“I tried to get away from him,” Jessica says, “but Tom was bigger than me, and I couldn’t break free. It wasn’t until William came out carrying Grace that Tom released me and ran. Even though I wanted to help them, I couldn’t seem to make any decision other than to follow him to his car. He’d left it along the road, about a quarter mile from the farm. Tom drove us to the high school and parked in a far corner, under a tree. He left the car running, and I turned on the interior lightso we could see each other while we talked. That’s when I noticed his torn jeans and the blood splattered across his shirt.”
Diana opens her eyes. “Why didn’t you get help?” Her throat aches from holding in the screams she needs to release.
“At first, we were both freaking out,” Jessica says. She is crying again, her cigarette abandoned on the ground, the tip still burning. “There was a lot of yelling. I wanted to go back to the farm. Tom kept banging the dashboard, saying, ‘It’s my fault, it’s my fault.’” Jessica’s strangled voice reminds Diana of the howl of a dying animal, its leg caught in a cold steel trap. “After an hour or two, Tom said he had a plan. The fire offered him a chance to avoid taking responsibility for Carson. He didn’t have to tell the police he’d killed him. No one needed to know the truth. Except for me, and all I had to do was stay quiet.”
“No,” Diana says. She tries to visualize this younger version of her husband who made such a terrible decision, but she’s afraid if she does, her Tom will be lost forever.
“If we were asked, we’d say we were at his house watching television. His mom would cover for us.”
“She could have gotten into serious trouble for lying like that.”
“You have kids. Wouldn’t you do the same for them? I may not be the best mother, but I’d lie for Ava. I’d do anything for her.”
Diana, too, would do anything for Duncan and Phoebe. She has more in common with Jessica than she first understood.
“We stayed in the car, not talking, until the sun came up. That’s when Tom brought me to the farm. Irene, Grace’s sister, was there getting Grace and William’s things for the hospital. She said they’d been badly hurt. When we last saw them, they were outside of the barn. I still can’t believe William went back in.” Jessica runs her nails up and down her thighs, her black jeans shadowed where her fingers leave their mark. “Irene didn’t even ask where I’d been all night; it was like she’d forgotten about me. I decided to go home, and Irene seemed relieved she didn’t have to take care of me. She drove me to the bus station and offered to call my parents. She had to tell them about Grace and William anyway.”
“That’s it? You just went home?”
“About a week later, cops came to interview me in Portland. I said what Tom told me to say: I was with him that night, watching TV at his house. They believed me. It was my parents who suspected I was lying, and they grounded me for months because they thought I was hiding something. I left home as soon as I finished high school.” Jessica continues scraping her nails across her body, focusing on her neck, leaving red welts across her skin. She shifts closer to Diana, only inches away. Diana smells cigarettes and Jessica’s citrusy perfume. “All these years, Tom and I both kept this secret. I’m only here, telling you all of this, because he’s gone.”
He really is gone, Diana understands. And there is no way to get back the Tom she knew before all this started, before she found that letter.
Her next question shocks them both. “Who’s Ava’s father?”
“Diana,” Jessica says, using her name for the first time. “Tom loved you. Even from the little he said about you, I knew he loved you.”
He told her that he loved her every day, didn’t he? Before he left for work each morning, before he fell asleep at night. And in the letter, too:When you speak of me to Duncan and Phoebe, tell them their father was imperfect, but he loved them, and you, more than anything.
Diana clutches the plastic crate to keep her body upright. “You didn’t answer my question. Tom is Ava’s father, isn’t he? That’s why he gave you that money: $60,000 over the years and $250,000 right before he died.”
In the distance, Diana hears cars honk and voices call out. On the other side of the bar, people are going about their days, driving through traffic, listening to the radio. Here, a woman she’s only just met is about to confirm another terrible secret, one that will obliterate Diana’s understanding of her husband and her marriage. Her stomach twists, and though she knows she’s right, she waits for Jessica to say the words.
“When Tom and I reconnected that day in the courthouse, I wasn’t in a good place,” Jessica whispers. “He tried to help me. The moneyhe gave me was for rent and groceries, my phone bill, my car. I never used it for drugs.”
Jonathan’s words return to her:I’ve decided if the money wasn’t for the firm, it was for something else, something important to Tom.Jessicawasimportant to Tom, enough for him to steal from Jonathan and lie to everyone. Diana lets go of the crate and wraps her arms around her roiling midsection.
“Sometimes, I think Tom only tolerated me because of what I knew about Carson,” Jessica continues. “Other times, I thought he cared for me. We slept together a few times, always when he was upset about something. A case at work, his guilt about the fire, a fight with you. He was always mad at me afterward, and I wouldn’t hear from him for weeks. When he found out I was pregnant, he was furious. He wanted me to get rid of it. I wouldn’t, though. I wanted the baby.”
Diana feels a shooting pain in her chest, as if one of the last strands holding her together has snapped, and she falls against the building, breathing heavily. The brick wall grazes her skin through her thin cotton dress, and the nausea increases.
“Tom wouldn’t have anything to do with me after Ava was born. I didn’t see him again until she was about six months old and had gone to live with my parents. Raising her on my own was too hard, and I was still using. It wasn’t safe for Ava to be with me.” Jessica shakes her head so hard at some unspoken memory of Ava’s infancy that the bun on her head falls, and curls spring loose around her ears.
“After that, Tom and I saw each other every few months or so. When Ava was around seven, I got arrested for possession. Tom got me probation, and that’s when I broke it off. I was so screwed up. I couldn’t face him anymore.”
Jessica brushes away her tears, taking off the last of her makeup. “Before he died, Tom called me three or four times. In his voicemails, he said it was important. He was sick and had to speak to me. I thought maybe he finally wanted to meet Ava, so the next time he called, I answered. We didn’t speak for long. You’d gone out on a walk with yoursister, he said. Your brother-in-law was downstairs watching the kids. Tom was supposed to be napping. He laughed about that. He said what was the point of napping when he’d be dead soon enough?”
Diana so rarely left Tom’s side after his diagnosis. She should remember taking a walk with Andrea and asking Evan to look after Duncan and Phoebe, but she cannot find that time in her memory.
“He called because he needed another favor. The first favor I’d done for him was keeping his secret all these years. The next was to get well. He asked me if I couldn’t get clean for myself, could I do it for him? He’d pay for it. He didn’t tell me where the money was coming from, and I didn’t ask. He’d found a place in Arizona that was going to have openings that fall. It was a big commitment. Inpatient and a few months in a halfway house. I’d be gone for more than a year. He’d already talked to my parents about it, and they were willing to do whatever was needed to help me, including managing the money he wanted to give me.”
Diana is finding answers to questions she didn’t even dream of asking, connecting the facts of this story together, one fitting into another with a sharp click.
“I used all that money for rehab and therapy for me and my daughter,” Jessica says. “Do you want me to pay you back? I live with my parents and Ava in Portland and wait tables. The tips are good, but I can’t even afford my own place, much less come up with that much money.”
Diana’s eyes sting from the strain of holding in her tears. “Tom wanted you to have it so you’d get well. And you’re better, right?”
Pride shines in Jessica’s eyes. “I am better. He never saw me like this. He only ever knew the broken version of me.”
