“You think he was murdered?”
She shook her head. “No. I think he decided to end things. Maybe after I visited him.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I said some pretty ugly things to him,” Mara said.
“Well-deserved,” I said. “Did you get any answers to your questions?”
“Not really. When they brought him out to the visiting room, he acted like I was meeting him for a social occasion. It was so weird. Like we could just order a martini and a steak like he used to when he took me out to lunch.” Her voice grew husky as she continued. “He asked about the kids and Hank. He had the nerve to insinuate that Hank’s directing career was because of him. I almost walked out at that point. But I wanted to look him in the eye and see if there was any remorse on his part.”
“Did you see any?”
“No. He said I had to understand the environment he worked in. It wasn’t an office job. It was Hollywood. Power dynamics existed whether he created them or not. Those women weren’t naïve. They wanted careers. He had influence. He told me that’s how the world works—people trade what they have for what they want.” She laughed, short and humorless. “And then he told me some of the women thanked him for what he’d done for them. He said we wouldn’t see that in the papers even though it was true. Hollywood runs on transactions and that he didn’t invent the rules. He just knew how to play the game better than most. Can you believe that?”
“I can now that I know who he really was, yeah.”
She lowered her voice in a good imitation of our father. “‘It was a different time, Mara. People didn’t see things the way they do now.’”
“So no accountability?”
“Zero. He said he’d given his life to the industry. Created hundreds of jobs and helped thousands of families put food on the table. He still saw himself as a hero. A misunderstood one.” She shook her head. “And this was the kicker. ‘Men like me get sacrificed so everyone else can feel clean. History will be kinder than the press. I’m no threat.’”
“Unbelievable.”
“I know. I’m like, ‘But youarea threat. That’s why you’re in here.’”
“Did you say that to him?”
“I did, yeah. And some other stuff too. I told him if history’s kinder to him then it’s because men like him rewrote it to suit their own narrative. That made him mad. It’s the only time during our conversation that I saw the mask slip.”
“Interesting.”
“And then he asked me if I’d forgiven him.”
“What did you say?” I asked.
“It’ll be a cold day in hell before that happened. And that that’s exactly where he was headed.”
“Yikes.”
“I know. But that wasn’t the worst thing. Not to him anyway. I told him he was irrelevant now. His actions made any of the good he brought to the film industry disappear, like they never happened at all. He was only known as a rapist now, not a film maker.”
“Which is true,” I said.
“And he knew it.”
We sat with that for a moment.
“Did he ask about me?” I asked finally.
She shook her head. “No. He talked about himself the entire time.”
“It’s weird he left us money, considering how little he seemed to care about us.”
“Don’t forget it was Mom who made him set up the trusts before she died,” Mara said. “Mr. Wilson said as much.”
I nodded. “One last attempt to make sure we would be all right without her.”
