Lies That Bind Us(87)

But that is unhelpful. Whatever the world is, I still have to live in it. We all do. Maybe that’s the truth at the heart of the labyrinth myth—that we’re wandering, lost, always trying to stay one step ahead of our personal monsters, always ready, sword in hand, spooling out Ariadne’s thread in the hope that one day we will make it out in one piece.





Chapter Thirty-Nine

The trial lasted weeks, but we didn’t have to be there the whole time. Marcus was grilled for withholding his suspicions, but in light of his cooperation with the police, he wasn’t charged. His tip about the Jet Ski turned up other witnesses who had seen Simon in the snorkeling area that day, and though no smoking gun came to light—the Jet Ski itself having been cleaned and repaired too many times to retain any blood or similar evidence so long after the crime—the circumstantial case was very strong. Add to it what Melissa had drunkenly confided to Gretchen the night they met for the first time since their school days, and I was surprised it took as long as it did.

We returned to the house only once, three days after we left it, and I showed them where I was held—the concrete bed, the manacle on the wall. Marcus came with me and looked, shamefaced, but when he tried to apologize for his lack of faith, I just shook my head and kissed him.

Maria, Manos’s mother, came to the trial every day, supported by an assortment of relatives and friends all dressed in sober black. I remembered the day we went to the Diogenes, the fury on Maria’s face when she recognized Melissa. It was Marcus who had suggested we go to the taverna that day. He had been fishing for a reaction. Simon, understandably, hadn’t wanted to go, but Melissa forced the issue. I wondered about that now. Was she testing the water to see if they were in the clear, or was it something darker, more sinister? Had she gone back merely to see if one of us—nudged by the restaurant where the boy had worked—would give some sign of what we knew, or was she there to rejoice in her secret knowledge? If nothing else, the fact that she never considered how Maria might respond spoke of both her arrogance and her contempt for the woman and her family. That Maria blamed Mel for what was then considered the boy’s accidental drowning must have come as a surprise to her; but the brazenness with which Mel had outfaced her, the way she had made herself the victim after the fight, getting us all to rally round to make sure she was OK, sickened me. I remembered wondering if all those restaurant owners and shopkeepers, the hotel staff and the cab drivers, all secretly hated the wealthy tourists on whom they depended, and I felt again a sense of responsibility and shame for all that had happened. Maria said nothing during the trial but our eyes met once across the courtroom. I put my hand on my heart and just looked at her, my eyes streaming, till she nodded once and looked away.

Brad did not recover. Not completely. I mean, he can walk and talk, and he looks the same as he always did, except that he always has a slightly hunted, anxious look, as if things are happening around him that he does not understand.

“He forgets things,” says Kristen, when we find a moment alone together. “Little things, like where he put the keys, but also movies we saw the day before. All of it, just gone. He’s not sure what happened here, but he knows he’s . . . well, different. It’s ironic. I don’t think he could do the job he used to do now, so his losing it matters less. And he is—God forgive me for saying this—nicer now. Not as mean, you know? He used to be funnier, but there was often a little cruelty in his jokes. Now . . . it’s like he got old overnight. But it’s not so bad. He’s become quite sweet, and most of his humor is directed at himself, at the things he doesn’t seem to be able to do . . .”

She wipes away a tear and pulls herself together with a shudder that turns into a smile.

“I thought you guys had been breaking up,” I say. “Before that night, I mean. I thought—”

“We were,” she says quickly.

“But now you are staying with him, in spite of everything?”

I try to say it kindly, like I am impressed, but I am a bit baffled by it all. It isn’t like Brad can’t feed himself anymore and needs help going to the bathroom, but he isn’t the man he was and will surely be relying on her income, if nothing else.

“He doesn’t remember,” she says, and the smile is different now, fragile as eggshell, her eyes frank but unfathomable. “We broke up, but he doesn’t remember. I just haven’t the heart . . .”

“Are you sure?” I say. He had, after all, been obsessed with Melissa, had tried to seduce Gretchen as Melissa, and had ravaged her underwear when she turned him down. “You don’t owe him, Kristen. He might not be the person he was, and I’m not saying you should punish him for what he did, but that doesn’t mean you have to take him under your wing.”

“I know,” she answers. “But—and I know this doesn’t make any sense—it’s like what happened to him made him the man he should have been, the man he would have been if it wasn’t for all that other crap: the competitiveness, the need to prove himself funnier, smarter, richer, better than anyone else. He sees Melissa and Simon for what they are and seems bewildered that we were even friends with them. It’s weird, but without all that stuff in his life, he’s . . . different, like all his armor has been taken away, and for the first time in years, I can see the guy I fell in love with.”