The Orphans of Race Point: A Novel (41 page)

Ava shrugs. “Call it what you wish. I stalked. I spied. I followed. To me, it was something else:
I loved.
For the first time since I came to America, I loved.”

Every word my mother speaks seems to make Hallie more incensed. “You never even spoke to him. How could you say you loved him?”

“That’s right. I never spoke. I never wanted anything from him like you did, or like Neil did. Nothing but a chance to see him with his dogs, to hear the words he said in the church. To be reminded that there are such people in this foul world.”

“That explains one thing. Gus always said that from the first time you came to the rectory, he felt as if he knew you. He even checked the records at the hospital to see if you’d been a patient. Did you go to Sunday mass, too?”

“Only once with Mila and her father. It was torture. Robert played at piety, but he sat there like a blind man in his polished shoes. He saw nothing. He heard nothing. Little did he know how that day would change all our lives. When we passed the priest, I heard him tell someone he was going to a play in Wellfleet that afternoon. His friend was in it,” he said. He even bragged about his name, as if he was famous.
Neil Gallagher.
”

Hallie looks at her skeptically. “But you said you weren’t allowed to go anywhere on your own. How did you get away?”

“I just went—like free people do, like women who are not married to madmen do. I didn’t care anymore. I took the credit card I had applied for but never used, then I got in my car and drove down Route 6 and bought a ticket. The only thing that mattered to me was seeing the Father, watching him in his ordinary clothes, blending in with the crowd. I even had a glass of wine during the intermission. Beginning that afternoon, I no longer belonged to Robert. I belonged to myself. I knew I would pay with my life for it, but I didn’t care.”

“So Gus recognized you during the intermission and introduced you to Neil,” Hallie guesses.

“No. The priest, your Gus, he was focused on other things. Other people. Sure, he saw me that day. He even smiled at me—but he didn’t remember how he knew me. And before he had time to think about it, Neil came out. Within minutes, they were in the center of a circle. They were laughing, and talking—especially Neil. In all the years we were together, I don’t think I ever saw my husband as happy as he was that day. Even when our son was born.”

“And Gus?”

“I could see that something was wrong. In the Father’s world—at the beach or the hospital or in his church, he was always at ease, but not there. Not among his old friends. He watched the exit like I did when I was forced to attend an event with Robert.”

She pauses a moment before she continues. “After the play, I looked for him, but I knew he was gone. It was as if the light, the sound had been drained from the building. I was so disappointed I didn’t even notice that someone had followed me out to my car.”

“Neil.”

Ava nods. “ ‘Excuse me, but I saw you watching my friend in there,’ he said. I’m not a woman who blushes—not at all, but that day I did. ‘You are mistaken,’ I said, climbing into my car and locking the door. But it was useless. It was a hot afternoon and the windows were open. He put his long arms on the roof, leaned into the window, and laughed. ‘When it comes to women checking out my holy friend, I’m never mistaken. Anyway, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s been happening since he was about ten. There’s something just so—I don’t know—
tragic
—about the guy, don’t you think? So young. So good-looking. So fucking unavailable.’ ”

“He said that?”

“There were no masks between my husband and me. Not even then. From the start, we recognized something in each other. I suppose that was why I said yes.”

“Yes?”

“When he asked me to go for a drink. Oh, I protested a little at first. ‘I’m a married woman,’ I said. ‘I have to get home and make dinner.’ As soon as I’d said the words, I felt how provincial they probably sounded to a man like Neil. After all, he’d only asked me to share a drink. But instead of laughing at me, he said, ‘I know. You’re a married woman, and obviously an unhappy one, but you haven’t “made dinner” in years—if ever.’ ” He took in things that other people didn’t see. The quality of my haircut. My jewelry.

“ ‘There’s a little place about a mile from here where we could grab a beer,’ he said. ‘Or if you’d feel more comfortable, we could go to my cottage . . .’ Imagine the audacity. I suppose that was why I agreed—because he was the first man I’d met who was more audacious than Robert.”

“So you went?” Hallie asks incredulously. “To a stranger’s cottage? You must have been mad.”

