Chapter 8: Stacy's Voicemail
Her voice on the recording was controlled.
Careful.
The voice of someone who had rehearsed what they were going to say.
*This message is for Daniel.
My name is Stacy Merrill.
We met briefly tonight.
I want to be clear that I'm calling in a personal capacity, not on behalf of any committee or organization.
I'd like to speak with you directly, before the article runs.
I think there are things you don't know about the full situation.
I think it would be worth a conversation.
Please call me back.*
She left a number.
My son listened to it standing in the kitchen, still in his suit jacket, tie loosened.
"She wants to negotiate," he said.
"What does she think she can offer?" I said.
"I don't know.
Maybe nothing.
Maybe she actually does know something I don't." He set his keys on the counter.
"Or maybe she just wants to look me in the eye and see if I'll blink."
"Will you call her back?"
He thought about it.
"Yes," he said.
"But not tonight."
He called her the next morning, from our kitchen table, with coffee in front of him and his phone on speaker so I could hear.
She picked up on the second ring.
"Thank you for calling," she said.
"You said there were things I don't know," my son said.
"Tell me what they are."
A pause.
"The letter," she said.
"The one recommending your exclusion from graduation.
I want you to know that I didn't write that section.
The language about you being a social liability — that wasn't mine."
"Your name is on the letter," my son said.
"I know.
I signed it.
I'm not pretending I didn't.
But the specific language about you — Ryan drafted it.
I added my name because I was seventeen and I was afraid of what he'd do if I didn't."
My son was quiet.
"I'm not asking for forgiveness," Stacy said quickly.
"I'm not calling to make myself feel better.
I'm calling because if there's a legal process, I want to cooperate with it.
And because I think you deserve to know that not everyone in that room hated you.
Some of us were just cowards."
"That's not much better," my son said.
"No," she said.
"It isn't."
Another pause.
"Bethany," my son said.
"Did you know what was happening to her?"
The silence lasted long enough that I could hear her breathing.
"I knew some of it," she said.
"Not all.
I told myself I didn't know enough to say anything.
That was a lie I told myself for a long time."
"What changed?" my son said.
"Last night," she said.
"Watching you stand in that room.
Watching Dana ask that question.
Watching Greg leave." Her voice shifted slightly.
"I've been the person who stays quiet my whole life.
I don't want to be that person anymore."
My son looked at me across the table.
"The lawyer's name is Patricia Osei," he said.
"Call her.
Tell her what you just told me.
Tell her everything you know about all four letters."
"All right," Stacy said.
"And Stacy," he said.
"Call Dana.
She was asking the right questions last night.
She shouldn't have to ask them alone."
A long pause.
"Okay," she said quietly.
"I will."
He ended the call.
He picked up his coffee.
"She'll follow through," I said.
It wasn't a question.
"I think so," he said.
"Fear can make people stay quiet for years.
But sometimes the same fear makes them talk, once they realize the thing they were protecting is already gone."
He looked out the kitchen window at the yard, the ordinary morning light coming through.
May you like
"Ryan's the one who should be worried," he said.
He was right.
