Someone Else's Fairytale

Thirteen: Digging Up the Past

Steve and Doug Vanderholt met me at the District Court two days later. I still felt consumed with guilt. I felt like I should at least bake cookies for them, but I wasn't sure if that was an insult. I couldn't make thousand dollar cookies.

I followed the two of them, both in their suits, through security and back to the clerks' windows. Ten minutes later we were in a little room with a wooden table, a small bowl of paper clips, and manila folder stuffed to bursting. We sat on rickety plastic chairs that creaked every time we so much as breathed, or so it seemed.

“Your original case,” said Mr. Vanderholt, who insisted I call him Doug. He patted the manila folder. “Is it okay if Steve reads this?”

“Of course.”

Steve flipped it open and started to skim. His eyes went wide and he blinked a few times and he started over again from the beginning. This time he took his time and read.

“It's not a pretty case, son,” said Doug.

“I'll say.” He flipped a couple of pages, read some more, then flipped the entire stack of papers and read the very last one. “They sued for attempted murder. How did they not get it?”

“She healed too fast,” said Doug. “And the Winters paid a king's ransom on attorneys.”

“Was there ever a civil suit? For damages?”

“Chris doesn't have any money or assets of his own, I'm guessing,” said Doug.

“This why we stopped getting our teeth done by Dr. Winters?”

“No, we stopped going there when I learned Dr. Winters ran around on his wife. Found it hard to look him in the eye after that.”

“Whoa, wait.” Steve reread something, then covered his eyes for a moment. “Sorry. Chloe, I had no idea.”

“Good,” I said. “I don't want to be known as the girl who went through this for the rest of my life.”

“I hear that.”

Doug clasped me on the shoulder. “Thank you for letting us do this.”

“Thank me?”

“When you have kids,” said Steve, “you will totally understand. I can't read this and not work on your case, Chlo.”

“Exactly.”

I thought back to my mother's reaction. She'd cried a lot, but she hadn't tried to do anything about it. In fact, she'd just gotten drunk for a week. Whenever we talked about it, in the very rare instances when we did, she just got all wide eyed, like she'd been the night her house got vandalized. It was as if all of this had happened to her, not me, and that still burned me up inside.

“Okay, kidnapping-” Steve jotted this down on his notebook “-assault with a deadly weapon, battery, reckless endangerment of a minor... and we add in the fact that it's been ten years and there is evidence that he's still taking an interest in her.”

“Right, good,” said Doug.

The two were on a roll, and I'd been right, I had no idea what I was doing when it came to writing up the documents I'd need.

***

“I feel guilty,” I told Jason that evening over Skype. “They're doing so much for me.” I was sitting on the floor of the front room with my notebook and a biology textbook open in front of me.

“Chloe, when I told my dad Chris was out of jail, he swore. He never swears. Ever. This is my dad really angry: 'Son, I am very disappointed in you. I would like you to take a moment and think very hard about what you've done wrong.'” Jason tapped the table in front of him like a patient kindergarten teacher. “If I'd wrecked his brand new car, that's the lecture I'd get. Not that I... let's not talk about that.”