Behind His Eyes - Convicted: The Missing Years (27 page)

Arriving at the federal courthouse, John made his way to the grand jury chambers. John was glad that Catherine wasn’t present during this phase. He hadn’t spoken to her since the day in the hospital when she’d so brazenly lied to him and Jane. He shook his head at the mangled web of deceit. Could it be that she’d lied to Anthony, too?

Each day at Rawlings Industries tore a little of John’s hatred away and built his respect for the businessman in Anthony Rawlings. In the months of his recent employment, with Tim’s permission, John had scoured years and decades of records of acquisitions, employment, and dissolution of contracts. It was just as Tim had promised. The lies and sins of Anthony’s personal life had not transcended into his company.

John waited outside the grand jury chambers and thought about the lengthiness of the judicial procedure. This was only the grand jury phase. If the sixteen to twenty-three people inside the room decided there was enough evidence for a trial, then Catherine would finally be indicted. It had already been eight months since John and Emily had been locked in that suite. Although they’d only been held for a few hours, as he read about Claire’s days of seclusion, he could relate better than most.

He’d been subpoenaed to testify at 9:00 AM. Though the subpoena hadn’t specified what questions he would be asked, he suspected it was about the day at the estate. As he thought back to that day and remembered the realization of the locked door, he recalled the terror as the room began to fill with smoke. He’d tried to break the windows. Not even the glass doors to the balcony would open. John was more afraid for Emily and their baby. Then, the door opened. It was Anthony. Before he could process any more memories, the chamber door opened and the woman said, “Mr. Vandersol, please come back.”

Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be.

—Jack Welch

“My Life as It Didn’t Appear, Chapter 14…

I couldn’t believe I was engaged and marrying Anthony Rawlings. When I woke the morning after his proposal, our engagement filled my every thought. At the time, I didn’t realize that my single-mindedness was exactly what he wanted. In merely eight months, I’d lost myself, learned my role, and played it without question. Rarely did I have independent notions. It wasn’t that I didn’t think and process, but every concept was skewed. Every moment of deliberation centered not on my own desire or aspiration but his. Each movement and action had one purpose—to please him and keep the darkness at bay.

The night before, as we discussed the wedding, my thoughts filled with illusions of fairytales. I believed that I’d lived through the worse, and I held tight to his promises for better. It wasn’t his money I desired: it was his name. I longed for validation in my new position. I craved to hold my head high without trepidation. From the very beginning, Tony required that physical poise. Yet, with my chin held high and my eyes glued to his, I felt like an imposter. He’d forced me into duties that I’d been raised to know were wrong. When we’d go into public, or even with his friends, I constantly feared that everyone knew the truth.

Then, in a magical, unexpected moment, everything changed. On that frost-filled night, with lights twinkling in the trees, we sat in a horse-drawn carriage, and his beautifully worded proposal took away my shame. He offered me the option of saying no. I could have done that and walked away—but to where? Anthony Rawlings was my job, my life, and my world. If I walked away, what would I be? What would that make me? Would I forever have been nothing more than his whore? He’d taken away my past, and I despised my present. That left only my future. It was like the journey necklace he’d given me. The diamond representing the future was the biggest and brightest for a reason—it held hope for better. That night in Central Park, Anthony Rawlings offered me a future without disgrace. The sparkling engagement ring that he presented was more than a symbol, much more. It was my dignity. I wanted it back. Truly, there was very little deliberation: I would be his wife.

No longer would I feel as though I didn’t belong. No longer would I feel like the world could see behind the veil of perfection. I would be Mrs. Anthony Rawlings. As husband and wife, our personal business would remain personal. Yet, no matter what it entailed, I could endure it with pride, knowing that now it was socially and morally acceptable.

I’d learned too well the importance of confidentiality. What happened in the past, present, or future, behind the iron gates of our estate, or the closed doors of one of our apartments, wouldn’t be shared, yet, as his wife, somehow I could accept it with my head truly held high.

My past and my future worked together to create a new paradigm. I knew I had my new sense of self-worth, but I remember wondering what my new title would mean to him. Did he too understand the significance of being his fiancée?

That morning, after I woke and ate, I went to look for him. From behind the closed door of his home office, I heard his voice. I was now his fiancée, not his mistress, possession, or whatever I had been. I also knew my rules. As his acquisition, I was not allowed to enter without permission or advance summons. Now that I’d willingly accepted my new role, what did it mean? Could I now pass into his sacred domain without fear of punishment? Standing for minutes debating my entrance, an all too familiar fear swept over me. I wanted to believe that I could enter and show him the love and happiness that I was feeling, but at the same time, I was terrified that in doing so, my illusions would be shattered irreparably. Without knocking, I returned to our suite.”

Tony leaned back and closed the book. Though his eyes were open and staring toward Jim, he was seeing the past. He saw his fiancée of four years ago. He remembered finding her in their suite. His thoughts had been filled with wedding plans and his conversation with Catherine. He had no idea that Claire had been standing outside of his office door or that she was fighting an internal battle.

“Why did you stop reading?” Jim asked, bringing him back to present. Truly, Tony wasn’t sure which place was worse—his memories or his therapy sessions in prison.

“I can’t read any more right now.”

“Why
can’t
you?”

Tony inhaled deeply as he fought the urge to rebuke Jim’s question. This was his counselor’s way of making Tony weigh each word. Was it that he was incapable of continuing to read? Tony corrected, “I don’t
want
to read anymore right now.”

