“So what the hell do you do?” Jesse said.

“I help get you to where you can stop.”

“And you think I’m there?”

“Hell, yes,” Dix said. “You are a tough guy. You can do what you decide you have to do. You’ll either trust Jenn, or accept that you don’t, and see what that brings.”

Jesse nodded.

“So all you’ve done is get me ready,” he said.

Dix smiled at him.

“Readiness is all,” he said.

2 4 1

51

T wo uniformed state troopers, one of them female, brought the Plum sisters into

Jesse’s office. Molly followed them in.

“Captain says we should wait for instructions from you,”

the male trooper said.

“What’s your name?” Jesse said to the female trooper.

“Maura Quinlin.”

“Maura, stick around here. Your partner can go.”

“I’ll be in the cruiser,” the male trooper said.

He left.

“Sit,” Jesse said, “please.”

S E A C H A N G E

The sisters sat. Molly closed the office door and took a chair behind them. Trooper Quinlin sat beside her.

“Thanks for coming in,” Jesse said.

“It was kind of cool,” Corliss said.

“Riding in the police car and everything,” Claudia said.

Jesse nodded.

“And the state police guy is a real skunk,” Corliss said.

“That like being a real fox?” Jesse said.

“Sure,” Claudia said.

“People your age would probably call him a hunk,”

Corliss said.

Jesse nodded, looking at them. Corliss, it seemed to him, was usually the lead speaker. She’d say something and Claudia would follow up. He pointed at Corliss.

“Maura,” he said to the female trooper, “take Corliss into the squad room and sit with her.”

“What?” Corliss said.

“I have some heavy things to discuss,” Jesse said. “With your sister.”

“We always stay together,” Corliss said.

“It won’t be long,” Jesse said. “Maura?”

Trooper Quinlin stood and put a hand under Corliss’s right arm and helped her up.

“We always stay together,” Claudia said.

“Not this time,” Jesse said.

He nodded at Quinlin, who turned Corliss gently and walked her out of the office. Molly got up and closed the 2 4 3

R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

door behind them, and sat back down behind Claudia. Jesse looked at Claudia without speaking. Claudia smiled very brightly.

“We’re twins, you know, we don’t like to be separated,”

she said.

Jesse continued to look silently at Claudia.

“Did your father sexually molest you?” Jesse said.

Claudia stared at him. “What?”

“Did your father sexually molest you,” Jesse said.

Claudia looked around the room as if Corliss might suddenly appear and answer the question. Jesse waited. Claudia stopped looking around and looked at him and opened her mouth and said nothing. Jesse waited. Claudia looked over her shoulder at Molly. Molly smiled at her but didn’t speak.

“That’s terrible,” Claudia said finally.

“It is,” Jesse said. “Did he molest you together or separately?”

Claudia shook her head.

“Did he molest all three of you together?”

“Three?”

“Florence, you and Corliss.”

“Stop asking me that,” Claudia said.

She began to cry. Jesse sat quietly and watched her. Behind Claudia, Molly sat looking at her hands, which were clasped in her lap. After a time Jesse took a box of Kleenex from a desk drawer and put it in front of Claudia, on the edge of his desk, where she could reach it.

2 4 4

S E A C H A N G E

“Let me define what I mean by molest,” Jesse said. “So there won’t be any confusion.”

Claudia took one of the Kleenex and dabbed at her eyes.

“Did he touch you in a sexual way? Did he penetrate you?”

Claudia bent forward double and put her hands over her ears and began to moan. Jesse watched her quietly.

“For God’s sake, Jesse,” Molly said. “Leave the poor child alone.”

“I need answers,” Jesse said.

“Well, there are other ways,” Molly said. “If you don’t stop traumatizing her, I’ll file a report with the selectmen.”

Jesse grunted. He stood without a word and went out of the office. As he closed the door behind him he saw Molly get up and put her arm around Claudia’s shoulder. Jesse smiled to himself. Then he went down into the squad room and closed the door.

Corliss and Maura Quinlin were sitting silently at the table. He sat down across from Corliss.

“Well,” he said, “the truth is out.”

“Excuse me?”

“About your father molesting you,” Jesse said.

“Oh . . . my . . . God,” Corliss said.

2 4 5

52

T he report to the selectmen line was in-spired,” Jesse said to Molly.

“I thought so,” Molly said. “Made me

look like really good cop at the same time it made you look like really bad cop.”

“And cowardly,” Jesse said.

Molly smiled faintly.

“You did scoot,” Molly said, “as soon as you heard it.”

They were quiet. Outside Jesse’s window the early eve -

ning was starting to darken.

“I need a drink,” Molly said.

Jesse nodded. He reached into the file cabinet where he S E A C H A N G E

kept it and brought out the bottle of Bushmill’s. He poured some in a water glass and handed it to Molly.

“What are you going to tell your husband when you come staggering home with booze on your breath.”

“I’ll tell him I had to do some really pukey police work today,” Molly said. “And I’ll try not to stagger.”

Molly drank from the glass and swallowed and put her head back and closed her eyes. She took a long breath. Jesse went to the refrigerator in the squad room and got a Coke and brought it back. Molly was still breathing deeply, with her eyes closed.

“What I hated the most,” Molly said, “was the way they kept calling him Daddy and saying how he loved them.”

“A way to keep it from killing them,” Jesse said. “Thinking it’s just Daddy loving you.”

“How could anyone think that?”

“You think what you have to,” Jesse said.

Molly sipped her whiskey.

“I wonder if Florence still thought her daddy loved her?”

Jesse shrugged.

“And if Daddy loved them so much,” Molly said, “why did they have to bop everybody else they could find?”

“Looking for love?” Jesse said.

“That’s love?”

“The only definition they had,” Jesse said.

Molly sipped some whiskey.

“So,” Molly said, “why wasn’t Daddy enough?”

“Daddy was married,” Jesse said.

2 4 7

R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

“Jesus Christ,” Molly said. “Oedipus?”

Jesse shrugged.

“I’m just talking,” he said. “I don’t know enough about it.”

“The thought of sex with one of my children . . .” Molly shook her head. “I can’t even think about it. It makes me numb even to try.”

Jesse didn’t speak.

“We had to know,” Molly said.

Jesse nodded slowly. Molly drank again. The glass was empty. Jesse poured her a little more.

“But making them face it,” Molly said. “It was . . .” She looked for a word. “Nauseating.”

“We made them admit it,” Jesse said. “They’re a long way from facing it.”

“You know the worst part?” Molly said.

She was staring down into her glass, looking at the cara-mel surface of the whiskey.

“When we brought them back together,” Molly said.

“And the fucking truth was sitting here in the room like some kind of ugly fucking toad and we’re all staring at it, and they’re both crying and saying, ‘Don’t tell Daddy. Don’t tell Daddy.’”

Jesse nodded. Molly drank more of her whiskey.

“Daddy, for God’s sake,” Molly said. “Daddy.”

“Daddy already knows,” Jesse said.

“He doesn’t know we know,” Molly said.