We returned to the house only once, three days after we left it, and I showed them where I was held—the concrete bed, the manacle on the wall. Marcus came with me and looked, shamefaced, but when he tried to apologize for his lack of faith, I just shook my head and kissed him.
Maria, Manos’s mother, came to the trial every day, supported by an assortment of relatives and friends all dressed in sober black. I remembered the day we went to the Diogenes, the fury on Maria’s face when she recognized Melissa. It was Marcus who had suggested we go to the taverna that day. He had been fishing for a reaction. Simon, understandably, hadn’t wanted to go, but Melissa forced the issue. I wondered about that now. Was she testing the water to see if they were in the clear, or was it something darker, more sinister? Had she gone back merely to see if one of us—nudged by the restaurant where the boy had worked—would give some sign of what we knew, or was she there to rejoice in her secret knowledge? If nothing else, the fact that she never considered how Maria might respond spoke of both her arrogance and her contempt for the woman and her family. That Maria blamed Mel for what was then considered the boy’s accidental drowning must have come as a surprise to her; but the brazenness with which Mel had outfaced her, the way she had made herself the victim after the fight, getting us all to rally round to make sure she was OK, sickened me. I remembered wondering if all those restaurant owners and shopkeepers, the hotel staff and the cab drivers, all secretly hated the wealthy tourists on whom they depended, and I felt again a sense of responsibility and shame for all that had happened. Maria said nothing during the trial but our eyes met once across the courtroom. I put my hand on my heart and just looked at her, my eyes streaming, till she nodded once and looked away.
Brad did not recover. Not completely. I mean, he can walk and talk, and he looks the same as he always did, except that he always has a slightly hunted, anxious look, as if things are happening around him that he does not understand.
“He forgets things,” says Kristen, when we find a moment alone together. “Little things, like where he put the keys, but also movies we saw the day before. All of it, just gone. He’s not sure what happened here, but he knows he’s . . . well, different. It’s ironic. I don’t think he could do the job he used to do now, so his losing it matters less. And he is—God forgive me for saying this—nicer now. Not as mean, you know? He used to be funnier, but there was often a little cruelty in his jokes. Now . . . it’s like he got old overnight. But it’s not so bad. He’s become quite sweet, and most of his humor is directed at himself, at the things he doesn’t seem to be able to do . . .”
She wipes away a tear and pulls herself together with a shudder that turns into a smile.
“I thought you guys had been breaking up,” I say. “Before that night, I mean. I thought—”
“We were,” she says quickly.
“But now you are staying with him, in spite of everything?”
I try to say it kindly, like I am impressed, but I am a bit baffled by it all. It isn’t like Brad can’t feed himself anymore and needs help going to the bathroom, but he isn’t the man he was and will surely be relying on her income, if nothing else.
“He doesn’t remember,” she says, and the smile is different now, fragile as eggshell, her eyes frank but unfathomable. “We broke up, but he doesn’t remember. I just haven’t the heart . . .”
“Are you sure?” I say. He had, after all, been obsessed with Melissa, had tried to seduce Gretchen as Melissa, and had ravaged her underwear when she turned him down. “You don’t owe him, Kristen. He might not be the person he was, and I’m not saying you should punish him for what he did, but that doesn’t mean you have to take him under your wing.”
“I know,” she answers. “But—and I know this doesn’t make any sense—it’s like what happened to him made him the man he should have been, the man he would have been if it wasn’t for all that other crap: the competitiveness, the need to prove himself funnier, smarter, richer, better than anyone else. He sees Melissa and Simon for what they are and seems bewildered that we were even friends with them. It’s weird, but without all that stuff in his life, he’s . . . different, like all his armor has been taken away, and for the first time in years, I can see the guy I fell in love with.”
I don’t know what to say to this, so I just nod and smile and eventually say, “OK. If that’s what you want.”
“I think it is,” she says, and that ‘I think’ makes me feel better, though I am not sure why. “Hey, I never said thank you,” she adds. “For what you did. I mean, I think you know, but in all the craziness, the investigation and all, I don’t think I ever said it. You saved our lives. I didn’t think I’d ever say that when I wasn’t working from a script, but it’s true. You really did. I can’t tell you how grateful I am. If there’s ever anything—and I mean anything—that I can do . . .”
“You would have done the same,” I say. “Ninety percent of it was self-preservation.”
She looks taken aback by the admission, then nods.
“Will you keep working?” I ask. The civil suit against Simon and Melissa’s estate would mean that we all received significant lump sums. Not enough to live on forever, but more than I had ever had or imagined I would have. I had two steel pins in my left hand, and though I was assured I would regain full use of it in time, I couldn’t do the job at Great Deal I’d been doing. It was something of a relief and had made a decision for me that I should have made years ago.
“Oh yes,” she says. “I love what I do. And I know it sounds awful, but all this—the press coverage—has only helped my career. I shouldn’t say it, but it’s true.”
I smile.
“Kristen, you mind if I ask you something?”
“What?”
“Are you actually English?”
Again, I had caught her off guard. She opens her mouth to say something airy and confident, then thinks better of it.
“The studio was looking for a Brit,” she says. “I had been in a show over there and working under my stage name. But I was born Sarah Kristen Congrieve. In New Jersey. My agent knows. So does the End Times producer. But we kept it from the media to give my character a little . . . what does my agent call it? Verisimilitudinous mystique.”
I smile and nod and say nothing.
“You should visit the set,” she says. “Everyone would love to meet you.”
I have attained a little celebrity of my own.
“Maybe after this semester,” I say. I had quit my job at Great Deal as soon as I got back to the States, citing the physical injury rather than the mental strain. I think Camille was relieved, though everyone was nice and supportive. They got me flowers. I am taking classes now at UNC Charlotte, retaking courses and rebuilding my ravaged GPA. Whether I will actually apply for med school when it is all done, I am not sure, but that is the plan, and this time there’ll be no fudged info on the applications, no flights of fancy during interviews. I’ve said things like that before, but this time I don’t just mean it. After all, I’ve meant it before. This time, I know it’s true. Because nothing puts your life in focus like someone trying to take it from you.
Liars are quick to use the most extreme phrases to underscore the truth of their fictions.
Honest to God.
To tell you the truth.
Swear on my mother’s grave.