Chapter Twenty-five: Eight Years Later...

Eight Years Later



Serena and Bari stand barefoot on the sand of Nausett Beach, a floral bed sheet rippling between them in the breeze. Together, they allow the wind to iron it and gently lower it to the ground. Bari uses a pair of moccasins and a cooler to secure one side of the blanket—Serena, a tote full of towels and stack of magazines. He drills the umbrella into the sand while she reclines in her beach chair, an embellished cotton caftan over her black bikini. She rubs a daub of sunscreen on her face, adjusts her sunglasses, and admires the view.

The August sun is kinder than July’s, casting a mellow heat that feels more peach than lemon, the sky a cottony blue. A salty breeze sweeps across her freckled nose. She has grown her blonde hair midway to her back, with streaks of grey carelessly falling from the roots. Gone are the trendy styles of her early forties: the prim bobs, platinum highlights and professional blunt cuts. The latter end of the decade came with attitude.

Bari perches on a striped twin recliner with his book, leans back until the chair’s angle matches hers, and begins to read. He is quieter than usual, and though she’s curious about what’s on his mind, she lets him be. She lifts her sunglasses atop her head, closes her eyes, and watches colors swirl and dance behind her lids. A vibrant red emerges while Bari speaks.

“Remember how I told you Alyssa came to my room a few nights ago… visibly upset.”

“M-hmm…” Her head drifts to his voice. A gull cries out in the distance.

“It had to do with more than the usual teenage girl stuff.” He puts his book down on his lap, clasps his fingers.

She sits upright, slides her sunglasses atop her head. “Such as?”

“She…” His dark brown eyes blink with uncertainty, even fear. “She told me Josh raped her, Serena.”

A vibration, like a rubber band plucked inside her chest, reverberates though her body. The sensation is rudely familiar, but this time it takes on a new dimension. This time, it feels as though Bari, her Albanian boyfriend—the same boyfriend whose gentle smile and endearing accent won her heart over five years ago—has spoken in his native tongue. The words don’t make sense.

“I-I don’t think Josh is capable of this, Bari.” She presses two delicate fingers against her chest, as though it is she who has been accused. “I’m sorry, but there must be a misunderstanding.” A nearby seagull pecks nervously at a deserted French-fry. A companion totters to his side.

“I was just as surprised as you when I heard.” He rests his forearms on his legs and leans forward, his muscles defined, tense. “I wanted to sort through it for a few days before telling you.”

She rubs beneath her eyes. “Tell me what she said to you.” Already, Serena is (unfairly) jaded by the extent to which Alyssa, her potential stepdaughter, has managed to manipulate her kind father. A perpetual victim, things always seem to happen to the dark haired beauty: the English teacher wrongly scores her essay; the umpire calls her out when she’s safe; the green left-turn arrow somehow fails to work while she’s driving. When it comes to Alyssa Galica, stuff happens.

“It happened the night you and I snuck away for the evening, last Friday. Remember how Alyssa told me she was sleeping over Emily’s that night?”

“You spoke with Emily’s mother and she said it was fine... Yes, I do remember.”

“Well… she ended up sleeping there, but stopped at your house first.”

“What for?”

“She said she had left a pair of shoes and a bathing suit there last week... from the day we went to the waterslides.”

“Okay. Go on…” She closes her eyes. Josh is seventeen now. He’s not a baby anymore. He’s a normal boy with raging hormones. Is it possible that he’s capable of date rape?

“Josh was home with a friend.”

“Right. Eric slept over. They were supposed to watch a movie.” While packing, she recalls suggesting Titanic to Josh earlier in the day, but he had opted for The Lord of the Rings instead, one of Eric’s favorites. Setting her clothes down in the suitcase, she had begun to regret the decision to leave the boys alone. After all, there would be other weekends for her and Bari to travel. Next year, Josh would be away at school. She shared her ambivalence with Josh, who respectfully disagreed.

