I Don't Forgive You

by Aggie Blum Thompson

  “Sure, I can do that.” Dan’s is about a twenty-minute drive from where we used to live in Connecticut. But I don’t remind her that we now live in Maryland. I play along. All the experts say to do this with people suffering from dementia.

  “I would say we should walk there, but I don’t want to leave the house in case Georges comes by.”

  “Georges?” I have not heard that name in years. He was Sharon’s boyfriend during my ninth- and tenth-grade years. A club promoter who drank Dubonnet on the rocks and smelled like mint and salami. As far as I know, Georges has not been resurrected after dying in a three-car pileup on the Merritt Parkway about ten years ago. “You’re expecting Georges?”

  “I don’t trust her.”

  “Who don’t you trust, Sharon?”

  “She brings me Dots, but she doesn’t fool me.” She points to a jumbo-size box of Dots on her vanity, the kind you find at the movie theater. Not the size I buy at the grocery store.

  “Where did you get those?” I pick up the box. “Sharon, can you answer me?”

  But she doesn’t. She turns her face upward toward mine, like a marigold tracking the sun.

  “Don’t ruin your life like I did. You have choices. It’s better you’re not too pretty. The boys will leave you alone at that school, let you get your work done. Look what happened to your sister. Too pretty for her own good.” She crinkles her nose. “What did you do to your hair? You look like a deranged elf.”

  “I know you don’t like my haircut.” My hand goes straight to the back of my neck. “You said the same thing last week.”

  “Aww, I hurt your feelings.” She frowns.

  “It’s all right, Sharon.”

  “Don’t be mad. Here, let me do your nails.” She takes one hand of mine in her bony fingers. “You’re just as good as those girls.”

  We sit side by side on the bed, and I let her massage cocoa butter into my hands.

  “What happened to your neck, Sharon?” I gesture toward the bruise. I wait a few moments, and when she does not respond, I try again. “Sharon, did you hear me? What happened to your neck?”

  She shoots me an annoyed look. “I can’t recall.”

  “Did someone do this to you?” From my handbag, my phone buzzes, but I don’t answer it.

  She tightens her grip on my hands. “Don’t talk about it here,” she says through clenched teeth. “They’re listening.” She stands up and walks over to her dresser, where she pulls out a green silk scarf and wraps it around her neck. “I’ll tie it like so, and voilà. Georges loves green. He says it brings out my eyes.”

  “I agree, green looks lovely on you.” I sneak a surreptitious look at my phone to see who called. Unfamiliar number. I check my voice mail and read the transcribed message. It’s filled with errors, but I can make out the gist. Valerie Simmons’s assistant wants to set up a time to chat next week. I can hardly hide my elation. Back in Chicago, I shot the wedding of the daughter of Illinois congressman Marcel Parks. When I moved to the D.C. area, we reconnected, and I did headshots for him. He’s the one who mentioned Valerie Simmons from CNN was looking for a photographer. If I land that job, I might be able to quit Mike Chau’s and start my own business sooner than I’d thought.

  “Sharon, have you heard of Valerie Simmons?” I ask Sharon. “Former Obama advisor, and now she’s on CNN?”

  Sharon frowns and holds a bottle of pink polish next to my hands.

  “African American?” I push. “Mid-fifties? Bright silver hair?”

  Sharon begins to paint my nails with the precision of Jackson Pollock. I sigh and give up on trying to impress her. I’ll have to wait and share my good news with Mark when I get home; he’ll be proud of me. While my nails dry, Sharon turns the pages of the gossip magazines and giggles. I can’t imagine what she gets out of them. At thirty-four, I already don’t recognize half the names and faces in those magazines, but they seem to make her happy. She has a comment about everyone and how they look and whether their outfits are “doing them any favors” or not.

  After, I try to convince my mother to walk with me outside. I think the fresh air will do her good. I hate thinking of her cooped up in this room every day. But she begs off. Her eyelids are drooping, and I can tell the visit has exhausted her. She agrees to let me escort her to the large foyer and deposit her on the sofa next to a dozing man who has drool dripping down his cheek.

