All the Silent Spaces

by Christine Ristaino

  “It’s not just the computer repairman. I’m afraid of men. A white man at a gas station is a serial killer. A black man at night is a rapist. When I look around me, I’m so scared. Inside my head I know this doesn’t make sense. But I’m afraid and I don’t know what to do. Everywhere I look, there are images of scary men—on TV, the news, even on the Cartoon Network.”

  My husband nodded. “It’s normal to be afraid of men after you’ve been attacked by one,” he said.

  “I know, but I’m afraid in general. I can’t stand the idea of being separated from you and the kids. I worry they’ll be kidnapped from their windows by construction workers, like that girl in Utah. And some people are thrown in jail for something they didn’t do. And I could lose you in a car accident or something. And heart attacks. Toxic chemicals, hormones in chickens, everything is dangerous. And tomorrow is September fifteenth.”

  “It’ll be all right,” my husband said. “We’ll be okay. You’ll see. The fifteenth will come and go.”

  We finished our tea and walked up the stairs. I checked on the children before joining Mark in our room. The fear I had been holding onto all week seemed different than before. It had transformed into relief. I curled into my husband’s back and let the softness of sleep take over.

  When the man from the computer shop called again, I strained to hear his name over the phone but couldn’t make it out. He told me that despite installing another keyboard, he still couldn’t get the caps lock key to work. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “Do you want me to try another one?”

  “It’s okay,” I told him. “I don’t really use the caps lock much. I appreciate all the work you’ve done to fix it.”

  I drove to the store and he showed me the caps lock key. My computer was all back together and it had a shiny new keyboard. I touched the man’s hand. “Thank you for all the attention you gave it. Sorry it was such a bear.”

  He smiled. “It’s okay. That’s my job. Come back again,” he said. I nodded. I would.

  When I reached my car, I glanced back at the store. I could still see the computer repairman standing in the entrance, looking out, at me and at the world. From this distance, his smallness overwhelmed me. Was he as afraid of people as I was? Did 9/11 shake him up? Did it force him to wonder how he would make it in a world that no longer trusted him? I thought about his family. Did he have children? Were they at school like mine? How did they maneuver the changes taking place in their world? I sat in my car, thought about the computer repairman, and longed to ask him these things.

  Retrogression 26:

  September 15, 2007, 7:06 p.m.

  I look around the parking lot, but I don’t see anyone. A young Asian couple exits the store. The woman carries a baby and the man follows them. “Please help me,” I say. They look at me and my children while Ada sobs and I bleed. “Help us,” I say again. The woman pulls her baby closer to her chest.

  Chapter 26:

  My Work

  Each day is more of a struggle. I hear an advertisement for a study about depression on the radio, and I fill in the blanks from there: trouble sleeping, overwhelmed by the simplest of tasks, difficulty concentrating, inability to focus, fear of dying at any moment.

  “I’m depressed, my son doesn’t sleep, and I think the two are connected,” I tell my program director later on.

  She is relieved, puts her hands on her lap.

  “You’ve been having trouble focusing lately,” she says. “I can handle it if I know you’re depressed and you will eventually go back to being your old self again.”

  But even as she says this, I can barely remember what it was like to be my old self, a woman so focused on everybody else’s needs and feelings that she didn’t know what was important to her. I keep silent and we begin to plan for a leave of absence.

  At home my son becomes increasingly agitated. He won’t sleep. He’s constantly afraid of bad guys creeping into his room at night, or bad guys following me around while he’s at school, or bad guys chasing us through crowded stores or parking lots. I am not sleeping, and with each passing day, I become more and more anxious, to the point where, even when my son doesn’t wake up as I carry him from my bedroom to his and place him into his bed, I have difficulty winding down, drawing the anxiety out of my chest. I begin to breathe, in and out, in and out, and I wonder how I will gather enough energy to teach in the morning, grade essays, or put the kids to bed the following night. I think, What would it be like if all the professors at my university knew of my problems? I have only told a few people about the attack on my children and me, and I imagine some of my female colleagues may have even experienced something similar. Perhaps we could have coffee and they could tell me what they did to heal.

  Instead, we don’t go beyond the superficial.

  “Hi,” I say when I pass my colleagues. “How are you?”

  “Fine,” they reply and smile.

  I am fine, too, and perhaps they, like me, are carrying some unseen weight, but I never notice it, so carefully hidden.

  “I want more,” I say to my friend over coffee one day. “I want to reach out to my colleagues. They are interesting. I like them.”

  But as my despair deepens, I can’t bring myself to say anything to them.

  And soon my husband sits next to me on our bed. He has just read one of my stories from this book, a scenario that ends with me almost driving away with my son’s car door open. He is disturbed by this ending and takes in a deep breath. “Where are you?” he says to me.

  “Right here. Right here in front of you,” I reply.

  “What do you think of every day when you leave the house?” he asks. “Where do you go in your mind? Because I’m worried about you and the kids’ safety when you drive.”