“Geez, Mom… It’s not like you get out much,” he had said. “Go out and have fun. We’ll be fine. I’ll have my cell phone on me 24-7… and we can do something together when I get back. Sound good?”

She studies the sand. For miles, specks of rock glitter like diamonds along its surface. Tears well up in her eyes—because this effect is an illusion—like the twinkling star theory. Stars appear to twinkle due to the movement of air traveling in the atmosphere. The starlight is bent and refracted in the process. What the naked eye sees, is not what's actually happening.

“So what happened next?”

Sand doesn’t sparkle. Stars don’t twinkle. And her son doesn’t force himself on girls.


“Josh went upstairs to grab her things. After he came back down and handed them over, she decided to invite them over to Emily’s…”

“And they said yes?”

“And they said yes.” He pauses to collect his thought.

“Alright, so now we have two teenage boys and two teenage girls in the pool at night. Where was Mrs. Bromley?”

“I thought the same thing! I don’t know exactly why she was not outside… but things get more complicated from here.” His irritation seems to intensify his accent. He pronounces the word exactly, eggsactly. “They started playing some kind of a strip game in the pool with the basketball hoop.”

“Strip… basketball?”

“Yes. For every basket missed, someone has to remove a piece of clothing… something crazy like that. When I asked my daughter to explain the specifics…” he continues with his hands, “she became hysterical… but I know, at some point, they paired off and went inside, to the finished basement.” His eyes begin to pool with water. He pinches his nose, shakes his head. “They were fooling around… and Alyssa said no to him, Serena.” He looks up. “The word no is supposed to be enough.”

She rests her forehead in her hands, rubs her temples. “Alright, Bari. This doesn’t sound good… but let’s not jump to conclusions.”

“She was hysterical, Serena… and very frightened. You think I am jumping to conclusions?”

She takes a deep breath. “No, that’s not what I mean. I understand you’re upset. I’m shocked, too!—But we need to take this one step at a time. I’m going to discuss the situation in-depth with Joshua. We need to consider both sides; that’s all I’m trying to say.”

“I know that.” He averts his gaze. “My daughter is a beautiful young woman.”

Like a smooth stone melded by centuries of harsh waves, his voice claims the burden of his history. Bari has single-handedly raised Alyssa. When his wife fell ill during the birth of their daughter, Bari had to choose between saving her life or his daughter’s.

“I knew this day would come…”

She watches his eyes drift and settle on the seashore, where a spry little girl darts away from a charging wave; her father kneels in front of her, his arms opened wide for the rescue.

“And I knew I would not be prepared for it.”

The father scoops up his little girl and lavishes her with kisses.

The two of them dwell in the scene then lock eyes. Serena tugs at the silver medallion of her necklace, a gift from Bari. “I’m not convinced that what you think happened is what truly happened. I’m sorry, I’m just not.”

“I know that you are not convinced …” He stands up, stuffs his hands in his pocket, and stares at the sea. “You have to know that I want to hurt the boy who hurt my Alyssa…” he slides a glance back to her, “even if it is Joshua.”

His white shirt, half-tucked into his Docker shorts, puffs out as the wind gains speed. She blinks and sees him at his father’s restaurant on the day they first met, a plate of tomato-cucumber salad resting on his forearm. He had served her gracefully, with elegant hands and a half smile. Is there anything else I can get for you right now? His nose, narrow and flat at the end, seemed to fit his tanned face perfectly.

“You have to know, Bari, that my son is an honest young man...”



I think he wanted me to be his son, Mom.


Now tell me, Mark. Tell me what you said to my son, or so help me—


You want to know what happened? Ask him the next time you see him… And be sure to give him my regards.



“… so if I were you, I’d hold back any threats.”

He pauses to absorb the comment, then makes his way to the shoreline. Her eyes remain fixed on him as she pulls her cell phone out of the zipper pocket of her tote bag, flips it open, and scrolls down to the D’s of her contact list.

Doug is the last person she feels like speaking to about this.

But now, more than ever, Josh may need his father.