Woman in Black (55 page)

“What happened then?” Dr. Ernst prompted.

But Abigail was already getting a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach. She knew where this was going. Hadn't the same thing happened to her? Oh, God. Why hadn't she recognized the signs?

“It was okay at first. I mean, I wasn't getting any weird vibes from him or anything,” Phoebe went on. “Then one day he drove me over to his house after school so we could work on the project where it was quieter. His wife and kids were away, so he said we'd have the house all to ourselves.” She shook her head, as if in disgust at her naïveté. “Yeah, I know. Like, how stupid can you get? I know stuff like that happens all the time, I've seen it on the news, but for some reason, I didn't think
he
was one of those guys. I mean, he's way older, for one thing, with a wife and kids and everything. How was I supposed to know?” Her voice broke, and she darted a panicky glance at Dr. Ernst, who nodded at her in encouragement, before she continued, “I didn't mean for anything to happen, I swear. Then after we …” She faltered, her cheeks growing redder. “I wanted to stop, but for some reason, I couldn't. It was like he had this control over me. Also, I felt like I was already this horrible person whose life was ruined, so what was the use?”

Kent stared at her in shocked disbelief. “Are you telling us this man had
sex
with you?” His voice trembled with outrage.

Phoebe brought her head up, her eyes pleading with him. “Don't be mad at me, Daddy. I know now that what I did was wrong. I wish I could take it back, but it's too late for that.”

“You think I'm mad at
you?
Oh, Christ.” Kent buried his face in his hands, letting out a small, choked cry. When he lifted his head, his eyes were wet. He turned a harrowed face to Phoebe. “Baby, I want you to hear me on this, because it's important.” He spoke slowly and carefully, holding her gaze. “
It's not your fault
. Whatever you might think, that man, your teacher, he took advantage of you. And you can be sure it won't happen again to some other girl, because if I have my way, he'll be behind bars,” he added through gritted teeth.

Phoebe looked faintly alarmed. “He's not a criminal. It wasn't like that,” she protested tearfully.

“You're sixteen. He's a grown man. By God, if he were here now, I'd put him up against that wall. I'd—”

Dr. Ernst put out a hand to silence Kent. “Let Phoebe finish. This is about how
she
feels.”

Abigail sat there in shock, too numb to speak or even move. At first she hadn't been able to process what Phoebe was telling them. Then it had sunk in:
My baby was raped
. Call it what you want—seduced, taken advantage of, sexually abused—in Abigail's mind, it was rape. It was also history repeating itself. For it seemed as if the rotten thing from her own past, the thing she'd done her utmost to bury, wasn't dead after all. It had risen from its grave to steal Phoebe's innocence, damaging her so badly in the process that she'd wanted to kill herself.

Listening to the whole ugly, and ultimately familiar, tale, Abigail wanted to die, too. At last she found her voice. “You should have come to us. Did you really think we'd blame
you?
”

Phoebe hung her head, her silence speaking for itself.

“Oh, sweetie.” Abigail's control broke. For a long moment, all she could do was sit there, shaking her head as tears rolled down her cheeks. Finally she said hoarsely, “I'm so sorry.”

“It wasn't
your
fault, Mom. You didn't do anything.” Phoebe was eyeing her with a kind of panic. Clearly, she wasn't used to seeing her mother like this.

“It's not what I did, it's what I
didn't
do. I should have told you.”

“About what? Mr. Guarneri? You couldn't have known.”

“No, but I could have warned you.”

“Abby, what are you saying? Did you
know
something about this?” Kent frowned at her, looking perplexed.

“I …” She was aware of everyone's eyes on her. They were all waiting for her to go on, but just as Phoebe had struggled to find the words to express the unspeakable, Abigail had been rendered momentarily mute by the demons that haunted her still, even after all these years. The room was slowly spinning as if she were on a carousel; she had to grip the arms of her chair to hold herself steady. “I … I don't know where to begin,” she stammered.

“Why don't you start at the beginning?” Dr. Ernst's calm, reassuring voice floated toward her.

