Page 19 of The Banned Books Club
“She’s back. Ever since her mother got sick, I knew it was only a matter of time.”
“If it’s any solace, I don’t think she’ll be here for long.”
“I can’t imagine she’ll leave before her mother dies. That isn’t what you mean, is it?”
“No, but it doesn’t look like her mother has much time.”
“Don’t kid yourself. Ida could hang on for months.”
Cormac winced at the callous way they were talking. As much as he held against Gia, they were speaking about a woman’s life—a woman who’d had no part in what had happened, a wife and a mother. “I wish her the best,” he clarified.
“So do I. It’s just unfortunate that her poor health impactsmylife, too.”
“I’d say she got the worst of it.”
“We’re talking about Gia, not her mother,” his father reminded him.
Cormac began to pace in his own waiting room, and Duke, who’d been standing by the door, sat down as if he’d seen this kind of agitation before and knew it wouldn’t result in getting him what he wanted. “I’ve been thinking about it all day, and I’ve decided there’s nothing we can do about her being here except...grin and bear it. Say nothing. Do nothing. Act like we don’t even know she exists.”
“What about getting a retraction? What happened back then wasn’t as she portrayed it.Shewas the one who was trying to get something out ofme—a grade she didn’t deserve.”
Cormac had already heard how upset she’d been that she hadn’t done well on her big research paper, how she’d been pressing his father to change her grade and how important that grade had been to her, since she hadn’t been doing as well as usual in her other classes and so everything had come down to her English grade. She’d been anticipating a college scholarship for volleyball, so she’d had that going for her, but even student athletes had to maintain a certain GPA. From what his father said, if she didn’t get an A in English, her college career would’ve hung in the balance. That would certainly motivate a student to press harder than usual. But it enraged him to think any young woman would use her sexuality to improve her report card. And then to annihilate the teacher who refused to cooperate with something like that?
“I know,” he told his father. “It’s terrible, but I don’t think we can get a retraction. If she was sorry for what she did, she would’ve spoken up by now.”
“No doubt she’s too embarrassed.”
“Or she’s convinced herself it’s true. That happens to people, you know. Especially after the passage of so much time—so many years spent convincing themselves they didn’t do anything wrong. Regardless, we need to leave the past alone and move forward.”
“So...you’re not going to confront her?” his father asked.
“Why would I do that?”
“Louisa said you were thinking about it, thought it might help.”
“I was just saying I’dliketo confront her. And it would be better for me to approach her than for you to do it.”
“You’re right about that. I’m afraid to so much as bump into her for fear of how she’d construe the encounter. Once you’ve been falsely accused, you get paranoid.”
Cormac couldn’t even imagine how terrible that would be. “Like I said, it’s in the past. We need to leave it there.”
“I think you’re right. The more we stir things up, the worse it could get. What she did has taken enough of a toll. I don’t want to be forced to defend my integrity a second time.”
Cormac opened his mouth to continue to commiserate, but then closed it. He was having an odd reaction to his father’s words. They made him so defensive that he was once again dying to approach Gia, if only to let her know what a terrible person she was. And yet he was also surprised that, after years of saying how he’d confront her if he ever got the chance, Evan was backing off so easily.
But maybe that didn’t mean anything. These days, Evan talked a big talk but rarely followed through with anything. He was too beaten down. And Cormac blamed Gia for that, too. “Just go on with your life and try to ignore that she’s here.”
“It won’t be easy when everyone I meet is talking about her.”
“The talk will die down soon enough.”
“I hope so,” his father said.
Finally settled enough to leave, Cormac dug into his pocket for his keys. “So you’re going to leave her alone?”
“I will if you will.”
“Yeah, I’ve decided not to approach her.” Her mother was so sick that he’d be a callous asshole not to take that into consideration. He didn’t want to do anything that would hurt the innocent people around Gia—people who were already going through hell.
