I’d tossed the magazine, and she hadn’t been in touch with Harry lately.
“How could I be so stupid?” she wailed.
She knew.
“And how could you hide the magazine from me? What did you think was going to happen? God, I did this. I did this to my own son. How could he even look at me?” She sniffled. “I put a painting of his sad eyes in front of his room. I’m a monster.”
“You’re not a monster.” I scooped her into my arms on the floor, kissing her forehead, threading my fingers through her hair. “You’re the farthest thing from a monster. You heal monsters. You set their hearts on fire and make the bad shit perish. Vaughn loves you very much. I do, too. This is why we couldn’t tell you. And I only recently learned myself.”
“Is he okay?” Her question came out muffled.
I felt my dress shirt soaked with her tears. I hated to see her like this. I’d kill a few more Harry Fairhursts with my bare hands if it meant making her happier.
“He is fine,” I said with conviction I didn’t feel, because where the fuck was he, anyway? “Absolutely fine. He is thriving. He is healthy. He is in love.”
The wreckage storming through her body subdued a little. I was on the right track.
“And Harry?” She unglued her head from my shoulder, looking up and blinking at me.
It never ceased to amaze me, the effect her eyes had on my heart rate. She was a wingless angel—divine and saintly, but not in a prude way that made you want to fuck her dirty just to prove she was less than perfect.
I dragged my thumb across her lips. “Dealt with,” I said.
She closed her eyes and took a ragged breath.
“Did Vaughn…”
“No. I did.” I refused to let her finish the sentence, knowing how much it pained her to even think it. “Vaughn went back to his girlfriend, Lenny. He is fine.” A lie. Who the fuck knew where my son was right now? “We didn’t tell you because we knew you’d take the blame.”
“I am to blame.” She shook her head.
I shut her up with a bruising kiss. “No. Harry Fairhurst is responsible. The responsibility for child abuse is on the abuser. Vaughn was surrounded by top-of-the-line nannies on the rare occasions he was out of our sight. We sent him to the best establishments. You gave him everything you could. Despite what happened to him, he grew up to be a boy who adores his mother so much, he couldn’t even tell you to remove that stupid painting from the wall opposite to his door. This is the mark you left on him, Em. Not the ten minutes he was out of your sight. Not the time he moved to Carlisle Castle for the summer after begging us to go there. You couldn’t have known.”
As I spoke the words, I realized I couldn’t have prevented this from happening, either.
I couldn’t shoulder the responsibility, because I’d tried to protect my son with the ferocity of a thousand blazing suns. I knew that, because I, myself, had been abused.
In a very different way, but nonetheless.
“The best thing we can do for him is pretend it never happened, that you still don’t know. Allow him his dignity, Em. It’s the most important thing a young man can have. Now, let’s go home and leave the two lovebirds to clean up their own mess. We’re due back to see his exhibition, anyway.”
I picked her up and took her home.
My trophy.
My girl.
My heart.
My everything.
LENORA
The entire courtyard was full of them.
Posters of my uncle, Harry Fairhurst, smiling, with the caption: “Rip me if I hurt you.”
The idea was to let people speak up without expecting them to come forward and admit to something still considered shameful and weak in our society. To me, admitting you’d been sexually abused was brave, but I understood it wasn’t my place to judge how people handled their personal tragedies.
I’d printed out one hundred fifty copies of the posters and hung them all over Carlisle Prep. By the next morning, many of the posters had been ripped apart. Some stomped on. Some now included a Hitler moustache, horns, or acne on his face.