I Don't Forgive You

by Aggie Blum Thompson

  “Any neighbors have a spare key?” Zucker asks.

  “Half the neighborhood has a spare key to our house,” I say.

  “Well, let’s make a list,” Zucker says. “Mark, call your sister, find out if she left it here or had it delivered here.”

  “I can tell you now she didn’t.”

  “Great,” Zucker says. “Then we can cross her off. Do it in the other room, will ya?”

  Mark gets up to make the phone call in the kitchen. While he’s gone, Zucker turns to me. “Allie, were you having an affair with Rob Avery?”

  The question stuns me. “No, of course not.”

  Zucker’s eyes dart toward the kitchen. “I can’t defend you if I don’t know the truth.”

  “It is the truth. I met Rob Avery for the first time Saturday night. I swear to God.”

  He bites the end of his pen. “Fine. Question asked and answered.”

  “But there is someone from my past. An ex-boyfriend.”

  Zucker pushes the legal pad at me. “Write down his name. I’ll look into it.”

  I write Paul Adamson on the pad and push it back across the table just as Mark comes back in and sits down. “My sister did not bring any liquid Ambien into our house. Or have it delivered here.”

  Zucker draws a line through her name on his legal pad. “That just leaves everyone with a spare key. Start naming them.”

  “Susan, our babysitter.”

  “Susan what?”

  “Susan Doyle. Our neighbor Heather Grady. Our other neighbor Leah Rosenblum.” I look at Mark. “Anyone else?”

  He shakes his head. “I think that’s it. But we didn’t change the locks when we moved in this fall. Anyone who had keys to the house before would still be able to get in.”

  “Good, that’s good.”

  “That’s good?” Mark asks.

  Zucker smiles. “Sure. Lots of possibilities of how this box ended up in your house.”

  “Why are we so focused on the liquid Ambien?” Mark asks.

  “We’re focused on liquid Ambien because the Montgomery County police are focused on the liquid Ambien. And until further notice, that’s all we’ve got to go on. I’ve put in a call to this, uh”—he squints at his pad—“Detective Lopez. Just to let her know you’ve hired a lawyer. In my experience, the police are less than extremely forthcoming at this point in an investigation, but who knows. Maybe we’ll get lucky and she’ll call me back to let me know just what the hell is going on. Mark, you could be in trouble, too.”

  “Me?” Mark scoffs.

  “You were out that morning,” I say. I’m emboldened by the wine. “Getting the car from Daisy’s house? Remember?”

  “They can’t think I had anything to do with Rob Avery’s death.”

  I shrug. I don’t think he did. But I’m enjoying watching him squirm. Getting a taste of what I’ve been dealing with.

  “Well, we need to be ready, because I’m going to be honest, this search warrant”—Zucker pauses to hold up the paper that the detective gave me earlier—“does not bode well. Not at all.”

  * * *

  Although it is almost ten o’clock when the lawyer leaves, we find Cole wide awake on our bed, still watching TV.

  I walk through to the bathroom, momentarily obstructing the screen as I go.

  “Move!” Cole yells. “I can’t see!”

  I shut the bathroom door to muffle the sound of television chatter mingled with my son’s laughter. My mind is saturated and exhausted from the day’s events. The police search, my mother’s deepening paranoia, the reverse mortgage, tonight’s meeting with Artie Zucker. Even if I checked myself into the Four Seasons in Georgetown for a whole week, I don’t think it would be enough time to process it all.

  “Everything all right?” Mark comes into the bathroom and shuts the door behind him. “You’ve been in here a while.”

  “Just lost in thought.” I rub makeup remover on my face a little too roughly. I’m worked up.

  “I think it went pretty well,” Mark says, leaning against the shower door. “I mean, as well as can be expected. He may not be the most polished guy, but he’s super connected to law enforcement in Montgomery County, and I think he’ll be a real asset in sorting all this out.”

  “Umm, I should hope so.”

