“Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers – stern and wild ones – and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.’
— The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
-SCARLET-
I RAN down the stairs and out the entryway door. Beaumont College was a beautiful Gothic labyrinth, and I had to run beneath three pretty granite archways to reach the outer gate.
“Scarlet!” I heard Bridger’s voice behind me somewhere. But I couldn’t talk to him. I didn’t want to see the look on his face when he realized who I was, and how much ugliness there was in my life.
I’d tried to be someone else. For almost three months, it had worked.
I hustled up the sidewalk toward the gate to Fresh Court. Ahead of me, the door of a shiny black car opened onto the sidewalk, and I angled to avoid it. But the passenger — a man in a suit — lunged forward and grabbed my hand.
Startled, I whirled to face him. It was Azzan, my father’s bodyguard.
“Shannon, come with me,” he said.
I yanked my hand back and tried to propel myself away. But a second man blocked me, allowing Azzan to get his hands onto my lower back and steer me toward the car. The other guy — a driver I’d seen before — opened the back door.
“No!” I said, confused. I did not want to get into that car.
“Yes,” Azzan said simply. He gave me a gentle shove, but it was enough to send me pitching toward the leather of the back seat. His hand came down on the top of my head, which probably kept me from scraping my scalp against the frame of the car during my graceless entry.
Azzan pushed me further into the car as he slid in beside me. And just as it occurred to me to reach for the opposite door and climb out into the middle of the street, his hands grabbed me. “Drive,” he said to the other man, who had already closed his own door and started the engine.
“What are you doing?” I asked as the streets of Harkness began sliding by. My heart was pounding and I tasted bile in my mouth.
“Happy Thanksgiving, Shannon. We’re your ride back to New Hampshire.”
“But I’m not going!” I wailed. Except it seemed that I was.
My phone began ringing.
“Don’t answer that,” he said immediately.
I checked the display. It was Bridger. “Why not? Afraid I’ll say you just kidnapped me off the street?”
“Don’t be cute.”
“I don’t need to be. My boyfriend just watched you stuff me into a car and take off. He’s probably calling the police right now. Maybe he’s the sort of guy who writes down license plate numbers.”
He swiveled quickly, slapping me. The sound of his hand hitting my face was almost as surprising as the sharp sting of pain. “I said don’t play cute.”
I tasted blood in my mouth where my teeth had caught on impact. But the slap actually did me a favor, shaking off my confusion. I felt a steely calm settle over me.
Not that I had a plan. Only a clearer head.
The only person within a fifty-mile radius I could trust was Bridger, even if he was in the process of discovering my ugly secret.
The phone bleated again. “He saw you drive off with me, and he wants to know why.”
“There was nobody with you,” Azzan said.
“He was about ten paces behind.” My voice was icy calm. With the phone on my palm I held it out to him. “If you don’t want me to answer, I won’t. But you might be hearing from the cops.”
He sighed. “Tell him you’re fine, and you’re on your way home for the weekend.”
I hit ANSWER. “Hello?”
“Scarlet,” he gasped. “What the fuck just happened?”
“Well,” I cleared my throat. “My father’s bodyguard decided to drive me home for Thanksgiving.”
“What? That’s sure as hell not what that looked like. I got the license plate number. Are you really okay?”
My heart contracted. “I think so.”
“That’s not good enough. When are you coming back?”
“Azzan,” I said. “He wants to know when I’m coming back.”
“Sunday, just like every other kid in America.”
“Every other kid in America plans her own trips home.”
“Shut up, Shannon. Get off the phone now. You’re going to lose him in the tunnel anyway.”
“I got all that,” Bridger said into my ear. “Scarlet, we have to talk.”
“I’m sorry.” As I said it, the car rolled into the West Rock Tunnel.
“No — I want you to know…” Bridger said. And then the call was cut off.
I was staring at my phone when Azzan grabbed it out of my hand. “Give that back,” I complained.
I heard my phone chime twice. “Aw, what a guy.” He held up my phone so I can see the text.
BRIDGER: I love you no matter what.