  “I’m okay,” I answer. “Really, although I’m having trouble focusing and everything at work just seems so overwhelming. And I’m tired. And you must be, too, because of Samuel. Because I wish he would sleep.”

  And suddenly I am crying.

  It’s at a party, a few days later, when I decide to tell a colleague what happened to my family a bit over a year to the date after it occurred, for she has asked me about my research. As I describe this book, I admit that since the attack my family hasn’t been the same.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks.

  “I don’t know.”

  “But we could have talked about this,” she responds, reaching out her hand.

  Her simple gesture is a gift.

  I visit the chair of my department, a woman who teaches upper-level French classes. She has a rich sense of humor and deep blue eyes. I ask her how to apply for a leave and find myself recounting every detail, every last personal detail about my family—my son’s sleeping problems, my anxiety and inability to focus, my husband’s comments about the car door, our chaotic, unkempt lives. She hears every word.

  “I’m so sorry you’ve had to deal with this. I had no idea how much this experience was affecting you and your family.”

  She writes emails to the dean’s office and secures a spring semester off for me. For the first time in months, I feel relief.

  There is a conversation I have yet to maneuver, for I desire communities of support all around me. I need the people I work with to know right away when I have been attacked or hurt. I want them to embrace my children, to ask me how they are feeling, how they are coping with the numerous challenges that life is bound to bring their way. And I would like to be there for them, to hear about their relationships, their research, and countless other day-to-day lost details. But how can I expect them to talk to me if I stay quiet? And what do I do with those who just want me to go back to the way I was, even though that seems impossible now?

  Retrogression 27:

  September 15, 2007, 7:05 p.m.

  Although the night is warm, I begin to shiver. My legs are unsteady as I push myself up from the pavement. I don’t look at my children as I try to find something to cover my face and absorb the b
lood pouring from my nose.

  Chapter 27:

  Pandora’s Box

  My friend Sarah emails an article to me on sexual abuse. Most victims don’t experience trauma when they are being abused, it says. It’s only later, when they realize what happened, that’s the moment when it becomes traumatic. The less violent the experience and more trustworthy the abuser, the more trauma and guilt the person feels later on in life, as though somehow this former child had brought it on.

  I close the article on my computer and call Sarah. As a child, she experienced abuse similar to mine. Her sister had been sexually abused over and over again by a friend of the family, but this same man had left my friend alone, almost. “He abused me only once,” she tells me. “We went into a side room and he said, ‘What’s this?’ and pulled out his penis. Then he grabbed my crotch and tried to touch me. I knew something bad had happened, but I worshiped this man.” Sarah takes in a breath and then continues. “My sister experienced the same thing tons of times, and I know there are different levels to this, but what people don’t understand is that it’s all traumatic. It all counts. Abuse is abuse. It can happen one time or hundreds, but once it happens, none of us are ever the same.”

  The week I receive the article, I am also confronting another Pandora’s Box. My university is going through growing pains. A community of graduate students camped out and protested on the quad for a number of days in support of cafeteria workers’ rights to a union, equitable pay, and job security, and when negotiations broke down and they wouldn’t leave, the university had seven of them arrested.

  I hear about it from my students and am immediately upset. The university has a strong reputation for its ability to resolve issues through conversation and I am bothered by its reaction to peaceful protest. I sign a petition expressing discomfort at student arrests, remembering my father’s arrest years before when he fought for women’s rights to maternity leave at his school.

  At a meeting I am introduced to some of the petition organizers and one of the graduate students who had ended up in jail. It is a small gathering; only four other people are there. The graduate student seems shaken, nervous, exhausted. He tells us about his experience and conveys appreciation for the petition in circulation. The faculty at the meeting plan to turn it in the following day. Later that night I email the graduate student, recount my father’s experience in jail, and tell him he’s brave.

  As a result of the petition, the administration agrees to hold a forum the following Wednesday. When I arrive, the auditorium has almost completely filled with faculty, students, and staff. I sit next to the vice president of the university, a tall man with glasses and a bow tie. On a number of occasions, he has been kind to me and shown incredible compassion, and while sitting next to him at the meeting, I am reminded of his kindness. He had been there during the arrests and had warned students that if they didn’t leave, there would be consequences.

  I take notes on the president’s response to faculty questions. His comments and the discussion that follows fill in gaps. I try to understand both the arrest and the underlying conflict. But the more I learn, the more confused I become. I am moved by a faculty member who expresses, with tears in his eyes, his disappointment that the issues leading to the protest had not been addressed quickly enough. I am also moved by the president’s apology, which is full of possibility. He says that steps were being taken to address concerns but wishes in retrospect he had moved faster.

  Outside the auditorium I speak to a dean and then a graduate student. Both are unhappy with the results of the meeting for opposite reasons. I write to the graduate student, saying it’s important to take stock of what has gone right—the conversation has moved beyond graduate students and administrators. The whole university has met to talk about the issues he’s fighting for.

