance to face him, if he’ll even agree to a meeting. And then there are the courts that will have to allow it without the threat of tossing him back in jail for as long as the no contact order between us is in effect.
But if things fall in line, then perhaps I can put to rest whatever it is that still lingers between us and finally quiet that part of me that comes to life every now and again, that bit of me that can’t let go of my mistakes or the fear that all of it will come back to bite me someday in the worst way possible.
Jennifer told me to focus on the positive before we’d parted.
“Live each day like everything will work out in the end,” she’d said like she really believed it would.
And so I do.
It’s with this hope that I plan to make dinner for John, using the key he gave me to the house to let myself—and the groceries I’m carrying—inside. Stephen pops in for a few minutes, then says he’s going out again.
“You want me to pass anything along to Angela?” he says at the edge of the kitchen, pulling his coat on.
“Angela? You’re going to see her?”
“Yeah… she got a little deeper under my skin than I’d wanted to admit,” he says with a shrug and a grin. “We were both playing a little too fast and loose.”
“Well, tell her hi,” I say, “and that I’ll catch up with her soon.”
“Will do,” he replies before heading out.
While I must admit that I haven’t entirely missed seeing a lot of Angela, I like the idea that she and Stephen are giving things another chance and that maybe their relationship was about something more than just sex. There’s obviously a lot to work on, like Angela’s paranoid jealousy and Stephen’s apparent inability to carry on a long-term relationship. The latter is what I’d heard from Denny and John, and as for the former? Well, Angela did say she was seeing a therapist, which makes it a little easier for me to keep my fingers crossed for her.
With Stephen gone, I’m busy chopping up vegetables for the stir-fry I’m attempting to make, and when the doorbell rings, I at first think Stephen forgot something, like his keys. But when I open the door, Mrs. Mercer is standing on the porch, her expression just as chilly as the air blowing inside.
“Oh, hello,” I say, trying not to sound as nervous or surprised as I actually am in seeing her. I wipe my hands on the apron I’d pulled over my dress. “Um, John isn’t here, but you can—
”
“I’m quite aware,” she says, taking a step forward, the scent of lilacs accompanying her. “I didn’t come to talk to my son.”
“Oh, okay.” I step aside and let her in, hardly feeling as though I have a right to bar her from the house her son is living in.
“Might we sit down for a moment?” she asks as soon as I’ve closed the door behind us.
“Sure. Can I get you something to drink?” I’m actually the one feeling like I could use one to quiet the sick feeling that is erupting inside of me. Being in the same house with a woman who I think probably hates me is about the last thing I’d anticipated having to deal with today.
“That’s quite all right,” she says, walking straight into the living room and then lowering herself into one of the big, leather chairs.
“I just have to turn off the stove,” I call out, some smoke already rising from the olive oil I’d coated the pan in, but thankfully not enough to fill the house or set off a smoke alarm. “Sorry about that,” I say, nearly tripping before I sit down in the chair across from her.
“This is all very domestic,” Mrs. Mercer says, eyeing me in my apron. “I’ve been told you’re living here with Jonathan—is that right?”
“Yes,” I say brightly, ready to tell her that I contribute in any way I can and that I’m not just mooching off of John for free rent.
“It’s all very quick,” she says, her posture perfectly straight, her lips remaining in a straight line, not a touch of a smile. “Jonathan is prone to rash decisions at times, and I’m going to be very blunt with you, Emma. I believe his… cohabitation… and engagement with you is a prime example.”
I open my mouth to answer her concern, but nothing comes out of my now paralyzed throat.
“I have no intention of supporting this,” she continues. “Certainly, Jonathan is a grown man, but as his mother, as the woman who nourished his growth and did my very best to guide him through life, I feel that I know what is best for him, and it’s certainly not playing house with you while he has, in effect, disappeared from his family.”
“I’m not…” I begin, clearing my throat while trying to match Mrs. Mercer’s posture. “Well, I’m not trying to keep him away from any of you. That’s his decision.”
“A decision no doubt affected by your needs. His girlfriend, Madison, was and remains quite engrained in our lives, and this entire thing has created a very tense rift. And if you love Jonathan to the extent at which I’m sure you believe you must, then you’ll release him and whatever commitment he may have made to you in haste.”
The way that Mrs. Mercer is talking to me reminds me of the way Mr. Thatcher’s wife had looked at me in the courtroom, with pure disdain. When I was sixteen, I’d simply turned away and looked down into my lap. She’d terrified me. It would be easy to do that again, but I’m supposed to be an adult who is facing the mistakes and fears of my past.
I stand up. “I’m sure you’d prefer I not tell John you’d been here,” I begin, my voice shaky and tight. “I don’t imagine he likes the idea that you’re running his life, and if you want an even bigger wedge between you, then I’m sure him finding out you came here trying to break us up will do the trick.” I finish with my mouth dry, my heart racing and my palms sweaty. I’m feeling like a nervous wreck, but at least I said exactly what I’d wanted to, not like the time I choked on Labor Day.
There is perhaps minute evidence of surprise on her face, but otherwise her expression is unchanged as she stands. “You won’t understand until you have children, Emma, the need to protect them, to try to ensure they don’t make the same mistakes you’ve watched them make before. But I can assure you, my intention in coming here is because I love my son, dearly.”