  The room is filling up. Lunch is served at eleven thirty, and an impatient crowd has gathered, like before a concert or big game. I go in search of someone in charge, trying to keep from inhaling the scent of urine mingled with disinfectant. I find an aide with a put-upon look. She knows nothing of my mother’s injuries; she’s just come on duty. But she scribbles my information on her clipboard and promises someone will call me.

  It’s the best I can do for now, and it’s not much.

  I head back to my car, deflated.

  Spending time with Sharon takes me back to those dingy little apartments where she left me to watch over Krystle so she could go out and meet Mr. Right. After my father died, she couldn’t bear to be alone, and that led to some questionable choices in male companions. I used to be bitter about the men she brought home, about her drinking, her inability to function like the other mothers I knew. But now that I am married and have my own child, I am more sympathetic. When my father died, she was thrust into a life for which she was totally unprepared. Sharon never went to college, but she was whip smart, and she had a way of charming men, making them feel protective of her. I remember men paying for our meals at diners, police officers giving her warnings instead of tickets. Job offers came easily, people took chances on her. But she could never stick with anything. Once the novelty wore off, she would give up. Now I can see that her rages and behavior were probably a result of depression, not selfishness. She was doing the best she could.

  If I allow myself to remember, it still hurts. Like when she forgot my tenth birthday or how she never once came to parent night at school. So I try not to.

  But I don’t want this for her. I wouldn’t want it for anyone.

  They say forgiveness is giving up hope on having had a better past. I’m ready. I want to let it all go. I’m just not sure how to do it.

  I’m about to pull out of the parking lot when my phone pings.

  You and Cole coming to the park? It’s Leah.

  On my way. I text back.

  Check this out. And following that is a link to a local news story.

  I click and am taken to their website. Immediately, a picture of Rob Avery pops up.

  The headline reads: BETHESDA DAD FOUND POISONED IN HOME.

  11

  By the time I’ve battled the Beltway traffic and arrived at the playground near my house, I am fried. The late-afternoon sun is low, and it’s chilly. I’ve had the whole ride to chew over what the word poisoned means. Horrific images of swollen tongues and frothing mouths, wide frozen eyes and stiff limbs, have been floating through my mind. I feel guilty for even briefly hating Rob Avery. Could my anger Saturday night have morphed into some kind of cosmic rage that brought about his violent death? Ridiculous nonsense.

  It’s just a coincidence, I tell myself. I need to get out of my own head.

  At the park, Cole has changed out of his church clothes, and he and Mark are both wearing red Nationals shirts, no jackets. Tonight is game two of the Nationals’ playoff series. I don’t think Cole could tell the difference between a baseball and a Frisbee, but he likes to yell at the TV alongside his dad.

  I say hi to Mark, who is standing with David, Leah’s husband. I try to catch his eye, to see if he has heard about Rob Avery, but he is deep in conversation with David. David is one of those nervous, wiry guys with zero body fat, always wearing a T-shirt from the last marathon he ran. He tells me Leah is at Starbucks and will be back soon.

  I take a seat on the blue “buddy bench,” knees jangling, impatient for Leah to arrive. I need to talk to someone about Rob Avery.

&n
bsp; Before me, Cole and Leah’s daughter, Ava, scramble to the top of a green contraption shaped like an eight-foot metal spider. The school made a big deal of these new benches at the beginning of the year. They’re part of the county’s new anti-bullying campaign. Children with no one to play with are supposed to sit on a “buddy bench” and wait for someone to offer them the hand of friendship. I asked Cole if he ever used it, and he recoiled in horror, telling me he’d rather walk the playground’s periphery by himself during recess than be caught on the buddy bench.

  I totally relate to that sentiment. No one wants to be that publicly vulnerable. And yet, here I am, a grown woman, sitting on the bench and waiting for a buddy.

  Poisoned.

  The word pops into my head. It implies such hate.

  I shake my head to clear it, and in an effort to distract myself, I take out my camera and aim it at David and Mark. The two men are a contrast in all ways. David can’t stop moving; he’s rocking on his heels, hands flying as he talks. Mark stands stock-still; he could be carved out of stone.

