M att Rutledge was watching television with Annie, his wife of 35 years, when the bombshell phone call came in. Heaton had bad news to share: The school had received a letter accusing Rutledge of sexual misconduct with a former student.
Frantic, he texted Hilary Simon, his former student and advisee. But by the s private schools across the country had begun reckoning with instances of sexual abuse by faculty members. Now stories about Rutledge are flooding out from a group of brave women, going back decades, and they all bear striking similarities in their specific patterns. And if that vulnerability is pierced, it can shatter a life forever. We are in the kitchen of her childhood home in Wilton, Connecticut, where Rutledge once read to her from Pooh and Friends on the floor as she, then 16, fell asleep on his shoulder.
Wine is on hand if needed, she tells me. Her sharp, spirited, and slightly nervous mother, Kristina, bustles in and out from her cigarette breaks on the hammock overlooking her gardens. She fixes drinks and sandwiches, then stops in her tracks and asks whether Melissa really wants her there. Melissa assures her that she does. Rutledge got his hooks into Kristina too, much to her embarrassment. In , Fares was 14 and felt lost in the crowd at the public school she was attending.
She told her parents that she wanted more academic attention and became fixated on going to boarding school. Founded in , it was the first all-girls boarding school in Massachusetts. Issues around sex and sexuality were circumscribed. For any parent hoping for a safe, cosseting environment, this one seemed to fit the bill.
On their visit, the Fareses were invited to sit in on the American history class of Matt Rutledge, who had knocked their socks off with his charisma. The Fareses were sold. Coming in as a sophomore, she found it hard to make friends. Rutledge, her history teacher, immediately identified that loneliness. He acknowledged how tough it must be for her. Focusing on her work would help her, he said. His attention was a jolt. He was a family man, he made sure people knew.
