And so we’d formed a trio of outcasts. Petra and Nico made sure no one made fun of my secondhand uniform or the beat-up Honda my mother used to pick me up in, rattling its way to the curb, belching exhaust in its wake. They made sure I didn’t eat alone and dragged me to school events I’d have skipped otherwise. They put themselves between me and the other kids, the ones who made cruel, cutting remarks about how I was merely a day student on scholarship, too poor, too common to truly be one of them. Petra and Nico were friends to me at a time when I had none.
* * *
It felt like fate, the day I walked into the gym two years ago and saw Petra, an apparition from my past. But I wasn’t the same person Petra would remember from high school. Too much had changed. Too much I’d have to explain about my life and what I’d lost along the way. And so I’d kept my gaze averted, while Petra’s stare drilled into me, willing me to look up. To acknowledge her.
When my workout was over, I made my way to the locker room, hoping to hide out in the sauna until after Petra had left. But when I’d entered, she was there. As if that had been our plan all along.
“Claire Taylor,” she said.
Hearing her say my old name made me smile despite myself. Memories came rushing back, found in the tone and cadence of Petra’s voice that still carried a trace of the Russian she spoke at home. In an instant, I had felt like my old self, not the persona I’d cultivated over the years as Rory’s wife, glossy and unknowable, burying her secrets beneath a hard surface.
We started slowly, making small talk that quickly turned personal as we caught up on the years since we’d last seen each other. Petra had never married. Instead, she drifted through life, supported by her brother, who now ran the family organization.
“And you,” she said, gesturing toward my left hand. “You’re married?”
I studied her through the steam, surprised she didn’t know. “I married Rory Cook.”
“Impressive,” Petra said.
I looked away, waiting for her to ask what people always asked—what really happened to Maggie Moretti, the name that will forever be linked to my husband’s, the girl who’d catapulted from anonymity to infamy simply because, long ago, she’d once loved Rory.
But Petra just leaned back on her bench and said, “I saw that interview he did with Kate Lane on CNN. The work he’s done with the foundation is remarkable.”
“Rory is very passionate.” A response that conveyed truth, if anyone cared to dig deeper.
“How are your mom and sister? Violet must be done with college by now.”
I’d been dreading that question. Even after so many years, the loss of them was still sharp. “They died in a car accident fourteen years ago. Violet had just turned eleven.” I kept my explanation brief. A rainy Friday night. A drunk driver who ran a stop sign. A collision in which they both died instantly.
“Oh, Claire,” Petra had said. She didn’t offer platitudes or force me to rehash things. Instead she sat with me, letting the silence hold my grief, knowing there was nothing that could be said that would make it hurt less.
* * *
It became our routine, to meet in the sauna every day after our workouts. Petra understood that because of who her family was, we couldn’t be seen talking in public. Even before we knew what I was going to eventually do, we’d been cautious, rarely communicating by phone and never by email. But in the sauna, we resurrected our friendship, rebuilding the trust we used to share, remembering the alliance that had gotten us both through high school.
It didn’t take long for Petra to also see what I was hiding. “You need to leave him, you know,” she’d said one afternoon, several months after we’d first met. She was looking at a bruise on my upper left arm, the remnant of an argument Rory and I’d had two nights earlier. Despite my efforts to hide the evidence—a towel pulled higher around my chest, hung around my neck, or draped across my shoulders—Petra had silently watched the progression of Rory’s rage across my skin. “That’s not the first one of those I’ve seen on you.”
I covered the bruise with my towel, not wanting her pity. “I tried to, once. About five years ago.” I’d believed it was possible to leave my marriage. I’d prepared myself for a fight, knowing it would be messy and expensive, but I’d use his abuse as leverage. Give me what I want and I’ll stay silent about the kind of man you are.
But it hadn’t happened that way at all. “Turns out, the woman I’d confided in, who’d tried to help me, was married to an old fraternity brother of Rory’s. And when Rory showed up, her husband opened the door and let him in, old boy-ing himself right alongside Rory, secret handshake and all. Rory told them I was struggling with depression, working with a psychiatrist, and that maybe it was time for something inpatient.”
“He was going to have you committed?”
“He was letting me know that things could get a lot worse.” I didn’t tell Petra the rest. Like how, when we’d gotten home, he’d shoved me so hard into the marble counter in our kitchen, I’d cracked two ribs. Your selfishness astonishes me. That you’d be willing to destroy all I’ve worked to build—my mother’s legacy—because we argue. All couples argue, Claire. He’d gestured around the room, to the high-end appliances, the expensive countertops, and said, Look around you. What more could you possibly want? No one is going to feel sorry for you. No one will even believe you.
Which was true. People wanted Rory to be who they thought he was—the charismatic son of the progressive and beloved Senator Marjorie Cook. I could never tell anyone what he did to me, because no matter what I’d say or how loudly I’d say it, my words would be buried beneath the love everyone felt for Marjorie Cook’s only child.
“People will never see what I see,” I finally said.
“You really believe that?”
“Do you think if Carolyn Bessette came forward accusing JFK Junior of hitting her, the country would have rushed to support her?”
Petra’s eyes widened. “Are you kidding me? This is the #MeToo era. I think people would be falling all over themselves to believe her. They’d probably create new Fox and CNN shows just to talk about it.”
I gave a hollow laugh. “In a perfect world, I’d hold Rory accountable. But I don’t have it in me to take on a fight like that. One that would go on for years, that would seep into every corner of my life and tarnish anything good that might come afterward. I just want to be free of it. Of him.”
To speak out against Rory would be like stepping into an abyss and trusting that I’d be caught by the generosity and kindness of others. And I’d lived too many years with people happily watching me free fall if it meant they could be close to Rory. In this world, money and power were equivalent to immunity.