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Having grown up Catholic, the act of confession was nothing new or abstract for Henry. As a child, Henry's mother brought him to confession every week, despite his father's frequent comments questioning just how many bad things a young boy could possibly have to get off his chest. It took Henry a while to get used to sitting in a small booth and talking to a priest whose face was concealed by a grille and curtain. But after a while, he'd gotten the feel for the whole experience. It became a place that he could relieve some good ole' fashioned Catholic guilt.
Sure, he'd drifted from the practice. For many reasons. But that formative experience held with him still.
And after the past few months, the overwhelming guilt grew into a monster, eating away inside of him. With each new grotesque discovery about his daughter, he felt the creature inside him take more and more.
But as he sat there, on the floor of Emma's old bedroom, he knew how different this confession would be. There would be no "Our Father" or "Hail Mary" penance – something that he could DO to make atonement.
No.
Unlike confessing to a priest, where he would be offered absolution – and restitution would follow, the forgiveness was not a guarantee. There was no assurance that Elizabeth wouldn't kick him out, file papers, or harbor resentment that would change things forever.
For Henry, the chance that his relationship with Elizabeth wouldn't survive what he'd done had kept him from saying anything to her until that point.
But Henry couldn't carry the guilt any longer.
And there, with Elizabeth sitting a few feet away from him, and will leaning against the opposite wall, he began to lay it out.
"She sent me an email, wanting to meet. You know, at the part where we used to…" He shook his head, "I guess that's not important. But, well, I met her there. She looked… different." The words of self-flagellation that had been gnawing at him were now part of the whole story in his head, "I should've known. What former NSA agent misses the signs like I did? I couldn't see past…" He couldn't look up. He was wringing his hands there in front of him. "She looked really bad. And I didn't see it." He took a breath, and quietly said, "I should've seen it."
He still couldn't look up. Couldn't look at his brother-in-law, the doctor who would've immediately identified the problem. And he wouldn't look over at his wife, the mother who would've sensed the issue the minute Emma had walked up.
He kept going.
"After the visit, after she didn't meet me again later that week like we'd set up, I knew something was wrong. I knew I'd been wrong. She wasn't ok." His voice shuddered. "I should've known that."
He imagined what Elizabeth was thinking. What a fucking idiot.
He picked up his pace, needing this to be over with. "And then, when Charlotte called last night, I knew it was wrong because Emma told me that day in the park that Charlotte was helping her with the bills and stuff, despite having a rough time at first, but Charlotte told me that they'd broken up, what was it, like a month before I'd seen Emma that day? And then, the apartment."
The place where his fears had been realized.
"I…" He stuttered, trying to find words to describe a parent's hell, "Alcohol bottles everywhere, the pill bottles, the vomit everywhere, the…"
"What kind of pill bottles?" Will's voice broke through Henry's chaotic revelation.
He didn't need to think about it. "Orange. Prescription. More than I've ever seen before."
He couldn't linger on his wife's gasp. He couldn't look over. He couldn't see her realize his utter failure.
Instead he continued. "I have tried to email her. Charlotte said her other number, the one she got after she left that day…" He rambled, trying to remember everything, "Charlotte said that number was disconnected. I never got a reply from the email. I've probably sent a hundred, just asking her to call. Or just let me know she was ok." Reliving his desperate attempt to contact Emma, he said, "I called Georgetown, talking to the head of the grad school division, asking about her, but he said that she'd never even applied, much less used the money to enroll."
The money. He'd forgotten about the money. The thing.
And now he heard his wife's voice yet again. Accusing. Questioning. Pointed. "What money, Henry?"
The worst part. The… "She told me she wanted to apply to grad school, at Georgetown."
He looked up at Will, whose hand covered his eyes in what might have been fear, or, more likely, revulsion as Will guess what Henry was about to say.
And the words clung to his throat, his trepidation about the consequences of speaking into the universe something he'd only mulled over in his mind still attempting to stay inside. But he had to tell them. It was…
"She told me she'd gotten accepted to grad school. It wasn't like, just hairbrained scheme, at least…" He hesitated, "it didn't sound like a lie at all. She was so believable." He could still see Emma's face as she'd explained her idea for her thesis and research project. "It was so detailed. She wanted to do a paper about…" Now he sounded like he was making excuses. "Well, she told me that, understandably, it was hard to get a job being the President's daughter. And, come on…" He looked up, hoping maybe his words would show that he hadn't been completely insane. But Will just shook his head in defeated amazement. "…well, it felt real. And, I just wanted to help her. I thought grad school would help get her back on her feet – give her something to focus on – she sounded so…"
The condemnation laced every word of Will's pointed question. "How much did you give her, Henry?"
