by A J Grayson
And I didn’t normally read their whole files. Not that I wasn’t allowed to handle them, just that there was usually no need. But this one … Christ. Amber’s life had been lived in realms I just couldn’t imagine. The details amassed from multiple hospital stays at multiple facilities were almost surreal.
She came from a broken home: perhaps a classic starting point. Her father, Peter, was, by her admission in counselling sessions years ago at a hospital upstate, distant ninety percent of the time and aggressive the other ten, not afraid of swinging a fist or a bottle when the mood struck him. She described her mother, Judith, as ‘overbearing to the point of agonizing, like having a taskmaster always at your back’. She said other things about her as well, in different flavours of resentfulness and bitterness, recorded throughout her file. Clearly, her mother was the dominant power in her childhood, however gruff her father may have been. That both of them had died before she was twenty-five didn’t seem entirely like something to lament.
My own parents’ faces were suddenly back in my head. John and Katie Penskie had always struck me as amongst the worst parents a boy could have. God knows, ‘love’ was not a sentiment they either conveyed or engendered. But next to Amber Jackson’s parents, they didn’t feel quite as awful as I’d so long remembered them. I wasn’t willing to let them off the hook for treating Evelyn and me like we were leeches burdening the freedom of their lives, but I don’t remember them ever beating me. Not beyond the random smack now and then. I mostly remember their distance. Their coldness. Especially to Evelyn, whose presence in their lives they seemed to resent even more than mine, since she was the more troubled of us and therefore intruded even more into the time and energy they clearly had no desire to shell out on such burdensome distractions as children.
Amber Jackson’s home life was at a different level entirely. But the truly horrifying reality of her story was that Amber’s home situation had been the least tragic dimension of her childhood.
By her own admission, dispersed through fragmented conversations in counselling reports that spanned the last several years, her world had started to crumble when she was fourteen.
Fourteen. Just two years younger than Evelyn when she’d died. Maybe she’d been fourteen, too, when her torture started. I had no way of knowing.
Amber had been befriended by a girl at her school who’d talked to her openly, and more than some others (she couldn’t remember her name, and a red-inked note in the margin of her file reads ‘repressed memory’). They hadn’t just shared ages, but experiences. Bad home, bad parents. Bad lives. An immediate connection.
Amber and this other girl had entered into a friendship of sorts, with bags of pot and cans of booze being thrown in to secure its intensity and longevity. To a child who had few friends, this one had seemed a lifeline. But the line was to drugs, to escapism, to the darker corners of life. And then, one afternoon, to a visit to a neighbour’s house ‘for something a little different’. Amber hadn’t known what this was about, but she’d had no desire to go home, so she’d agreed.
‘The girl showed me up to the door once we got there,’ Amber had said in a report emended to her case notes by a counsellor with different handwriting. ‘She rang the bell and then started to walk away. I was confused. I asked where she was going, but it was like she’d become someone else. Her face wasn’t friendly any more. It was hard, like she was mocking me. She just snorted and said, “I’ve done my bit. Sorry about this.”’
Sorry. It was hard to be made aware, when I first read these records, that such a conciliatory word could be filled with venom. Especially as I knew what Amber didn’t: that this girl’s name had been Emma, and the woman she’d grown into was in a room just across the property.
Precisely what happened next, and over what precise span of time, is hard to determine from the file. Bits and pieces have been acknowledged in different sessions, in different clinics, over many months – but never the whole. There are notes indicating Amber loses memories from one session to the next. One day she weeps through the memory of an act she says happened all on a single day; then the next day she doesn’t remember speaking of it, or that it ever took place at all. And then in the next session, it was a series of events, over several weeks. It’s impossible to sort through all the details.
But those that can be made out are enough. She was met at the door by a man who drew her into the house. Either one or two other men were present inside – her recollections on this point aren’t consistent – and she was coaxed downstairs, into a basement den. In some memories, this happened the same day; though in others there are flashes of a more likely story, of weeks passing, with multiple visits and stirrings of civility – friendly gifts being pressed into her hands, pizzas consumed around the television and the external appearance of familial care and concern. But the stories always end in the same room. A den with peculiar locks on the door, with a fold-out bed, already unfurled. And the men telling her she couldn’t tell anyone what was going to happen, and—
I slammed closed the file as I read it the first time, cold sweat pouring down my chest. Disgust racked my body. It took another two attempts before I was able to make it through to the end.
When I finally did, I felt I knew my sister better than I ever had before. And I no longer wondered why Amber Jackson’s eyes were hollow.
‘What’s her condition, now?’ I’d set up a meeting with Dr Marcello a few days later, under the guise of wanting to ensure her meds were in balance and having their desired effect. Parts of that story were even true. I’ve never been much for deceit, but I’ve always thought a good lie doesn’t stray too far from the truth, not if it’s going to retain the air of believability.
Dr Marcello was pleasant, professional.
‘What you see on her face is pretty much what she’s got inside,’ he answered. ‘She’s been in and out of counselling and treatment for years. Every time, her memory’s been a little more piecemeal. Like a gradual, extended breakdown.’
