“Yet, in spite of seeing things a kid her age should never see, Shelley was a great kid, smart, ambitious, reliable. She worked her ass off, doing whatever job she was given.”
“Kind of like Sophie.”
Matt hadn’t made that connection. “Maybe,” he allowed, considering the idea. “In some ways.” And in other ways not at all. But that was yet to come.
“I could relate to her,” he continued. “And I was a living example that you could come from a home like that and still make something of yourself. If you had what it took and were willing to put every bit of your soul into trying.
&
nbsp; “Shelley had what it takes, and I was determined to make her succeed. I spent a lot of time with her, demanding that she give her best, encouraging her to use her talents, stretch them, convincing her she could make something grand out of less-than-stellar beginnings.”
Matt swallowed. Wished he had a shot of whiskey. Or at the very least a cold beer.
“That was, after all, the reason you were there. Teaching.”
Yeah, he supposed it was. So why hadn’t anyone else ever seen that? Of course, by the time anyone else was involved, things had already gotten too far out of hand.
Staring at the back door, Matt went on, his tone as emotionless as the rest of him. The past…well, it was what it was. There was nothing he could do about it.
“I made a point of telling her often how much value I saw in her. As is the case with most kids in her situation, she was pretty low on self-esteem. She really believed that because of what she’d seen and done, there was no innocence left in her, no goodness, and that no decent man was ever going to want to marry her. And my comeback—because I couldn’t let statements like that go—would always be to tell her that when she was older, any man would be lucky to have her as his wife.”
A quick glance in Phyllis’s direction showed him how completely still she was. Just as she’d seen his reasons for taking that damn teaching job in the first place, she’d probably jumped ahead in this story, too.
His gaze back on the door, he continued, “While I was busy trying to build her self-esteem, she was misinterpreting my interest. One Saturday we were at school working on a particularly complicated set design when she suddenly didn’t feel well. She was sweating, white as a sheet and her vision was blurred. One side of her head hurt intensely. I recognized the signs of a migraine—something she’d suffered from before—and offered her an analgesic and the use of my office couch until she felt better.”
“You never give a student medicine.”
“I know.”
“I’d have done the same thing.”
His eyes met hers, locked on.
“She slept for a long time and when I finally tried to rouse her, it wasn’t easy. She was groggy for a while, but eventually got up and went home.”
Matt paused, having difficulty proceeding any further. Phyllis didn’t help him out as she had before.
“A month later she was pregnant,” he said, avoiding Phyllis’s side of the room completely. He didn’t want to see if the expression in her eyes had changed. “She named me as the father.”
“But you never touched the girl!”
He glanced quickly over at her and away. She was still with him. His breathing came a little easier.
“She believes we slept together that day in my office.”
“But surely you could prove…”
Matt shook his head. “What could I prove? The things I was saying to her could’ve been misinterpreted to mean that there was more between us than I intended.”
“You were an adult. She was a child.”
Matt sent her a stare that brooked no argument. “Which is why, when the jury heard her testimony of the things I’d been saying to her, they sent me to prison.”
“It didn’t matter that you told them you’d never thought of her in those terms?”
Matt took a deep breath, his brows creased as he brooded over the honest answer to that question. Holding her gaze, he said, “I never for one second crossed the line to inappropriate feelings for a fourteen-year-old child. But in all honesty, I was maybe falling a bit in love with the woman I knew she could become someday.”
The kitchen was completely silent.