This is a short chapter, but it seemed like the right place to end it before we move onto something new, finally!

For anyone what is wondering, I was not able to drop the "bomb" about knowing that E took out her birth control implant at the counseling session. I still think it would be better to discuss this in front of a neutral third party, so I called her regular counselor to find out when her next appointment was scheduled for, explained the situation to her and we planned on having that conversation at her next appointment on May10.

19.

Rick added, "Caroline couldn't be pregnant now, could she?"

I felt a momentary panic before remembering that it had been back in the fall, that Caroline had gotten me drunk, and now it was April. Caroline's clothes were so form fitting, that without a drastic fashion change there was no way she could hide a bun in the oven for long.

"No," Jane and Chuck said together.

Chuck explained, "She's always complaining about her cramps and bloating every month. TMI, honestly."

Jane added, "Just last month she borrowed a feminine product from me, after she left her purse in Louisa's car. It's been way too long also."

"Good, good," Rick opined and relaxed back into his chair.

Chuck cleared his throat, looked at me with his guileless blue eyes and then commented "What I don't get, is how you could and did 'perform' if you were as drunk as you say you were. I thought that drunk guys can't get a woody at all."

I shrugged. It was something I had thought about, too, and didn't have a good answer for. "I don't know. But what I do know is that the physical act of getting hard did not mean I was able to consent to sex. I've talked this over with my counselor and with intoxication, the higher brain functions fall away, leaving the more animal instincts. Also, as I have explained, your sister did all the performing while I just lay there."

Rick spoke up then, "If Caroline purposefully got my cousin drunk, so as to have her way with him in the hopes of getting pregnant, wouldn't his ability to perform be an potential issue for her, too? If she planned it all out, wouldn't she have wanted to make sure he could 'do the deed'? What if she did something to ensure that he was 'capable.'"

"Like what?" Jane asked, leaning forward and giving Rick her undivided attention. I was curious, too.

"I don't know. Maybe one of those products for male dysfunction, like those commercials they are always showing about 'when the moment is right.' She could have ground it up and put it in one of his drinks, or maybe a little bit in each one of them."

Rick then addressed me, "Did any of the drinks taste funny?"

I shrugged. "I'm usually a beer guy. I only have a vague idea of what different kinds of alcohol should taste like. No idea."

We were all quiet for a moment considering. Then I heard a sharp inhale from Chuck and glanced over at him. I don't know how it was possible, but in the space of a few moments, the color had drained from his already typically pale face. His skin looked waxy and his jaw had dropped open. I watched as he opened and closed his mouth a few times, without any words coming out.

"What is it?" Jane asked with concern, touching his near shoulder and rubbing it in a comforting, almost maternal, manner.

Chuck shook his head in a silent "no" and then rocked forward and down, hand on his forehead, fingers grasping, tugging at his blond hair. "It can't be," he mumbled. We all kept waiting for some further clarification about what had shaken him so severely.

Finally, Chuck straightened himself up, letting go of his hair, and addressed me directly. "You know that my brother-in-law Don Hurst drinks a lot, right?"

I nodded.

"Well, over the summer we had an intervention for him, not a go right away to treatment one, but a go see your doctor and figure out your options, maybe get testing on how this is affecting your liver, start taking Anabuse. Louisa of course had a lot of reasons why he needed to lay off the sauce, including that he was often unable to perform and they were trying to start a family.

"But instead of coming back with an Anabuse prescription or a referral to a treatment center, he came back with a prescription for Viagra. Louisa wasn't exactly thrilled with his solution, but she did say it kept them from missing her fertile days. Again, TMI."

I had a guess where this was all going, I think we all did, but we let Chuck tell the story the way he wanted to. Finally, he got around to the main point. "I'd need to check with Louisa to make sure this happened when I think it did, but I think she was complaining the day after all we all went to the bar that Don couldn't find his Viagra. It turned up a day or two later under the guest bath sink, a place she was sure she had already checked, but she said it looked like a few of the pills were missing."

Chuck shook his head and then added, "I remember Caroline saying that it was probably the help, that maybe the housekeeper, Mrs. Nicholls, had swiped some for her husband. Caro was all for firing her, abusing her on not a shred of evidence, but Louisa talked her down. I didn't think a thing more about it after that. After all, what did it have to do with me? I would have never thought . . ." Chuck trailed off.

"See that proves it," Rick said with triumph. "She ground it up and dosed him. She made sure that she had done as much as she could to get things to go her way."

"None of this is definitively," I responded to Rick, "just circumstantial." Then I turned towards my one time friend and asked "What I want to know, Chuck, is given all of this, do you finally believe me?"

I was hoping for a quick "Yes," but that wasn't what I got. He considered and then said, "I think so, but I know how I can be certain for sure."

"How's that?" Jane asked.

Rick added with a forced chuckle, "Are you doubting Thomas now? Do you need to put your fingers in the risen Lord's side and hand wounds to believe?" Then he mimed examining my side and hands.

The way he did it all was so ridiculous and exaggerated that Jane snorted.

I rejoined, "Not that I mind the comparison, except that I am far from worthy of it, but I'm not even sure what the equivalent thing would be in my situation."

"Maybe I just need to hear it from the other horse's mouth," Chuck answered.

"Caroline? How're you gonna to do that?" Rick asked skeptically.

"She's never going to admit it. Remember, she's the 'victim' here." Jane added, making air quotes when she said victim and rolling her eyes. "I doubt even Louisa knows. Caroline's smart and isn't going to make an obvious slip up."

"But maybe she already has," Chuck commented. We were all mystified, but Chuck explained further. "Caroline keeps a diary, has the idea that it will make good material for an autobiography someday when she's famous and important, has the previous books locked up in a safe, but I am pretty sure I know where she hides the current one."

