I Was Here
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Published by: Fancy Sisters Press Accessibility
Release Date: September 22, 2014
Pages: 116
Synopsis
In a working-class Irish Catholic town, the abuse of a young girl is hushed up by a community more interested in civility than justice. Now, two decades later, sweet, damaged Charlotte starts receiving obscene text messages from someone who insists he knows her secret, and ten seemingly unconnected lives are pulled into an intricate and dangerous swerve toward tragedy. This heart-stopping tale unfolds at the pace of a thriller, but its exquisite tension is generated by the precision of its character portraits.
Equal parts Gillian Flynn and Tobias Wolff, I WAS HERE is not only a tour de force of storytelling but a profound look at human fragility, the momentum of evil, and the bravery required for kindness. A dazzlingly good read, marrying the depth and beauty of literary fiction to the adrenaline rush of a thriller, told with the fierce empathy that fans of Kadish’s novels have come to know as distinctively her own.
Add on GoodreadsPraise
"A story of evil's aftermath that somehow manages to be both terrifying and profoundly kind, I WAS HERE is more than an extraordinary novella - it is an announcement that Rachel Kadish, long one of our most promising writers, is now a literary force to be reckoned with."
—Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, bestselling author of The Mind Body Problem and Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away
"I WAS HERE is a riveting read. Rachel Kadish weaves in and out of her different characters' minds, laying bare their secrets and makes us feel for all of them. I couldn't stop thinking about this novella long after I read it."
—Tova Mirvis, bestselling author of The Ladies’ Auxiliary and We Would Never
"This was my first Rooster read, and came in bite sized installments to my phone on an every-other-day basis. But here’s the thing – I could not wait for the next installment, and read Kadish’s novella in one heady rush. The story centers on a working class down that’s seen better days, and a group of six-degrees-separated characters who were or all involved in a child abuse crime perpetrated years ago. The incident, which had been hushed up, is rearing back up as the abuser is thrown in jail after going after more young girls. I know, not exactly the kind of uplifting stuff that usually has me on the edge of my reading toes – but this book is so lush, and soft, and delicate, all while being quietly furious and empowering. From Charlotte the first abused child, now a struggling adult with a family of her own; to Jim, the son of the abuser, who refuses to believe his father capable of such crimes – every character is so fleshed out, wholly believable, tangibly present, I felt like I was in the action with them, scene after scene. I’m still haunted by the book, feeling the imprint of the characters in my head, and rushing to the bookstore to buy more of Kadish’s fiction."
—Alison Peters, BookRiot
Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE
SUNSHINE
HER CELL phone buzzed in the pocket of her sweatshirt, but she waited. She helped the last of the Sunshines wash their paint-slicked hands, then shepherded them through vanilla cookies and juice, moving Pete gently to the far side of the table when he wouldn’t stop dribbling his drink on Elizabeth’s sleeve.
She didn’t check her phone until it was time for her break. She was strict about that—not doing personal business at work. She’d never been smart, but she made up for it in other ways. Monica McCarthy, who ran Sunshine, said Charlotte was the most well-liked worker she’d ever had. The praise made Charlotte shake her head with embarrassment, but inside she felt, for just a minute, lifted. She didn’t even mind when Monica went on to rib her for tearing up when the children cried—didn’t even mind that Monica patted her shoulder as if to say: big, childish, devoted Charlotte. Monica never asked why Charlotte cried when the children did. If she had, Charlotte wouldn’t have been able to say more than that the children’s tears called hers. She loved the children in all their moods, but when the world shocked them and they cried, then her heart thickened and her breath grew heavier than her frame could support. Her thick heart and her breath sank her to her knees, and that was where the children found her. Seeing Charlotte’s tears at their pain, the children quieted, then turned solemnly glad like the cherubim shown in prayer books, and she saw that the world made sense to them again. A few more breaths and they ran or sidled or shied like kittens into her arms—and this was the thing, the thing that lightened her, and up, up like a helium balloon they would go together, she and the children, until they were up on their feet and blinking at the dress-up clothes and the blocks and the smocks in the suddenly clear and quiet morning light that was the closest she ever felt to holy.
Those were the good moments.
Outside, now, beneath the large rainbow-colored sign bearing the name Sunshine Daycare, she worried about what she’d make for dinner that night. A familiar wash of gratitude came over her: Ted, Marco, the baby. Thank God, thank God. The small, cluttered apartment that held her very own family, on a tidy street on the poor side of a town she’d never dreamt she might be able to afford to live in. All Ted’s doing. She thought about stopping at the store for the frozen pizzas he liked, but spaghetti was cheaper. Ted worked hard for what they had. She scrimped to make it easier for him—she didn’t tell him how much, how often she went back to the market to check when the chicken tenders and his favorite canned sweet potatoes would be on sale. She did it for the eased look that came over him when he unlocked their apartment door in the evenings—when he saw the dinner table, laid with chipped but full dishes. The pride that seeped into his face then was her riches: her safety-deposit box, her portion, her insurance against the abyss she’d left behind when they’d married.
Opening her phone, she read the scratched gray screen, pale in the noon light.
I KNOW WHAT U DID W HIM NAKID.
• • •
Monica sat in her office, pulling her sweater around her shoulders. She’d turned her heat down another two degrees—budget didn’t make allowances for cold snaps. Outside, Charlotte was taking her break, fiddling with her cell phone in her sweatshirt and sweatpants like she didn’t even notice the wind. Maybe you didn’t, that kind of bulk on you. Takes all kinds.
She turned from her window to the dusty screen of her computer. And thought: Numbers don’t get any better from staring. She turned instead to the list of calls she would make, and beside it the day’s attendance list. Sunshine was suffering low enrollment but no point complaining, bad economy meant everybody. Better to just get on with spreading the word about openings in the three-to-four room. She’d never before had openings in the three-to-four room this time of year, but when the lawyers and bankers of this town lost their jobs they quietly pulled their kids out of nursery. How many mothers had tearfully sworn her to secrecy? The public story was always We want to spend more time with little Melissa.
On the radio, something about delays on the Long Island Rail Road, and a warning about road ice. She resisted the urge to snap the sound off. Her best friend growing up had died on a day like this. One skid on the ice, not even her fault—bad judgment of the boyfriend who’d been driving—and Cathy gone. The boyfriend, holding that damn driver’s license only two weeks when it happened, had gotten a head injury—he’d been living a slow-tongued half-a-life since, decades after Cathy’d been buried. Monica wasn’t sure sometimes whether she hoped he understood what he’d done to Cathy, or hoped he didn’t. It had hardened Monica, she knew it—even her friends said she wasn’t the same after Cathy died. Her ex-husband, in one of their few but memorable fights, had called her scary.
What of it? She could be severe sometimes, yes. She’d seen what was what. Life could run out on you in an unfinished heartbeat, or turn you into something unrecognizable. People liked to talk about plans, liked to dream their minds into the future. Maybe, she’d think, or maybe not.
Her eyes slipped down the list of today’s crop of children, now curled up on their nap-mats and listening to soft music down the hall from her office. Toddlers, all with parents confidently planning their tomorrows.
It was strange, wasn’t it? How it worked. What a slim thread everything hung from.