I wondered if it had all been a fantasy. Was Milo playing me all this time? Did he like my stories at all? He had told me he’d slept with girls when he was younger, he’d said the girls were older than him, but were they? Did he ever plan to marry me? The shock of what he did to Ruby was overwhelming.
I thought about Milo’s dark moods. At the time we were planning our future together, I thought it was depression. In those times, he wouldn’t call me or talk to me in school. Once he had shouted, ‘Leave me the fuck alone,’ and punched a wall while I walked alongside him trying to engage him in conversation. I was shaken by his aggression. I had not told the court about that. I should have. Afterwards he had apologized, and he was back to his sweet old self, but I couldn’t forget the sudden rage and hostility. Would he have hit me if I’d tried to hug him? Maybe he was a psychopath. You read about these people all the time:‘He was so mild-mannered, wouldn’t hurt a fly.’ Milo hadn’t planned to rape Ruby, I was sure of it, but if one of those black moods had taken him, who knew what he could do?
I knew that Milo masturbated because sometimes, on those nights when he crept up the back stairs into my room, I helped him jerk off. But there was no way around it: his semen was inside her vagina so he must have come inside her. The whole time he could have said it was consensual, but he insisted that Ruby came on to him, that she wrapped herself around him and that he had stopped her, that she fell and knocked her head. He insisted there was no penetration at all and that he’d had to fight her off. A tiny girl like Ruby? The DNA sealed his fate and broke my heart in two.
Some time after I returned from Worcester, Margie was lurking outside the house one day when I was getting in the car to go to the supermarket. I went to the gate to meet her.
‘He didn’t do it, you know he didn’t.’ She was half crazy with rage. ‘I warned you something would happen if he started mixing with you rich kids. I never imagined it would be this. Your sister is a liar, and you fucking know it. He’s not stupid, Erin, why would he do such a thing and think that he wouldn’t be caught?’
Dad heard the commotion and came out and threatened to call the police. He ran her off the property.
Mrs Kelly had come to the house twice, begging to talk to Ruby until Mom and Dad got a restraining order against her. Ruby and I stayed home, thinking our lives were over, and perhaps they were, because nothing was ever the same again.
Sometimes, Ruby could forget and laugh atThe SimpsonsorFriendson TV, and we encouraged that. Dad was angry and silent for months. He said his faith was being challenged and prayed about it endlessly.
The story wasn’t in the newspapers but some people in thechurch knew and everyone in Altman knew. I had only told Saima and I’m sure she didn’t tell anyone, but Ruby’s friends were less discreet.
And then, four days after Ireland was suggested, Mom and Ruby left. I thought it was temporary. They’d stay for the summer and then they’d come home. Mom begged me to come with them, but I needed a break from Ruby. I knew it wasn’t her fault, but I couldn’t bear to see her pale face and sad eyes. It was one of the worst days among many terrible ones. Dad thought I should go to a prayer retreat for a while. It was a kind of religious retreat with daily massages as well as group baking, prayer circles, flower arranging, music therapy and painting sessions. I slept a lot and talked a lot in group sessions, about trust and betrayal and family, and I made cupcakes for a party I would never attend, funeral wreaths for my heart; I wrote angry songs that nobody would ever sing, and I painted my soul in shades of grey and green with splashes of rotting yellow. I did not mix with the other guests.
Two weeks later, Dad came to pick me up, a fake cheerful smile on his face, and I noticed his hair was greying at the temples. Milo’s actions had taken their toll on everyone.
The house was quiet all the time now, and the tension was gone. I don’t know if that was because the trial and sentencing were over or because Ruby was no longer there. I missed Mom badly and called her often. She always wanted me to talk to Ruby, but those conversations were brief and awkward. Dad and I got along okay. I had missed a school year; I was going to have to repeat it. Dad hired a maid to cook and clean for us, but I ironed Dad’s shirts in the particular way he liked. He got back to full-time work and his ministries, and Saima persuaded me to spend the summer working as a supervisor with her at a camp for middle school kids in Vermont. I felt bad about leaving Dad alone, but he encouraged me to go. It also gave me an excuse notto go to Dublin to see Mom and Ruby with him. That summer in Vermont was freedom. Nobody knew anything about what had happened. There were no sympathetic looks. I could be normal.