“I
was
mad; that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, Doctor. Mad with fear. Mad with loneliness. Mad with self-hatred. But, no, I didn’t go to the cottage—not that day.

“I didn’t know his reasons for asking me to the bar, but I had my own. I hoped he might tell me something about the Father. That he would explain why the man who was more at home in the world than anyone I’d ever known, had looked so uncomfortable. Why he had left the theater early.”

“Did he tell you?”

Ava shakes her head again. “All we spoke about was my unhappiness. Or rather
he
spoke. Even though there were no visible bruises on me that day, he saw everything I took such pains to hide. When I asked him how he knew so much about me, he called for the check. He got so quiet I was afraid I’d angered him in some way. But instead of taking me back to my car, he drove down Route 6 in the opposite direction.”

“And you let him?”

“I was frightened at that point—frightened of Robert, yes, but probably even more scared of this stranger. ‘I really need to go home. My husband—’ I said.”

“ ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get you home in time to put your apron on and make dinner,’ he teased. We were probably doing eighty, but I grabbed the door handle, and insisted he let me out. Immediately, he pulled into a patch of sand and sea grass.”

She pauses for a moment, as if considering what would have happened if she had taken the opportunity to get away. “He covered my hand with his and said, ‘I’m sorry. I realize you don’t know me, Ava, but I swear—you can trust me.’ If there was an instant when my life changed, that was it. I hadn’t felt any genuine affection from a man in such a long time. And there was something so intense about him I believed him.”

Hallie looks away. “My God, I think I know where he took you.”

“Yes, it was to the cemetery in Provincetown. The same place where you fell in love with Gus.”

Though the visiting room is overheated, I feel Hallie shiver.

“At first, I had no idea why he brought me there,” Ava continues. “And then I saw the dates beneath Maria Botelho’s name. She was thirty-one when she died—two years younger than I was.

“ ‘
That’s
how I knew,’ Neil said when he saw the flash of light in my eyes. ‘The last time I saw such a quietly desperate woman I was nine years old.’ He took my hand again, this time with a kind of certainty. ‘Let me take care of you, Ava.’ You have no idea how hungry I was to hear those words—and to believe them. Little did I know that he was playing the role of a lifetime.”

Hallie looks confused. “But it was Gus who had promised himself and his mother that he would never allow another woman to be hurt the way she was—not if he could do anything to prevent it. And right there in that spot. Nothing meant more to him. Not even his vows to the Church.”

“Now you’re beginning to understand. At that moment, my husband
was
Gus—though it took me years to see it. Believe it or not, we didn’t talk about the Father again for nearly a year. By then, Robert began to suspect there was someone else—and I hadn’t had my period in two months. Then it was three. We had to act.

“Neil had thought of everything. People he knew in New York helped me to get a new identity. and once the time came, he had a nurse at the hospital draw my blood and store it. We needed enough to convince the police—and especially Robert—that there was no chance I could have survived my injuries.”

“A nurse? Are you sure it wasn’t Liam?”

Ava shakes her head. “He would never have agreed. They weren’t close, though Neil did his best to pretend they were. He showed up at the hospital cafeteria almost every day for lunch, making friends with Liam’s colleagues, until he found the right person.”

“The
nurse
,” Hallie says. “But I still don’t understand why anyone would—”

“She was a married woman with three children, and, as you know, Neil can be very charming. There was never even an affair, just a few steamy e-mails and some voice messages. But it was enough.”

“You mean he threatened her?”

“He would have ruined her life without blinking an eye. You must know that by now.”

Hallie gets up and begins to pace, nodding as she absorbs the story. “So after Neil blackmailed her, he sent you to the rectory, where he knew you would find the perfect fall guy. Were you even hurt or was that a lie, too? A little theatrical makeup maybe?”

“Robert put his hands around my throat and tried to kill me the night before, Doctor. Do you know what that’s like? Can you begin to understand?”

“But you’d seen Gus on the beach and followed him to the church. You knew the kind of man he was. How could you do that to him?”

