“Shit.” Leslie glances at her watch and sees that it’s 7:04:32. Siobhan would be awake if not at work yet. Leslie calls her.
“Where the hell are you, Leslie? I tried to call you all day yesterday.” Siobhan is angry and not reticent about showing it.
“Sorry. I had my cell off.” Leslie turns off her cell when she can’t deal with it—which is most of the time. And, it’s now telling her that she’s missed many, many messages—which is annoying the hell out of her. “Listen. I’m in Chicago. I—“
“What the hell are you doing in Chicago?”
“I came to meet Rose—John’s best friend.”
“Who the fuck is Rose? What’s going on, Leslie?”
With a start, Leslie realizes that she hasn’t told Siobhan anything since discovering that John was not John. Taking a deep breath, Leslie makes as concise a summary as she can. Still, it takes a good twenty minutes with Siobhan interrupting frequently to ask questions. When Leslie is finished, Siobhan doesn’t hesitate to express her opinion.
“You get your ass home now. This is not a game, Leslie. Whoever killed John and took Rose isn’t going to stop at killing one more person. I would greatly prefer that person were not you.” Siobhan is struggling to keep her temper, but it’s touch and go.
“Do you think this person is going to stop? He knows I am on his trail. Whether or not I stop, I don’t think he’ll feel safe until he gets me out of the way.”
“That’s why you should quit now. Make it clear you’re leaving everything up to the cops. Please, Leslie. Don’t do anything rash. Come home and call your shrink.” Siobhan is pleading now as she senses that Leslie’s mind is made up.
“I have to do this, Siobhan. For John. I love you, and I’ll talk to you later.” Leslie hangs up the phone and turns it off. She knows that if she talks to Siobhan any longer, they’ll just end up in a long, shouty argument. Then, they will say things they regret before apologizing. Then, Leslie will do what she plans to do, anyway, so why not skip all that? Leslie reminds herself to call Siobhan later just to update her on things, and then she returns to her laptop.
“Damn. Where is she?” Leslie scans the area outside the baggage claim for Rose. Leslie only brought her duffle and her laptop with her, so she has no baggage to claim and has arranged to meet Rose outside. Rose had said she drove a black Suburban, license plate RedRose. Leslie is tired and grumpy, and she has no patience for this nonsense. It’s five in the morning, which is not a good hour for her. She waits five minutes, then ten, then fifteen. By now, she is fuming. She pulls out her cell and punches Rose’s number. The phone rolls over to voice mail, so Leslie leaves a message at the sound of the beep. “Rose. This is Leslie. Where the hell are you?” Leslie clicks of her phone and waits some more. After another fifteen minutes, she’s had enough. She flags a taxi to go to Rose’s house. The driver is an older white man who is laconic to the point of taciturn—which suits Leslie perfectly. She has a running monologue in her mind of all the scathing things she’ll say to Rose when they finally meet. All these thoughts flee her mind, however, when she sees three cop cars with their cherries blinking parked in the driveway.
“Beth, we have some breaking news. Senator Jonah Bronson of Chicago has been accused of molesting three girls, ages 10, 11, and 12 in his youth group, starting from when they were each eight years old. Let’s go to his church for some reactions.”
Leslie presses the letter to her lips as the tears fall down her cheeks. The last bit of mistrust she had for John melted away. It still stings that John had kept so much of his life a secret from her, but she no longer doubted that he did it out of love. She struggles to her feet, Josephine butting her in the shins, and takes the letter into her bedroom so she can place it in her keepsake box. The last letter she’ll ever receive from John. And, it’s in his own hand. She will never throw it away. She opens her keepsake box and reverently places the letter inside, right on top of John’s smiling face. She touches the letter, briefly, before closing the box. Only when she is done does she remember that she has the packet John sent her. She pulls out a sheaf of papers, most of them computer print-outs, sits down on the bed, and begins reading.
“Leslie, meditation is done now.” Sasha’s voice is unusually gentle. Leslie snaps to the present and is astonished to find that her face is wet with tears. Two of the other students, longtime classmates of Leslie’s, make a point of not looking at her. The third, a relative newcomer is staring at her with an open mouth. Leslie flushes in embarrassment as she tries to stem her tears; they continue to fall.
“All right, class. Let’s do some standing meditation.” Sasha gathers the four students into a small circle. Leslie takes her usual place to Sasha’s immediate left and assumes the standing meditation posture, but not without trepidation. Meditation taps into the deep wells of sorrow in her. Many of the memories she has repressed for decades became released as she practiced standing meditation. This had started soon after John had moved in with her, and she realized it was because she was having the first spectacularly joyous and positive sexual experience in her life. In her past, none of her partners had matched her libido or her creativity in bed. What’s worse, most of her partners made her feel like there was something wrong with her because she wanted sex so often and in so many different ways. They were intimidated by her appetite, and they thought she was weird because of it. In addition, the abuse she had suffered twisted her view of what she had to offer in a relationship—mostly being the perfect sex doll. So, she sometimes wondered how much of sex she enjoyed for the act itself and how much she enjoyed because she was trained to enjoy it. John had thrown her paradigm out the window, and meditation was tapping into the pain Leslie held around the subject of sex. Her first recovered memory had been seemingly benign.
“Siobhan! What are you doing here?” Leslie is surprised to see her best friend at Funk ‘N Junk because she isn’t scheduled.
Leslie’s stomach growls, but she does not want to eat anything until after the cops leave, so she ignores her stomach and concentrates on her computer. She reads about how Amy had been rushed to the hospital with a broken leg when she was ten. It was said to be an accident, but the article hints that Senator Robertson may have had something to do with it. Another article methodically lists all the emergency trips the Robertson children had taken to the hospital in their childhood, and it was pretty long. Then again, with five children in the family, it was only natural that accidents would occur. The most interesting part of the article was the statement that Mrs. Robertson had been rushed to the hospital herself once when Jack Jr. was thirteen-months old. She had been rumored to have been pregnant with baby Robertson number six, but no one could verify that tidbit. At any rate, there was no sixth Robertson baby, so people freely speculated as to whether Mrs. Robertson had miscarried, and if so, whether Senator Robertson had caused the miscarriage.
Leslie brushes away the tears as she kisses the ring on her finger. She has worn it since John placed it on her finger, and now she knows she will wear it for the rest of her life. She holds it up to the light and admires how the onyx shimmers and glows. She presses another kiss on it as she caresses the box one last time and sets it on her nightstand table. Then, she turns off the light and leaves the room.