The Letter Page 13

  “That’s interesting — the lead which led me to pursue this case said there was no DNA match.”

  “Technically, that’s true. There wasn’t one because my parents wouldn’t let them take a sample. Without it, I couldn’t prove Marshall didn’t attack me. Not a single soul was listening to me. No one was on my side. By the time the police were done with me, I was beginning to doubt what happened myself. Honestly, I had been drinking. I never touched any drugs though. I only wanted to fit in. So, I had pineapple juice and vodka. My dad didn’t even know — probably still doesn’t know to this day — that I got the alcohol from his ‘fancy Christmas booze’ stash. My parents only drank it between Thanksgiving and New Year’s so they always forgot what was in it.”

  Sheila takes a gulp of water before she continues.

  “In my heart I knew Marshall Todd didn’t do anything to me. I mean, he wasn’t my favorite person. I thought he was a little self-righteous and a little too into himself you know, being a jock and all? The way people talked, he was so good at basketball and he had a full ride scholarship lined up from about the time he was in the seventh grade. I don’t even know why he was at that party because he was all about taking care of his body. I never saw him drink anything except water or protein shakes. He ate hard-boiled eggs and chicken breasts for lunch.”

  “Didn’t they talk to other people at the party who knew what happened? Why were you the only person who testified at the trial?”

  “I don’t know! That part never made any sense to me. There were other people at the party besides Tyrone. I guess in the strictest sense of the word Tyrone probably could have been charged with something — maybe. I was only fifteen. I think he was eighteen like Marshall.”

  Sheila counts on her fingers.

  “I dunno. Maybe he was only seventeen. Either way, he didn’t rape me like you would think of rape. I consented to our relationship or at least what I thought our relationship was. I was already planning to join him at his university. I was planning to take as many AP classes as I could, so I could skip a year of college and we could graduate close together. I thought Tyrone would be my happily ever after. I didn’t know I was only a box he had to check off in a scavenger hunt game.”

  “I’m sorry. Nobody should be treated that way.”

  “I tried to tell people I wasn’t hurt and no one should go to trial. Nobody heard me. I said it over and over again. I insisted Marshall Todd didn’t touch me.”

  “What happened? The DA wouldn’t even advocate for your side of the story?”

  “No, when I got more insistent as the trial got closer, my parents decided my aberrant behavior must be caused by excessive drug and alcohol use and mental illness. So, they had me committed against my will. The ‘treatment program’ drugged me up so much I barely could remember my name, let alone have a coherent thought. The counselor was big on repressed memories. They tried to convince me my natural dislike of Marshall Todd had less to do with us traveling in different social circles and more to do with my suddenly repressed memories of our time together. They said Marshall was only at the party to pimp me out to Tyrone and that he was truly a bad guy who had to be stopped. They drilled this into my head over and over again. It was almost as if they were lines of a play I needed to rehearse. If I tried to disagree and tell them what really happened, they gave me more drugs and told me I would never get to go home and see my little sister. Finally, I was too weak to fight anymore. I told them what they wanted to hear, just so I could go home and sleep in my own bed, listen to my own music, and write my own poetry. I simply wanted it all to go away.”

  “I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same thing, if I were in your shoes.”

  “You’re just saying that because what I did is horrible. I ruined someone’s life forever.”

  “At the time, you couldn’t know what would happen,” I counter. “I’m sure you thought the police would do their job and get other witnesses to counteract your story.”

  “I did. I used to watch all those crime shows on TV where DNA is the key to everything, or there’s a surprise witness who breaks open the whole case. Instead, the only witness was me.”

  “Do you want to go on, or do you want a break?”

  “I’m good if you are. I want to finish telling you this. I haven’t felt this free in forever. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to set the record straight. I thought I’d put this all behind me, but I guess I haven’t.”

  “It seems like you were used for something, I don’t know what — but something.”

  “All these years later, and I’ve never figured it out either.”

  “I read the trial transcripts, but I didn’t really get a full sense of what happened, can you tell me?”

  “As you can imagine, I didn’t want to testify at the trial at all. But, I had a subpoena, so I didn’t have a choice. My psychiatrist basically decided I was crazy. That drives me batty. My reputation from his ‘diagnosis’ follows me to this day. I mean, come on, you saw it today. I don’t have a problem with drugs or alcohol — although at this point, I wonder if maybe sometimes my life might be easier if I did. I don’t have issues. I never did. I was young and stupid and wanted to fit in with my friends, but I wasn’t addicted to anything except wanting to be popular like everybody else. I was stressed and depressed because nobody on the planet would believe me when I told them what happened — but I didn’t need to be medicated. Surprise surprise, nobody listened to me about that either.”

  Tears are flowing down Sheila’s face, but she doesn’t stop.

  “By the time the trial rolled around, I resembled a breathing mushroom. I struggled to follow the proceedings. I was sleepy and spacey. I just remember Marshall looking at me with this betrayed expression on his face as if he couldn’t believe I was doing that to him. I tried to show him I didn’t want to be there either. I knew what I was supposed to say. That wasn’t the problem. The story had been drilled into my head for months.”