  “Listen, about the flirting thing. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  I look at him in the mirror, waiting to see if there’s more to this anemic apology. But he doesn’t add anything else. I know I should tell him about Paul Adamson. I’ve told the lawyer. I’ve told Leah. So why can’t I tell my own husband? Because I’m afraid of his reaction, I realize, and I’m kind of pissed at him. He can barely handle that I flirted a little at a party. What would he say if he knew that I had slept with my teacher, my married teacher, in high school? I decide to let the tiniest drip of truth out. A test.

  “There’s this guy, kind of an ex, from high school?” I turn around to face him. “I think there’s a chance he may be involved.”

  “Why do you think that?” Mark crosses his arms over his chest.

  Not a good sign. But I plow ahead. “The Overton T-shirt—”

  “Which you ordered.”

  “I didn’t order it, Mark.”

  “I found the box, Allie.”

  “You know what? Forget it.” I turn back to the mirror and open the medicine cabinet, slamming around expensive little glass bottles with satisfaction.

  “Do you know you drank more than half a bottle of wine tonight?”

  I spin around. “And? The police searched our house, Mark. I think if there was ever a time to drink, tonight was the night.”

  “I think you have a problem, Allie. A drinking problem.”

  “Is that right?” I stomp over to the shower and turn the water on. “I’d like to take a shower now. Please leave.”

  He stares at me, working his jaw.

  I usually try so hard to keep him happy, to make peace, but tonight I just don’t have it in me. “Now.”

  “This is why I think we ought to talk about the place Caitlin mentioned. The one outside Baltimore.”

  I let out a bitter laugh. “Oh, your rehab-that’s-not-really-a-rehab? No thank you.” I open the door and gesture for him to leave. He walks through, and I slam it shut.

  A twinge of sadness runs through me, but only a twinge.

  Mostly I am filled with anger.

  33

  Saturdays are often workdays for photographers, and despite what is going on in my personal life, I can’t afford Mike thinking I’m not up to the job. I’m still on probation, after all.

  I spend the day with back-to-back shoots—the first at Dumbarton Oaks, a historic estate in Georgetown—and the second on the cobbled pathways along the C&O Canal. By the time I am finished and get home, it’s dark. Mark is parked in front of the TV watching the Nationals, studiously ignoring me, and Cole’s glued to some animated film.

  I don’t disturb either of them. I am exhausted, mentally and physically. I don’t have the energy to fight with Mark or the patience to nurture Cole tonight. I scrounge dinner—yogurt and a banana—take a quick shower, and fall asleep.

  The next morning, I wake with a confirmation text from Madeline that she can meet me. Mark begrudgingly agrees to “watch Cole” even though I hate the way he says it. As if I am the default parent and he is doing me a favor by hanging out with his own kid.

  I leave them still in their pajamas and, following the prompts from my phone, drive toward the coffee shop in Alexandria that Madeline suggested. Normally, on a Sunday morning, I would be driving up to meet Sharon. But I was just there on Friday, so I’m letting myself off the hook.

  As I cross the Potomac into Virginia, I think of when we first told Mark’s family we were moving back to D.C. Caitlin and her husband suggested we look for a house in Northern Virginia, and we acted like we might consider it. But in private, we agreed that putting a river between me and his sister was not such a bad idea.

/>   I smile at the memory. It was only a few months ago, but it seems like ages. I thought adjusting to a new neighborhood and making new friends were problems. Now I wish that were all I was dealing with.

  Soon my car is bumping along the cobbled streets of Old Town Alexandria. This is my first time here, and under other circumstances, I would allow myself to enjoy the quaint old buildings that now house shops and restaurants. Instead, I am walking briskly along a brick sidewalk buckling with age, looking for Compass Coffee. The shop is part of a local chain founded by two former Marines. There’s one about a mile from my house, and just spotting the familiar orange-and-blue logo feels reassuring.

  I order an espresso at the front counter, and once it is in my hand, I start toward the back, looking for a lone woman about my age. In the back corner, sitting at a table below a shelf of board games, is a woman in a navy fleece and mom jeans, staring intently at her phone—Madeline.