“Well, I love him too… dearly.” I swallow hard and look down to the floor for a moment before I take a step, then another, until I’m walking toward the door and expecting her to follow.
“Perhaps you do,” she says when she catches up to me, squeezing past and opening the door herself, as if allowing me to do it would be like me throwing her out. “But you’re going to come to realize that you and he are like oil and water. It’s very romantic at the moment, but it won’t last. That’s not how life works.”
“I have a pretty good idea of how it works,” I say, my nervousness brewing into anger.
“I’m quite sure you do, Emma. You’ve been, shall we say, around the block?”
Coldness washes over me, fear coming right along with it. What is she saying exactly?
“People make mistakes,” Mrs. Mercer says quietly. “I do understand that, and I certainly don’t have anything personal against you, Emma, but you simply aren’t the kind of girl that will be good for Jonathan. It really is that simple.”
I’m fuming now, but equally terrified. John can’t be upset about what he already knows about me, but Mrs. Mercer strikes me as a woman who will dig deeper into places most other people would have stopped at a long time ago.
“Well, I think that’s all,” she says after I remain mute. “For now,” she adds.
And then she’s out the door.
After closing it, I lean against the door, frozen, my small triumph in believing I was now strong enough to face Mr. Thatcher turning into an unease at what Mrs. Mercer might know and how she might damage John and I with it.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
JOHN
Mid-November
Emma,
If I have to get up early one more morning and leave you lying there all by yourself, I’m going to have to seriously reconsider my educational choices. I’m at legal aid again tonight, so I’ll be back late. Text me in between if you can.
I love you!
John
I leave the note on the kitchen counter, deciding not to wake Emma up. As busy as I’ve been in the last few weeks, she’s been busy too, and it’s hard to believe we’re already in mid-November. I’ve known Emma going on four months, and yet I often feel as though I’ve known her for a lifetime.
“Another day at the office, eh?” Shannon says, sliding into the desk next to me. My first class in the morning is also the one we happen to share.
“I probably look like shit, don’t I?” I ask, figuring I only got a few hours of sleep last night with all the studying I’d been doing.
“The exact opposite.” She smiles.
“You’re too kind,” I joke back, just the way she and I had been doing since she’d introduced herself at the legal clinic. Shannon has become like one of the guys to me, someone to bounce things off of, someone who has a good sense of humor and gets exactly what I’m going through with school and our volunteer work.
“I am kind of nice, huh?”
I chuckle, then straighten up in my seat just as our professor begins his lecture.
“Today, we’re going to discuss what to some is an uncomfortable topic… statutory rape… and all of the legal ramifications involved with it.” Our mild-mannered, tweed jacket wearing professor begins his lecture as Shannon starts typing notes into her iPad. I still do things the old fashioned way, scribing into a spiral bound notebook.
He goes on to talk about several case studies involving older sexual partners of those who aren’t of age to give consent, which in Washington State is sixteen, though there is leeway if both partners are within a certain age range of one another. Some cases are clear-cut while others are far murkier, usually involving two teenagers where the threshold for that acceptable age difference is just missed.
From the moment he began his discussion, I was quite aware of the relationship it had to what had happened to Emma and how her case fell into the clear-cut category. She’d been sixteen, but her teacher was obviously in a position of authority, which, in her case, had negated her ability to consent. She didn’t like to talk about it, and I didn’t press her. I’d looked her case up, not hard to figure out with the brief details she’d given me, but I hadn’t the heart to look into it too much, just seeing the face of her perpetrator in an o
nline news story giving me the knee-jerk reaction to find and pummel the guy. After that, I didn’t seek out any further information. It was in her past, and it was something I didn’t mind keeping tucked away there.
“We have a fairly recent case here in Seattle,” the professor says in continuation of his presentation, “of a high school teacher who carried on a sexual affair with one of his students.”
I can just feel the color draining from my face. There are surely other high school teachers and coaches who have used their influence to prey upon their students, but somehow I just know he’s about to discuss Emma’s case.
“What was particularly damaging in this situation is the fact that the teacher, a Mr. Matthew Thatcher, recorded the liaisons with his victim, adding voyeurism charges to his crime.”
I swallow hard, feeling an ache in my stomach, which I want to believe is just me hurting for Emma.
“You okay?” Shannon turns to me and whispers. “You look like you’ve just literally seen a ghost.”
“Fine,” I say, pushing forth a pressured smile and letting loose a short laugh that elicits a nasty look from a girl in the row in front of us.
There are several points during the continued presentation that I just want to get up and leave, but a sense of duty to finally hear everything ties me to my chair while the professor explains, in detail, every facet of the case, including the fact that the perpetrator had recently been released.
Emma’s name is of course never spoken. She is simply known as the minor who was sixteen at the time and who had refused to testify or make an impact statement against Mr. Thatcher but whose testimony wasn’t needed due to the physical evidence of the recordings, recordings that were discovered by his then very angry wife who handed them over to the police.
“And this is the same wife that’s still married to him,” Shannon states with annoyance.
“Apparently so,” I say, wondering what hold this guy has over his wife and if he still has a hold over Emma, one that I feel like she alluded to in some way.
“You really do look peaked,” Shannon says once class ends, sliding her iPad into her bag. “That case presentation upset you or something?”
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