  Sheila grabs a Kleenex off the bedside table and wipes her eyes.

  “One day I tried to go off script and stick to the facts. My dad about had an apoplexy in the gallery. He was making all these strange gyrations as he was pantomiming and trying to whisper the answers to me. I thought the judge might throw him out. I was secretly hoping that would happen. If my parents weren’t there, I could tell the jury what really happened. Unfortunately, the judge had great leniency regarding my parents’ reactions. The court chalked them up to grief over my alleged trauma at the hands of Marshall Todd. I couldn’t believe it! My parents were acting. They were vamping it up for the jury’s sympathy. I knew it and so did they. I just wanted to scream the real truth over and over again — but no one would let me talk and tell the whole story. I tried. I tried so hard, but every time I ventured close to the truth my parents would threaten to put me back in the hospital and throw away the key.”

  A shiver goes up my spine. As strained as my relationship has been with my parents, thank goodness it’s never been that bad.

  “They said if I didn’t do what they told me to do, I could never come home. I knew I’d never get to see my little sister grow up, get married, and have babies. They said no one would ever believe I was sane. They said I was just a pathetic junkie and a whore. I tried to bring it up with my attorney, but he told me to keep my mouth shut and that the real goal was to put Marshall in jail. He told me if I told the truth about what really happened, I could face charges.”

  “That’s basically the definition of extortion! How did everyone get away with that? Your lawyer should have been disbarred and your parents should have been brought up on charges of child abuse, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “How are they still getting away with it? That’s a better question. I don’t know if they truly don’t understand that Marshall Todd didn’t have anything to do with what happened to me, or if there’s some larger miscarriage of justice going on. I just know everyone had an agenda and it was far bigger than me.”

>   A random thought pops into my head. “You said your parents are divorced now. Do you think they disagreed about how you were treated back then? Do they agree now?”

  “That’s the sad thing. It doesn’t matter anymore. This whole incident will be the death of us all. Remember how I told you I think Marshall Todd is the reason I have cancer?”

  I give her the same startled look I gave her the first time she dropped that news bomb on me.

  “No, I don’t mean it the way you think!” she responds when she sees my look of disbelief. “I’m not blaming him. It’s not his fault. I only mean it like I got cancer because of bad karma. I should have figured out a way to stand up to all the people in my life who were trying to convince me to do the wrong thing. I knew at the time it was wrong. So, I figure cancer is the ultimate revenge for my horrible lies.”

  “What could you have done? You were just a teenager.”

  “Maybe so. But I was way more familiar with computer technology than my parents. I could have launched a social media campaign on Facebook or Twitter. I could have called news stations — I should’ve done something. A man is sitting in jail because I stayed silent and let other people be my voice.”

  I hold up my IV tubing. “I think you’re shouldering too much of the responsibility. I don’t think cancer works that way. Besides, there were lots of adults in your life who were making horrendous decisions.”

  Sheila rolls her eyes. “Tell me about it. That’s like the story of my life. I told you my parents got a divorce — but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. They should have done it a long time before they did. So my mom went from having a control freak for a husband to having a lazy bum who was nothing more than an alcoholic. Oh sure, at first Rodney looked like he would be everything my dad wasn’t. He was chill and fun. He took my sister and me camping and skiing. There were no rules. Stella and I could go to movies or stay out all night. We could play our music however loud we wanted or have as many friends over as we wished. Whatever we wanted to do was copacetic with our mom and Rodney. Heck, after the trial my mom didn’t give a crap about anything. She had gotten ‘nerve pills’ from the doctor to help her get through the stress. After she met Rodney, she started drinking all the time. After a while, there wasn’t any time during the day or night she wasn’t blitzed on meds or booze.”

  “That must’ve been awful.”

  “For Stella’s safety, my sister and I moved in with my dad and my new stepmom. It was great for Stella. She and my stepmom, Daphne, got along like two peas in a pod. On the other hand, my dad and I were as volatile as ever. As soon as I could, I moved out on my own. The next thing I heard, my mom OD’d on Xanax and alcohol.”

  “Wow! I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  “Don’t be. I’m not even sure what I feel. In many ways, my mom was the biggest source of torture in my life. I guess I’m sorry for Stella’s sake. She never saw much of that side of my mom. She saw my mom as a silly, funny alcoholic who was the life of the party. She didn’t truly get exposed to the dark, manipulative side of Mom. I guess I’m glad she missed it.”

  “How is your dad coping with Stella now?”

  “He is not,” Sheila answers bluntly. “My dad put on such a show of being a grieving spouse after my mom died, even though he and my mom had been long divorced, someone from my parents’ church stepped up and offered to adopt Stella because my dad was so overcome with grief and unable to cope with the severe demands of parenthood.”

