The Last Housewife (65)

Even if she managed to run, she would never escape.

The tears came without warning. Years of careful control, and suddenly there was nothing standing between me and the grief. I sobbed, shoulders shaking.

The bathroom door cracked open, and Jamie’s voice filled the room. “Shay, what’s wrong?”

I turned and slid down the wall, clutching my face.

“Hey.” His voice was tortured. “Let me help.”

There was a moment in which the world was nothing but hot water, my chest heaving, the cold tile at my back; then the shower door opened and Jamie crouched next to me, arms circling me, pulling me close.

I clutched him, and he stroked my back, murmuring, “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.” Water soaked his clothes, running down both our faces.

Time passed, but neither of us moved. Eventually my crying turned into rasping breaths, and the water ran cold. Jamie brushed his lips over my forehead and said, “Hold on.”

He let go of me, cut the water, and left the shower, coming back with a towel he rubbed through my hair, smoothing my face. “Arms up,” he said, and when I lifted them, he wrapped the towel around me and scooped me to his chest, carrying me out of the bathroom. Over his shoulder I watched the trail of wet footprints. He laid me gently on the bed.

“I’m supposed to sleep on the floor,” I said.

He lay down on the other side, facing me.

“You’re soaking wet.”

He smiled. “So are you.”

His blue shirt was drenched, nearly black. It clung to his chest. His hair hung over his forehead, a bead of water dripping down his temple.

I reached over and brushed the water with my thumb. When I took my hand back, he mirrored me, his hand finding my face and cupping it, his palm the warmest part of me.

“Is it Cal?” he asked.

“No.”

Jamie drew his hand back. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been held like that. I wanted to stay in this bubble, but I knew I needed to tell him the truth. He’d hear the recording soon enough when he sat down to transcribe it.

“I let a man touch me.”

Jamie’s Adam’s apple bobbed.

“He was handsome, like Don.”

Jamie didn’t blink.

Suddenly, I wanted to shock him. “In the middle of the party.”

There. He flinched.

“Jamie,” I said. “I terrify myself.”

He rubbed a hand over his face. “You’re allowed to like what you like.” The words sat heavy between us. “As long as it makes you…” He took a deep breath. “Feel good, you should let go of the guilt. I’m not saying anything Don did to you was okay, but you have no reason to be ashamed.”

I couldn’t have looked away from him if I’d tried. “I let them demean me, even though I hate them. In my head, I don’t want to. But I keep doing it anyway. I can’t tell if Don brainwashed me, or if I was this way all along, and that’s what made me an easy mark.”

He leaned closer. “They make you feel like a stranger to yourself.”

“Yes.” I adjusted the towel, tugging it higher. When I looked up, Jamie’s eyes were locked carefully on my face.

“Jamie, I want to tell you more about my life.”

He blinked.

“You’re good at stitching people together. All the dead women and their killers in your podcast… You find the clues in their lives. You weave them together until you have a picture of who they were, why they did the things they did. You make it make sense.”

He shifted, pulling his wet jeans from his legs. “You know I’m just guessing, right? When I tell people’s stories, I’m taking an educated stab at a pattern. I could be wrong.”

“That’s the best any of us can do.” The way he was looking at me… I wanted him to touch me again, and I didn’t know if it was for comfort or something else.

“I think I understand now.” His voice lowered. “It’s not just about Laurel. You want to see yourself the way a journalist would. You want perspective. That’s why you’re doing the interviews.”

He must have read the answer in my face. Because after a moment, he said, “Okay, Shay. Show me the pieces.”





Chapter Twenty-Two


Transgressions Episode 705, interview transcript: Shay Deroy, Sept. 13, 2022 (unabridged)

SHAY DEROY: The minute I turned twelve, it was like I pressed a button and the machines inside my body started turning. I got my period. My breasts grew—not small like other girls’, but full and round, women’s breasts. Everywhere I went, I kept my arms folded over my chest, trying to hide them.

My body was mine before the change, but after, it belonged to everyone. Everywhere I went, men’s heads turned. I couldn’t go out in public without it—the mall, the grocery store. Even if I was just standing on the sidewalk, they’d roll down their car windows and yell at me as they drove by. One night, I was with my mom, and a man hung out the window of a red truck and yelled, “Damn, honey, let me suck those tits.” My mom went red in the face and ran after him, screaming, “She’s twelve years old, you sick fuck!”

I’m thirty now, and I’m still embarrassed to tell you that. I feel an impulse to laugh it off. “Suck those tits”—how cheesy, right? Like dialogue from a bad movie. That’s what I feel compelled to say, like it’s a joke. Somewhere along the way, I learned to minimize it. Maybe because at some level, I still think it’s my fault, that my body incited them. Or maybe I realized people are rarely interested in another person’s pain, so you have to dress it up accordingly.