Now it was Henry's turn to close his eyes in disgust. He could still see the way he'd haphazardly written the number on that check. He saw that every day. Every day as he'd sit and agonize over his actions. He exhaled, letting the number follow on the last air he had. "Fifteen."
"Hundred?" Will asked.
Henry shook his head. "Thousand."
Now.
He heard it.
The anger. The frustration. The disbelief. The condemnation.
Elizabeth saying his name, elongated, breathless, like there was no other way to say it. No other way to express how stunned and hurt and hateful she felt. "Henry."
He balled his hands into fists and bitterly set his forehead against them. "I know. I know. I was an absolute…"
"Idiot?" Elizabeth's words would've cut deeper, but Henry had lived with the words for months. "Fool?" Her tone heightened with each slicing word, "Imbecile? Or, I don't know, a FUCKING MORON!"
Finally, Henry felt the stinging lash of his wife's wrath, and in the masochistic nature of voluntary penance, he let the words rip into his guilt-ridden conscience with relief. A relief that he no longer was the only one who knew his secret. A relief that came as someone else wounded him the way he'd wounded himself with the words in his head for months.
And her words hung in the air. He could almost feel the anger emanating off of her body, as if every fiber of her being had filled with hot rage to an overwhelming capacity that she could not contain it within herself. He still hadn't looked at her. In fact, he wondered if he'd ever be able to look her in the eyes ever again.
It was silent. A deafening silence. Words that had been spoken settled into those who finally heard his confession, words that had demanded his own silence for months. And now they burrowed down into everyone around him.
"A father."
The words, spoken softly, startled Henry. He looked up at Will, questioning the choice to break the silence as he searched for the meaning behind his brother-in-law's words.
"You were simply being a father." Will clarified, "… the father of a drug addict."
Henry shook his head, unable to accept such a quick forgiveness.
But Will's voice was insistent. "Emma is a smart girl. Just like other addicts, she was probably deeply convincing. And she'd given you little to no reason to doubt her sincerity before this."
The words sounded too good to be true. Words of hope that he hadn't utterly failed.
"Trained professionals," Will continued, "People trained extensively to recognize signs of addiction were fooled by your daughter's lies."
Confusion settled on Henry's face, and he listened as Will explained, "Over the past three and a half months, Emma wrote fourteen different prescriptions for oxycodone, dropped them off at pharmacies, where receptionists and pharmacists filled Schedule II drugs."
"Oh my god." Elizabeth's horrified voice echoed around the room.
Will nodded his head. "These are professionals, Henry. While it might feel good to beat yourself up about it," Henry saw the understanding in Will's eyes. "It's not doing anyone any favors, especially Emma."
Henry let that settle in. Words that Henry thought he'd never hear. Words that acted as a salve on his conscience. Not in the repairing, but in the act of soothing the shredded massacre that the monster inside had left him to live with.
He heard Elizabeth clear her throat. Then. In a quiet, breathless voice, she asked, "Why didn't you tell me, Henry?"
With a palpable fear, Henry turned his head and looked at Elizabeth. He resisted the urge to immediately look away. The devastation had embedded itself into her every fiber. Her entire face was the color of chalk except for the small traces of smeared mascara around and under her eyes. Her lips were still. Her eyes – her eyes were vacant. Blank. Empty.
"I didn't know how to tell you."
Only her lips moved. "Words?"
"I know. I should've." He said. "But we weren't even speaking, so the words felt … too heavy. Like… it might break us." He willed her with everything left inside his body to understand.
She looked away, up at the ceiling. Henry knew that was the move she made when she didn't want to cry. And she took a deep breath. "What happened to us, Henry? How did we get here?"
Now. It was Will who brought them back to the subject. "Look, as much as I'd love to sit here and listen to my sister and her lover work through their issues…" The sarcasm was evident in his words. "We need to focus on the issue at hand."
As much as Henry wanted to talk with Elizabeth, as much as he wanted to take away the pain in her eyes, as much as he wanted to clear the air – he knew Will was right.
