Lisa Gardner - The Survivors Club

“If you take good care of your body,” Libby always said with a wink, “your body will take good care of you.”

Jillian leaned over. “Hello, Mom,” she murmured. “Sorry I'm late.” She hugged her mother gently, careful not to squeeze too hard.

When she straightened, she saw something flash in her mother's gaze. Frustration, anger, it was hard to tell, and Libby would never say. Since her stroke ten years ago, she had limited movement in the right side of her body, as well as expressive aphasia-while she could understand communication perfectly, she could no longer speak or write back. As one of the doctors tried explaining to Jillian, in her mother's mind she could think fluently, but when she tried to get the words past her lips, her brain ran into a wall, blocking the flow.

Now Libby communicated via a “picture book,” filled with images of everything from a toilet to an apple to pictures of Jillian, Toppi, Trish. When she wanted something, she would tap on the picture. Right after Trisha's funeral, Libby had stroked her daughter's photo so often, she had literally worn it out.

“You saw the news?” Jillian asked, taking a seat on the couch.

Her mother tapped her left index finger once, meaning yes .

“He's dead now, Mom,” Jillian said quietly. “He can't hurt anyone ever again.”

Her mother's chin came up. She had a fierce look on her face, but her fingers remained quiet.

“Are you happy?”

No movement.

“Sad?”

No movement.

“Frightened?”

Her mother made an impatient sound deep in her throat. Jillian paused, then she got it. “You're mad?”

One tap.

Jillian hesitated. “You wanted the trial?”

Hard tap!

“But why, Mom? This way you know he's punished. He can't get off because someone in the jury box has a guilty conscience. We'll never have to worry about parole or some kind of prison break. It's over. We won.”

Her mother made another impatient sound in the back of her throat. Jillian understood. Why questions didn't work well with this system. To get the right answer, you had to ask the right question. It was Jillian's job, as the person still capable of speech, to come up with the right question.

Toppi had materialized in the doorway. “You didn't see the news conference at six-thirty, did you?”

“No.”

“Eddie's lawyer says he has a witness who proves Eddie couldn't have attacked Carol. Instead, he was across town returning a movie at the time.”

“You're kidding!” Jillian sat up straight. Beside her, her mother had flipped open the picture book. Her left fingers frantically skimmed away.

“That's ridiculous,” Jillian announced. “Carol's not even sure what time he broke into her house. You can't have a definite alibi without a definite time.”

“Some of the press is starting to talk of a miscarriage of justice. Maybe Eddie was railroaded. Maybe the police were a little too eager to have a suspect. Maybe…” Toppi hesitated. “Maybe you, Carol and Meg applied a little too much pressure.”

“That is absurd!” Jillian was on her feet, her hands fisted at her sides. When backed into a corner, her first reaction was always anger, and now she was in a rage. Quick, someone get her a reporter. Any reporter. She wanted to slug one good. “All we did was put together the blood-donor connection between Trisha and Meg. That's it! Eddie's the one who just happened to have access to their home addresses. Eddie's the one who just happened to see two out of three rape victims within weeks of their attacks. Eddie's the one who just happened to have his semen present in their houses. How the hell does the press explain that?”

“They don't. They just flash clean-cut photos from his high school yearbook and use words like minority, suspected of rape, tragically shot down.”

“Oh for the love of God!” Jillian had to sit down again. Her head was suddenly pounding. She thought she might be ill. “They're turning him into a martyr,” she murmured. “Whoever shot him… He's making him seem innocent.”

Libby thumped Jillian's arm. She had found the picture she wanted. A new one, added by Toppi just one year ago to help Libby communicate about the trial. It featured a blindfolded woman holding the scales of justice.

“I know you wanted the trial,” Jillian said impatiently. “I understood that.”

Her mother thinned her lips. She tapped the photo more emphatically, this time the scales.

“Justice? Not just a trial, you want justice?”

Hard tap!

“Because we don't have it yet,” Jillian filled in slowly. “The press is now trying the case in absentia, and they're using Eddie's looks and ethnicity as evidence. And the only way we could counter is with Eddie himself. By actually having the trial and proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that Eddie Como is the College Hill Rapist.”

Her mother tapped, tapped, tapped.

“You're right, Mom. I'm angry now, too. We were robbed this morning.” Jillian's voice grew bitter. “As if we hadn't already lost too much.”

Her mother flipped through the pages again. She came to another picture, this one also new. It looked like a child's drawing, a caricature of a monster with big yellow fangs and red bugged-out eyes. Toppi had done the honors, her rendition of Eddie, because there was no way they would permit his real photo in the picture book. They refused to give him that much presence in their lives.

Now Libby's left hand scrabbled with the page of the photo album. She got the plastic cover back. She yanked Eddie's picture from the sticky back. Then she looked at Toppi and Jillian with her chin up, her brown eyes ablaze, and her lower lip trembling with unshed tears. She crumpled up Eddie Como in her feeble left hand. Then she flung the monster across the room.

Toppi and Jillian watched the paper hit the floor. The wad rolled to a stop five feet away. Then it was still.

“You're right,” Jillian said softly. “Eddie Como is gone, so once and for all let's get him out of our lives. Frankly, I'm tired of being afraid. I'm tired of being angry. I'm tired of wondering over and over again what I could've done differently.” Her voice rose, gained strength. “Fuck the press, Mom. Fuck the public defender. And fuck some voyeuristic public that has nothing better to do than watch our pain get played out on the nightly news. Eddie Como has taken too much from us, and I'm not giving him anything more. It's over. That's that. We're not talking about him anymore. We're not worrying about him anymore. We're not afraid of him anymore. From here on out, Eddie Como is gone, and we are done !”

TEN FORTY-FIVE P.M.

Carol was not done. She had not gotten Eddie Como out of her life. Instead, she was curled up, fully dressed, in an empty bathtub. The cold porcelain sides gave her a chill, so an hour ago she had pulled down all the towels to keep her warm. It was dark in the upstairs bathroom. No windows, no source of natural light. She didn't know what time it was, but she suspected that it was late. Probably after ten. Things happened after ten.

Dan still wasn't home. The house maintained its silence. Sometimes she hummed to herself simply to make a sound. But mostly she lay in the bathtub, a grown woman who couldn't return to the womb. She rested her head on the hard, cold ledge and waited for the inevitable to happen.

I didn't turn off the TV. I didn't turn off the TV.

It wouldn't matter. It was after ten. She was all alone. And she knew, she knew way down deep, that somewhere in the house, a window was sliding open, a foot was hitting the floor, a man was ducking into her bedroom.