  Gone is the severe blunt cut from high school that stopped at her chin and took hours of straightening each morning. She’s wearing her dark hair naturally, cut short. But her square jaw and large, intense dark eyes are unmistakable.

  I stare, fascinated by the ways she has changed and the ways in which she has not. It’s silly. It’s been sixteen years. Did I expect she would still have the same hairstyle and those plastic tortoiseshell glasses?

  I approach with a smile that I hope is friendly, though it feels artificial. “Madeline?” I ask. “Madeline Ashford?”

  She looks up from her phone, concern evident in the deep grooves between her eyebrows. “It’s Ashford-Brown, actually.” She motions toward the empty chair like a prospective employer to an applicant. “Please sit.”

  I put my coffee down and take a seat, my nervousness at our reunion strangling me like a too-tight turtleneck.

  “Alexis Healy,” she says, cocking her head to one side. This close, I can see tiny lines around her eyes, proof of all the living she’s done over the years. Do I look older to her, as well? “It’s been what, sixteen years?”

  “That sounds right.” I am struggling to reconcile this composed woman with the high-strung teenager that I once knew. I decide to get straight to the point. “This is a weird question, but did you send me an Overton T-shirt?”

  She blinks twice, taken aback. “No.”

  “One showed up at my house, and I didn’t order it. I can’t figure out who might have sent it. Then I heard you were the alumni coordinator, and I thought … Well, I don’t know what I thought.”

  Madeline’s mouth twists into a perfunctory smile. “I’m afraid my duties as coordinator are limited to updating the local chapter’s email list and organizing the occasional happy hour.”

  “You must have been surprised to hear from me,” I say.

  A small smile passes over her thin, lipstick-free lips. “Not really, if I’m being honest. I fully expected that, at some point, you might reach out to me. In fact, I’ve thought of reaching out to you many times over the years.”

  “You have?”

  She cups her hands around her oversize mug of coffee and shifts in her seat. “I’m a psychology professor now. At George Mason. My area of research is trauma and recovery. And I don’t mean to sound grandiose, but what happened at Overton, well, it constituted a minor trauma for me. And, I imagine, a not-so-minor one for you?”

  “It did.”

  “I wasn’t my best self, Alexis.” She holds my gaze for a moment before her eyes flit away. “I can list excuses. Insecurity, immaturity, a lack of positive conflict resolution being modeled in my home, but you’re probably not interested.”

  “I am interested in anything you have to say.”

  “I’m nervous.” She laughs. It’s a familiar laugh, sonorous with the slight hint of a braying donkey. I can’t help but think of us sitting on the top of the hill that overlooked the sweeping grounds of Overton, cracking each other up with color commentary on all the preppy kids below. Madeline with her black-and-white composition notebook filled with biting observations. Me with my camera slung over my neck.

  “I always tell my children to own their mistakes,” she says.

  “Children,” I say, returning to the present. Of course she’s married with children. Did I really think she would be frozen as a social outcast, always on the periphery of life?

  “Yes. Three. So here I am owning mine. I apologize, Alexis. It was wrong what I did, and I’m sure it hurt you immensely.”

  She blinks and purses her lips, and I realize she is fighting back tears. Her professional façade seems to melt away. My own eyes begin to sting.

  “It’s okay. I’m all right now.” I don’t know who is framing me for murder, but I am convinced it can’t be the thoughtful woman sitting across the table from me. “I’m married, too. I have a son.”

  She sniffs and takes a packet of tissues from her bag. “I’m very glad to hear that. You were always such a creative, sensitive soul. I always hoped that you would land where you belonged.” She blows her nose loudly into a tissue and smiles apologetically. “I’ve carried the guilt with me over the years. For you and the others I ended up hurting.”

  I tilt my head, curious. “You mean Paul?”

  She lets out a sharp laugh. “Well, I can’t say I feel too bad about what happened to Paul Adamson. He was a predator, it’s as simple as that. Even if I didn’t see that at the time, now that I am a mother, I can see it clear as day. But it was a different time then, wasn’t it?”