  I adjust the camera’s sights onto Cole and Ava, who are on top of the spiderlike contraption. Ava wears her long, dark brown hair parted in the middle just like her mom, but she has her dad’s relentless energy. Cole is more cautious, like me, I think, contemplating his every move.

  Beyond them, a lone figure skulks on the edge of the softball field where it meets the woods. Adjusting the lens of my camera, I can make out Dustin, his face in the shadows of his large black hoodie. He’s holding a leash attached to a trembling dog the size of an undernourished cat.

  “Can you believe this? I can’t stop thinking about it.” Leah plops down next to me, cradling an enormous Starbucks cup. Leah had been a partner-track lawyer for one of D.C.’s most prestigious law firms, but never returned to work after taking maternity leave for Ava five years ago. In lieu of climbing up the corporate ladder, she seems to have channeled that fierce intelligence and drive into being the most organized mother-slash-volunteer-slash-neighbor I’ve encountered. “I mean, murdered? I figured it was like a heart attack, or something, but murder?”

  “I know, right?”

  Leah begins to speculate on who could have done this, settling on a theory she has about outsiders who come into the neighborhood to sell magazine subscriptions but are really criminals casing houses.

  As she talks, a longing to tell her what happened last night builds in me. Yet I am scared to share so much personal information. So far, we have not come to the point in our friendship where we push past the superficial niceties and reveal our darker side. Every female friendship has this scary moment, the crucible of personal sharing. You reveal something you are ashamed of, or embarrassed by, or something traumatic that happened. And it’s like staring over the edge of a cliff before you jump into the water below, exhilarated and frightened at the same time. You either come out the other side with your bathing suit so far up the crack of your ass you swear you’ll never jump again, or the rush is incredible—you’ve made a real friend. When she finally stops speaking, I think I am ready to spill, but after a pause, I chicken out and ask, “Did you guys get a dog?”

  Leah rolls her eyes. “Therapy dog. Not my idea, believe me. Apparently, it’s supposed to help Dustin develop some empathy.”

  “Is empathy a problem for him?”

  A quick twitch of her mouth tells me I’ve hit a nerve. “He’s on the spectrum. Super bright, like off the charts. He just doesn’t always pick up on social cues.” She grins. “But he loves you guys. He was telling me the other day how great it is that you let Cole wear whatever he wants and stuff. He’s sensitive to that kind of stuff. I wonder if he might try babysitting. What do you think?”

  “We have Susan,” I say, a bit too quickly.

  “Oh, of course. I just meant, theoretically.” Her tone is cheery, but it masks defensiveness.

  I feel a stab of guilt. Yes, a teen boy can be trusted to babysit, and being on the autism spectrum shouldn’t disqualify anyone from working with kids, but at the same time, I don’t feel comfortable leaving Cole with Dustin. And I know that makes me a hypocrite.

  “So how is the new dog?” I ask.

  She shrugs. “We’ll see. All I know is we got him Friday, and he’s already left about a half dozen little turdlets around the house.” She turns to me and narrows her eyes. “So what happened to you last night? I texted you and you said to meet you in the kitchen, and the next thing I see, you’re running out the door.”

  It’s now or never. A line from The Friendship Crisis, on my bedside table, comes to me: Confidences are the glue that cement female friendships. I take a step off the cliff.

  “A dad at the party came on to me.” I pause. Why am I sugarcoating it? Because I feel guilty for flirting. “No, more like kind of assaulted me, in the bathroom.”

  “Kind of assaulted you?” Leah’s large brown eyes widen. “What does kind of mean?”

  “We were in the kitchen, and then I went upstairs to the bathroom, and he followed me.”

  “Into the bathroom?”

  I describe the whole incident—starting with how we had been talking in the kitchen, and finishing with the purple bruise on my hip, which I show Leah.

  “What a fucking bastard. Who is it? I’ll kill him.”

  I swallow hard. “Well, he told me his first name was Rob.” I keep my gaze on Ava and Cole, who are hanging by their fingers from the metal spider. I wonder if I should run over and facilitate their safe landing. I resist. Mark and David, who are feet away, don’t budge. I envy them their obliviousness.

