Good Girl Bad (50)
Nate believes this so much he fears that he might drown in it, but he knows it will take more than one speech to shift his daughters’ thinking.
He thinks about Rebecca, and how she had tried to outpace her pain, tried to squash it down and refuse it like her life depended on it, and where it had led them all. He knows Tabby and Gen can’t go around it. They have to sit in it, and it fills him with terror. That he can’t protect them. That he can’t fix it for them. That he can’t—and shouldn’t—make it go away.
He can sit with them through it, though.
“Are you ready?” he says now, and both girls nod numbly.
“Your mom will meet us there. You choose if you want to talk to her. If you don’t want to, she understands. Whenever you’re ready, she’ll be there, okay? If you want to go to her, go. If you want me to help you, I can do that. Whatever you need, we’ll work it out, okay?”
Neither girl meets his eyes, and Nate wonders if the bricks will ever get off his chest, if this pain will ever go away. But he takes both their hands and leads them out to the car.
45
Detective Casey stands at the back of the room.
The service was simple. Leroy’s father delivered the eulogy, dry-eyed. There was something stoic about him, but Casey could feel the sadness radiating from the podium.
He spoke about Leroy’s love for his family, and made the audience laugh with an anecdote about how he and Rebecca had met. Rebecca was his first and only wife, and Leroy’s family seemed to love her.
Rebecca spoke, too. She was composed, and Casey watched with interest. Her words were awash with contained grief and regrets. Though Casey doubted anyone knew the details of what happened that night—the official story was that Tabby had fought with Rebecca and run away, and Leroy had gone to find her, and found her on the bridge wall—Rebecca’s words hinted at all the things she wished she’d done differently.
Casey’s eyes wander around the room, and come to rest on Tabby. She’s dressed in black pants that hang limply off her hips, and a dark blue shirt. She leans on Nate, and somehow manages to look dishevelled or crumpled, despite her well-pressed, well-cut clothes. Nate has one arm around her. Her shoulders judder slightly, and Casey thinks she is crying, quietly, discreetly.
At the station, Tabby had recounted what had happened in fits and starts.
Despite Nate’s rage—he had sat with her through her statement—her affair had started with Fred just weeks after she had turned sixteen, and legally, there was nothing they could do. She’d recounted how it started in a dull voice, her face lifeless.
When she spoke about running from the house, asking Fred to help her, then leaping onto the bridge in despair, Nate couldn’t stop the strangled noise in his throat. There was so much to be enraged about he had no words.
Tabby had remained dry-eyed.
“Are you still thinking about ending your life?” Casey had asked, gentle, glancing at Nate. Suspecting he wouldn’t know how to broach this topic, or what to do next if Tabby said yes.
She’d dragged her eyes back to Casey, and shrugged. “My life doesn’t look so great right now, does it?” She held Casey’s eyes for a moment, then dipped her face back down and mumbled, “But no. I don’t even want to get out of bed, let alone do anything that requires more effort.”
Casey had sent Nate off with a number to call to link Tabby in with a clinician, not just to manage her risk, but to support her through the long months ahead. She hopes that he has called it.
Now, mourners file out of the funeral home into the bright spring day. Casey hangs back, until the room is nearly empty. Outside, Rebecca stands next to Leroy’s parents, shaking hands and accepting condolences. Casey nods at her as she goes past.
In interview, she had been surprisingly forthcoming. She’d even asked if Casey knew where she could get help with her anger, and Casey had been stumped. Usually she’d refer to a Men’s Behavior Change program, but she’d never even heard of one for women. At the same time, after hearing about what happened to Leroy, to Moira, and the pain and recriminations in that family, she thought perhaps Rebecca should start there. She gave her the number of a therapist she trusted. And gently suggested that though addressing her anger was important, that perhaps she needed to start with her grief.
“It’s going to be a long road,” she’d said, watching Rebecca. Wondering if she meant it, if she really wanted to change. “Change is hard. And it sounds like you have a lot of pain to work through. A lot of fractured relationships to repair. And maybe, making a plan, with a concrete outcome, is more of the same. Maybe you need to sit with how much it all hurts for a while.” To her surprise, Rebecca had allowed the tears that welled in her eyes, and nodded.
Casey does think that, if anyone is going to do what she sets her mind to, it’s probably Rebecca.
She thinks about Charlie, and her heart hardens. But then she thinks about Moira, and it softens again.
They don’t press charges about the dog. Neither Tabby nor Nate want anything further to happen about it, and Casey thinks this family has enough pain to contend with. She thinks that if they’re going to get out of this alive, they’re going to need support, not punishment.
As she walks back to her car, she sees Nate, one arm around each of his daughters.