Chapter 10: What Happens to Men Like Greg
Greg was charged six weeks after the interview.
Fabricating evidence submitted to police.
Harassment across multiple complainants.
Coercive and controlling behavior.
His solicitor issued a statement saying he would contest every charge.
Farida called to tell me before the news reached Claire.
"I want you to know," she said, "that Diane's envelope was the pivot point.
Without the postmark, the fabricated messages might have looked like a he-said-she-said.
With it, the jury of his own lies became visible."
"Thank you," I said.
"For taking it seriously."
"Four women came forward," Farida said.
"That's not nothing.
That's the opposite of nothing."
I told Claire that afternoon.
She was in her kitchen when I arrived — actually cooking, which she hadn't done in weeks.
Something smelled good.
She handed me a glass of wine before I'd taken my coat off.
"Farida already called me," she said.
"I know.
I wanted to be here anyway."
She stirred something on the stove.
"His mother called me this morning."
I waited.
"She said I'd destroyed her son's life.
She said I should be ashamed." Claire kept stirring.
"I let her finish.
Then I said, 'I hope he gets the help he needs.' And I hung up."
She turned around.
Her eyes were dry.
She looked tired in the way that comes after something long and difficult finally stops.
"Was that the right thing to say?" she asked.
"I think so," I said.
She nodded and turned back to the stove.
We ate dinner together, just the two of us, at her small kitchen table.
We talked about other things.
Her work.
A trip she was thinking about taking.
A book she'd started.
Normal things, one after another, like stepping stones back to ordinary life.
When I left, she walked me to the door and held my hand for a moment, the same way she had the night of the dinner.
"Mom," she said.
"On the street that day.
When Hannah asked you for help."
"Yes?"
"You didn't hesitate."
I thought about it.
"No," I said.
"I didn't."
"Why not?"
I looked at her — my daughter, standing in her doorway, asking me a real question.
"Because she asked," I said.
"That was enough."
Claire squeezed my hand once and let go.
I walked to my car in the quiet evening.
The street was ordinary and still.
Somewhere nearby a door closed gently, and the sound of it carried in the cool air, and then it was gone.
I drove home with the radio on this time.
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Some people spend years learning that a person's true character appears not in how they treat their equals, but in how they behave when they believe no one important is watching.
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