For the Best

by Vanessa Lillie

  I look up and hand the detective his phone. My so-called Rhode to Justice is leading me back to where I started. Right to my father’s house.

  My instincts say to get in my car, burrow away, and hide until everyone stops staring.

  Just like her father.

  I pick under my nails and realize hiding is not a new idea. It’s what I’ve been doing all along.

  “I have an idea,” I say, almost hearing my mother’s pleas in my ear. “Instead of confronting him and getting more lies, I could try to remember what happened.”

  “What do you mean?” Phillip crosses his arms across his chest. “Are your memories coming back?”

  I think of the snippets of dreams in the journal. “The walk home after the bar is becoming clearer. I think there’s more there, if I could access it.”

  Detective Ramos lets out a small scoff. “How’d you do that?”

  “There’s a psychiatrist who specializes in light therapy for trauma. It helps your brain access and process difficult memories.” My heart begins to speed up at the thought of the truth and what it could mean. “If I can remember, I can confront my father. Get him to admit what he did . . . if he actually attacked . . .” My voice cracks, and I rub my fingers through my bangs, straightening them and then flicking them to the side.

  Detective Ramos leans on the metal banister. “You don’t have much time,” he says. “This evidence should be enough to bring you and your father in for more questioning. Possibly an obstruction of justice charge. Other charges could follow.”

  “Let me try,” I say.

  Phillip sits down on the step above mine. “Could you really turn in your father, Jules?”

  His question causes my chest to seize, but I have to face that night. “Let’s see if that’s even an option.”

  I call the number my mom gave me, and Dr. Potter can see me right away. I’m relieved to be leaving them behind, but I’m nervous about what I’m moving toward.

  Still, I go by my house and pick up my camera.

  Dr. Potter has a pretty corner office in a Victorian house that’s occupied with holistic chiropractic and Reiki services. I pause at the sign, but it clearly states her credentials. I open the main door into the lobby, and the incense is strong and reminds me of college and Phillip’s basement apartment.

  I open the frosted-glass door engraved with the name “Dr. Helena Potter” and find a woman in her late fifties with silver hair cut in a sleek bob. I like women confident enough to keep their hair its natural shade, though I’ll sure as hell never do it.

  “You must be Juliet,” Dr. Potter says as she rises in her small waiting room. Her voice is deep and almost sultry, not matching the dainty flower-print dress. “Please come inside.”

  I follow her into the office and feel my CEO self perking up. She’s got impressive degrees and has been awarded certificates for her work at different associations and boards.

  “Your mother said this might be the only time you come.” She closes the door behind her, then locks it gently. “She thought EMDR or light therapy might help you deal with your trauma.”

  “I was blackout drunk,” I say. “I don’t know if there was trauma or just too much to drink.”

  “Well, we can try.”

  I hand her my dream journal, which is just a few sheets of paper. She reads them quickly, nodding, as if I’ve done good. “I think I’m starting to remember that night,” I say.

  She goes around her desk to the two leather chairs across from each other at the back of her office. There’s a table with a box of tissues in between, and I hope I won’t be reaching for them at any point.

  “During trauma,” she begins, “your brain may store memories in a place that’s hidden. It’s meant to protect us, but it can actually cause a lot of harm because we aren’t able to process what’s happened and begin to heal. One approach is to watch these lights in a safe environment. To move memories hidden in your mind because they’re so difficult to process—from places hidden to where you can remember. Please have a seat.”

  I continue standing, keeping my arms crossed, and watch her sit down. “How fast can it work?” I ask.

  She cocks her head to the side, staring up at me. “It can vary a great deal. Perhaps today, perhaps after a dozen sessions. I don’t want to make promises, because it might not work at all.”

  For a moment, I feel relief, as if maybe I can keep ignoring my role or my father’s role in Terrance’s death. That well-trodden path to find other suspects and resist taking responsibility.

  But that’s not why I’m here.