Dad returned from Dublin upset. Mom was pressuring him to move there, but even I knew it was a ridiculous idea. Dad had no friends there, no business contacts, no church community. He broke the news to me that Mom and Ruby were not coming back to Boston. Ruby had refused and Mom couldn’t leave her there on her own. I tried to hide my distress from Dad, but it was hard. I was technically an adult, but I still felt like I needed my mom. Mom came back to see me, leaving Ruby with Grandma, but she was still convinced Dad would change his mind and that we would all go to Dublin. I could see their relationship was frayed but there was nothing I could do about it.
Back at school in the fall, things were different. Saima had graduated and gone to Boston University College of Fine Arts. I was doing my final school year. I knew some of the kids in my class, but I didn’t feel like mixing with them. Milo had made some real friends during his time in Altman, and they all knew what had happened. The boys shunned me, and I only spent time with the girls in my class who were in Dad’s church. Principal Bermingham avoided looking at me when we passed in the corridors. After a few weeks, we heard that he had quit. I realized he must have other things on his mind. Not everything was about me.
In my spare time, I studied. There was nobody to write stories for, so I stopped writing them. I’d applied and got accepted into Harvard. Dad took me out for dinner when I got the letter of acceptance. He said Saima could come too, thank the Lord, because Dad and I had run out of conversation a long time ago.
6
Ruby
Mom and I landed in Grandma’s house in Dublin in May 2000. Grandma’s house was in a cul de sac. The houses were all squeezed together in one square terrace. Three small bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen and one bathroom for the whole house. The neighbours would say hello and introduce themselves, but I didn’t feel like I should be too friendly to anyone. Mom did not grow up rich like Dad did, that’s for sure, but I didn’t care that much about my surroundings. Grandma always made me feel better.
Mom was happy to be home. She was determined that Dad and Erin would join us soon. She was house hunting. She reconnected with lots of old friends and went out to lunches and dinners and trips to the cinema. She wanted me to meet her friends’ children, but I resisted strongly. How could I have anything in common with Irish kids? They seemed rougher than us. When I saw them messing about in the grocery store or in the local park, they cursed alot. Especially the boys. Grandma agreed with me. Dad would have been shocked at the profanity. When Mom went out, Grandma and I would bake together, or she would dig out old photo albums and show me pictures of Mom growing up. My uncle in Australia was handsome when he was a boy. Grandma said he’d been gone so long but that she still missed him. Phone calls to and fromAustralia were very expensive and Dennis was not a good letter writer.
Grandma thought Mom should never have come home without Dad, even though she disapproved of him and his church. She kept asking when he was joining us. Grandma was a strict Catholic. The teachings of Dad’s church were much more relaxed than her own faith and the observance of it was different. We didn’t say grace before dinner like we did at home. There was no Bible Camp, and I missed that, but we went to Mass on Sunday. It was a lot different from going to church back home. Irish people didn’t dress up, the music was incredibly dreary and there were few people there of my age. I wasn’t expected to contemplate anything or read the Bible on Sundays, and I was allowed to watch TV and play Mom’s old records from when she grew up here. There were fewer rules. I liked that.
On the night of the incident, before we went downtown, Dad had poured me a large brandy for the shock. The taste was awful but it warmed me from my toes to the top of my head. I knew I had been through something utterly terrible but, somehow, the brandy took the edge off it. In the days and weeks that followed, I found myself working my way through my parents’ liquor cabinet without alerting them, topping up the gin and vodka with water, and the whiskey and brandy with tea. They rarely drank and didn’t notice. I continued this little practice when I got to Ireland. I spent most of my allowance on liquor and beer. I was seventeen by then. I could drink legally in Ireland at eighteen, but I was only asked my age once in the liquor store. I lied.
