Читать книгу Because You Loved Me - M. William Phelps - Страница 12

Chris McGowan lived by himself in an unassuming three-bedroom ranch a few miles north of Jeanne Dominico’s house. On most weekends, he’d stay overnight at Jeanne’s, but liked to give her and the kids the space they needed during the week. On top of that, Jeanne’s daughter, Nicole Kasinskas (she’d kept her dad’s name after Jeanne divorced), had her boyfriend, William “Billy” Sullivan Jr., a good-looking kid with buzz-cut brown hair, pimples and a lanky adolescent build, staying at the Dumaine Avenue house during the week of August 6, 2003. So, things were even more overcrowded than usual. Billy had turned eighteen that March. He’d just finished his junior year at Windham High School, and he admitted later that he immediately began supporting his mother and four sisters, with whom he lived two hours south of Nashua, in Willimantic, Connecticut. Billy took a line-cook manager’s position at a Willimantic McDonald’s. He had been seeing Nicole since May 2002, after he sent her a random instant message one night while he and Nicole, just fourteen, were online.

Within days, they had fallen in love.

After much discussion and debate between Jeanne and Nicole, Jeanne decided to allow Billy to stay that week in August; he had arrived on Friday, August 1. Jeanne, however, encouraged Chris to sleep over and, as she put it, “keep an eye on things.” Two teenagers left alone, Jeanne opined several times with a cringe, “couldn’t be trusted.” It wasn’t that Jeanne viewed Billy as a bad kid with the wrong intentions, but with a teenage girl and eighteen-year-old man under the same roof, left unsupervised—well, anything was possible.

“You can keep an eye on them,” Jeanne had told Chris a day before Billy arrived, after reluctantly succumbing to Nicole’s pleas to have him stay the week. “I’m sure Nicole won’t do anything like that, she’s a good girl. But let’s be sure.”

Chris rolled his eyes. “Jeannie…hello,” he said sarcastically, “don’t be so naive. He’s eighteen. She’s sixteen. She’s a pretty girl. Testosterone takes over. They’re home all day alone while we’re at work. What do you think they’re doing?”

Jeanne shook her head. “It’s not gonna happen, Chris. It’s not gonna happen. I know Nicole.”

“Well, they’re kids, Jeannie. Come on. Wake up.”

In any case, Billy and Nicole, at least while Chris and Jeanne were home, weren’t allowed in Nicole’s room together. Chris had been taking on a self-described “father figure” role in the household, ever since he and Jeanne started talking about marriage. More than that, Chris didn’t want to see Nicole get hurt. He had become close to her and Drew as his relationship with Jeanne blossomed. Best he could, Chris kept peace among everyone and dealt with certain situations Jeanne had little tolerance for—mostly, Billy’s persistent stance regarding being with Nicole all the time, and his shameless, dreamlike talk of one day marrying her. Most of all, when Chris was home, he kept the kids busy: talking, playing board games, watching television. So they wouldn’t, he said, “get bored.”

As Chris suspected, it was much too late to stop the progress of Billy and Nicole’s relationship. Over the past fifteen months, despite the distance between them, they had built an insuperable bond, which had caused great tension between Nicole and Jeanne. By the third day of Billy’s visit, Jeanne had explained to both kids that Billy needed to go back to Connecticut that Thursday, August 7. And she had told Chris and Nicole she wasn’t thrilled about Billy returning anytime soon. Jeanne wanted Nicole to start focusing once again on being a teenager; and wanted her to get back into the chorus at school, a role Nicole had always embraced and excelled in—that is, until Billy came along. Nicole was much too young to be thinking about spending the rest of her life with Billy, or any boy for that matter. She had consistently made honors in school. Jeanne and Chris didn’t want to see her potential (or life) wasted by getting wrapped up in a heated love affair at such a young age. They felt the upcoming school year was not only pivotal where her future was concerned, but would be one of the most difficult. With Billy now talking about marriage and living together, filling up space in her head, it put pressure on Nicole to stay focused on the relationship, instead of school. Jeanne was afraid school was going to become secondary to Nicole’s love—or, as many later said, “lust”—for Billy. They had been talking about moving into their own apartment. It was impossible for Jeanne to dismiss the relationship as puppy love. Billy had written a list of household items he and Nicole might need once they moved in together, and estimated the cost of each item. It seemed simplistic, even adolescent, on the surface, but showed, at least, how seriously he and Nicole were taking the relationship.

Then there was the letter Jeanne had received recently from Billy that was telling, in and of itself.

“First of all,” Billy wrote, “I’d like to thank you for giving birth to the most amazing and beautiful girl in the world.” He said he loved Nicole with “all my heart and have every intention of spending my life with her…. I will love her and…treat her with all the respect in the world.” He also mentioned that he and Nicole had been talking about moving to Connecticut and living with his mother and sisters. Nicole could transfer to Windham High School. It would all work out, Billy promised. Still, he wanted Jeanne’s support and blessing.

About six months after Nicole and Billy first met, then-fifteen-year-old Nicole wrote Jeanne a similar letter, explaining her feelings for Billy. The letter was a bit more blatant, persuasive and, quite honestly, sobering, detailing how seriously Nicole was taking her feelings for Billy. First, Nicole said she’d discussed the situation with Billy and agreed that it was time for her to be legally “emancipated” from Jeanne.

“Mom…I want to move in with Billy,” wrote Nicole. “I’m really not happy here…. Billy is the only person who makes me happy…. I’m sick of this house…family [and]…don’t want to live here anymore.”

It wasn’t the Nicole that Jeanne, Chris or even Drew knew. She was clearly being influenced by Billy, they believed, maybe even controlled.

As Nicole suspected, the letter didn’t sit well with Jeanne. She became “very angry” and started screaming, Nicole later explained. Weeks after, Nicole mentioned that she was thinking about opening up a joint bank account with Billy in Connecticut.

“Haven’t I taught you anything?” raged Jeanne when she found out.

Nicole walked away without responding. “She wasn’t very pleased with me. I thought she just didn’t understand me.”

After Jeanne explained to Nicole that Billy was going back to Connecticut “for good”—“Don’t ask me again!”—and Nicole wasn’t allowed to see him for a while, Jeanne told her there wasn’t to be any more discussion of the relationship. It was time to end it, or at least allow a cooling-off period. Nicole was Jeanne’s baby, her firstborn. Billy was overstepping his boundaries and coming between them.

For crying out loud, Jeanne told Chris, “I want my daughter back.”