It's Never too Late

“Do I look okay?”

“Yeah. But that doesn’t mean anything other than you’re a great actress.”

Flinging out her arm she asked, “You want to take my blood pressure? Just to make sure I’m not lying?”

She was fine. Or she wouldn’t have offered. He pulled his keys out of the pocket of his jeans. “You win, crotchety old lady, I’m out of here,” he said, kissing her on the head as he passed.

And prayed all the way to work that he wouldn’t be subjected to a repeat of the last time he’d been there. A guy could only take so many of those calls.

* * *

> MATT SHEFFIELD HAD been in prison. Found guilty of statutory rape by a jury in Flagstaff, Arizona, and sentenced to ten years.

As she scrubbed the shower stall in her bathroom, Addy wrapped her mind around what she knew and tried to work off the tension that the knowing had caused. Water wasn’t just for listening to. It was for cooking, providing nourishment. It was for drinking, quenching thirst. And it was for cleaning. Taking away the grime of the world.

The kitchen was already sparkling. Faucet, a shiny silver without a single smudge. Beige sink looking like new. Formica counters smooth and spotless. Floor grout off-white, as it should be.

And Nonnie was fine, too; she’d checked on her every hour on the hour.

Spray from the shower splashed against the walls she’d scrubbed, filling the floor until it could slide down the drain. It splashed her hair and arms. The front of her T-shirt, the thighs of her jeans. She didn’t feel cleaner.

Mark’s front door closed. She felt the vibration and heard the muffled slam over the sound of the shower.

She’d heard him come in minutes before, so he must be leaving again. He’d be on his way to work.

Would he be joining her outside that evening? Was he wondering if she’d be there?

Hoping that she’d offer him more than tea?

Down on her hands and knees, she scrubbed at the tile. Rinsed and moved toward the garden tub a couple of feet away. She’d never had a garden tub before.

She liked it. And had already begun thinking about the remodel she’d do on her bathroom when she got home. It would be her present to herself for having made it through her time in Shelter Valley. With what Will was paying her, she could afford a new bathtub.

Statutory rape. Before coming to Shelter Valley, before going to prison, Matt Sheffield had been a junior high and high school theater teacher. One who, in his second year of teaching, at age twenty-four, had been convicted of having sex with a fourteen-year-old student in his office after hours. The girl had gotten pregnant.

Addy’s tub was clean. She wiped it out every time she used it and wished she hadn’t. She needed more to scrub. The toilet didn’t take long. The double sinks were wiped clean each morning, as well. Her old toothbrush in one hand and a bowl of clean, hot water in the other, Addy moved on to the grout on the bathroom floor.

Six months after the girl’s baby was born, a boy, a paternity test proved that he was not Matt Sheffield’s son. It didn’t prove that Matt had not had sex with his student.

Sheffield’s attorney motioned to appeal the conviction against him. Based on the new paternity evidence, a new trial had been granted.

Addy was a lawyer. She knew how these things worked. With a couple of phone calls and a pleading for expediency, she already had the trial transcript downloaded on her computer. She’d read the pertinent parts.

Sheffield had spent a lot of time alone with the girl. According to the girl’s testimony during the trial, Sheffield had told her that any man would be honored to have her as his wife. He’d praised her often, telling her that she had more to offer than most of the people he knew. He’d led the child to believe that he found her desirable. She’d told him she had a headache. He’d given her some pills. Told her she could use his office couch to take a nap. When she’d woken up, he’d been on the couch with her. Holding her in his arms.

The story itself, while sickening, wasn’t shocking to Addy. She worked in educational law and the reality was that teachers behaving inappropriately with their students was not as uncommon as people would like to believe.

Matt Sheffield was found not guilty at his second trial. The man was set free. But his getting off did not in any way mean that he hadn’t had sex with his young female student. It only meant that the prosecutor, given the fact that the girl had lied about previous lovers during the first trial, had been unable to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that Matt had sex with her. There’d been no evidence, only her word against his. And she’d admittedly been unconscious through the alleged act.

Matt Sheffield would never be able to teach in the public school system again. But he’d completed the education required to teach at the college level and moved to Shelter Valley. Addy scrubbed the floor until her nails were broken and her knuckles were scraped.

Montford’s hiring policies required that Will Parsons verify a criminal check on every single employee at the university. Will had to have known about Matt Sheffield’s criminal history, the exact charges that had been filed against the man. The years he’d spent in prison.

Yet he’d still hired the man to teach eighteen-year-old girls.

Addy sat up on her knees, her soapy hands holding a toothbrush in midair.

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