  “Which Rob? Is he Asian? Rob Zse? Ever since he lost weight, he thinks he’s some kind of a Romeo.”

  “No, he isn’t Asian.” Wasn’t, I almost say. I watch as Cole and Ava climb down and run, hands entwined, across the field toward Dustin and the dog. David and Mark remain chatting by the metal spider, oblivious that their charges have flown the coop.

  “Let’s see, it can’t be Rob Morten. He’s gay.”

  “Rob Morten’s gay?” I turn to face her. “I thought he was married.”

  “Please. He’s so deep in the closet, he’s part of the drywall. What other Robs are there?” Before I can answer, her eyes widen and she puts a hand to her mouth. I widen my eyes. “Rob fucking Avery?” Leah slaps her thigh. “The guy who was just killed?”

  “Shhh, keep your voice down.”

  “This is so insane! Have you told anyone?”

  “Besides Mark? And you? No.”

  “Whoa. Are you going to call the police?”

  “The police? Why would I call the police?”

  Leah narrows her eyes, a wry look on her face. “Now I wasn’t a litigator, only a patent lawyer, and I think I got a C-plus in criminal law, but there’s going to be a murder investigation, Allie. Someone killed Rob Avery. And I’m pretty sure they’re going to want to talk to you. I mean, maybe he was doing drugs or something, and that’s why he acted so crazy at the party, and like his drug dealer killed him.”

  I stare at Leah. “That’s a bit of a leap.”

  “That was a for instance. The point is, you need to tell the police what happened,” Leah says. “Maybe he’s done this to other women, and someone got mad. Like a husband.”

  An image of an angry Mark skulking through the streets of our neighborhood in the middle of the night pops into my head. I shake the thought away.

  “The truth is going to come out, Allie. You might as well get ahead of it.”

  But I have no desire to insert myself, or Mark, into a murder investigation. After all, Rob Avery did assault me, or try to, last night. As far-fetched as it sounds, I don’t want to risk the police thinking that I—or even worse, Mark—might be involved. I’m about to restate that I have no interest in talking to the police, and I’d appreciate her keeping this confidential, when in one swift move Leah has jumped up, passed me her coffee, and is springing across the field to a sobbing Ava. From here, I can see the little girl’s jeans are torn
at the knee. Cole runs past her to me.

  “Mommy, Mommy, Ava fell on the blacktop.”

  Leah scoops up Ava. As she and David head off, she gives me a wave.

  A queasy panic stirs in my gut, like when I’ve drunk too many espressos. Being a mom to young kids means never getting to finish your conversations, but I’m worried that I didn’t make myself clear to Leah.

  I send up a little prayer to the universe: Please, Leah, keep your mouth shut.

  12

  After I put Cole to bed on Sunday night, I navigate over to the swampland that is Facebook to see if anyone has posted more info on Rob Avery. Despite my best efforts to keep things simple, I’ve somehow joined so many groups that I am totally overwhelmed whenever I open up the website. All this information is supposed to keep me informed of things, but the opposite seems to happen. I often feel like I’m flailing around in the dark, thanks to information overload and algorithms I don’t understand.

  There’s the Eastbrook Neighborhood Association page, as well as the Eastbrook Elementary School parents’ page, not to mention Eastbrook Moments—a page just for Cole’s kindergarten class filled with news updates and field trip logistics, as well as cute photos captioned with adorable out-of-the-mouths-of-babes quotes.

  My other groups include D.C. Yard Sale—a great place to find gently used LEGO; Washington D.C. Photographers—a professional networking necessity; and Bethesda Patch—the local news outlet.

  I scan the Eastbrook Neighborhood Association page. It is inundated with posts about Rob Avery’s death. The buzz from the morning has increased exponentially, and all other facets of our neighborhood life—requests for used tennis racquets, recommendations for pediatric dentists—have been squeezed out to make room for rumor.

  Ninety percent of homicide victims are killed by someone they know, one post reads. So it’s probably someone from the neighborhood.

  Does anyone know if Rob was dating anyone?

  Who was he hanging out with at Daisy Gordon’s party? Does anyone have pictures?