Lucy piped up. Even though she hadn’t appeared to be listening, she seemed to know exactly what was going on. ‘You come live here,’ she said to Jack, looking up at him with her shiny deep brown eyes.
He looked at her sternly. ‘Will you put your Lego away before bedtime every night?’ She nodded her head emphatically. ‘Well, okay, I’ll think about it.’ He scooped her up and held her upside down, and her laughter took the embarrassment out of the moment.
Afterwards, I replayed the conversation in my head. I was disappointed that Jack still saw me as the nymphomaniac I used to be. He had taken the invitation as a come-on when all I’d been doing was trying to suggest a practical solution to his problems. I thought he knew me better by now.
Three weeks later, his landlord threatened to change the locks and left Jack with no choice. He literally had nowhere else to go. He had surprisingly few belongings: a suitcase and a few large boxes.
‘Are you sure about this?’ he said on that first day in August 2008.
‘Yes. We’re sure, aren’t we, Lulu?’ She nodded her head enthusiastically but, strangely, Lucy took longer to get used to the change than either of us. She would hide when he came into a room, bury her face in my skirts when he sat at our table. I think it was his baking skills that won her over in the end. Every Saturday, he would bake fresh gingerbread men, and she would squeal in delight. And then she would bake with him, and he would give her the jobs of sifting the flour and licking the spoon.
Having Jack around was a good thing. A positive male role model for Lucy and companionship for me. Jack wanted to make himself useful and he was handy. He fixed the boiler and the broken ring on the gas stove. And in the evenings, we watched his DVD collection with pots of tea or mugs of hot chocolate. I hadn’t seenThe West Wing,The WireorThe Sopranos, and Jack relished rewatching and getting me hooked. It became by far the best addiction I’d ever had. Jack still talked about recovery and, although it was annoying in the beginning because I thought he was trying to bring me back into the fellowship, I soon realized that it was his way to stay sober. If he talked the talk, he could walk the walk. It was probably good for me to hear it.
36
Erin
The smell was the first thing I noticed when I entered the Whiteshore Prison complex. Stale sweat, urine and decay. Normally you get used to a smell quickly, but this was cloying. I felt like I could taste it and it revolted me. The arrangement to visit had not been straightforward. I had to write to the prison to request to be added to Milo’s visitors’ list and then there was a two-week wait until I was approved.
The amount of bureaucracy and red tape to get into the visiting area took over an hour, but Margie had warned me about this.
There were rules about how to sit in the plastic chairs provided; some touching was allowed, though I had no intention of touching Milo or allowing him to touch me. My heart was pounding and I found myself feeling excited at the thought of seeing him. At the same time, my stomach was flipping and I was terrified of facing him. I had to be very cool. Like ice. I spotted him immediately. We were both nine years older than we had been the last time I’d seen him. Milo’s sandy hair was streaked with silver at the sides, he was leaner in his sweatpants and shirt than I remembered, but the sparkling blue eyes were the same. He didn’t look particularly sick. He stood up as I approached. A guard yelled at him to sit down. I sat in the chair opposite his, a white painted line on the floor the only thing dividing us. I couldnot tear my eyes away from his face, which seemed to express many emotions all at once – hope, desire, fear, confusion – and then he grinned. That familiar grin.
‘I … I didn’t think you’d come.’
I’d forgotten how deep his voice was. Many years previously, I had thrown out every memory of him, the love letters, the photos, the silly drawings, the small trinkets of affection. But here he was, older, and though this place had taken its toll on him, he was still handsome. I was momentarily stunned as we locked eyes.
‘I heard you were sick,’ I said.
A flash of angst crossed his face and the grin disappeared. ‘I didn’t do it, Eri, you know I didn’t.’
He was the only person who ever called me Eri. I’d forgotten. I shoved the sweet memories aside. ‘You’re sick?’
‘What?’
‘Where is your cancer?’
‘Can we not say hello first?’
‘Hello. Where is your cancer?’
‘I would never force myself on anybody.’
‘I came because Margie said you had cancer.’
‘Think about it. Why would I attack her? Your family were good to me. Why would I risk losing you, and them, and losing everything else I was working towards?’
I had to look away and ignore his words.
‘Do you have cancer or not?’
‘If I had raped her, wouldn’t it have been easier for me to say it was consensual? I’m not saying your family did anything wrong but that could not have been my DNA. I did not have sex of any kind with your sister, she was just a kid. They made a mistake or the DA lied –’
I dragged myself up from the chair. This was pointless. A guard looked questioningly in my direction. Milo reached for myhand and pulled it, and the memory of his touch, the heat from his hand, now calloused and red, made me collapse back into the chair. I had to gather myself. I must not cry. I couldn’t let him win. I looked at the guard, a nod to assure him that everything was okay. Then I snatched my hand back.
‘You did rape her. DNA cannot be faked. It is impossible. You will never convince me otherwise. Now, do you have cancer or not?’
He dropped his head, and I realized then that it was a ruse. Margie and Milo had concocted this cancer story to make me visit him.
