You Will Know Me(54)

Katie hadn’t seen it since the charity invitational in Inverness six weeks ago. Devon had scored a 38.5. They’d played “Eye of the Tiger” when she came out on the floor to take her medal.

She looked inside the neck hole, and there it was: D. Knox, the same iron-on label she used with all Devon’s travel leotards.

She held it for a second, something sick in her stomach.

Helen’s fingers appeared on its edges, lifting it so the light caught it.

And Katie could see the slight tear in the seam at the crotch and then, turning it, a pale, scaly stain on the back. Her stomach turned hotly, hand slapping over her mouth.

“What did he do—” Her voice thundered from her, surprising her.

“No,” Helen said loudly to match Katie’s sudden loudness. “That’s not what this is.”

“I know what I’m seeing,” said Katie, trying to control herself but her voice whirling and whirring.

“You know Ryan.”

“I don’t. I don’t know him.” The words came out in sharp sputters. “Except I know that he’s been arrested. He had drug problems. He had a violent girlfriend. That’s what I know. And now I know he did something to my daughter.”

Helen reached out and touched her arm lightly.

“Listen, listen,” she said, “no one likes to imagine their daughter’s been—”

“Stop it!” Katie said, or heard herself say, her face crowding with heat. “Stop it. I know my daughter.”

“And I know Ryan,” Helen said, grabbing the leotard from Katie’s hands and turning it so Katie could see the inside.

The words written in silver Sharpie: I ?? U SO MUCH!!

She knew the handwriting. Unmistakable. And the same silver Sharpie Devon used on her notebooks, in her diary.

“My son’s had some problems in his life,” Helen was saying. “With substances. With direction. But he would never hurt a woman—”

“Devon’s not a woman,” Katie said, a coldness lifting up through her body. “She’s a child. She’s never even had a date. This is crazy.”

Helen leaned against the wall, watching the leotard dangling from Katie’s fingers.

“You have to decide what you want to think. What you want to know. That’s on you. But I don’t think Ryan would have kept that if she hadn’t meant something to him.” She paused. “Everything meant a lot to him.”

“Have the police seen this?” Katie asked, her mind clicking, ratcheting up speed.

“I wanted to talk to you first,” Helen said. “Do you think Hailey found out about the two of them?”

“No,” Katie said, quickly. “No. Helen, you can’t tell the police about this.”

“Why not?”

She couldn’t even think through all the reasons, or which ones mattered most.

“Because,” Katie said, her voice breaking humiliatingly. “Think how Ryan would feel. Think about that. Everyone would find out. And everyone would know your son is a statutory rapist. Worse.”

Helen lifted a hand so fast that, for a crazy second, Katie thought she might hit her.

But instead, she covered her mouth with it, shaking her head.

“I’m sorry,” Katie said. “I’m just …” She looked down at the scant leotard, like a doll’s costume in her hand. None of it was possible.

“You’re worried about your girl,” Helen said. “People thinking things about your baby girl. Getting her caught up in this.”

“I’m just asking for time. Mom to mom.”

Helen nodded wearily, the back of her hand on her forehead.

“No promises. But for now, okay.”

“Mom,” she could hear Drew say from the other room. “Hey, Mom.”

“I’m coming,” she said, moving past Helen, the leotard clutched to her chest. The smells of the room, the way Helen’s eyes looked, she had to leave.

“None of you even knew Ryan,” Helen said. “You let him work for you, do things for you. None of you cared.”

“That’s not true,” Katie said, embarrassed to feel heat rising to her eyes.

“None of us know our kids,” Helen said, reaching for the leotard in Katie’s hand. “Haven’t you figured that out yet? You’re no different than the rest of us.”

You’re wrong, something inside her said. About that, you couldn’t be more wrong.

And Katie held on to the leotard. She held on so hard her nails left ugly furrows in her own skin that would last for hours. And the look on her face must have been something, because Helen let go. She let go.



“Let’s go,” Katie said, seeing Drew in Ryan’s kitchen, standing in front of the refrigerator. “Now.”

“But look.” He was pointing to a photo taped on the fridge door. A blur of greenery, stippling moss, the muddy colors of a bad computer printer.

“No time for nature, okay, kiddo?”

“Okay.”



Standing at the dining-room table, the lulling zip-zap from Drew’s cartoons in the other room, she punched at her phone. First, she called Eric. Then Devon. Then Eric again. No one was answering anywhere and she had no idea what words would come if someone did answer.