Our friends, on the other hand, kept trying to put me to bed. Get some sleep. You need your strength. People always tell the grieving to get some rest, take it easy, go to sleep. They ply us with chamomile tea and sleeping pills and bake us soporific casseroles. They shove us into bedrooms and cover us with heavy blankets and beg us to sleep, to stay out of the way, to remain unconscious so they won’t have to endure the discomfort of having to talk to us.
I found it all so disingenuous back then, but it didn’t really matter, as it turned out. A day after they posted bail, Harris Blanchard and his parents gave an interview to Rolling Stone, and that interview changed things. It was picked up everywhere, posted and tweeted and screenshotted and even discussed by the ladies on The View. And, since it was 2015 and fits of outrage weren’t quite as frequent or as disposable as they are now, it did not pass through the news cycle quickly. The story lingered like a bad storm. Reactions to it were ugly, even among the people who actually knew Matt and me. The awkward visits and casseroles and entreaties to sleep gave way to icy stares in the grocery store, my coworkers at the magazine literally whispering behind my back like third graders. She must’ve known what her daughter was up to. What kind of mother would let a girl run wild like that? Have you taken a good look at Camille, though? Seems genetic to me. Finally the editor in chief suggested I take a leave of absence. I didn’t fight it.
The gist of the article, in case you haven’t guessed: Rape charges aren’t always true. Sometimes the man or boy accused is the real victim.
Harris and his parents told quite a vivid story—something straight out of a Lifetime movie, where a self-destructive teenage townie seduces a loving couple’s innocent son and runs off to meet her tragic end, leaving the poor college boy alone, confused, falsely accused. Mother May I Binge Drink with Danger?
The girl Harris Blanchard and his parents described in the article was a stranger—an invented character, not even remotely close to the person my daughter was. But the reporter couldn’t have been more sympathetic to the Blanchards. We probably should have returned his calls for comment, but we were grieving and could barely talk to anyone, and by the time we realized what was happening, it was too late. Harris and his parents had written the narrative. And their legal team took over. They found Emily’s secret Instagram accounts and filled in the story with lurid colors. And pictures. Someone in their ranks leaked the pictures to the press.
At the trial, two surprise witnesses came forward—both claiming they had seen Emily talking to “a stranger” long after Harris alleged they’d had consensual sex. One of them, the fraternity’s president, said he saw her walking with this stranger into the woods. A tall dark guy with a beard, he said. I couldn’t see him very clearly. I was the prosecution’s only witness. They had tried to call a young girl who said Harris had forced himself on her when they were both in high school, but the judge wouldn’t allow it. Though only Harris Blanchard’s DNA was found in the rape test, the defense easily pointed out that this stranger could have worn a condom.
In the end, all we had was what Emily had told me in the hospital—what’s known as a “dying declaration” in a court of law. Of course you believe her, one of the defense lawyers had said to me, her voice laced with false sympathy. She was your daughter. You loved her.
I believe her because I knew her, I replied. None of you knew her. You’re just making her up as you go along. It didn’t matter. Nothing I said mattered. The judge threw out the second-degree manslaughter charge, the jury quickly acquitted Harris Blanchard of rape, and his parents embraced him in front of snapping cameras, weeping tears of joy.
I felt as though the truth had been stolen from me. I made a secret vow never to speak of it again to anyone—to keep the facts close, so they couldn’t be warped and damaged any more than they’d already been. So last night was a gift: an opportunity to tell a group of people what really happened to Emily that night and be believed. The thing is, though, I don’t feel the relief I expected to feel. If anything, I hate Harris Blanchard more than ever.
I’m in the graveyard now. I can see the playground from where I’m standing, the pink roses cradled in my arms like a baby. Her grave is just a few rows up from where I am, and as I move toward it, I speak to Emily in my mind. I subscribe to her high school newsletter, and so I tell her about the new gym they’re building, about the marching band winning a state championship, and how Miss Habler, the home ec teacher who seemed ancient to Emily when she was a freshman, is at long last retiring. It’s all small talk, of course—things she’d probably roll her eyes over if she were alive. And I’m supposed to care about this, Mom, because . . . why? But it’s all just a warm-up, leading to Niobe.