Conviction

EIGHTEEN

ALONE IN THE KITCHEN, TERRI SIPPED HER THIRD GLASS OF RED Bordeaux, contemplating the filigreed label of a half-empty bottle too expensive to be drunk as she was drinking it, to find escape.

Chris was upstairs, asleep, as were Kit and, she could only hope, Elena, for once lost in a dreamless slumber. But for Elena and, Terri knew, herself, escape was momentary and memory never far from the surface. And now, Terri's memories were roiled by Payton's confession, his wrenching evocation of the childhood which had formed Rennell, the man she had vowed to save.

Feeling the glow of wine, Terri slowly closed her eyes, and remembered.

* * *

She was fourteen; Terri could no longer hide beneath the covers or inside the closet. And now her mother's cries have drawn her from her bedroom.

Terri creeps down the stairs. Unsure of what will happen, afraid of what she will see. Knowing only that, this time, she must stop him.

The first thing she sees is her mother's face.

In the dim light of a single lamp, it is beautiful and ravaged, and drained of hope. Her mouth has begun to swell.

Her father, Ramon Peralta, steps into the light.

His hand is raised. Terri's mother, Rosa, backs to the wall. Her eyes glisten with tears. By now Terri knows that the tears will never fall; it is Rosa's pride that she endures this without crying. But she cannot stifle the sounds when he hits her, cries from deep within her soul.

"Whore," Ramon says softly.

Helpless, Rosa shakes her head. Her shoulders graze the wall behind her.

"I saw you look at him," Ramon prods. His accusation is sibilant, precise; Terri can imagine his whiskey breath in her mother's face. Ramon comes closer.

Watching, Terri freezes.

She stands there, trembling, ashamed of her own cowardice. No one sees her; there is still time to turn away.

Her father's hand flashes through the light.

Terri flinches. Hears the crack of his palm on Rosa's cheekbone, the short cry she seems to bite off, the heavy sound of his breathing. In the pit of her stomach, Terri understands; her mother's cries draw him on for more. Rosa's lip is bleeding now.

"No!" Terri cries out.

Tears have sprung to her eyes; she is not sure she has spoken aloud. And then, slowly, her father turns.

Seeing Terri, his face fills with astonishment and rage, but still she cannot look away.

"You like this," she tells her father. "You think it makes you strong. But we hate you—"

"Teresa, don't!"

Her mother steps from the wall. "This is our business—"

"We live here too." Without thinking, Terri steps between her parents. "Don't ever hit her," she tells her father. "Ever again. Or we'll hate you for the rest of your life."

Ramon's face darkens. "You little bitch. You're just like her."

Terri points at her chest. "I'm me. I'm saying this."

His hand flies back to hit her.

"No." Her mother has clutched Terri's shoulders, pulling her away from him. Her father reaches out and jerks Terri by the arm.

Blinding pain shoots through Terri's shoulder. She feels him twist her arm behind her back, push her facedown on the sofa. Terri wills herself to make no sound at all.

"What," her father asks softly, "would you like me to do now?"

Terri cannot be certain whether he asks this of Rosa or of Terri herself. Can sense only that her mother has draped both arms around her father's neck.

"Let her go, Ramon." Rosa's voice is gentle now. "You were right. I shouldn't have looked at him that way."

Terri twists her head to see. But she can only see her mother carefully watching Ramon as she whispers, "I'll make it up to you. Please, let her go."

In her anguish, Terri senses her father turning to Rosa, sees the look on her mother's face. The look of a woman who has met the man she was fated for. Lips parted, eyes resolute, accepting her destiny.

With a sharp jerk, Ramon Peralta releases his daughter's arm.

"Go," Rosa tells her. "Go to bed, Teresa."

Standing, Terri turns to her mother. Her legs are unsteady, but Rosa does not reach for her. She leans against her husband now, one arm around his waist. Two parents confronting their child.

"Go," Rosa repeats softly. "Please."

Terri turns, walking toward the stairs. Knowing that, in some strange way, her father has accepted Rosa as a substitute for Terri. Her arm aches, and her face burns with shame. She does not know for whom.

At the top of the darkened stairway, Terri stops. She cannot, somehow, return to her room.

She stands there. It is as if, from a distance, she is standing guard over Rosa.

From the living room below, a soft cry.

Terri cannot help herself. The second cry, a deeper moan, draws her back toward the living room.

At the foot of the stairs, Terri stops.

Two profiles in the yellow light, her mother and her father.

Her father wears only a shirt. Her mother is bent over the couch, facedown, as Terri was. Her dress is raised around her waist; her panties lie ripped on the floor. As Ramon Peralta drives himself into her from behind, again and again, she cries out for him with each thrust.

Terri cannot look away. Her mother's face, turned to the light, is an unfeeling mask. Only her lips move, to make the cries.

And then Rosa sees her.

Her eyes open wider, looking into her daughter's face with a depth of pain and anguish that Terri has never seen before. She stops making the sounds. Silently pleading with her daughter, her lips form the word "Go."

In Rosa's silence, Ramon Peralta thrusts harder.

"Go," her mother's lips repeat, and then, still looking at Terri, she makes the soft cry of pleasure her husband wants.

Terri turns and slowly climbs the stairs, footsteps soft so that her father will not hear. Her eyes fill with tears . . .

* * *

Tonight, twenty-five years later, Terri opened her eyes and saw the Pagets' gleaming kitchen. She had escaped, and now she owed Rennell Price, whose trauma she understood in a way that Chris and Carlo could not, all that she had to give.

She had escaped her own childhood, and yet she had not escaped. The past had reached out for her, and taken Elena.

* * *

Exhausted from her sleepless night, Terri finished telling Rennell of Payton's confession. "He says the second man was Eddie," she concluded. "And that no one knows but them."

Rennell said nothing. Terri studied his face for evidence of Payton's betrayal—at once fearful of the pain she had inflicted and hoping for some sign of his innocence.

At last he swallowed, a twitch of the throat muscles. "For sure they're gonna kill him now."

"What do you mean, Rennell?"

Rennell blinked, his voice thick with grief. "Payton's trying to take care of me, and now they're gonna kill him for it."

Perhaps the depth of Payton's wrong was too enormous for him to grasp. "He's not dying for you," she answered. "He's dying because he's guilty of Thuy Sen's murder. He doesn't want you to die for what he did."

Rennell's hand covered hers. "Save him," he whispered. "Please."

Briefly, Terri closed her eyes. But are you innocent? she wanted to ask. When she opened her eyes again, tears were running down his face. "I can't," she told him. "There's only you to save now."