Abigail looked up to find him eyeing her encouragingly. Every particle of her being rebelled against the prospect of dredging up the past,
her
past, but she knew she had to, for Phoebe's sake. “Remember my telling you about how my mother and I went to live with relatives when I was your age?” she began, looking over at her daughter. Phoebe nodded, staring at her fixedly. “What I didn't tell you was that my uncle … Uncle Ray …” Just saying his name caused her to tremble. “He raped me.” Her voice was so low it was nearly inaudible, but her words had the effect of a shot ringing out. Everyone grew very still, and Phoebe let out a little gasp. “He used to take me along on business trips, and we'd stay in roadside motels, where he … he'd do things to me … things I couldn't tell my mama about. She was dying, and I was afraid it would kill her even sooner if she found out. So I kept it to myself. I never told another living soul. Until now.” She slumped back in her chair, as exhausted as if she'd just delivered a long speech.

“Oh, my God.
Mom
.” Phoebe gaped at her.

No one else spoke. Kent sat shaking his head, staring at Abigail with a dumbfounded look on his face, while Dr. Ernst regarded her with sharp interest.

“What I'm trying to tell you, sweetie, is that I
know
” Abigail went on. “I felt ashamed, too. I thought it was my fault somehow.” She glanced over at Kent. “I couldn't even bring myself to tell your dad.”

“I wish you had,” Kent said in a hollow voice that seemed to carry an edge of accusation.

“I wish I had, too.” She eyed him with regret.

“What happened to him?” Phoebe wanted to know.

“Uncle Ray?” Abigail shook her head, the shame that she'd once felt so acutely draining from her like pus from a lanced wound. “I don't know. Needless to say, I didn't keep up with him and my aunt after I moved away. For all I know, they're both dead by now.”

“I wish Mr. Guarneri was dead.” Where minutes ago Phoebe had been slumped over staring at the floor, radiating waves of self-loathing, she now sat bolt upright, a fierce look in her eye. “Why am
I
the one stuck in this loony bin while he gets to go on with his life like nothing happened?”

“That's the attitude.” Kent brightened a little.

“Don't worry. He's not going to get off so lightly,” Abigail vowed.

At once Phoebe retreated back into her shell, asking fretfully, “You're not going to say anything to him, are you?” Abigail wondered if it was the public exposure she feared, or if it was her teacher whom she was protecting. Probably a little of both. Either way, it wasn't open to discussion.

“I won't have to,” she said in a hard voice. “He can tell it to the judge.”

After the session
, Kent walked Abigail out to the parking lot. Floating along at his side, Abigail felt simultaneously jittery and drained, as if she'd put in a fourteen-hour day on no sleep with only caffeine to fuel her, while Kent merely looked spent, as if he'd aged ten years in the past hour, his shoulders stooped and his face creased with lines that hadn't been there before.

“I'd kill the bastard with my bare hands if I could,” Kent growled as they made their way along the path. It had to be the first time he'd regretted having taken the Hippocratic oath, she thought.

“We'll have the satisfaction of seeing him ruined, at least,” she reminded him. Dr. Ernst had saved them the trouble of calling the police. After the session, he'd taken her and Kent into his office and informed them that he'd alerted the authorities, as he was required to do by law in cases involving a minor. For all they knew, Phoebe's teacher could be facing an arrest warrant at that very moment.

“What about you? Are you going to be okay?” Kent shot her a concerned look.

“I'm a little shaky, but hanging in there,” she told him.

“Good. Because I'd like to know what the hell just happened back there.” He came to an abrupt halt, his eyes that had been dull and lifeless just moments before now ablaze with anger. “Christ, Abby, I can't believe you kept it from me all those years. Something that
huge
. Would you mind telling me why I'm only just now hearing about it?”

She looked into his eyes and saw the hurt there, behind the anger. The hurt she'd caused. She sighed. “I wish I had an answer for you.”

“Did you think it would change how I felt about you?”

“No, it wasn't that. I wanted to tell you. It was just …” She gave a helpless shrug. How to explain the inexplicable?

“Jesus. When I think of all those years …” Kent shook his head before adding more gently, “You
could
have told me, you know. I wouldn't have loved you any less. If anything, it would have made me love you more.”

