by Robin Brande
Out on the porch he hugged me and gave me a quick peck on the lips.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” I said, “but I really love you. As a friend.”
“I love you, too, Lizzie.”
“No, I mean really. As a friend.”
Jason laughed. “I understand. Remember what I said—I’ve got dibs.”
I started to walk away, then realized it was nighttime and the bus stop was a scary place to be.
“Can I have a ride?” I asked sheepishly.
“When are you going to learn how to drive?”
“Soon. Maybe you can teach me?”
[3]
The Sherbern house was lit up in an inviting way as Jason and I came through the door.
“Look who’s here,” I said to the Sherberns.
Posie looked up from her book and scowled at me. Then she returned to her book.
“I think I’ll go,” Jason whispered.
“Wait.” I followed him to the door and closed it behind us. I stood on my toes and wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him the way I had been practicing all night. “Thanks.”
“Sure.” He patted me once on the rump and headed for his car.
I followed him there because I couldn’t get enough of him and wasn’t quite through. I kissed him one last time.
“I really love you, Lizzie,” Jason whispered, his mouth warm against my ear. He straightened and with a smile added, “No, really—as a friend.”
Was it wrong to feel so happy? The answer is yes—of course. But it was just for that space of time, for the hours between showing up on his doorstep and then watching him drive away from Posie’s. That isn’t evil, is it? Even God rested on the Sabbath.
There was no mistaking Posie’s disapproval. “Hope you had fun.”
“I did,” I answered defiantly.
“You might have called,” she continued. “Your mother’s been looking for you and I had no idea what to tell her.”
“I was with Jason.”
“I gathered that.”
I plopped onto the chair near hers and considered what to say. Posie was pretending to read again.
“What did my mother want?”
“Oh, probably some detail about your father’s funeral, wouldn’t you think?”
“Posie, why are you acting like this?”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re mad at me.”
“I just thought you might have more important things to do today than fool around with Jason.”
Well, I didn’t. “Sorry,” I said instead. “I’ve been . . . confused.”
I could see she was trying to maintain her composure.
“Did you sleep with him?”
“No. Well, yes, we did sleep, but I didn’t have sex.”
“I’m sure he tried,” Posie said in a slightly friendlier tone.
“Of course.”
“But you really didn’t?”
“No. I wanted to. But I won’t if you won’t.”
Posie’s face softened. “Thanks, Lizzie.” She released a sigh. “I know it’s stupid, but after Brett . . .”
“Don’t worry,” I told her. “I’m with you.”
I changed the subject to one I knew would get Posie going.
“My mother thinks I let my father down.”
Right on cue, Posie answered, “What? Are you kidding me?”
“No, she does. She says I should have held his hand.”
I can always count on Posie’s outrage over hypocrisy—it’s one of her finest qualities.
“Your mother’s nuts if she says that. After all you’ve been through?”
“Thank you.”
“And what about her?”
“Thank you.”
“She leaves you alone with a man like that while she goes off . . .” and so on.
Thank you, thank you. In the midst of a roaring tempest, it’s nice to know where to hide out from the storm. I mentally added Jason to my short list of people I can rely on. And while Posie took up the charge on my behalf and catalogued the host of atrocities I’d had to bear during the time she’d known me, I felt a warm spark ignite in my own chest.
We were going to be okay, I thought. We would keep fighting and we would win.
The Ninety-Fifth Percentile
Middle of May. Almost time to graduate.
I hadn’t seen Angela in months. I had talked to her on the phone here and there, but this time I wanted to see her in person. I needed to fill her in. She had read the obit, of course, but she needed to know the details.
When I finished, she sat back and inhaled another death twig and shook her head and laughed. “Jeezus.”
Something had been gnawing at me. “You never sent the letter, right? The one telling him we wanted money?”
Angela confirmed she hadn’t. “I was waiting to hear what happened with the custody hearing.”
“Good,” I said with heartfelt relief. It was my one consolation in all of this. I might have contributed to my father’s heart attack, but I hadn’t then stomped on his chest.
“So what do I do now?”
“What do you want to do?” Angela asked.
“I don’t know. Go to college, I guess—same as before.”
“Did your father leave you any money?”
“I don’t know yet. My mother said there’s life insurance, but I don’t know how much. She isn’t really speaking to me right now.”
“Seems to me,” Angela Peligro said, “your mother got what she wanted. Custody of you kids, and now the house and everything else. They weren’t divorced, so all of it is hers. Plus, she’s free of him. Sounds like a smoking deal.”
I didn’t really like her crassness about it, but in a way she was right.
“And you get what you want too, don’t you?” she continued. “Your brother’s safe now.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t need for my father to die.”
Angela considered me for a moment in silence. Then she said, “Let me ask you something. Suppose you have a case like the one I do now where a priest has spent the last twenty plus years humping everything that moved. He’s fucked ninety-two kids that we know of so far, girls and boys. Some of those kids went on to be drug addicts, five of them committed suicide, most are in therapy of some sort—generally a wake of misery behind him.
