They found Teddy standing next to his mom’s Camry.
“Nice wheels, Ted,” said Caroline. “Clearly, it’s your midlife crisis car.”
Caroline took the passenger seat, as usual, and Betsy slid in the back, forgoing the seat belt in favor of perching on the edge of her seat, her head poking over the console that divided Caroline and Teddy, like a kid. The traffic out of town was stop-and-go for miles, which allowed for plenty of time for a recap of the day’s events, who was divorced, who had a lingering drug problem, and to Betsy’s horror, who among their peers had negotiated an open marriage to cope with eighteen torturous years of sexual fidelity.
They’d made it to Lake Panasoffkee before anyone mentioned Ginny.
After Betsy hung up the phone at Miss June’s bed-and-breakfast, back in New Orleans on the day they found Ginny, she lost track of the details. Gavin went upstairs to pack their things while June tried to console her, though she couldn’t understand the extent of her loss. Instead of stopping in Gainesville, they drove to Ocala, to Ginny’s Nana Jean’s house. Betsy found her on the porch when they pulled into her driveway. She took Betsy into her plump, pale arms and the two of them wept together on the wicker glider.
They returned for the funeral, and then she tried to go back to school, but Betsy didn’t remember much about the days she spent back in Gainesville after Ginny’s funeral. She packed her clothes and filled a Dumpster with all the things she no longer wanted. She remembered loading a suitcase and book boxes into Kathy’s car, and then standing in the Embassy Suites parking lot with Gavin, worried that she’d be left alone with their secret, that she’d never see him again. She drove away and never came back.
“I can’t believe this is the first time you’ve been in Gainesville since Ginny died,” said Teddy to Betsy.
“You mean since Ginny was killed,” said Caroline, anger building quickly in her voice. “That really pisses me off. When people say she ‘passed away’ or ‘died’ like she fell asleep and tiny angels swooped down and flew away with her tidy little soul. Or that she fought some noble battle with a terminal illness. She was murdered. And before she was murdered, she was raped. And the freak that did it ate a lobster dinner the night before he was executed, courtesy of the state of Florida.”
Caroline paused. Teddy looked stricken. Betsy inched back into the seat, trying to hide in the corner of Teddy’s mom’s car.
“I mean, it was sixteen years after the fact,” said Caroline. “He got sixteen more years after Ginny was dead. And that’s justice?”
“I’m sorry, I . . .” said Teddy, but he couldn’t find the words.
“No, it’s alright,” said Caroline, putting up her hand in defense. “It’s not your fault that it’s been twenty years and I can’t get over it.”
Betsy wanted to disappear. She’d read the press about the lobster tail and cheesecake he ate before he was executed. There was no shortage of details. As the story goes, McRae filled endless legal pads with details, page after page of his dense, looping cursive, line after line filled with song lyrics and childish illustrations of the visions that came to him in the night. Sitting cross-legged on a steel locker, in his six-by-nine-foot cell, he’d written his apologies. It would never be enough. She had read and reread all of it, but never found the answers she wanted. It would never bring Ginny back.