Jim nodded. “Very good. Why don’t you
want
to read any more? You’d said you wanted to read happier parts of this book. It sounds like she was happy about the wedding. Was she happy?”

Tony could control the red outside of therapy. Hell—he could control the red
in
therapy when they talked about anything, except Claire. But when the topic was his wife, the crimson seeped through his shields and filled his thoughts without warning. “Does it fuck’n sound like she was happy to you?” he asked. “Maybe you’re hearing something I’m not.”

“Then tell me what you’re hearing.”

The chair screeched across the linoleum floor as Tony stood to pace toward the window. The view of the prison’s campus was much better from Jim’s office window than from any of the windows in his dormitory. In the summer, it’d been beautiful, but now with the grayness of winter, it reminded Tony that the green was gone. He tried to remind himself it may be dormant, but it wasn’t forgotten. He worked to articulate his thoughts. “She said she wanted to come in my office and show me the
love and happiness
that she was feeling.” He turned toward Jim. “That sounded happy—right?”

“What do you think?”

“I think what I’ve thought before. I fuck’n hate having questions answered with questions.”

“Okay, tell me why you aren’t convinced she sounded happy.”

The soft soles of his shoes muffled his footsteps as he traveled from one side of the office to the other. “I’d just proposed. I was in the office making arrangements, and she was scared to walk in.” His dark eyes shot darts toward his therapist. “Didn’t you hear that? She was fuck’n petrified to knock on the damn door.”

“Would she have needed to knock?”

Tony’s eyes opened wide at the question. Well, yes, she would… but later, after their divorce, she wouldn’t have. Fuck! He’d never thought of it like that before.

“Anthony, would she have been
required
to knock?”

“Yes.”

“What would have happened if she knocked without being asked to your office, say… upon her arrival to your estate?”

Tony dropped back into the chair, his gaze once again transfixed beyond his counselor’s eyes as his jaws clenched pulsating the muscles in his neck. Finally, he replied, “We’ve been through that shit. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to fuck’n read anymore of the damn book. Let’s talk about something else.”

“No. I want to talk about this.”

Tony’s hands clenched in an attempt to rein in the red. Glaring with what Tony was sure was what Claire referred to as his
dark gaze
, he stared at Jim.

“How often do you hear that word?”

“I hear it too often.”

“Now you do. What about before? What about during the time of this book? Did anyone tell you no?”

“No,” Tony replied.

“How did you feel back then?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t have someone who stared at me three times a week asking me about my damn feelings. I just did. I just was. I didn’t think about it.”

“Did you think about what Claire was feeling?”

“I told you I want to talk about something else. I wrote the letter that you said I should.”

Jim’s words slowed dramatically. “Anthony, did you think about Claire’s feelings?”

“Sometimes.”

Jim’s brows rose questioningly.

“Like during the proposal. I wondered what she was thinking and feeling.”

“So now you have an idea. What do you think?”

“I don’t want to think about it. All right?” Tony replied. “I don’t want to think about how she felt like a
whore.
I hate even saying that word. She wasn’t!”

“Is that you talking now, or how you felt back then?”

“I
never
thought of her as a whore.”

“How did you think of her?”

The moisture burnt Tony’s eyes. He stood and walked back to the window. Snow had begun to fall. It was almost the fourth anniversary of his first wedding, almost Nichol’s first birthday, and almost Christmas, and he was stuck in a freak’n hellhole.

“Anthony?” Jim didn’t repeat the question.

“I thought of her as an
acquisition
. She’s used that word in the book because I told her that—later.”

“What did you tell her in the beginning?”

The red threatened again. Tony had said this before. What was the damn point of repeating it?

Jim cleared his throat, as he stood and began walking around the desk. “I believe you told me that you didn’t like to repeat yourself.” Stepping next to Tony, looking out the window, he added, “Neither do I.”

“I told her that I owned her. She belonged to me. I made her repeat it.” Tony turned on his heels. “That didn’t mean she was a whore!”

“If you would’ve known the way she felt, what would you have done?”

He closed his eyes. “Today, I’d take her in my arms and convince her that she was wrong, that she deserved all the love and respect, and to keep her chin held high because she had nothing to ever be ashamed of. She was never a whore. She’s always been my queen. In our fuck’n wasted game of chess, the king can survive without the queen, but he doesn’t want to—he needs her.”

“That’s today. What would you have done and said on that morning after you proposed?”

Tony sighed. “How the fuck should I know? I don’t remember.”

“Anthony, we have few rules in this office. You’re allowed more liberties with your speech, demeanor, and even your movement than anywhere else. That’s because I want you to be comfortable enough to talk. But do not lie. If I ask you a question, I want the truth.”

“Even though I demanded that same thing of her back then, I don’t think she would have told me.”

“But if she had?”

Tony shook his head. “I’m not lying. I don’t know what I would have done. I probably would have told her she was wrong and chastised her for not behaving like a future Rawlings. A Rawlings would never be self-deprecating.”

Jim glanced at his watch. “One more thing before our time’s up: Claire said something else in that passage that I’d like you to think about between now and our next session.”

Tony didn’t want to think about any of it. “What?” he asked.

Jim smirked. “Is it just me, or is it Yankton that has taken away your predilection for using complete sentences?”

“What do you want me to think about?” he corrected.

“How long have you been here?”

“Twenty-six weeks and four days,” Tony answered matter-of-factly.

“So, about six and a half months. What did Claire say, in what you just read, that had happened to her in only eight months?”

Tony contemplated. “Something about not having her own thoughts and conforming to what I wanted.”