A Map of the World - Jane Hamilton [195]
“Did you tell anyone about your experience?”
“That’s a very good question, Mr. Rafferty.” He didn’t flinch, didn’t as much as crack the slightest smile. “My husband was on a fishing trip and would not be home until the end of the week. I felt that I needed to discuss with him any action we would take. I did not feel that I should take steps without my husband. I was aware that my neighbor entertained men, and they were often large, burly fellows. You can’t be sure if people are on drugs, can’t be sure of their condition. You can’t be certain about anything in these times. I was not prepared to call the police myself and possibly place my family in danger. I am not proud of my inaction, but I felt that I was safeguarding my own children. I know that Robbie trusted me and that by not calling for help I violated that trust. It’s something I live with.”
“When did you next see the Mackessys?”
“I saw Robbie out in the yard fifteen or twenty minutes after I left him. His mother called him in a few minutes later. To be frank I was upset enough so that I began to wonder if I’d been dreaming. As it turned out, the boy and his mother disappeared a few days later. I heard that they were evicted, but I don’t know. I came home from a meeting and their curtains were down, the car was gone. Everything looked empty. It was a tremendous relief to me. Someone on the block said they’d rented a house in the country. I decided that I would continue to pray for them, but that I would otherwise put them out of my mind.”
When Rafferty finally sat down, he shifted his eyes in my direction and raised his eyebrows for a fraction of a second. As Susan Dirks got up, Sherry, from wherever she was, home with her three dickenses or still in jail, shouted, “Oh boy, she in DEEPshit.” I wonder now when Susan Dirks knew that Mrs. Mackessy was either grossly deluded or lying. I wonder if she realized she would lose badly when the other boys’ charges were dropped, when even Myra Flint could not get them to say the same thing twice. Rafferty had said many times that mine was the sort of case that should never have come to trial. He placed the blame solely on Susan Dirks. I know very well the urge to protect your failings, a need so strong you make up a different world to inhabit. Mrs. Mackessy had had a need to think differently about her life. Perhaps there was enough force in her need that even Susan Dirks had been convinced.
Whatever Dirks’s true feelings at the time of the trial she gave Mrs. Sheridan her best shot. If the room was dark, how could she have seen anyone? How long did she look? Four seconds? Five seconds? How could she tell there were two people? “I know what I have seen,” Mrs. Sheridan said. She was not going to be undone. She had God on her side. She was not going to let an infertile woman lawyer who was too big for her britches diminish an incident that had changed her own life, that had made her scrape up thirty dollars she couldn’t really spare to send to a senator she felt had the right beliefs. “Miss Dirks,” she said, “Mrs. Dirks, whatever you are. There were people in that room. They were hurting one another for, for reasons I am not going to attempt to understand. The life was scared out of that boy. There was evil in that house, and your insinuations, that I have somehow invented a story so beyond my ken, are sorely trying my patience.”
After Mrs. Sheridan’s testimony, Rafferty and I went into the holding room. Howard trudged off to find us some sweet rolls. Rafferty put his hands to his wide open mouth and wiggled his hips in a way that did not become him. “I’m gloating,” he said, “I’m gloating. I’ll pay for it someday, but I can’t help it right now. I can’t help it!”
“Stop,” I said.
“Look!” He grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “When some maniac from Hollywood comes knocking at your door for your story, okay? And