  I try to keep the smirk off my face as I question her, “What’s wrong, Sheila? You sound unconvinced.”

  “The only thing my dad knew about parenting he learned from watching reruns of The Brady Bunch and scary episodes of To Catch a Predator. Even before the trial, my parents didn’t actually enjoy the experience of being parents. They just liked getting credit for surviving all the trials and tribulations of being our parents. That’s why my dad especially liked the theatrics of the trial. There was no reason to take Marshall Todd or anyone else to trial. I was not hurt. Marshall, Tyrone or anyone else didn’t do anything to me that I didn’t consent to. Yeah, they were a couple years older than me, but it wasn’t anything that wasn’t typical of a high school romance. I got my heart broken just like every other high school kid. I might’ve been a little more naïve than some other folks, but I wasn’t completely stupid. I knew kids broke up during high school — I just hoped Tyrone and I would beat the odds. We dated for a few weeks and I was ready to send out wedding invitations. I wasn’t very realistic, but I wasn’t mentally ill either.”

  “If unrealistic expectations were a sign of mental illness among teenagers, we’d all be in trouble.”

  “For sure!” Sheila answers with a laugh. “But my parents didn’t see it that way. By placing me in the mental hospital, my parents got to milk the situation for all it was worth. They could appear as if they were the most long-suffering parents on the whole planet. After all, they had this teenage daughter who'd run amok and was the very picture of sinful indulgence, drinking her way through her freshman year of high school. The ironic thing is that people in the outside world had no idea who really had a drinking problem. That is, until my mom died from her addictions.”

  I swallow hard as I flip the page on my legal pad. Her words hit a little too close to home. I know what it’s like for the world to see one picture of your allegedly perfect family when you know something else is going on behind the scenes.

  “Of course, everyone blamed me. I actually heard someone whisper — who am I kidding? They totally meant for me to hear it — that I had driven my mother into an early grave because of my evil ways. A man was in prison and my mother was dead because I didn’t follow the ways of the Lord.” Sheila has to pause and look away. She turns and grabs another Kleenex from the box as she blots her eyes and blows her nose. “You know, it’s funny. When you’re a kid, you don’t ever believe your life is going to change. You think your family will love you forever, you’ll grow up, you’ll have kids of your own, and your parents will love your kids too. You never dream that one day someone will announce that you have some deadly disease that's taking over your body one piece at a time and it will someday kill you. What’s worse, there’s nothing you can do to stop it. You never imagine your mom will die before you and you and your dad will go days without speaking and when you do speak, it is so awkward and bitter, that you almost wish you hadn’t bothered.”

  “I’m sorry it’s turned out that way for you. I wish I could give you special wand to make go away so the world would be a bright shiny place for you again and you would know nothing about cancer and the sad parts of life. If you did have a magic wand, what would be the first thing you would fix?”

  “Believe it or not, the first thing I would do is go back and relive the day Marshall Todd saw me throwing up in the bushes. I would tell him Axel was manhandling me and trying to beat me up. I would tell him I was scared to go back to my locker because I was afraid of what Axel might do. I would be honest about why I could barely see straight or sit up that day.”

  “Really? You think all the bad stuff that happened to you stemmed from that one decision?”

  “Yeah, I do. It was the beginning of one big lie.”

  “So, what if we could start to unravel your lies and go back to the beginning? Would you be willing to help with the process?”

  Sheila nods. “Yeah, I thought that’s what the purpose of today’s whole conversation was. I want to go back and see if I can fix what I did wrong in the past.”

  “I’m not sure it will be quite so easy. But, let me see what I can do to make this go a little faster.” I open the file with the releases and I point to another box on the release. “In order for me to be able to do what I need to do to help Marshall Todd, I need to be able to talk to people about what we discussed today. That means I need to be able to tell them everything. I will do my best to do so in confidence but that might not always be possible. So, I need your permission to discuss what we've talked abo
ut freely.”

  “Well, we’ve come this far. It doesn’t make any sense for me not to allow you to talk to other people involved in this case.” She pulls the paper from the stack. “So, how do I do this?”

  “See the line for amended permissions? Just sign it there and in a brief phrase tell us why you’re changing the level of privacy. Sign and initial it, and I’ll do the same.”

  “I feel like I’m buying a car off the car lot. This is weird.”

  “It is a little strange, but we don’t want anyone to challenge our releases, so we have got to play it by the book.”

  Sheila takes a moment to read everything before she signs it. “I think I’ve got everything squared away.”

  “It is my hope that this will be the beginning of setting everyone free from the injustices of the past.”

  Sheila crosses her chest in the sign of the cross. “From your lips to God’s ears. There may not be very many miracles left for me, but I pray this is one. If anyone deserves it, it’s Marshall Todd. He has paid far too high a price for something he never did.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ROCCO

  I HOLD OUT A NEW pair of pajamas for Mallory as she comes out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel. She grins at me as she says, “Thank you so much. I didn’t expect bathroom valet service.”