  “One thing,” I say and adjust my purse as I sit down. “I’d like to record the session.”

  She frowns, but I see her considering the point as she sets her hands in her lap. “I am doing this as a favor to your mother, who expresses worry about you at every appointment. I suppose this could be informal, if you feel like recording it is important. I wasn’t going to charge you anyway.”

  “First taste is free?” I say.

  She smirks. “It’s not free, Jules. Being here, admitting part of you should be here, that cost. Shall we explore how much?”

  I take out the camera and then set it up on the tripod. I focus the lens so both Dr. Potter and I are visible in the viewfinder and press record.

  Dr. Potter opens a drawer beneath the tissues. She takes out what looks like an altered stethoscope. There are lights on the ends instead of the metal pieces for the ears.

  “Can you explain how this works again?” I ask, feeling jittery and wishing for a drink to deal with these feelings.

  “Light therapy is about taking the memories and traumas of your past, which are hidden deep in the caveman part of your brain, and bringing them forward. If you’re able to process your pain, to treat it by acknowledging it, you can finally heal. Like a break that’s not set properly, we will rebreak the bone and heal it right this time.”

  “Sounds like it hurts,” I say as I take the lights into each hand.

  “Not as much as living with the untreated trauma.”

  I let out a long breath at her point, feeling the truth. “I want to finally know the truth about what happened to Terrance,” I say. “If I had any role. Or witnessed something terrible. Maybe that’s part of why I can’t remember? The trauma?”

  “It’s likely,” she says and presses a button. “Let’s begin.”

  I stare down as the lights begin to flash, and Dr. Potter dims the room. The flashes are rhythmic and mesmerizing, and my mind feels eager to watch them. I begin to relax—flash, flash, flash. And then I’m floating—flash, flash, flash—my mind untethered from my body.

  As the minutes pass, my mind’s constant hum of worries and excuses and anxieties shuts off completely. There are only the lights and my hands holding them. Back and forth like a distant lighthouse beckoning me closer as I drift. I want to drift. I want to know the truth of Terrance and that terrible night.

  VIDEO TRANSCRIPT 15

  RECORDING IN DR. HELENA POTTER’S OFFICE

  PERSONAL VLOG

  INT. OFFICE—DAY

  HELENA POTTER is in her office, seated across from JULIET WORTHINGTON-SMITH, who is holding two lights for EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) therapy.

  HELENA

  Juliet, think of the traumas in your life. Start with the strongest sense memory.

  The lights continue, each word with a different pulse.

  JULIET

  Gin. Ice in the glass. The way it rattles.

  HELENA

  Where is this glass?

  JULIET

  In his hand.

  HELENA

  What’s the next memory?

  JULIET

  Being upset with him.

  HELENA

  What’s around you?

  JULIET

  His frustration with me. His anger.

  HELENA

  Why is he angry?

  JULIET

  I’m not listening. I’m
not doing what he wants.

  HELENA

  Then what happens?

  JULIET

  He finally agrees, and we go outside. Out back.

  HELENA

  To the alley you mentioned earlier?

  JULIET

  No, he says I have to drive.

  HELENA

  (looking confused)

  Drive where?

  JULIET

  To my ballet class. Mom took my sister shopping. Dad says he’s too drunk to drive, but I don’t care.

  HELENA

  How old are you, Jules?

  JULIET

  I’m nine. I have to get to my lesson. I’m mad at Dad for drinking when he knew I had ballet. I am mad at him for a lot of things.

  HELENA

  Then what happened?

  JULIET

  He gets in the back with me and falls into the seat. Then passes out. I take the keys from his hand and crawl into the driver’s seat. I have on itchy tights and my ballet slippers. I prop one leg under me so I can see over the sedan’s steering wheel. My slipper barely reaches the pedal.

  HELENA

  What are you feeling right now? Process those emotions, Juliet.

  JULIET

  I am so angry at him. That . . . rage pushes me forward. I want to show him I don’t need him.