Abigail cut her gaze away. She couldn't bear to look into his eyes and see the hurt and bewilderment she'd caused. She looked out over the lawn instead, where other people were out enjoying the sunshine. She spotted an older couple whom she'd noticed earlier on her way in, strolling hand in hand. A short distance away, a little tow headed boy was playing catch with a golden retriever, both reacting with the same unalloyed delight each time the ball was tossed and the dog went streaking across the lawn to fetch it.
Simple pleasures
, she thought, closing her eyes for a moment and trying to summon a time in her life when she hadn't been striving toward some goal, on fire with ambition. When she hadn't believed that the trademarked Abigail Armstrong created for public consumption was preferable to the real and very fallible woman, hiding like the Wizard of Oz behind his curtain.

“I know that now,” she said, bringing her gaze back to Kent. “The problem wasn't you. It was me. I didn't love
myself
enough.”

“Oh, Abby.” He drew her into his arms.

“I guess a part of me will always be that girl, thinking it was my fault,” she murmured into the hollow space between his neck and shoulder, the safe place into which she'd whispered her most intimate thoughts countless times through the years. “And now, knowing I might have been able to prevent the same thing from happening to our daughter, if I'd warned her about men like my uncle …” She was gripped by regret so profound that it was a moment before she could go on. “Instead, I fooled myself into thinking that if I gave her the kind of life
I
never had, she'd somehow be protected from harm. For
that
, I'll truly never forgive myself.”

Kent drew back to look her in the eye. “We're not God, Abby. There was no way we could've protected her from
everything
,” he reminded her. “Remember when she was in the third grade and she broke her wrist falling off the monkey bars? We blamed ourselves for that, too.”

“This isn't something that can be fixed like a broken bone.”

He sighed. “I know that. So what are we supposed to do? You tell me.” For the first time in all the years she'd known him, Kent seemed at a loss.

“We love her, that's what,” she said, recalling Lila's words from yesterday. “We make sure she knows she can come to us with
anything
, even the stuff that's hard to hear.”

“I thought that's what we were doing.”

“Then we need to try even harder.”

He nodded thoughtfully, his arms falling heavily to his sides. But his troubled look remained in place as they resumed walking along the path. After a bit, he ventured, “Abby? Do you think we should hold off on the divorce? I don't want to make this any tougher on Phoebe than it already is. Or on you.” He darted her a glance, as if to gauge her reaction.

Abigail struggled to mask her surprise. Was Kent having second thoughts about all this? Maybe things weren't so hunky-dory with Sheila after all. She felt a heady surge of triumph at the thought, but it was short-lived. This wasn't a faltering business deal that could be brought back to the negotiating table. Nor was it simply about doing what might be best for Phoebe. What did
she
want? Was she even still in love with Kent? Was he in love with her?

She realized with a sinking regret that, while she did still love Kent, it wasn't the kind of love that could sustain a marriage. It really was over between them. They'd both moved on. Whatever they were feeling right now was merely shared concern for their daughter and perhaps the echo of what they'd once had.

Her thoughts turned once more to Vaughn. Something inside her rose, then dipped, like a bird taking wing. And with it came the realization, sneaking past the sentry guarding the border between her careful rationalizations and the lawless territory of her heart, that
he
was the person with whom she wanted to share her life—whatever form that would take. The feeling was so strong that she felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her. It was a moment before she could reply, “I appreciate your willingness, Kent, but I don't think you should put your plans on hold. I think we
can
agree to be civilized about it, though.” She gave him a crooked smile. “You have my solemn vow that I won't have my lawyer tear yours a new one.”

He nodded, looking more than a little relieved. His offer had clearly been guided more by a sense of duty than any lingering feelings for her. “Fair enough,” he said.

They walked on in companionable silence, each wrapped in his or her own thoughts. Abigail, grateful for the continued presence of this kind, considerate man in her life. Kent, seemingly bewildered by the woman strolling alongside him who bore only a surface resemblance to his hard-charging wife. But each secure in the knowledge that, though they might not love each other as they once had, they'd still have each other to lean on from time to time.