“I’m going to hang onto this for the weekend,” Azzan said, pocketing my phone. “You can have it back after you do the meeting with the lawyers, and eat turkey with your family.”
I spent the next hour and a half breathing through my nose, trying not to cry.
The media presence outside our house was down to a skeleton crew, because jury selection was still a month away. I counted only two TV vans.
Azzan’s driver pulled the car into the driveway, but he stopped well shy of the garage.
“Get out here, Shannon,” Azzan said. He wanted the bored TV people to see that I’d come home for the holiday.
I think I surprised him by not arguing. Instead I jumped from my seat and ran into the garage. I didn’t stop to wonder whether anyone snapped a photo or not. I’d been photographed countless times already, as the press rushed to cover every angle of the story about the famous hockey player and philanthropist who was secretly Satan.
My mother opened the mud room door as I approached it. “Come in, sweetie.”
I pulled up short in front of her. “Was this your idea?”
“You haven’t answered my calls in a month, honey. How were we supposed to discuss it?”
“He slapped me,” I said, pointing over my shoulder toward Azzan. “And he threatened me.”
Her lips pulled tight. “You look all right to me, so why don’t you come inside.”
I heard Azzan’s footsteps behind me, so I walked past her and into the dining room. The top of my father’s head was visible in his chair by the TV. Turning away from him, I ran up the stairs to my room.
My mother — her wheels were always turning — didn’t even try to coerce me into sitting down to family meals. The first night, she brought me a bowl of chili in my room. “You should say hello to your father,” she said.
But I’d had two hours alone in my little suburban cage, stewing in my misery. And I didn’t have it in me to be civil. “Let’s not pretend this is an ordinary visit,” I said. “When am I sitting down with the lawyers?” I’d realized that agreeing to meet the lawyers was my only move. And since I knew nothing, it would get them off my back.
“Friday,” she said, setting the tray down on my desk. “The day after Thanksgiving.”
“I want to go back to Harkness afterwards.”
She shook her head. “Azzan will take you back on Sunday. This could have all been easier, Shannon, if you’d driven yourself home for the holiday. If you’d spoken to your family.”
I said nothing, because there was nothing to say.
Somehow I passed twenty-four hours there by myself. I used the time to catch up on my sleep. But the waking hours were awful. It was hard not to obsess over Bridger. He’d had an entire day now to catch up on the newspaper articles about my family.
I didn’t even have Jordan to take my mind off things.
After a long shower on Wednesday night, my mother knocked twice on my door and then pushed it open. “I got a phone call for you about fifteen minutes ago.”
“Really? Was it Anni?” I doubted that my only remaining friend from High School would make the trip from California just for a long weekend.
She shook her head. “It was the Baschnagel boy. He wanted to tell you that he was going to the hockey game tonight. He asked if you were going.”
“Andrew Baschnagel,” I repeated stupidly.
“He’s at Harkness too?”
“Right. He’s a junior.”
“I’m glad you’re making friends, Shannon. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t enjoy the game. They’re playing Quinnipiac.”
I laughed. “There’s no reason I shouldn’t go? Do you think they’ll even let me in the building?”
“Don’t be catty,” she sighed. “In a few months, when this is all over, your father will have his team back. Go to the game and hold your head up high. Or not. It’s your choice.” She turned away.
“Mom?”
“Yes?” she paused.
“I need my phone back.”
“Sunday,” she said. Then she went downstairs.
I was their prisoner. And they weren’t even trying to hide it.
Brushing out my wet hair, I didn’t know what to think. Andy Baschnagel’s phone call was a surprise. Yesterday, I’d literally run from the room when he’d said hello to me.
Only ten days ago (although it felt like millennia) Bridger had told me that his fire door neighbor had invited him for Thanksgiving. My heart wanted to jump to all sorts of romantic conclusions. And even though optimism was probably a bad idea, I found myself staring into my closet at seven o’clock, taking an inventory of the clothes I’d left behind.
On the top shelf I found what I was looking for — a baseball cap with my high school’s mascot on it. I also put on a baggy hooded sweatshirt, shoved my wallet in my jeans and went downstairs.