  HELENA

  What do you do next?

  JULIET

  It takes me a moment to get the key in the ignition. I drop it and have to get all the way to the floorboard to reach it. There are too many keys, and I’m in tears before I even find the right one. We’re going to miss the class, and I won’t be in the recital. I hear Dad snoring, and I laugh even though I’m not happy. I’m mad and scared. I find the key and press it into the metal ignition and turn.

  HELENA

  (looking surprised)

  Did you drive, Juliet?

  JULIET

  The engine roars, and I wonder if it’s always been so loud. I have five minutes to get to Hope Street and park before the teacher locks the door.

  I don’t wait for him to tell me what to do. I pull the stick toward me the way Dad and Mom do and slide it over to the D. I push the pedal hard.

  HELENA

  Keep going, Juliet.

  JULIET

  It’s like that wild horse from Girl Scout camp. I didn’t realize how hard it was to push the brake—and then that sound: thump, thump, scrape. I scream, “Dad! I hit something with the car!” I know it’s not something.

  (begins to sob)

  I saw the small bike and the boy’s face. His eyes were so wide . . . so scared.

  HELENA

  Did your father wake up?

  JULIET

  (crying softly)

  The thud woke him up. Or maybe it was my screaming. He was so calm for being drunk, and he flung me over to the back seat.

  He says, “Buckle your belt, Jules. Don’t look. Don’t listen. I’ll take care of this for you.”

  HELENA

  What happened next?

  JULIET

  I was frozen. He buckled the belt for me. He didn’t seem mad at all. I wanted to curl in a little ball and pretend it hadn’t happened. But I watched. He got out when a lady arrived. She’s checking on the boy, but he’s on the ground, and she’s yelling at Dad to call an ambulance. I think he does. I see the lights. I don’t hear the siren. Maybe they know he’s dead. Dad’s friend is the cop. He lets us go. We walk home. Everyone is staring through their windows. Staring and whispering and pointing from their porches. Dad keeps telling me the story that he was driving.

  HELENA

  What happens at home?

  JULIET

  Dad takes me to his study. He gives me my first drink, a gin and tonic, and tells me to drink as much as I can stand. Then he tells me the story of the day that never happened. The version where he was driving, I was in the back, and I screamed and screamed. He tells me that story. Makes me repeat it and drink. Repeat it and drink until I puke and pass out. The next day, I’m not sure what’s true except I want more gin to forget. I want more escape.

  HELENA

  Do you understand what happened?

  JULIET stares at the lights.

  JULIET

  I killed that boy. I let Dad protect me with his life.

  Chapter 33

  Dr. Potter brings the lights up softly, then hands me tissues, which I desperately need. I’m sobbing, and I want to curl up in this chair and never leave.

  I am picturing Alicia among her stacks of trash and memories and Santiago’s lovingly kept bedroom, like watering a garden that will never bloom. I took her son’s life and destroyed hers in the same moment.

  At the hands of a child, her child was stolen. Justice never done.

  It’s up to me to see that that same mistake isn’t repeated with Terrance’s legacy.

  I thank Dr. Potter and leave her office, weighted with my confession. I take the video to my father’s house. But he’s not the one who needs to see it.

  My mother is in the garden, near the edge of the pool. I see her bright-purple hat and her softly wrinkled face completely focused on keeping this yard perfect, even as everything else in our life falls apart.

  I consider going inside and making a drink before we have this conversation. She’s there, busy with her roses, maybe even happy, but that’s all about to change. Perhaps she could live with her husband accidently killing a child. I’ve never heard her admit he was drinking, though she must have known. But to find out that it wasn’t only the boy who died that day. That because of my father’s choice, whether selfish or selfless, a lie grew that rotted our family to the core.

  Her gaze lifts at my stare, and she rises from the rosebush. “Honey?” she says, and I realize I probably look red and puffy and upset. But that’s just the beginning.