“So suppose you’re one of those kids, and now you’re grown up and you have a family of your own and a decent job, but this guy still torments your dreams. You can’t really enjoy sex because it still feels dirty. Even if you think you’ve pulled yourself together, there are still times you wonder, why me? What was it about me? You have all these vivid, ugly memories and you can’t really enjoy your life fully no matter how many good things happen to you because this one guy—this flagrant, abusive monster of a man—singled you out one day and took your childhood away. Imagine you’re that person.”
“Okay . . .” I said. It sounded pretty awful.
“And now today,” Angela said, “you come into my office to talk about how much we’re going to get from the bastard and from the church leaders who knew about it and let him get away with it, because that’s the way they’ve always done it, and Lord knows they don’t want to have to change hundreds of years of policy about kiddy diddling and secrecy and all of that shit. Okay? So here you are, and I look across my desk at you and I say, ‘Lizzie, I have wonderful news. Last night another prisoner in the jail where the priest is being held jumped the fucker and strangled him with his bare hands. He’s dead, Lizzie. You’re free.’
“And you know what?” Angela continued. “I bet you a million bucks you don’t smile, you don’t breathe out a sigh of relief—none of that. You sit there and look at me in shock and then you burst into tears. And you know why?”
“Why?” I asked softly.
“Because you’re not free. You didn’t want him dead. No, that’s not right—you did want him dead. The problem is, you wanted to feel it with your own
bare hands. You wanted to be in a safe place where he couldn’t do anything to you and you wouldn’t get in trouble, and then you’d wrap your own precious hands around his vile little neck and squeeze until you felt the very last pulse of his heart.”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“Yes, you would. Don’t lie. That’s what they all want, but it’s impolite to say so. You can talk about justice and ‘I just want to prevent this from happening to some other child,’ and all that crap, but if you’d just look into your own black heart you’d see that murderous, vicious impulse in there waiting for you to give it permission to do its job.”
I think I had stopped breathing.
“It’s basic human nature, Liz. It’s what makes mothers so dangerous. If I saw some man touch my son the way any of these guys have, I’d feel no hesitation whatsoever going up to him and beating the living shit out of him, and I’d feel bad if I didn’t finish the job. Don’t get me wrong—I want to protect other people’s kids, too, but it’s my kid I’d be thinking of first, and if I could take just one of these guys out of circulation by battering his brains in, I would.”
I felt then—right then—exactly what Posie must have been feeling all those times she read the articles about Angela. Like a surge of electricity, or like love in a way, or maybe just this intense admiration that there are no adequate words for without sounding like a freak or a stalker. But right then I would have given everything I had just to be as fearless and committed as Angela Peligro was. To feel so sure of myself. To believe in what I believed with such absolute confidence that it was the right thing.
“Don’t worry,” Angela continued, “it’s just you and me here. I’m not going to tell anyone what you say. It’s all privileged—you don’t even have to tell Posie if you don’t want to. So come on, tell the truth. Aren’t you glad your father’s dead?”
“No,” I answered immediately.
“Are you sure?”
“I didn’t want him to die.”
“Then he didn’t really abuse you,” Angela said. “You said maybe you weren’t sure? There’s your answer.”
I sat there stunned. Wordless. Was it really as simple as that?
“I’m guessing he didn’t have sex with your brother, either, or you’d have felt the way I said.”
I shook my head in disbelief. This woman was either a prophet or a fraud.
“But I was sure I did—it’s the only reason I did any of this.”
“Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t,” Angela answered. “I’m just telling you what I’ve seen over the years. Maybe you’re different. Could I be wrong? Certainly. But I don’t think so. I think you’re no different from anyone else.”
“Maybe I’ve just forgiven him,” I offered lamely.
“Do you feel like you have?”
“Well, honestly, no.”
“What do you think his true crimes were, Lizzie? Have you had a chance to really think about it?”
An hour before—fifteen minutes before—I would have answered easily with my prepared list: he had molested my brother, maybe molested me. Was that the best I could do? If you took those away, did I have any complaint left?
He made me feel bad. So what? He gave me the creeps sometimes. And he should die for that? I’m sure he was touching Mikey. How sure, Lizzie, really?
What about the sperm? Maybe that was a lab mix-up—twice. And the letter? Read it again—maybe you read too much into it.
I slumped in the chair. “Angela, did I make a huge mistake?”
“It depends on what you mean. Was it wrong to try to save your brother? Absolutely not. Did you get some of your facts wrong? Maybe. Was your father a saint? I doubt it. Was it your fault he died? No way.”
I heard it all and wanted to believe it. Wanted to believe it hard. Because the alternative was just too unthinkable.
“Have you ever been wrong?” I asked Angela. “Have you sued someone for molestation, and it turned out they didn’t do it?”
“I don’t know, do I?” she answered. “I take each case as it comes and I try to decide what’s true and what isn’t. But I could be wrong sometimes, sure. Maybe I’ve ruined some poor fuck’s life along the line—I wouldn’t put it past me.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
“It can’t,” she said. “I have to do my best, but sometimes that means I’m going to screw up. I’m not a saint, either. But if you ask me whether overall I’m doing the right thing, I’d say absolutely I am. No question. The work needs to be done and I’m glad it’s me doing it.”