My father, the source of all my life’s misery, was pouring himself a scotch. “Hi,” I said. My voice sounded scratchy and underused.
“Well hello there. How’s school?” His gray hair glinted in the kitchen lights. He touched his finger to a drop of scotch, which had escaped down the bottle, and then licked his finger. The lines around his mouth had lately become canyons and valleys. And his pants hung off his butt in a way that they never had before.
The most demonized sports star in network history was looking older and more pathetic by the day. Even his voice sounded wobbly. Looking at him, it wasn’t pity that I felt. And not revulsion, exactly. It was confusion.
To encounter my father in the kitchen was to experience the same disconnect I felt every time I looked at him now. Did he do it? Probably. But then why didn’t I notice?
And these familiar questions were chased by an equally familiar answer. You’re guilty, too. Only a self-centered idiot could miss something that.
Clearing my throat, I answered his question. “I like everything about school.”
He looked up at me for the first time. “That’s really good, kid. I’m glad to hear it.”
“I’m going out for a little while. I’ll see you later?”
He nodded. “You need any money?”
“I’m okay. Thanks.”
He nodded one more time, picking up his drink. Then the man — who was either the world’s worst pedophile or the most wrongly accused man in sports history — shuffled back to the den.
Before I got out the door, my mother came through. “You’re going to the game?”
“Yes.”
“Did you speak to your father?”
“Yes I did.”
She squinted at me. “Do you want a ride…?”
“No,” I said quickly. “And I have my house keys. Bye.”
Out in the garage, I pulled the hood of the sweatshirt up over the baseball cap, and pulled the brim down low. Azzan and the other goons were nowhere in sight. I left the garage via a side door, into the darkness of our double lot. When I was seven, my parents bought the house next door and tore it down, granting us the biggest yard in the neighborhood. My father had built a small ice rink there at the side of our house. It wasn’t quite cold enough yet for my father to fill it, and now I wondered whether he’d bother this year.
I sprinted around the rink, heading for our side property line, and away from any TV cameras that might be camped out front. Nobody chased me, but still I ran. As a kid, I’d never liked the distant corner of our big property, and I felt a latent childhood chill as I crashed through the shrubberies and onto the sidewalk beyond.
It was a ten minute jog to the arena, and I didn’t stop until I’d reached the drive circle. Walking the last few yards to catch my breath, I eyed the brightly lit building. I hadn’t been inside since the college placed my father on leave pending an investigation. If I had to pick a spot in town where I would be least welcome, the Sterling Hockey Arena was the clear winner. But curiosity about who I might find in there, coupled with a desperate wish to get out of the house, were enough to make me step over the threshold.
I bought a ticket at the window and went inside.
Scanning the crowd for Andy really wasn’t that easy, because I didn’t know what he was wearing, or whether he’d donned a hat. I walked slowly around the top level. There were dozens of familiar faces in the crowd. My dentist was in his usual spot behind the penalty box. My middle school hockey coach was sitting with her husband near the student section.
Not one of these people would be all that happy to see me, or anyone else from my family. Last year I’d spent hours attempting to make sense of their blanket hatred. And I’d come to understand that my father’s Stanley Cup ring made everything worse. The people in my town couldn’t live with the fact that maybe they’d boasted to their friends that they knew J.P. Ellison, or that they often saw him in the coffee shop.
They’d been duped by someone they’d praised. And they felt guilty for admiring him. My face was just a reminder of it.
Of course, I’d been duped, too. But there was no room in their disapproval for nuance.
Because old habits die hard, I found myself checking the scoreboard. It was 2-1 in Quinnipiac’s favor, with the first period just half over. Time for a comeback, my brain said before I remembered that I really didn’t give a damn.
-BRIDGER-
When I saw her, I’m ashamed to say I didn’t recognize her right away. There was a girl standing atop the mezzanine walkway, scanning the crowd. She wore a baseball cap and a hoodie, in which she seemed to drown. I almost disregarded her. But then she moved, and the gait was pure Scarlet — shoulders back, spine straight. There was something strong about her that even sloppy clothes couldn’t hide.
