Chapter Thirteen
My hands are shaking when I finally look up from the letter. It feels like I can’t breathe.
Benchley’s gaze is focused out the window.
He’s…crying.
“We didn’t know if Michelle would even be able to have kids,” he hoarsely says. “She had problems, and we’d been trying for so long. Your mom and I worked at the same law firm when I first graduated law school.She actually hired me there. She was seventeen years older than me. She helped me land my job as county administrator just a couple of years later.”
He looks down at his hands, which are gnarled with arthritis and wrinkles and tremble for a different reason than mine now do.
“I knew something was wrong when she married that sonofabitch,” he continues, “but she seemed happy, so none of us saidanything. She wanted to be a mom more than anything. Then, about six months in, I hear rumors from people still at the law firm that she’s been missing work, wearing sunglasses and hats, heavy concealer, shit like that.”
He finally looks at me. “One of the guys at the law firm called me one day and warned me she was out ‘sick’ again. I’d asked them to keep me posted. So I drove over there toconfront her. He’d given her a black eye, beat the shit out of her.
“I said let’s go report it, get the bastard arrested, and she begged me not to, because she was afraid what would happen to her reputation. Apparently, he had taken pictures of her naked. Now, I know that’s not really a big dealnow, but backthen? It would have ruined her if he’d released them. He swore he would do it, too,if she divorced him or reported him to the cops. She wanted to run for office at some point. Turns out the fight was because he admitted to her that he’d had a vasectomy long before she met him, because he didn’t want kids. Nobody knew that, either. He lied to her when he married her.”
He takes a deep breath. “She didn’t want to risk going to a doctor to try to get pregnant, because they’d wantto talk to him, or it’d leave doctor records. And back then, in the early days, it wassoexpensive. It wasn’t covered by insurance, and there was no way for her to hide the expense from that worthless bastard. Plus she worried he’d hurt her or a baby if she got pregnant.”
He sniffles, wiping at his nose with his handkerchief. “Remember, this is alongtime ago, honey. And I was young, and stupid,and so damnedangrythat she’d been hurt. I said look, hell,I’dget her pregnant, if it meant she’d let me take care of the fucker, because he was going to kill her. I’d seen his type before. Then, once we were sure, he could meet with an accident, have him cremated, and she could list him as the father on the birth certificate.”
My blood chills as I connect the dots.
Benchley slowly nods.“And that’s what happened,” he quietly says. “It wasn’t an affair, really, because I loved Michelle and wasn’t going to leave her. Your momma didn’t want to do that to her, anyway. She loved Michelle. But we…” He chokes back a sob. “We did it until we were sure she was pregnant, and then I took him out fishing one night, and he didn’t come back.”
I stare at him, stunned. “He went out alone.”
“That’s what everyone was told. I sent your momma out in my boat. I got him drunk and drugged him and held him under until he drowned. Then she picked me up and we headed back to shore. It looked like he was drunk and fell overboard and drowned.”
Which…was exactly what everyone thought had happened.
Tragic, but a self-inflicted accident. Case closed.
I remember reading about it once, when Iwas in high school. I looked up the old newspaper archives. When my father didn’t return from his fishing trip, Momma called Michelle Evans, because they were friends. She and Benchley went over and were with Momma while she talked to a sheriff’s deputy who responded to her call to report him missing. She told police she was worried about him because they’d gotten into a fight about how he was alwaysout on the boat and not spending time with her, plus he’d been drinking. She’d begged him not to go out, but he left anyway.
And Benchley and Michelle were with Momma the next day when her husband’s body was discovered floating near the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.
“You were barely a year old when she transferred to Tallahassee and worked out of the law firm’s branch there, before she started runningfor office. She was afraid someone might think you looked too much like me.”
He sadly smiles. “Thank goodness you are as beautiful as your mother. By then, Michelle and I had SusieJo. Your mom always felt guilty about that part of things, because Michelle was her friend, and here was a sister you couldn’t even know you had. She couldn’t handle the guilt. She wanted me to focus on my family. It’snot like you were aware there was any difference. Just the two of us.”
He sighs. “Michelle loved babysitting you. Marlene named us your godparents because she was afraid if something ever happened to her, she wanted us to get custody of you.”
I knew all that, but it wasn’t something I’d really thought about growing up, or…ever. They sent me birthday and Christmas presents every year, and everyyear I always made sure to send them thank-you notes.
“When you were born,” he says, “I promised her that I would never challenge the birth certificate. That I would never tell you the truth, unless I was dead and left a letter for you to read later, or she gave me permission to reveal it. When she gave me that letter, she told me if you became a mom, she wanted you to know. To know that sheloved you and wanted you so much that she was willing to do anything. Andthat’sthe kind of mom she wants you to be to those three little ones—a mom who will kill and die for her babies. A mom who will stop at nothing to protect them, even if it means doing the wrong thing for the right reasons.”
Tears still roll from his eyes, down his cheeks, and I realize I’m crying, too. I’m stunned, shocked,shattered.
“I wanted to tell you after my heart attack,” he says. “But she said no, absolutely not. She promised that if I died first, she’d tell you. Except by then we already knew about her Alzheimer’s, so we knew she’d pass first.” He looks down at his hands. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” he whispers.
“That’s why Mom had Susa be her intern.” It’s not a question.
He sadly smiles. “When yougraduated from high school, I was so damned proud of you I wanted to scream I loved you, that you weremine. Graduatedearly. Then again for college and law school. I went to all three of your ceremonies and sat in the back. Only way Marlene would let me go, because she didn’t want to raise any questions with you about why I was there when you really hadn’t been close to us for a while.” He shakeshis head. “No way inhellwas I missing those. I wanted to be able to stand up and say, ‘That’smylittle girl.’”
His blue eyes meet mine again. “But I couldn’t. Because your mom was right—it would have broken Michelle’s heart to know what we did. I’ve spent the rest of my life making something up to her that she doesn’t even know I did. I swear on my life, I have never even kissed another womanbesides her, other than what I did with your mom. I’m not an angel. There is stuff in my past that some might say makes me evil. But Carl would’ve killed your Momma. He put his ex-wife in the hospital years before. We didn’t know about that then, until after he was dead. I was able to keep that out of the papers for Marlene, thank god. And he didn’t have any kids or close family.”
I have to…processthis.