I sat there for a moment, trying to let that sink in.
“It’s a game of percentages,” she added with a shrug. “And I like to think I’m hitting at least ninety-five.”
Was that all it was? Just a guess, a try, an “oh, well” if it turned out you were wrong all along?
“I do know this, Lizzie,” she went on. “No matter what, you’re not in trouble. Not with me, anyway. You weren’t some bored teenager trying to stir things up just for the hell of it. Your heart was in it. You were trying to do the right thing. Were you wrong? Who knows? But were you bad for trying? Never.”
“You really feel that way?” I asked. “Please, tell me the truth.”
“I really feel that way,” Angela said. “I’ll tell you why. Did you see that story in the paper last week? Fourteen-year-old girl kills herself because she can’t take being raped by her father anymore. Kept a diary for years, laying out every detail. Named names of neighbors and friends of the family she was sure knew what was going on. Kept hoping and wishing one of them would say something. Call the cops, send in an anonymous tip—something. But no one ever did. Poor kid finally gave up hoping.”
Angela stubbed out her cigarette and shook her head. “It breaks your heart.” Her voice broke as she said it, and she had to wait a moment and clear her throat before she could go on.
“See,” she said, pointing her lighter at me before firing it up again, “not everyone is as brave as you and Posie. People are scared. Kids are scared. I get that. They don’t want to make a mistake. They don’t want to get someone mad at them. They think it might make things worse.
“But don’t you think at some point people should just say, Enough? This isn’t right and I’m doing something about it. Even if it’s messy as hell. Even if they don’t get it right all the time. For God’s sake, do something.”
Angela shook her head again and took a deep drag. Then she glanced up at the clock. “Look, I’ve got to throw you out. Got another one coming in this afternoon. Tell Posie I need her to come get me organized. I’m fucking buried here—papers everywhere.” I looked around her office, but it didn’t look any worse than the other times I’d seen it. “Georgia gave up a long time ago.”
Reluctantly I rose from the chair. I wasn’t finished. We’d gotten sidetracked, and I still needed to talk about my father. About what Angela had said about him. And me.
But maybe that was her point, I thought as she ushered me back to the front room. Maybe everything she did had a point.
She shook my hand. “It was nice knowing you, Lizzie. Maybe I’ll still see you around.”
“I hope so,” I answered.
Angela smiled. “Now beat it. I have work to do.”
She shut the door behind me and I could hear her bark out new orders to Georgia. Life went on.
Posie waited for me in the parking lot.
“You should have come in,” I said. “It’s too hot out here.”
“It was fine in the shade. I wanted to sit out here and think for a while.”
“Feel like a milkshake?” I asked.
“Poetry to my ears.”
Posie rolled down the windows and blasted the air conditioning and soon chased out all the hot air.
“Good meeting?” Posie asked.
“I don’t know. I suppose so. She’s ready for you to finish school and come work for her.”
Posie nodded absent-mindedly. She drove in silence for
a while. When she stopped for the light she draped her wrist over the steering wheel and turned to me. “I think what she does is great.”
“Me, too.”
“No, I mean really great. I think she’s doing the right thing.”
“I do, too.”
“I think I should do that, too.”
The light turned green and I stared at Posie’s profile and I felt glad for what she had just said.
“You mean be a lawyer?” I asked.
“Uh-huh. I’ve been thinking a lot about it.”
I let this soak in for the rest of the way until we parked in front of IHOP. My nerves jangled with excitement as I gripped Posie’s arm to keep her inside the car.
“Posie, I think that’s right. I think that’s exactly what we should do—me, too.”
She smiled. “You don’t think that’s stupid?”
“Not at all. I think it’s exactly right.”
The Withered Vine
Most people don’t see a connection between the stories of Esther and Jonah, but I do.
Esther was a beautiful young virgin brought to the king’s court to be tested for the job of queen. She joined a hundred other virgins in the king’s harem and waited for her turn in his bed.
She was clever and modest and lovely, and skilled, they say, in the art of love, so the king chose her for his queen. Esther was a Jew, but her uncle Mordecai warned her not to reveal that.
Then the time came when one of the king’s noblemen hatched a plot to slaughter all the Jews. Uncle Mordecai came to Esther at the palace and told her she must speak out.
“The king hasn’t called for me in thirty days,” Esther replied. “You know how he is. If I come to him without being summoned he could have me put to death.”
Mordecai was disgusted. “Do not think that because you are queen you alone of the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent, relief will come to us from some other place, and then you alone will perish.”
And here’s the part to remember: “And who knows,” Mordecai said, “but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?”
That slays me. That says it all. You have to look at the things you have—whether it’s beauty or brains or some supernatural talent with the accordion—and realize you have that for a reason and you’d better figure out how to use it for something beside your own selfish satisfaction.