‘Is it depression? Psychosis?’
‘A bit of both.’ His tone was professorial. ‘But her case has been particularly characterized by an increasing post-traumatic amnesia. She remembered much more about her childhood trauma three years ago than three months.’
‘And now?’
‘Now? Now it’s down to almost nothing. We had her admitted because a neighbour called the ambulance after finding her more or less catatonic in her flat. The first month here she didn’t make a sound. Barely moved. We tracked down some of her former doctors, the ones she’d opened up to in that file.’ He pointed to Amber’s case folder on the desk between us. ‘But it had no effect.’
‘How has she got by this long?’ I asked. ‘Her abuse, it was more than twenty years ago, but she hasn’t been institutionalized until now? If she’s being found in a catatonic state by neighbours, how has she managed to live on the outside?’
‘The catatonic states are a recent development,’ he answered. ‘There are no records of her having them before. They only began maybe five or six months ago, probably pretty minor at first. But her state has been deteriorating rapidly, and the mental blocks growing dramatically.’
‘Caused by?’
‘You tell me,’ Dr Marcello answered. ‘That’s what we’re working on at the moment, but even with all we’re doing I’m in no position to give you a definitive diagnosis. Probably the effect of a lifetime of repressing what was done to her.’
His words made me go rigid.
‘You can only repress the past for so long,’ he added. ‘It breaks through eventually. Miss Jackson seems to have done that repressing very well, but that only means that the collapse is all the more powerful.’
I remembered the floodgates of emotion that had broken within me a few days ago, as Emma had revealed who she was. I had followed the path of repression as well. And it had sure as hell failed in the end.
‘Is it getting worse?’ I finally asked.
‘She’s started to
come out of it over the past two weeks,’ Dr Marcello replied. ‘Little by little. A word here, a phrase there. Right now she’s conversant a few minutes of each day. That’s about it, though I’m hopeful the trend might continue and we’ll eventually be able to release her back out to as close to a normal life as this woman is ever going to have.’
‘So there’s progress.’
‘With a distinctive catch. When Miss Jackson does speak, she appears to have no memory of anything from her past. It’s like her slate’s been wiped clean, again. There’s today, and before – nothing.’ He hesitated, reflecting. ‘Which means she’s coming through this particular breakdown, but doing so by repressing her memories again. And eventually, that’s going to fail, again.’
Dr Marcello said this with a professionally formal grimace, as if it was the kind of mixed news, mostly unhappy, that we had to be prepared to encounter in this kind of work.
But I’d listened to his words. I’d heard her story, and in a radiant, glimmering moment, this news didn’t sound bad to me at all.
Given everything I now knew, the normal course of action would have been to take everything I’d learned to the police. We had in our halls a woman who’d been horrifically abused, repeatedly, by a group of neighbours who had made a science of their perversion, just up north along the coast, right in the heart of NorCal tourist central. And we had, in another room in this same building, a woman who was involved in that ring – the bait who’d only too willingly been used to lure victims in. There were the pieces here for an investigation. A bust. The legal righting of a grievous wrong.
But I was too captivated by Amber to do that, because I also know exactly what would happen if I did. If I filed a report saying what I knew about Emma Fairfax, what she’d admitted to me, Amber Jackson would never be left alone. A woman who’d been completely broken would be forced to face the girl who’d led her to her ruin. She’d be made to relive, again and again – in police interviews, legal depositions, court interrogations, probably even the media – every detail of the gruesome acts that destroyed her. She’d be resurrected, only to be killed anew. The hollow woman would be gutted and drained of even the life she no longer possessed.
And I wasn’t prepared to let that happen.
Amber Jackson was not my sister, I knew that. I really did. But I never had the chance to save my sister.
Maybe there was a balance to life, after all.
42
David
It felt something close to an abomination to permit Emma Fairfax to be released. It happened, though, five months later. The term mandated by her sentence. Even with what she’d admitted in Dr Marcello’s presence, the administration didn’t feel there was enough evidence-based grounds to appeal for re-sentencing. She was troubled, and probably always would be; they’d done the bit that the courts had required of them.
Of course, she’d admitted far more to me. And while there was no conceivable defence for this creature ever to be unleashed back into society, I, like every other member of the group-care team, signed the release paperwork when it came. Not every choice made in life is made in terms of a legal framework. I had my own reasons for determining that Emma’s release was a necessary evil, and those reasons outweighed everything else.
She appeared as surprised as anyone when I saw her at medical distribution after she’d been told the news.
‘What the hell do they mean, they’re letting me go?’ Even her practised self-assurance couldn’t mask her genuine confusion.
‘Just what I said, Miss Fairfax,’ I answered, drawing her into the pharmacy’s consultation room. I kept my voice low. ‘The paperwork’s gone through today. Your court-mandated term is over. Barring any unforeseen complications, you’ll be released tomorrow afternoon.’
‘But … but the things I told you. I didn’t think I was ever getting out of here.’
