The Collective(14)

The gist of the article, in case you haven’t guessed: Rape charges aren’t always true. Sometimes the man or boy accused is the real victim.

Harris and his parents told quite a vivid story—something straight out of a Lifetime movie, where a self-destructive teenage townie seduces a loving couple’s innocent son and runs off to meet her tragic end, leaving the poor college boy alone, confused, falsely accused. Mother May I Binge Drink with Danger?

The girl Harris Blanchard and his parents described in the article was a stranger—an invented character, not even remotely close to the person my daughter was. But the reporter couldn’t have been more sympathetic to the Blanchards. We probably should have returned his calls for comment, but we were grieving and could barely talk to anyone, and by the time we realized what was happening, it was too late. Harris and his parents had written the narrative. And their legal team took over. They found Emily’s secret Instagram accounts and filled in the story with lurid colors. And pictures. Someone in their ranks leaked the pictures to the press.

At the trial, two surprise witnesses came forward—both claiming they had seen Emily talking to “a stranger” long after Harris alleged they’d had consensual sex. One of them, the fraternity’s president, said he saw her walking with this stranger into the woods. A tall dark guy with a beard, he said. I couldn’t see him very clearly. I was the prosecution’s only witness. They had tried to call a young girl who said Harris had forced himself on her when they were both in high school, but the judge wouldn’t allow it. Though only Harris Blanchard’s DNA was found in the rape test, the defense easily pointed out that this stranger could have worn a condom.

In the end, all we had was what Emily had told me in the hospital—what’s known as a “dying declaration” in a court of law. Of course you believe her, one of the defense lawyers had said to me, her voice laced with false sympathy. She was your daughter. You loved her.

I believe her because I knew her, I replied. None of you knew her. You’re just making her up as you go along. It didn’t matter. Nothing I said mattered. The judge threw out the second-degree manslaughter charge, the jury quickly acquitted Harris Blanchard of rape, and his parents embraced him in front of snapping cameras, weeping tears of joy.

I felt as though the truth had been stolen from me. I made a secret vow never to speak of it again to anyone—to keep the facts close, so they couldn’t be warped and damaged any more than they’d already been. So last night was a gift: an opportunity to tell a group of people what really happened to Emily that night and be believed. The thing is, though, I don’t feel the relief I expected to feel. If anything, I hate Harris Blanchard more than ever.

I’m in the graveyard now. I can see the playground from where I’m standing, the pink roses cradled in my arms like a baby. Her grave is just a few rows up from where I am, and as I move toward it, I speak to Emily in my mind. I subscribe to her high school newsletter, and so I tell her about the new gym they’re building, about the marching band winning a state championship, and how Miss Habler, the home ec teacher who seemed ancient to Emily when she was a freshman, is at long last retiring. It’s all small talk, of course—things she’d probably roll her eyes over if she were alive. And I’m supposed to care about this, Mom, because . . . why? But it’s all just a warm-up, leading to Niobe.

Emily, I found some new friends. They’ve lost their children, too, just like I have.

I imagine her response: Come on, Mom. You told them you can’t forgive Harris and all they did was throw a bunch of sad faces at you. They’re just as judgy as the rest.

“Yeah, well, at least they believed your story.”

It isn’t a story. It’s real. It’s what happened to me. Harris killed me. You have a right to be angry about that, Mom. Nobody should try to force you to forgive him.

Of course, it’s me responding, not Emily. She isn’t here, and she never will be. I’m alone in a graveyard on a freezing day, talking to myself. I wouldn’t exactly call that healing or moving on.

I find Emily’s headstone. It’s pink marble and reads, Emily Cheyenne Gardener 1999–2015 Beloved daughter, with this inscription underneath: “If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together, keep me in your heart. I’ll stay there forever.”

The quote is from Winnie-the-Pooh, Emily’s favorite book when she was a little girl. Matt chose it, as well as the pale pink marble, and if you don’t look at the dates, it would be easy to think she died at eight rather than fifteen. Matt liked to think of her that way, young and uncomplicated. When the pictures from her secret Instagram accounts came out, he refused to look at them. I got it, of course. But I couldn’t look away. To me, they were more evidence of naivety than worldliness. She was a little girl playing with a camera, much the way she used to play dress-up alone in her room, never imagining that, after her death, those pictures would kill her for a second time. She just wanted to be liked. I tried explaining that to Matt, to Luke, to one of the reporters, whose name I can no longer remember. All of them got that same pitying look in their eyes. Nobody understood.

I bend down to set my flowers on the grave, and my breath catches. There’s a bouquet here already—a dozen white roses. They’re fresh and alive, and with the weather the way it is, they couldn’t have been placed on Emily’s grave much earlier. Who could they be from?