I tracked her around the edge of the arena, prepared to wave if she would only look our way. But when she finally spotted me, the look on her face made my gut twist.
It was fear.
For a second, she just stood there, shrinking inside herself. I shook off my surprise and beckoned to her. And as she began to accelerate toward the bench where Andy and I sat together, I felt the first whiff of relief. I’d called her all last night to no avail. I’d texted. I’d emailed. And she’d said nothing. Today, Andy had finally pulled out the old high school directory and offered to call her house, just to put me out of my misery.
And now here she was, picking her way past a few people to come over to us. Biting her lip, she sat down on the other side of Andy. It was way too far away. And my throat picked that moment to close up. “Scarlet,” I choked out. “Thank Christ… you have no idea what I thought. When I saw them… that car.” God, I was going to lose it if I wasn’t careful. But the image of that asshole pushing her into the sedan was burned on my brain. It was just the way things happened in nightmares — when the person you’re trying to reach is suddenly snatched away. And then you’re running, but the car is faster…
I had that dream all the time, actually. But usually Lucy was the star.
Andy made to stand up. “I’ll just move…”
“No,” Scarlet grabbed his hands and pulled him down again. “You’re fine where you are.” She looked skittish, and the sight of her looking over her shoulders made my skin prickle. “Where is Lucy?”
“At my house,” Andy said. “Hanging with my sisters.”
“Good,” she said quickly.
I leaned toward her, and it was all I could do not to take her face in my hands. “You have to tell me what the fuck is going on. Why did they make you come home?”
She sighed. “They want things from me.”
“What things?
“I don’t want to talk about it, Bridge. The trial…” she shook her head.
I smacked my hands on my thighs. “Please don’t be that way. I watched a couple of goons haul you off the street yesterday. What do they want?”
There was a blast of Queen’s We Will Rock You from the PA system, and the players took the ice for the second period. “I’m getting popcorn,” Andy announced, standing up. He climbed over me and went for the aisle.
“Scarlet, look at me,” I demanded. She dragged heavy eyes from the floor and up to my waiting gaze. I didn’t know how she was going to take what I had to confess. “I already knew,” I whispered. “I knew who you were.”
A wave of disbelief washed across her face. “You did?”
I nodded, feeling miserable. Because I’d meant to come clean about it since the moment I discovered it two nights ago. But instead, like a caveman I’d dragged her home to my lair and had sex with her instead. “I figured it out Monday night.”
“How?” she whispered.
“Well, sometimes I still hear the hockey gossip, you know? I heard that a kick-ass women’s goalie who just happened to be J.P. Ellison’s daughter was going to join the team, but she didn’t show up this fall. And you seemed to know too much about hockey for a Miami girl, and I wondered why. But it wasn’t until I saw another newspaper article about the trial that I put it together. So I Googled Shannon Ellison,” I paused, taking one of her hands in mine. “…And your pretty face popped up on the screen.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, staring down at the concrete floor again.
I slid closer now, wrapping one arm around her back. “You don’t have to be sorry, Scarlet. I understand why you changed your name.”
“Do you? It didn’t even work,” she said, close to tears. “This is ugly. It’s all so ugly, and I’m stuck in it. I tried hiding, but…”
“Deep breaths, okay? We’ll get you through it.” My lips grazed her eyebrow. “There’s only one question I need you to answer for me right now. Just one.” My hand tightened on her waist. “Scarlet, are you safe in that house?”
I could feel her body go absolutely solid at the question. And my own heart practically stopped beating, because I was so afraid of what she was about to say. Although I needed her to tell me. Even if the answer gutted me.
“Scarlet,” I whispered. “I need to know.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I am.” But even as she said it, her eyes filled with tears.
“Then what’s the matter?” I asked, my voice close to cracking. “This is important.”
“Nothing, Bridge. Nothing is the matter.”
But I still had a prickle of unease. There was no room for error here. Because if I thought there was any chance of her being hurt by anyone in that house, there was no way I was letting her go back in there. “Scarlet, have you always been safe in that house?”
“Yes,” she said quickly.
