Keeping Secrets in Seattle - By Brooke Moss Page 0,81

went along with what you said to do. And I should have spoken up for myself.”

“Why do you say that?”

I gaped at her in disbelief. “We let a rapist walk free.”

She leaned closer to me. “Lower your voice, Violet. Curtis is in his office.”

I rolled my eyes. “You see? There you go again.”

She was silent.

The backs of my eyes stung with tears. “Why did you tell me not to ruin Cameron’s life? Why did it even matter to you what happened to him after you saw what he did to me?”

My mom looked down, her deliberately clueless façade crumbling. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”

“How was throwing me into the shower and telling me to pull myself together the right thing?”

My mother covered her face. “I’m sorry.”

My face heated with anger. “You’re sorry? Mom, it ruined my life!”

“I…I…” Her words stalled like an old car in an intersection.

I used a napkin to wipe my eyes. “Do you understand how awful it was for me to keep a secret like that?”

“Of course I understand.” Her shoulders had shook. Holy crap, I’d made my mother cry. In twenty-five years, I’d treated my mother as if she were made of glass. As a kid, when she acted faint, I ran to get her a cold compress. And when she was upset over the loss of yet another boyfriend, I was always the one to curl up in her bed, stroke her hair, and remind her that there were more fish in the sea.

I reached across the small table to touch her shoulder. “Don’t cry. I…I’m sorry.”

She sniffled softly and used her napkin to dab at her eyes. Only my mother could look that lovely while crying. Her cheeks were slightly flushed while the rest of her was beautifully moistened. I hated that. When I cried, I was splotchy and red. Like I’d been punched in the face a dozen times.

“Don’t apologize,” she said. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right.”

I sat back in my seat, my mouth hanging open.

She wiped her nose with the napkin. “It only took me a few months to realize how wrong my approach was.”

“How so?” I whispered.

“As soon as you refused to go back to school, it occurred to me that seeing that boy every day in the halls at your school would be horrible for you.” She looked off in the distance wistfully. “I never had to face the man who raped me again.”

She’d never shared any details about her own attack with me. Only the simple fact that she’d been assaulted during the preliminaries for the Miss Texas State pageant.

“He was a judge,” she continued. “He was in his thirties, and had a family. Once the pageant was over, I never saw him again, and I’m so thankful for that. I don’t know what I would have done. I never considered how terrified you must have been to see Cameron at school.”

I looked away. “It was sickening.”

She leaned forward, her pearl necklace dangling precariously close to her plate. “When I went home to my mama after it happened, guess what she did to me? She said, ‘Pull yourself together. Don’t ruin that man’s family. Girls that look the way you look have to make allowances in life.’”

I grimaced. “Sounds familiar.”

My mom cut another bite of waffle but left it on her plate and just stared. “I guess I just thought this was the way you handled things like that.”

“Why didn’t you want to turn the judge in?” I asked. “Didn’t you want him to pay for what he’d done?”

Her shoulders slumped. “Yes. I came home from rehearsal by myself that night. My mama was waiting in the hotel room for me, and she was angry because we were late for the banquet dinner. When I went into the room, she could see something was wrong. My cheek was swollen from where he hit me, and my dress was torn.

“She started a shower for me and told me to get in. I did what my mother told me to do. And when I got out, I asked her when we were going to call the police. I remember being sad because it meant that I probably wouldn’t be able to participate in the pageant the next day.”

Only Leandra Cohen would be recovering from being beaten and assaulted and still be concerned about the beauty contest she’d entered.

My mom took a shaky sip of coffee and continued. “She showed me the pageant program, where there was a picture