The way he treated his wife all these years—maybe holding things in, maybe never hitting her—but still the man capable of that violence. Or maybe hitting her. Maybe worse. Maybe—it’s not impossible—living a model life, as if doing so would pay a cosmic debt. Maybe running forever from that teenage boy and his sins.
There are things I can assume: That he drank his way through college, trying to forget. That he justified it to himself—not that Thalia deserved to die, but that Omar’s life was more expendable than his own. Maybe he told himself how far he’d come in the world already. Maybe he told himself it would kill his parents if they knew, and wouldn’t two more deaths be worse? Maybe he convinced himself that Omar, surely selling drugs, was bound for prison anyway. Maybe he managed to forget Omar entirely.
There are things I can’t stop imagining: Robbie’s face turning red with rage. His pupils, dilated huge in the dark. The sound of a cracking skull. The look of horror and desperation on her face. The weight of a body, even one that thin. Her regaining a moment of consciousness when he dropped her in the water. Her knowing this was it, this was the whole world leaving her.
The few things I know: She was facing him when he slammed her head back, more than once; they were eye to eye. (I can see it, clearer than I could ever imagine Omar snapping, clearer than I could ever see your hands on her neck.) She didn’t have time to defend herself. There was a moment when she understood this time was different. She took several breaths in the water. Conscious or unconscious, it took her a long time to die.
I know that Robbie showed up for brunch the next morning. He skied at the Granby Invitational the next weekend. Everyone said how strong he was to hold it all together. By May, he was spending time with Rachel Popa. He received the Senior Spirit award. He graduated with a 3.5 GPA.
31
Back at the Calvin Inn, in the empty solarium, I jumped into the pool, sat as long as I could on the bottom. It was bracingly cold.
On the drive back, I’d texted Yahav asking him to call. I wanted his legal advice, and I also wanted to unload everything Beth had said. If nothing else, he was still a good friend. And, there was nothing else. I had to accept that people fundamentally slide past each other in this world. I couldn’t make him stay, couldn’t shake him by the shoulders, couldn’t let myself be overtaken by any atom of the possessive force that made Robbie grab on so hard to Thalia.
It was easier to see that from the bottom of the pool.
The light filtered through in solid beams, made the water a cathedral.
I wanted to breathe, but I didn’t want to rise to the surface. I wanted to breathe in water, to discover that I had gills.
I’d watched video of Jasmine Wilde’s Washington Square Park piece, the one where people brought her the things she subsisted on. When no one brought her food, she didn’t eat. When no one brought her water, she didn’t drink. At one point, deliriously sick and dehydrated, she’d pulled up clumps of grass to chew on. “There’s life in here,” she said to the camera, or whoever was holding it. “The roots hold a lot of water. Sometimes you have to take.”
I had no idea what it meant. Wasn’t this the problem, all along? All we did was take from each other and from the earth and from ourselves. Maybe her point was that we couldn’t help it. Right now, I needed to take from Beth, who didn’t deserve it; and from Robbie, who did.
My survival instincts kicked in, and without deciding to I rose to the surface, gulped in oxygen for every cell of my body.
My phone, on the side of the pool, showed a voicemail alert from an unknown number.
I dried my finger on my towel so I could hit play, and Beth’s small voice filled the room. She said, “I still can’t believe you drove all the way to Stowe.” And then she kept talking, but it was there in her voice from the beginning, in her tone of relieved resignation: That she would do this, she would talk to Amy. That she had realized she’d been waiting for decades.
32
A full day passed.
Across from Aroma Mocha, where I sat with my laptop and a latte, across a street that had been a street since it was cobblestones and dirt, was a soft-serve ice cream place. Robbie and Jen Serenho were unmistakable, Robbie in a dark blue parka, Jen in her maroon coat, the kids bouncing like rabbits.
I was waiting for Amy March, who—after my ridiculously long voicemail—had stalled all day in court, taking far longer than needed to examine the second State Police detective. (She practically asked his shoe size, Geoff texted. She’s like, can you read this entire ten-page document aloud?) And I was waiting for Beth. They were both due here at 4:30, once Amy was done for the day. It would be just the start of a bunch of dominos falling. Rather than wait and recall Beth after the state presented its case, they could use Beth’s husband’s upcoming surgery and petition the judge to let her be recalled out of order. That way, by the time Robbie took the stand—although he’d know what was coming—Amy could ask him directly about Beth’s testimony.
I watched as, across the street, Robbie picked the youngest up, swung her by the armpits, set her down.
The universe stood still. I wondered if I could at least jump off.
Here was the person I’d been looking for, all these years. A person I couldn’t wait to destroy. Here was the person living the life Omar deserved. The life Thalia deserved.
Here, also, was someone with young children who loved him, with a wife who loved him. (I know, I know. I know.)
It was the kids I thought about. Even if Robbie was never put on trial himself (the chances were slim), even if he kept his job, even if he kept his marriage together, his children would grow up in overwhelming shadow.
Not like my kids, who might or might not fully become aware that someone had made an art piece about their father, might dismiss it or embrace it, might accuse or defend him.
This was murder, it was strangulation and assault. He had bashed in her head and left her to drown. This was an abuse of privilege that the world would eat up: a boy at a fancy boarding school, an athlete and star, a stock character. For a reason. A guy we’d seen before because we’d seen this guy before.
To be absolutely clear: I’m not saying What a fine young man, let’s not ruin his future. I’m saying, I looked at him and knew I was looking at, among other things, a murderer. And the chill I felt, I expected it. But I didn’t expect to feel like a killer myself, like someone reaching out to end something.
Not a single cell of his body was the same as it had been in 1995. But he was still himself, just as I was still, despite everything, my teenage self. I had grown over her like rings around the core of a tree, but she was still there.
Robbie’s daughter had a pink swirl, maybe strawberry. One son had chocolate, one son had vanilla. He swung the little girl again: left, right, left, right.
33
I was wrong about you, too, Mr. Bloch, but I still don’t feel that wrong.
To put it another way: I was mistaken, but I wasn’t incorrect.
At freshman orientation, they had us do that embarrassing game where someone pretends to be a machine part, and someone else joins, making a different motion, a different noise, then someone else, someone else, till we were all one big hormonal machine in the middle of the hockey field.
My point is, you were a part of the machine: an arm, a leg. You drove the getaway car. You threw bricks through the window and someone else grabbed the jewelry. You distracted the feds while the spies got away. You held her down while someone else beat her. You shot the deer and wounded it; when the second hunter came along, the deer could no longer run.
34
Dane Rubra stares into the camera a long moment, blinking. His eyes are bloodshot, but the irises remain a reptilian amber.