“You would tell me if you weren’t, right? It’s important that I, of all people…” I didn’t have any experience with this. But I’d taken Scarlet to bed. Twice. And if she’d been abused as a child, then it wouldn’t have been easy for her.
She looked me straight in the eye. “I would tell you. Of all the issues I have, that’s not one of them.”
“Then why are you crying?”
She pushed the tears away with one hand. “Nobody ever asked me that before. They were all too busy running the other way.”
Jesus fuck. The smolder of fear in my chest flared into anger. And it was stuck somewhere right near the center of my chest. Slowly, I took a few deep breaths. “I was worried maybe that’s why you never told me your real name.”
“That wasn’t it. I promise.”
Andy’s shadow appeared. “This has turned into a pretty exciting game,” he said, sitting down on the other side of Scarlet.
Trying to calm down, I checked the scoreboard. The game was now 3-3.
“Quinnipiac is on a six-game streak,” Scarlet said, looking down onto the rink. “They’ve got great foot speed. But they’re graduating a fuckload of players, including most of their blue line guys.”
A laugh got stuck in my throat, and I pulled her a little closer to me on the bench. “What hurts the most is that I never got to hear you talk hockey before.”
Andy grinned. “Shan…” he caught himself. “Scarlet owns this place.”
“Used to,” she corrected.
“You were such a queen bee in High School,” he said.
“Gee thanks,” She gave him a shaky smile. “If I was, I’m sorry.”
Andy shrugged. “It’s just high school. I don’t get shoved into lockers anymore.”
She stole a piece of his popcorn. “You missed it, Andy, but I got a taste of how the other half lives.”
“You got shoved into lockers too?” He tipped the popcorn in her direction. “Have some more.”
“Not exactly…” she broke off, eying a family was threading its way across the bleachers to sit down just in front of us. They settled themselves on the bench, and the mother began passing hot dogs to her two boys, who were middle school age.
Scarlet pulled her hood down and took off her baseball cap, shaking her hair free. Then she leaned forward to put a hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Hi Mrs. Stein,” she said, her voice cheery. “Happy Thanksgiving.”
The woman turned with a neighborly smile. And then when she recognized Scarlet, her face closed up tight. Then her husband, sensing a disturbance in the force, looked first at his wife and then craned his neck to see my girlfriend. He cleared his throat. “I think we forgot the…”
“…Mustard,” his wife supplied. “Boys?” She stood up, nudging her sons toward the aisle.
It was unbelievable. “Did they just…” I didn’t even want to say it out loud. “…Move their seats because of…?” You.
“Yeah, I think they did,” Andy said, his eyes still following the family.
“I used to babysit for them,” Scarlet said. She put her hat back on and pulled up her hood. “You have to understand the mindset around here. Those people are probably shuddering every time they remember leaving their kids with me.”
“That makes no sense,” I argued. “You’re not…”
“Him,” she finished my sentence. “To them, it doesn’t matter, okay? They’re freaked out, because they just figured out that monsters under the bed are real. They’re out of their minds, wondering how everyone missed it. So our name is like a toxin. You can stop wondering why I don’t have any friends, or why I changed my name, or why I remained a virgin until that night on Andy’s bed.”
Andy choked on his soda.
“I had one friend last year. Only one person would be seen with me, would sit with me at lunch. Andy — remember Anni Boseman? Blond, skinny?”
“Sure,” Andy coughed.
“Well, she had a nervous breakdown right before graduation. All year long she stood up for me. And then in May she just couldn’t get out of bed.” She swallowed, then looked up at me and Andy in turn. “I’m trying to tell you that being my friend is not that much fun.” She stole one more bite of popcorn. “You two are the only people in this four thousand seat arena knowingly sitting next to me. And if you both suddenly thought better of it, I wouldn’t call you crazy.”
I hated that there wasn’t a thing I could say that would make things better for her. I could only flatten my hand against Scarlet’s back, and rub circles of warmth into her skin. Scarlet closed her eyes in appreciation. When she opened them, Andy was studying her. “What?” she asked.
“You must have been recruited by Harkness to play goalie.”