I didn’t break eye contact with her. She was right. That’s how it ought to work.
‘The things you told me,’ I drew out my words. It was important that she understood what I was about to say and what I meant by saying it. ‘They didn’t make it into any reports.’
Emma’s breath was as slow as mine, but her stare was blank.
‘I don’t believe you. I confessed to—’
I didn’t permit her to complete the sentence. What she’d admitted to was not to be uttered again. Not here. ‘You’re clearly a disturbed woman, Miss Fairfax. Depressed. Addicted to booze. You misuse the drugs you’ve been prescribed, and I’ve made a strong recommendation that you no longer have them made available to you without strict controls. But it will be the doctors, and the courts, who ultimately decide those things.’
‘That’s what concerns you?! That I misuse my prescriptions? Christ sakes, that should be the least of your interests. I told you I—’
‘Emma,’ I cut her off. My eyes were fire. ‘Our time together is finished. You need to accept that.’
She looked like she was about to react, but no words emerged from her open mouth. She leaned back into her chair, her expression lingering on mine.
‘I … I don’t get it,’ she finally said. ‘Why are you doing this for me? Why aren’t you out for blood?’ There was a momentary appearance of genuine agony, something I’d seen on her features before. ‘You should be out for blood! I mean, you told me things, too.’
I tapped my fingers across my lap.
‘What you told me,’ I said, my words conspiratorially quiet, ‘is beyond my power to comprehend.’ I paused, and felt bile on my tongue. I did comprehend it. That was the fucking nightmare of it all.
‘How can you not care?’
‘It’s not that I’m not appalled by what you’ve done. Be clear about that, Emma. Your life, your choices, they’re … beyond words.’
‘Then why don’t you report all this?’ Her voice was barely above a whisper. ‘You know as well as me they’d throw away the key. Whether I was a “victim” or a “vulnerable personality,” or any of that crap, I’d still end up one of them bitch demon women you see on the news. Who threw away others for her own ends.’
‘Because, Miss Fairfax, you’re not that important to me.’ I opted for honesty. She was hardly going to report the affront to polite propriety. ‘Someone else is.’ Someone else’s redemption matters more to me than yours.
I caught myself, just then. I didn’t need to tell her any more. She didn’t need to know the details.
There was nothing left to say. Emma stared at me, and I couldn’t tell if she was grateful or upset. Part of her must have been relieved she’d walk out of here; but part of her had wanted, I think, to face justice for all she’d been a part of.
I leaned forward. ‘Just don’t think, even for a single second, that this amounts to forgiveness for what you’ve done.’
You’ll end up in hell soon enough, my inner voice wanted to cry out. And it will be my prayer, every day between now and then, that you suffer until you do.
I got up and turned my back on Emma. Whether or not I’d ever encounter her again, and what I might do if that occasion arose, was something that had to be left to fate. I was done with her, and good riddance.
Now, the path before me felt both secure and unknown. An odd mix. I was a man with more questions in his head than answers, and I sensed that feeling was going to be with me for a while.
But I was certain about one thing. I hadn’t been able to bring justice to my sister before she’d ended her life. I hadn’t been of any help to her at all. But I’d now met Amber Jackson, and Emma Fairfax, and I knew the story of the men who tortured them.
Revenge wouldn’t do much for Evelyn now, but it’d sure as daylight feel good to get it done for Amber.
PART FIVE
THE PRESENT
43
Amber
My day doesn’t start with blue eyes staring back at me. It’s the first one in the longest time that doesn’t. Nor does it proceed through a well-timed ritual of morning preparations, or i
nvolve a drink left on a countertop or a drive along the highway to the bookshop.
My day begins abnormally, in a hotel room in Calistoga, tucked between the steep, mountainous rises on either side of Napa Valley, my head thrashing in spasms of what I’d insist was a hangover if I didn’t know perfectly well that I didn’t have a thing to drink last night. So different from the night before, with nearly a full bottle of wine inside me then. Last night was dry, sober, and paranoid.
The new day has started on a thick mattress that’s far nicer than the one we’ve got at home, clearly chosen to cater for the comfort that visitors to Wine Country crave. But it’s begun alone. I’m staring vacantly at an unfamiliar ceiling with a thought in my head that I’d never have dreamed could ever live there.
I don’t know who my husband is.
The man to whom I’ve been happily married for just over two years is not a man who does the things I’ve witnessed him do over the past days. He’s straightforward, honest as they come, plainly plain and straightforwardly simple. Nothing if not completely sincere, an open heart always ready to open himself up to mine.
The man from whom I fled yesterday afternoon – though ‘fled’ isn’t really the right word, ‘avoided’ is more accurate – this is someone different. This is a man who offers me drinks in the morning and hides bloodied garments and murder weapons in our house in the evening. Who assures me nothing’s happened after I tell him about a body stabbed and left to bleed out, then conceals a blood-stained knife in our closet. A man who hides, who lies, and is so very different from the one I’ve held in my heart.