While we were welcome in her home, Grandma made it clear that a wife’s role was to be at her husband’s side, regardless of his faith. Mom said that maybe Dad could set up a mission in Ireland, just like he had set up his church by himself before.Mom assured Grandma she could persuade him. Dad had given guest lectures in Ireland a few times. I vaguely remembered going to one five years earlier, when Dad was mad because there was only a handful of attendees. He missed us, Mom said. Grandma sniffed with disapproval. I was sure Mom would persuade Dad.
Grandma never mentioned what Milo did to me, not once. I think it suited us both to sweep it under the carpet. I liked Grandma. She let me be, though I didn’t cause her any trouble, not then. I appreciated the fact that she never asked me, and Mom was happy about it too. She knew I never wanted to talk aboutthat.
Laquanda and Tasha did write diligently for the first few months; Janet, only twice. I was even allowed to call them on the phone, though Grandma paced up and down the hall muttering about the phone bill when I did. I had permission to call two friends once a week for fifteen minutes. Mom had brokered that deal with Grandma, even though we had enough money to call our friends any time we liked. We were rich compared to other kids in my school in Boston, never mind the kids on this Dublin street. ‘Wasteful,’ said Grandma. Mom said that we would get cellphones of our own. Grandma didn’t trust cellphones. ‘If you want to fry your brains, go ahead,’ she said.
But even with my new cellphone, my friendships couldn’t survive the width of the Atlantic Ocean. There was no more conversation about our wedding days. Laquanda and Tasha kept asking when I was coming home and I’d say ‘Soon’, thinking that I could never go back. The letters and calls eventually dried up. There were only so many ways to answer ‘How are you?’ when the answer was ‘I don’t know’. In the last call I had with Tasha, she said everyone had moved on. Nobody talked about us now. Milo had been sent to Whiteshore Prison. I knew his family were fundraising to appeal. I guess they had believed him too.
Dad visited us in time for the July 4th weekend, five weeksafter we arrived. Erin didn’t come at all. The excuse was that she’d got a job supervising at a kids’ summer camp in Vermont. I was upset about that. Erin had been good at telephoning regularly, but the conversations were always short. Even before we left home, things had been awkward between us and I’d hoped that when she came to Ireland, to this new environment, that we could all reconnect.
Dad told me I was not to worry about Milo’s appeal. It was never going to happen because there was no new evidence. That was a big relief. The thought of ever having to go through a court case again was terrifying. Dad was adamant that he was not ready to retire even though Mom said he didn’t need any more money. Mom had set up all these meetings for Dad with religious people he didn’t know and didn’t wish to know. He referred to them as tadpoles. Mom didn’t know any heads of banks or investment brokerages. Dad wanted us to come home. We wanted him to stay in Dublin. I was the most resistant to returning to Boston and grew hysterical at the thought. Mom said she couldn’t leave me here on my own.
Dad only stayed eight days. Mom was glassy-eyed and devastated. Before he left, Dad said that he loved me very much but he couldn’t start over in Ireland. He told me that I shouldn’t blame myself. Mom blamed me, though she said she didn’t. ‘The important thing is that I love you and that’s never going to change,’ Dad said. I howled and cried, but that made Mom even more upset, and Dad charged me with looking after Mom. ‘You two need to support each other. I’ll come over when I can, and when you are properly recovered, you can come back, and we’ll be a family again.’ I knew for a fact I would never be fully recovered. I was devastated that Dad was choosing his job and his ministry over us. He told me that Erin really missed me. I missed her too. The phone calls were awkward, but I knew that if she were to come to Ireland, we could get back to normal.
When Grandma heard that Dad was going home on his own, she was upset too. And to get away from Grandma’s judgement, Mom bought a large apartment for us on Mount Merrion Avenue with a spare room for Erin that went unused ninety-nine per cent of the time. Neither of us believed that this separation was permanent. We thought that Dad would miss us too much.
Mom had several friends in Dublin, some of whom I’d met and some who were strangers to me. I’m sure she told some of them what had happened, but nobody mentioned it to me. They arrived with dinners and cakes and wine. It was good to hear her laughing. She went out to dinner parties and concerts, and I encouraged her. She had sacrificed enough for me.