We were all quiet for a bit, absorbing that bit of information.

"Stellar," Rick commented. "If Chuck can find that, maybe you could take it to the police and get some justice."

"No, absolutely not," Chuck rejoined. "No matter what she's done, she's my sister. My parents would be rolling over in their graves if I was the one who sent my baby sister to prison. It's my job to protect her."

"Protect your lying, conniving, rapist sister, over Bill?" Rick was on his feet again in an instant, his open, smiling face replaced by that of an avenging warrior, the soldier Rick that I rarely saw.

Rick grabbed Chuck by the neck of his blue t-shirt, his other hand clenched in a fist. Chuck raised his own hands in response, his right hand in its brace to the side as if he might slap Rick with it, get him with the encased metal hardware, and his left hand was raised into a defensive posture. For the second time that day I feared the two of them would come to physical blows and was just getting to my feet when . . .

"Stop!" Jane shouted.

They both did.

"I think we'd better go," Jane announced.

Rick let go of Chuck's shirt, which now had a deformed neck. "Sorry," Rick said, but then looked past Chuck to Jane, "sorry, Miss."

"Your loyalty is commendable, but violence never solved anything," Jane rejoined gently.

Rick shook his head, "Tell that to our soldiers that were in Iraq, tell that to the Ukrainians. Sometimes violence is all you have."

Jane shrugged. She and Chuck both walked toward the door. I trailed after them, still acting as host. At the door, which I opened and held, Chuck turned and said, "Bill, I do want you to know, I am sorry about your jaw. I shouldn't have hit you and I am sorry I hurt you. I'll pay any medical bills you have."

"I appreciate that," I told him and I did. But I still felt very muddled inside. He could help me, but it seemed like then that he wasn't going to, that he would rather protect his sister from the consequences of her actions than see that any justice be done.

"Friends?" Chuck asked.

"I don't know," I answered, and I didn't. That day I had seen all of his flaws, and I wasn't sure if things could ever go back to the way they were. I knew he had made progress in adjusting his thinking that day, but it hadn't been enough.

"Okay," Chuck said. "Goodbye." He walked out the door, leaving Jane.

"Thank you for having us," Jane said politely, lingering for another moment. She gave me a sympathetic look and extended her hand as if she might want to touch my shoulder, but then withdrew it before she could.

It was on the tip of my tongue to thank them for coming (Chuck was just outside the door, still visible), but I altered it to "Thanks for getting him here, Jane. I do appreciate you trying so hard."

I altered my hold on the door to prop it open with my shoulder and extended my hand to her. Jane shook it and her hand was soft and smooth, only lightly grasped my own. We both said goodbye, she exited and I closed the door.

I rejoined Rick in the same seats we were in before and asked him, "What the heck just happened?"

Rick shrugged. "Chuck could see it, I think in his heart he believes it, but definitive proof against Caroline, even if he could get it, he doesn't want it. Then he might actually have to do something, rather than stick his head in the sand like an ostrich."

"They don't really do that, you know. Ostriches."

"Maybe they don't," Rick acknowledged, "but it fits for what he is doing. I know you'd like to fix that friendship, but I don't see how you can under the circumstances."

"I don't either," I told him, and I didn't.

"I feel sorry for Jane," Rick added, "engaged to that feckless man."

"Feckless, surprised you even know that word."

"I read, maybe not as much as you, but I do," Rick defended.

"You just wish you had met her first."

"Maybe . . . definitely, but when you see someone that you can admire, not just because she is pretty, but because of who she is, you'd like to think you don't have a chance with her because she's with someone amazing, not someone who isn't worthy of her, that she'll spend all her time trying to make better than he is. I had always liked Chuck, but now I've lost all respect for the guy. Look at all the effort she put in today to just get him here, and for what?"

"Chuck made some progress in his thinking," I defended.

"Perhaps, but there is right and there is wrong. He's on the side of wrong here, for sure. And he isn't taking any ownership for his actions. He should have been seeing how you were at the bar; he should have been the one to take you home, should have cared more for you than talking with a woman he'd never met before. You should have been his priority; after all, you've always had his back, consoled him over and over when he was heartbroken, have been his designated driver many, many times. I also blame him for not realizing anything was the matter with you afterward."

"I hid it. I was ashamed. And it was his sister."

"I get it, I do, but still, couldn't he see that something was off? I just don't think he is a very good friend. Sure he is friendly, personable, charming, but what's the substance beneath it all?"

I shrugged. I had always thought there was more to Chuck then that, but I wasn't seeing it now.

Rick added, "I hope you don't feel ashamed anymore."

I took a moment to examine my feelings. "I think I'd still be ashamed for most people to know, but the good thing to come out of today is that now I am feeling more confident that I really was the victim in all of this, the fly in the spider's web. Caroline arranged everything to suit herself and while it may have been luck that she caught me in a vulnerable state . . . "

"Say, had you told Caro anything about G.G.?"

I thought back. "Nothing about G.G. specifically, but earlier in the day when she asked about my bad mood, I did tell her that my one time childhood friend had acted horribly, but that I didn't want to talk about it. At the bar, she brought the drinks and suggested that we drink our troubles away."

"So she knew you were down, not acting yourself at least, before you all went to the bar?"

"Yes."

Rick shook his head, then wrinkling up his forehead like he had a bad tension headache, and sighed. "And like the psychopath she probably is, Caroline used the knowledge of your pain against you, acted horribly herself, to get what she wanted. She probably even got off on it all."

I recalled Caroline's enthusiasm during the act, despite the fact that I had done precious little to try to make her feel good (and only at her instigation), had been largely diffident. "Yes, I think she did."

"It isn't your fault, cuz, and it never was. Seriously."

"Yes, I know. I was the victim, but I'm not going to be her victim anymore."