The Last Housewife (106)

So Shay and I are going to lay it out for you, and after we do, I hope you’ll understand what she did was, in a larger sense, an act of self-defense. I hope you’ll join me in campaigning for her charges to be dropped. Because the worst possible way this story could end would be if Kurt Johnson or the State of New York took away Shay’s life after she finally freed herself.

This story is hers to tell, not mine, so in a Transgressions first, she and I are going to host together. We’re editing and recording this three-part Pater series while Shay is on house arrest, bound by an ankle monitor, awaiting trial. Shay’s going to start by reading from the beginning of her book manuscript, a work in progress called The Last Housewife. We’ll continue to incorporate passages from her book throughout the series. To set the scene, she’s written her manuscript in this Day-Glo purple notebook, which she’s opening now. Every time I see it, it reminds me of a notebook she had when we were kids. And despite everything, it makes me feel hopeful. Okay. Shay?

(Silence.)

SHAY EVANS: Thank you, Jamie, for this opportunity. To everyone listening…thank you for what you did, and for being open to hearing what I have to say. I’m going to start, actually, with a transgression, because I’m a longtime listener, and I know that’s what you do here. My transgression is that I don’t regret killing him. Not for a second.

JAMIE: Shay—

SHAY: Let me show you why. I want to take you back to the beginning.

(Throat clearing.)

If I can get the words out.

(Deep breath.)





Part Four


Scheherazade, you sooty phoenix Emerging from the ashes, my whole life burned away, I have no stories left but the truth. The words I’ve been waiting for flood like an avalanche, a rushing river of meaning I can’t stop. You may not want this, but I’m going to address it to you anyway, out of hope. If nothing else, at least I’m writing it myself, my own dusty historian, working late into the night. (Picture me like this, dear sisters, as I speak to you.) Before we begin, I need you to know: We no longer exist for them, you and I. We are no longer a mirror reflecting their anxieties, their desires. We are not saviors, or seductresses, or symbols. We exist only for ourselves. Tragic and sublime, ordinary and animal, in the mold of all humans, long before and long after us.

They will tell you you’ve done the right thing.

They will tell you you’ve made a grave error.

Pay them no mind.

Talk to me instead…

Tell me about the time you looked up at the moon when you were a child and imagined it was looking back. Tell me about the moment your body first fit against the curves of another’s, and you felt at home. Tell me how you’ve ached to be bigger than this mortal life could grant, bigger than they would allow, how you’ve carried that ache in the center of your chest every hour of your life, the pain like a festering wound, a shrine to the bittersweet agony of being alive.

Tell me these things, and I will tell you I know you.

Let’s show each other our pieces, and tell each other we understand. It’s the strongest power we possess, the transfiguration of the unfathomable into something we can recognize, something that bridges the gulfs between us.

So I’ll start over, from the beginning. I promise not to leave anything out. I’ll let you see all of me, who I used to be, all the dark corners. That way you’ll know you’re not alone. That way, when it’s your turn, you can do it better. That way, when it’s time for a verdict, I hope you’ll choose mercy.

This is the story I tell you to save my life.





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Chapter 1


Now

Your body has a knowing. Like an antenna, attuned to tremors in the air, or a dowsing rod, tracing things so deeply buried you have no language for them yet. The Saturday it arrived, I woke taut as a guitar string. All day I felt a hum of something straightening my spine, something I didn’t recognize as anticipation until the moment my key slid into the mailbox, turned the lock, and there it was. With all the pomp and circumstance you could count on Duquette University to deliver: a thick, creamy envelope, stamped with the blood-red emblem of Blackwell Tower in wax along the seam. The moment I pulled it out, my hands began to tremble. I’d waited a long time, and it was finally here.

As if in a dream, I crossed the marble floor of my building and entered the elevator, faintly aware of other people, stops on other floors, until finally we reached eighteen. Inside my apartment, I locked the door, kicked my shoes to the corner, and tossed my keys on the counter. Against my rules, I dropped onto my ivory couch in workout clothes, my spandex tights still damp with sweat.

I slid my finger under the flap and tugged, slitting the envelope, ignoring the small bite of the paper against my skin. The heavy invitation sprang out, the words bold and raised. You are formally invited to Duquette University Homecoming, October 5–7. A sketch of Blackwell Tower in red ink, so tall the top of the spire nearly broke into the words. We look forward to welcoming you back for reunion weekend, a beloved Duquette tradition. Enclosed please find your invitation to the Class of 2009 ten-year reunion party. Come relive your Duquette days and celebrate your many successes—and those of your classmates—since leaving Crimson Campus.