Something shifted in Hilary’s expression as she stared at him in the seconds that followed.
“You really didn’t know, did you?” she asked softly.
That name…Henry Nightingale. It was like an ancient childhood specter had sprung to life in his consciousness. Christian might have shaken his head in response to Hilary’s question. He couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t even be sure how he’d ended up sitting on the couch.
“How old?” he asked hoarsely.
“Megan was three.”
He hissed a curse. Hilary lowered herself shakily to a chair. For a few seconds, the only sound in the loft was the distant hum of his refrigerator.
“We rarely talk about it,” she admitted with a twitch of her shoulder. “It’s too hard to…but it’s always there—you know—beneath the surface…like a nagging pain that just won’t fade.”
Christian nodded, even though he had no idea what he was doing. His eyes remained glued to Hilary’s face. She stared in the direction of his piano, seemingly lost in her thoughts. Seconds passed before she started talking in a flat, dreamy voice.
“I was a freshman in high school when we found out, along with the rest of the community and the city--not to mention the country--about the extent of Henry Nightingale’s crimes.
“Our family needed extra money when my dad’s hours at the steel mill got cut temporarily. My mom had to take a job. I was much older than Megan—fourteen--so I could take care of myself. I could baby-sit Megan in the evenings when I came home from school. I usually did anyway. She was as much daughter to me as she was a sister. But with Mom working, we needed someone to watch Megan during the day.” Her voice wavered and died.
Christian understood at that moment why Hilary never spoke of the topic. Her energy—all the fierce fight—seemed to be seeping out of her before his very eyes. After a moment, she inhaled and continued, but he had to strain to hear her rough whisper.
“My mother blamed herself for voluntarily delivering her little girl into the home of a monster. Dad blamed himself for not being the provider he thought he should have been, making his wife leave the house and work when there was a child at home, thus inadvertently putting Megan in harm’s way.” Hilary glanced down at her knees. “It hit my father the hardest of all. He became withdrawn, irritable. He finally drank himself into his grave ten years ago.”
Christian closed his eyes.
Not Megan.
“Megan says she doesn’t even remember it, thank God,” Hilary said quietly. “But the child psychologist that she saw afterwards said that the trauma had likely affected her, but that the memories just weren’t available to her conscious mind. We’ve never known if she didn’t remember because she was so young, or because her mind had blessedly blocked out the pain. Maybe it was both.”
Christian felt like he’d just a received a brutal, disorienting head blow. But the resulting pain wasn’t just in his head, it was in his chest, his belly…his spirit.
He had no frame of reference for how to respond to Hilary. He’d sadly learned the lessons of how to speak of human misery, of loss, and of death. But death was a natural as life, part of the great cycle of existence. What Henry Nightingale had done was an aberration against nature. How did one find the words to grieve that?
Christ, no wonder Megan’s father had slowly and inexorably killed himself.
Two words kept repeating again and again in his mind against his will. Not Megan. Not Megan. Not Megan.
He felt Hilary studying him and figured she must be seeing someone that looked like they’d just been the victim of a hit and run accident.
“Now do you see why I’m here?” she asked shakily. “What if…becoming intimate with someone reactivates memories of the trauma? Who knows how it could affect her?” Hilary asked softly.
“What?” Christian muttered. For a few seconds, he’d felt like Hilary was speaking at the end of a tunnel. Her meaning trickled into his brain as if it were strained through an already soaked sponge.
“How can you know how she’ll respond psychologically if she should become sexually active? She’s always been happy, stable. We’ve been so grateful that the impact on her was minimal.”
Christian took a deep breath and his consciousness seemed to waver, then settle. “Wait…I’m confused. What are you saying? Your entire plan consists of chasing away all of Megan’s potential suitors until she dies a virgin?”
“Haven’t you been listening? I just told you that she’s not a virgin.”
“The fuck she’s not!”
Hilary flinched back in her chair at his abrupt harshness.
“What that sick son of a bitch did to her doesn’t equate to…” Christian drew breath raggedly.
“Of course it doesn’t. But she’s far from being a normal woman who just happens to have never had sex, either. I won’t sit by and watch you seduce her, only to take off on a plane one day, heedless that you’ve just laid a very special young woman’s life to waste.”
He uncoiled from the couch and began pacing. “Can’t you see this is ridiculous? You can’t protect Megan that way for the rest of her life. You can’t make her a sacrifice to your parents’ guilt…to your guilt. Doesn’t she deserve to have a normal life, to fall in love, to have a family?”