She swallowed. “Sure. The coach was not terribly happy when I quit the first week of school.”
“You and Bridger both,” he said. “That sucks.”
“We’re the hockey quitters club, party of two,” I said.
“That just leaves you more time for…” he cleared his throat. “Each other.”
Scarlet put her head in her hands. “I can’t believe I said that out loud.”
Andy shook his head. “At least somebody has fun in my bed.”
“We’ll drop you at home,” I said as we left the stadium after the game.
“I’m going to walk,” she said quickly.
“Why?”
“Well, there are TV vans in front of my house. Can you just let me be the only one who’s…” she stopped in the middle of the sentence, looking for the right words. “Tainted by the whole thing. Please?”
The parking lot lights illuminating her small face. “If that’s really what you want.”
“Trust me, it is. And hey — I can save you the whole meet-the-parents drama.”
“Yeah? We can skip that at my house too.” I held up a hand for a high five, and she slapped it.
“Will we see you this weekend?” Andy asked, his grin friendly. My neighbor was such a good guy. And my debt to him grew a little larger every day.
She chewed her lip. “I don’t think so, actually. I might not stay the whole weekend, if I can help it.”
“Call me,” I said, hugging her one more time. “It wasn’t nice of you not to answer all afternoon.”
“They took my phone.”
I stepped back from her. “Seriously? How will I know you’re okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” her face had closed down again. She looked as rattled as I’d ever seen her. “I’ll jump through their hoops, and in a couple days, we’ll all be back at school.”
“You could ride back with us on Sunday,” Andy offered. “There’s room in the car.”
“Thanks, I’ll ask my overlords,” she said. “And I’d fit, because it’s not like they let me pack any luggage.”
I kissed her quickly. “Everything about this stinks.”
“Welcome to my world,” she said.
-SCARLET-
When I woke up on Thanksgiving morning, it was to the smell of onions and garlic. My mother had a rule — she’d always doubled the garlic in recipes. “For a good result, double the garlic,” she’d said more times than I could count. I’d probably hear her say it today, too.
My mother was a piece of work. There could be a lynch mob on our front yard, burning a cross into the lawn, and she would stand in the kitchen with a perfect manicure and spout cooking advice.
By the time I made my way down to the kitchen, my mother had made stuffing and wrestled a turkey into the oven. “I could use your help peeling the potatoes,” she said.
Peel the potatoes. Speak to your father’s defense attorneys. Welcome to Thanksgiving at the Ellison residence.
I found a peeler and got to work. When my father eventually wandered into the kitchen, he greeted me with a single question. “Who won the game?”
I bit back the litany of things I would have liked to scream. Who cares? Why is hockey the only thing you’ve ever talked about? Why do I have to come home to the insane asylum for Thanksgiving? How on earth did it come to this?
What I said was: “Quinnipiac, in overtime.”
I peeled the vegetables and then went back upstairs. Walking into my room, my eye went straight to the corner where I used to keep Jordan. Without my favorite escape, it was so hard to pass the time. Exams were coming up, but of course I didn’t have my books with me.
When you found yourself pining for your statistics textbook, things were really going poorly.
Beneath me, the house was quiet. Thanksgiving had always been like this, just the three of us. My mother’s parents were killed in a plane crash when she was seventeen. And my father’s parents were out of the picture too. He’d grown up in Canada “under the thumb of that drunk,” as he referred to his father. Apparently I’d met them once at a hockey game in Calgary when I was four. I don’t remember.
Then there was my uncle Brian. He was six years younger than my father, and they’d never been close. We saw him maybe once a year when he came through town, usually during my hockey season. I’d heard my mother tell her friends that Uncle Brian was in jail when I was born. The last time I saw him was last fall, during the thick of the investigation. He’d come to the door unannounced, startling both my parents. “We have to talk,” I’d heard him say. “You need to take my calls.”
At that, my parents shooed me upstairs and closed the door to the den. I heard about ten minutes of muffled shouting, and then he was gone.