Ava’s eyes well up. “I never wanted to hurt the Father . . . and I had no reason to think Neil would, either. I wanted him to look after Mila when I was gone.”

“And when you called him, leaving your number on his cell phone over and over again? When you asked him to meet you at the Pink Dolphin . . .
Jesus
, when you accused him of assault? How can you possibly say you weren’t trying to implicate him?”

“We had to throw Robert off the track . . . But without a body, Neil promised me no one would ever be charged for the crime.”

“And when someone was? When someone was not only charged, but sentenced to life—”

“Neil said there would be an appeal. He claimed he was talking to a new attorney and raising money, that the conviction would never stand.”

“And how did your husband reassure you when Gus was sent to prison? When he was attacked by some animal and nearly killed? When the weeks and months turned into years? How did you ease your conscience then?”

“Do you think it hasn’t haunted me? I even told him we had to go back; we had to tell the truth,” Ava cries. “But Neil said . . .”

“Go ahead,” Hallie prods. “What did he say?”

“He said Gus didn’t care when he ruined your life—or his. And if he wanted to waste his life converting sinners, what better place to do it? That was when I truly understood how much he’d come to despise the Father.”

“If it bothered you so much, why didn’t you go back yourself?”

“Don’t you understand? I couldn’t. Neil and I were bound together—not just by our son, but by this terrible thing we had done. I was afraid.”

“Fear,” Hallie replies disdainfully. “That seems to be your excuse for everything. In another situation, it might almost make me sympathetic to you. But other people were involved.”

“What do you know about marriage, Doctor?”

Hallie’s eyes burn. “I’m in no mood for riddles.”

“But sometimes life
is
a riddle, don’t you think? Sometimes you believe you have escaped a man, only to find you have married him all over again, that cruelty is something you attract. No more than that.
Worse
than that—it’s something you need.”

“Are you trying to say Neil beat you? Because as callous as he is, as much
evil
as he’s done, I don’t believe—”

“No, Neil never hit me. But, like Robert, he drew a line between us.” Ava holds up an elegant hand. “
This
close you may come, and no closer.
This
much you may know, and no more. This you may ask, say, do,
think
—but not that.
Never that
.

“Neil worked so hard; the only time he was truly happy was when he had become someone else. Underneath it all, though, there was a terrible torment. And rage. That was the line I couldn’t cross.”

“Rage at
whom
? The man he sacrificed so the two of you could have your life?”

“Yes, that man. Sometimes when he’d had too much to drink, it would come out. I remember one night, after I’d gone to bed. He was alone downstairs, yelling, caught up in a ferocious argument. Sasha was so scared he crawled into bed with me.”

“So who was he fighting with?”

“His orphan brother, of course. The one who had everything Neil wanted, but threw it away. Neil could copy it; he could bring an audience to tears with his brilliant imitation; all those years when they’d been friends, he had basked in Gus’s light. But he himself could never possess it.”

“What are you talking about?” Hallie asked.

“His
voodoo
, Neil called it. The power he had over other people. I experienced it, too. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

Though I’ve been still and silent as a shadow while Ava and Hallie talked, all of a sudden I see Gus’s eyes as they were the day he told me about Xavier and his tattoo. “It’s not voodoo,” I say, startling them both. “It’s just
love.
Pure and simple.”

Ava casts her eyes downward, but Hallie squeezes my hand. “Yes,” she whispers.

Then she takes a long, deep breath before she speaks, obviously measuring every word. “Do you want to know what I think of you—you and your sad, tormented husband?” she says. “You are the worst kind of cowards. The most despicable of liars. The lowest of thieves. You stole a man’s life and felt sorry for
yourselves
as you did it. You don’t just prove the banality of evil. You
are
that banality.”

When she turns to me, I see the immensity of sorrow behind her anger. “I’m sorry you had to hear that, Mila. With all my heart, I’m sorry.” But when she says “my heart,” she puts the palm of her hand on my chest, not her own.

PART SEVEN

MILLETTE STATE PRISON

{ OCTOBER 23, 2010 }