  I meet her eyes for a moment and then look away, focusing on a print of a dandelion on the wall. Predator was not a term used to describe Paul when everything came to light. I don’t remember much attention being paid to his role at all. As for me, there were plenty of words bandied about.

  Slut.

  Liar.

  Nutcase.

  Stalker.

  “I guess he was a predator. I never really thought of him that way.”

  “An adult who uses his, or her, position of authority to enter into a sexual relationship with a teenager is the very definition of a predator.”

  “That sounds very official.”

  She laughs. “It is. Textbook.”

  “What if the teenager in question, you know, wanted it?” My cheeks burn hot as the words leave my mouth. Isn’t this the question I’ve carried with me my whole life, the basis for all the guilt I’ve felt? And someone who was there is about to answer, someone who is an actual authority on these matters.

  Madeline shakes her head. “No. Allie, the whole legal concept of consent is there for a reason. Children and teenagers are not mini-adults. Their brains aren’t fully formed. They cannot consent.”

  I nod toward her packet of tissues. “Can I have one of those?”

  She smiles and pushes the tissues toward me.

  “And to answer your earlier question,” Madeline says. “No, I don’t feel particularly bad about him being fired. Or the whole police thing. Now his wife, that’s another story. She was sort of collateral damage in the whole thing, wasn’t she?”

  34

  You must resist the temptation to trust your own memories.

  I read that recently in an article. Most people think of their memories as immutable, but in fact, they change. We are constantly editing them throughout our lives, unconsciously adding bits and cutting out other parts. What rarely changes is our confidence that we accurately remember an event.

  I know this.

  I have a memory of my father, for instance, buying me a second balloon at a park after my first one floated away into the sky. The second balloon is red. The first was yellow.

  I don’t even know if it’s a true memory. I was barely three when he died. But my mother has told me this story so many times, I can see it in my mind like a faded Super 8 video.

  “What wife? Paul wasn’t married.” I feel as if the air has been sucked out of the room. The growl of the coffee grinder, the hiss of the milk steamer, all other conversation in the café recedes.

/>   “Yes, he was, Allie.” Madeline’s eyebrows crinkle together, creating two deep grooves in the flesh above her nose. “You know that.”

  “I don’t remember a wife,” I say. But as I reach back through time, grasping at memories, I realize maybe I do. Do I? One thing I am ashamed to admit is that at seventeen, I certainly didn’t care.

  “You remember,” Madeline says in a matter-of-fact tone. “You used to spend hours in that darkroom blacking her out of all your photos.”

  I shiver, a chill running through me despite the warmth of the room. Her words resonate in my bones with ice-cold veracity.

  “My mother knew the wife,” she says. “Actually, she knew her mother. They were in some women’s club together. It wasn’t professional, nothing to do with the university, maybe some garden club? Either way, the scandal took a toll on them socially. They became pariahs, he deservedly so, but not she. I always felt somewhat responsible for that.”

  “What happened to her?”

  Madeline frowns, stirring her spoon in her mug. “No idea. The two of them moved away pretty soon after.”

  “Do you know her name?”

  A sad half smile forms on her lips, and she looks off in the distance as she speaks. “Funny you should ask. I don’t. I’ve made half-hearted attempts at tracking her down on the internet, just to see what happened. Try googling Mrs. Adamson. You won’t get very far. I suppose I could just ask my mother.”

  “Would you?” I can barely get the words out.

  “Of course. I’ll get back to you.” Madeline frowns at me, alarm in her face. “Alexis, you don’t look well. Was it something I said?”

  * * *

  As I rub Cole’s back in bed at night, my mind drifts, wondering how Madeline viewed me earlier at the coffee shop. Did she look past my impulse chop of a haircut, my dark circles and sallow skin, and see the curious teenager I used to be? I still saw the insouciant know-it-all in her, beneath her composed professional demeanor.

  It was bittersweet connecting with someone from my past. I wish I had a group of girlfriends who knew me back when, whose childhoods were intertwined with my own, and acted as an extended family. Whenever I see women like that—laughing together, making private jokes, posing for pictures—I am gripped by an intense, primal jealousy.