  Hurrying to her side, I take her arm, and lead us toward the house. I do want that drink.

  Inside, I make a mimosa from a bottle of flat Cold Duck in the back of the fridge. Mom removes her gardening apron and wipes the sweat from her face. She sits at the wrought iron kitchen table and waits.

  “I saw Dr. Potter,” I say. I sit next to her with my drink. It doesn’t make me feel better, but for the first time today, I don’t feel worse. “I recorded our session. You need to see it.”

  I play the video and watch the images of me and the lights I held reflected in her eyes. Her troubled gaze grows wider, and she begins to cry. I watch my mother’s heart break in two.

  It is strange to hear my voice as I relive that memory I’d kept hidden away. The last line arrives:

  I killed that boy. I let Dad protect me with his life.

  “I’m sorry,” Mom says with a sob. “I never knew . . . I believed him, but listen.” She takes my face in her hands, her teary eyes so focused and intense. “Your father did not protect you. He knew it would be much worse for him if he was drunk with you in the car. Don’t take this on your shoulders for one second. You made a mistake, yes. But it only happened because of the hundred other mistakes your father made again and again. It is his fault. Not yours.”

  “But I did it,” I say. “It is my fault.”

  There’s so much pity in her eyes. “Okay,” she whispers. “Okay.”

  Hugging her, I suddenly feel angry. Like so many other times, my anger is directed toward her. I want to ask her why she kept us in this house with him. Didn’t she see that he’d rather destroy our lives than face the truth?

  I see my anger is coming from a broken place. A once hidden place, in fact, that needs to take responsibility and heal. “What happens now?” I ask, sounding more like a child than I meant.

  “I leave him.” Mom pulls back and wipes her eyes. She blows her nose in a dainty way and then rises from her seat. “When he wakes up, tell him I’m gone. For good.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Passed out in his study, I’d assume.”

  She strides out of the kitchen, and after I make a refill,
I follow her to her bedroom. She takes out a pink suitcase I’ve never seen. She opens her closet and begins to pull out clothes. “I have been hidden in this house with this man for too long. I’m going to see my grandchildren.”

  I sit cross-legged on her bed, drinking a little too fast because I’m finally able to breathe again thanks to this flat champagne. “Lindy would love that,” I say. “Maybe we’ll come meet you there. After.”

  After walking over, she smooths the shirt on my shoulders. She runs her fingers through my bangs. “I love you so much, my sweet Juliet. But you are in the grips of a disease your father gave you. If you don’t stop, if you don’t face who you’ve become, your life will be over too.”

  She kisses me on the head, and I look up at her through a blurry gaze. “I’m trying, Mom.”

  “Are you?” she says.

  I start to argue, to lie, and then stop myself. “I will try.”

  I leave her packing, and as I walk out of the house, I feel relief mixed with shame. The guilt is a fresh wound, but it’s as if I’ve been living with the infection my whole life. Only now can I start to heal in this painful letting.

  Oh, but there is so much blood.

  Justice has only begun.

  The Sider isn’t open for lunch, but Sean will be there because he’s always there. I go to the alley, see the camera in the corner. The red light shines, and I wave.

  It takes a few minutes, which is fine.

  I want Sean to come outside into the alley and tell me the truth. In fact, it’s all I will accept.

  He holds two red beers—half tomato juice, half light beer—and then hands one to me. “Hey, Jules.”

  I take it with a nod. “I want you to tell me what happened that night.”

  He glances around the alley, as if I might be taping this, which, if I could have figured out how to do that secretly, I would have.

  “There’s nothing worth talking about,” he says.

  I take a sip, and it’s work to get it down after a little too much champagne. A couple of seconds pass, and I feel better, as if the wave has returned to its full height, so we can surf on toward the cliffs.

  I raise the glass. “Hair of the dog that bit me and ripped my life apart,” I say and clink his glass. “Right in this alley.”