“What are you saying?” Erin protests. “It was self-defense!”
“Self-defense is a legal defense, not a manner of death,” Bledsoe explains. “For a death that is not from natural causes, the ME can only make a ruling of accident, homicide, suicide, or undetermined.”
Erin stares back at him, wondering what he’s getting at, exactly. Bledsoe continues. “In this case, the ME can’t be completely certain the fatal injury was sustained in the fall, or whether it happened immediately afterward.”
Erin gets it now. “I don’t believe this,” she says staunchly, although she is shaken. “Are you implying that Avery might have deliberately hurt Marion after she pushed her down the stairs to get away?” She glances at William; he is quiet but looks startled—and concerned. He doesn’t leap in to defend their daughter like he should. She’s furious at him.
“Please,” Bledsoe says. “Don’t alarm yourself. There will be no charges against your daughter. No one thinks Avery did anything but push Marion down the stairs to escape.”
There’s a silence filled with tension; no one seems to want to speak. Finally, Gully asks, “How is she doing?”
The thing is, Erin thinks, Avery has been fine. Just the same as she was before the abduction. Moody, demanding, uncooperative, controlling. But no different than before. Except—if anything—she might be more cheerful. She isn’t withdrawn or having nightmares or wetting the bed. Erin will try to make an appointment with a doctor—one from the list—soon, but she worries that Avery will refuse to go.
Erin answers, “I don’t know. She seems okay, but maybe she’s still in shock.” The mutual liking and respect that had existed between Erin and Gully at the beginning of the investigation has evaporated. The successful conclusion, after all, had nothing to do with good police work, and they both know it. And now there’s this. Erin can’t help thinking that if they had done their jobs better, they might have found Avery before she’d been forced to push Marion down the stairs. But she’s too well behaved to say this out loud. Erin wonders if Gully can read her thoughts—her regretful expression indicates that she might.
“And Michael?” Gully asks. “How’s he doing?”
“It’s been hard for him,” Erin admits. “It’s been hard for all of us,” she says as she gets up to go.
Gully warns as they leave, “Just keep her away from the press. They can be savage.”
William follows her to her car and asks if he can get a lift back to the hotel. They both get in the car. This latest revelation sits between them in the front seat like an unexploded bomb. Erin can sense William wanting to say something, but he doesn’t. Erin begins to drive him back to the hotel, and they soon begin to argue. He doesn’t want Avery talking to the press—especially now, he emphasizes—and tells her not to allow it.
It infuriates her. “And how am I supposed to do that?” she says. “Lock her in her room? The press are camped right outside.”
His silence tells her that he has no idea how to stop her either. They have never been able to control Avery, that’s the problem. She does what she wants, and they are helpless to stop her. If she wants to talk to the press, all she has to do is walk out the front door and open her mouth. It’s not like Erin can keep her in restraints.
She drops William at the hotel and drives home, her mind reeling. The detectives seem to be hinting that Avery may have deliberately hurt Marion after she pushed her down the stairs. But if that’s what really happened, Erin can understand it; she can even forgive it. That hideous woman had held her daughter prisoner for days, had planned to kill her. Avery would have been frightened for her life, traumatized, not responsible for her actions. She’s only a child! Why don’t they see that? It worries her, what the police think. What William thinks.
Somehow, she finds herself at Gwen Winter’s door.
Gwen will understand, Erin tells herself. Gwen knows how hard it is. Although she can’t have any idea what it’s like to be in Erin’s shoes right now.
Gwen greets her at the door, and they go into the kitchen, where Gwen begins to make a pot of coffee. Erin’s not really sure why she’s here except that she needs someone to talk to, someone who will understand, a little bit, about how hard it is. Gwen Winter knows what it’s like to have a difficult child, and to have everyone judging you, blaming you.
“How are you doing?” Gwen asks, but she must be able to tell that Erin isn’t doing well at all.
Her kindness provokes a sudden sob, and Erin, seated at the kitchen table, covers her face with her hands and tries to stop, but she can’t. All the tears she can’t release at home in front of the children pour out of her in front of this other woman, who is almost a stranger.
“That good, huh?” Gwen says, when Erin finally looks up. Gwen hands her a box of tissues.
“I’m so sorry,” Erin says, embarrassed.
“No need to be sorry. You’ve been through a lot. You’re going through a lot.”
Erin nods numbly. “I had no idea it would be so difficult . . . I was so focused on getting Avery back, I wasn’t prepared for what it would be like after.”
“You can’t prepare for something like this,” Gwen says. She adds thoughtfully, “And when there’s good and bad mixed together, it can be confusing.”
Erin nods. “That’s just it. I’m overjoyed to have Avery back. But—it’s not easy. All this. Living in a fishbowl.”
She has been judged for years—by teachers, other parents, strangers in restaurants—for Avery’s behavior. It wasn’t her fault, she tried to tell herself. Michael was fine. Erin did her best, but Avery has always been a challenge. Avery is Avery.
“You love your daughter,” Gwen says. “But that doesn’t mean it can’t be really, really hard sometimes.” Erin nods. “Are the press still pestering you?”
Erin nods again. It’s on the tip of her tongue to tell her—what the police said, what William thinks. But the moment passes.
“They’ll leave you alone eventually,” Gwen says, trying to comfort her. “It can’t last forever.”
Fifty-five
Michael isn’t going to school today. He’s not ready to face it. The stares. The whispers. The questions. And it’s about to get worse. Because today is the day that his sister is going to talk one-on-one to a well-known journalist and tell her story. On TV. They’re going to tape it right here, in their living room, this afternoon. She and their mom argued about it, lawyers were consulted, but Avery has her mind made up. Avery does whatever she wants. She always has.
It makes him sick, all of it. He hates the press being outside their door, surrounding their house, trying to look in the windows to get photographs. The police have been here a couple of times to clear them back to the sidewalk, but they just creep up again. It’s been worse since Avery came home. He feels trapped in the house, unable to go outside. Avery has always thrived on attention, but this is taking it to a whole new level. She knows he hates it. She’s even been rubbing his nose in it.