Now I wished he was here to break up the stillness. There was a lot of thick irony over Uncle Brian’s absence, now that I thought about it. He was never around because my parents — with their love of success and appearances — couldn’t stomach having a felon for a family member. Uncle Brian was a perfectly respectable social worker now, from what I could gather. My mother had let that slip out once when I asked about him.
He lived in Massachusetts, which was not all that far away. But even so, he was never invited for Thanksgiving. And now my father was on his way to having the mother of all criminal records, a string of felonies after his name.
So much for keeping up appearances.
I did not dress up for my interview with the lawyers. When I went into the kitchen the morning after Thanksgiving, it was in a pair of jeans too baggy to have made it into the suitcase I packed for school, and the hoodie I’d worn to the hockey game.
“You look terrible, Shannon,” my mother said, her eyes hard. “Have a little respect.”
“Maybe if you’d let me pack for the weekend like a normal person, I’d have something nice to wear.”
That shut her up. We spoke no more words until Azzan nodded toward the door. “It’s time to go,” he said.
I followed him out. Because I had no choice.
“Can I get you coffee, Shannon?” The female lawyer was impeccably dressed in a dove grey suit and pink silk shirt. She paused, her fingertips resting on the polished wood of the conference table.
“My name is not Shannon,” I corrected. The objection sounded petty. But I didn’t want them to think they could treat me however they wished.
“Sorry, Scarlet,” she said smoothly. “My mistake. Would you like a beverage?”
“No thank you. Let’s just get this done.”
Two more people entered the room — another lawyer and a legal assistant. The assistant adjusted a video camera standing on a tripod in the corner, where a red light winked on.
“Why are you videotaping me?” I asked.
“In case we need to review,” she said.
Lovely. “Okay, whatever.”
She sat down in front of me, a yellow legal pad and a pen poised in front of her. “Could you state your name and address for the record?”
The questions started out slow and dull — facts of my life, birth date, how long I’d lived in my father’s house. “Far too long,” I said, wondering if I could shake them off by acting like a bitch.
“Measured in years, how long have you lived in your father’s house?” the lawyer asked.
With a sigh, I told it to her straight.
Eventually, the questions got meatier. “Scarlet, has your father ever touched you inappropriately?”
“No,” I said. “Never.” It was an easy question. “In fact, he never touched me in any way — no pats on the head, no hugs. He’s the opposite of affectionate.”
The lawyer paused. “This works better if you just answer the question. No need to fill in details unless I ask.”
“Fine,” I shrugged.
“Did your father ever hit you?”
“Once,” I said. “I yelled in his face, and he slapped me.”
“When did this occur?” she asked.
“I was fifteen, and it only happened once. But two days ago, your guy Azzan slapped me after kidnapping me off the street.”
I wanted her to break her pretty facade, but it didn’t really work. “Please answer the questions you’re asked.”
“I thought you’d want to know what your employee did.”
“You may take that up as a separate matter after this interview, if you choose. Did your father ever hit you on another occasion?”
“No.”
“Have you ever seen your father hit, assault or molest anyone?”
“No.” Not unless verbal abuse counted. “Not physically.”
“Hitting, assaulting and molesting are all physical actions. Did you see your father do any of those things?”
“No.”
“Have you ever seen your father touch his hockey players inappropriately?”
I shook my head. “There’s a lot of butt patting in hockey, between coaches and players. But that’s everybody, and there’s about an inch of foam between players and their butts.”
“I’ll repeat the question. Have you ever seen your father touch his hockey players inappropriately?”
“No.”
And so it went. Every question she posed produced a harmless answer. As the interview went on, I came to understand that they were using me to construct a family narrative that implied: nothing to see here! My answers painted what was actually a bland portrait of the man.
Of course, she never asked me if he screamed like a lunatic every time I missed a shot in practice, if his face turned the color of raw meat when he was angry. She didn’t want to hear about that.
When all her questions were finished, I let Azzan drive me back to the house. I climbed the stairs to my room wondering what Bridger and Andy and Lucy were up to. I hoped they were all on a sofa somewhere, watching a movie. Or maybe they’d taken Lucy ice skating, or bowling. That’s what normal people did on the Friday after Thanksgiving. People who weren’t me.
