The last secret_ a novel - Mary McGarry Morris [127]
Stephen closes the study door. She asks where Robin is. She's been brought to the hospital, Ken says. She's in a coma. Swelling on the brain. It was a brutal beating. Savage, Stephen adds, sitting down across from them. Crazy bastard almost killed her. Probably would've if she hadn't stopped him.
“But what the hell happened?” Stephen asks. “I still don't get it. I mean, why here? Who the hell is he?”
“Levant's on his way,” Ken says. “We'll let him handle it.”
“Handle what? Jesus, Kenny, she … there's a dead man out there. Nothing wrong with getting your ducks a little lined up.”
“Ducks?” Ken snaps.
“I'm sorry, but you know what I mean.”
Their discussion doesn't seem to involve her, though the details are important, Stephen is saying. He keeps looking at her. Damage control, she thinks as he fires off questions they need to anticipate if this is to come out right in the end—the way it should for good people. The script matters if they are to go on being decent people. The dead man, was he an intruder? Was he breaking in? What were Robin and Lyra doing here? Why the savage attack on Robin? Not to offend Ken, he's only playing devil's advocate here, but there must have been some kind of prior relationship for a crime of such passion. Was the guy … well, was he an old boyfriend or something? No, Ken answers bitterly. He blames her, she realizes. And well he should. Poor Robin, poor all of them, caught in such a mess. She can't stop seeing Robin's last look of bewilderment. Now Stephen is asking her exactly what happened.
“I hit him. I killed him.”
She knew right away he was dead, so yes, the details are important. She understands that. She has to remember. Everything, but it's very confusing with the taste of cocktail onions, cherries, rum, and bile souring her bloody mouth, the reek of his sweaty crotch as he shoves down her head. The empty stare. Her silence alarms them. They need her to talk, the right words to frame the story. Spin.
“Nora,” Stephen says, touching her hand. “You're the only person, the only adult, anyway, who knows exactly what happened. That's why we have to set the record straight now. The important thing is not to let anyone put words in your mouth. If they ask you something and you're not sure, just say that. You don't remember, that's all you have to say. And if it comes back to you later, fine, we fill in the blanks then.”
We have to set the record straight? We fill in the blanks? But how can they unless she tells them about that night? “I'm trying to remember.”
“Good,” Stephen says. “That's all anyone can ask. And if you can't, that's okay, too.”
“I didn't have to keep hitting him like that,” she says to no one in particular, because this is vital, the most important thing. “It was more than him, it was everything else I wanted dead. It was me. Always being afraid of doing the wrong thing. People knowing the truth about me. It's my fault. It is. I did a terrible thing.” She sees by Ken's cold stare that he already knows. And has for a long time.
“Nora!” Stephen says. “You had no choice. I mean, my God, there you were watching a madman attacking a child and her mother, you did exactly what every one of us hopes we would do. Particularly given the very painful relationships in the situation,” he adds, though his sting of rebuke seems lost in his cousin's shock.
“What do you mean it's your fault?” Ken asks.
“Because I never did anything. I let it happen. I didn't want to know, did I, Ken? But I must've. How could I not? And then it was the same thing all over again, and that's why. That's why he came. Because there was something