  That night as I put my children to bed, I can’t shake a knot of despair that has settled in my chest. In my room I change into sweatpants and a loose shirt. “Mark,” I say, when my husband comes into our room a few minutes later, “I’m having trouble understanding what really went on. I don’t think the students should have been arrested, but I don’t understand everything else—what happened, how it happened, when. I admire the grad students’ courage, and I’m bothered they spent a night in jail. But my university seems to be taking steps to address the problem.”

  The room is quiet.

  “I feel so terrible right now,” I say.

  “Why?” Mark asks.

  “Because I can never take an unequivocal stand on anything. Everything always seems so complex. When I saw the video of student arrests, my heart broke for them, but I also felt for the vice president who had to make the call. I’m sure it was awful for everyone.”

  “But that’s what people love about you. You’re fair. You have compassion.”

  “But I want to be like my father—go on strike, stand strong for what I believe in. Instead, I just feel guilty,” I say.

  The word “guilt” reminds me of the article I had read a few days before. I go to my computer and begin to read it again. It describes me in a way I had not understood a few days before. The man who had abused me—my narrative was that it was my fault. I had asked him to scratch my back. Then, when he did more, I didn’t stop him. I spent a lifetime seeing other sides to this issue, seeing the man my family loved—a kind man, a funny man, a great storyteller, a fantastic cook. What would they think if I told them he was also a child molester? For years I had imagined how they would feel. I imagined every hurt feeling, every doubt, every bit of anger turned back onto me, as though in telling my family, I would be the one who had betrayed them, not him.

  This same scene plays out over and over again, becomes every scenario, every interaction. Other perspectives crowd out my own, and I become attached to each one, play out each situation, become each person involved. How can I take action when the possibility of betraying even one person is always so thick in the air. But being careful and not telling people my perspective has made me invisible. In the days that follow, I make a promise to myself. Before I open Pandora’s Box and take on the pain and sorrow of the world, I have to understand unequivocally how each situation makes me feel.

  Retrogression 28:

  September 15, 2007, 7:04 p.m.

  I will always think of my children’s faces when I remember this crime—open mouths, hands cradling their cheeks, eyebrows furrowed like old people with permanent grooves, eyes exaggeratedly open. It is seeing their reaction that makes me understand what I failed to grasp on my own. He has beaten me up in front of them.

  Chapter 28:

  Seduced and Abandoned

  It’s my turn to show a movie for the Italian program and I’ve chosen Sedotta e Abbandonata (Seduced and Abandoned). When I was in my late twenties, I loved this film. I must have seen it at least six times. It’s a 1964 comedy directed by Pietro Germi, and it’s all about Sicilian honor.

  Because of its location in the Mediterranean, Sicily was dominated by every foreign power imaginable over the course of its long history—Greeks, Spaniards, Turks, Ostrogoths, Arabs, Normans, Bourbons, you name it. Once Italy was unified in 1871, it wasn’t long before the Mafia took over in Sicily. But throughout this long occupation of powers, the Sicilians maintained control over their honor. It’s still something they ferociously guard.

  The Sicilian obsession with honor drives this film as Vincenzo Ascalone works to return honor to his family after his daughter, Agnese, becomes impregnated by her sister’s fiancé. The family stages kidnappings, gunfights, serenades, and shouting matches, all to right this wrong and bring respect back to the family name.

  When I arrive at the showing room, students spill over the seats and into the aisles. I stand in the front of the room, pop open the case, and slide the DVD into the player. As I introduce the film, I talk about Sicilian occupation and honor, and end by telling the students that this is one of my favorite Italian films.

  I sit in the front, ready to be
entertained. I watch the seduction scene, where Agnese and her sister’s fiancé do it in the washroom while the rest of the family takes an afternoon nap. But Peppino Califano begins to treat Agnese poorly immediately afterward and he continues to do so throughout the film. I find myself cringing each time Agnese’s father, Vincenzo, slaps his daughter and calls her a whore for her part in this misadventure, and I struggle to calm my anger when she is locked inside a room, away from all men except her brother, and has to bang on a pipe each time she needs to use the bathroom.

  The part of the film that draws the most laughter involves a scene where Agnese’s father and Peppino’s parents stage a very public kidnapping of Agnese, part of their attempt to force their children to marry. But they kidnap Agnese’s sister by accident. When they realize she’s the wrong sister, they drop her on the side of the road. She sits sobbing while Agnese is taken away in a car. I used to love this scene, but now I find it hard to watch. What kind of a family would do this? I want to stand and apologize to my students, but they are too busy watching the film and laughing at the parts of the movie I used to love.

  It’s almost ten when the film is over. I slink to the podium and dismiss everyone. A few of my students stay to talk. I discuss some of the things that trouble me about the story. They listen but assure me the film had been a good choice.

  Retrogression 29:

  September 15, 2007, 7:03 p.m. and 20 seconds.

  From the ground, my eyes follow the wheels of the cart as they circle up from the black tar. I can see Ada, with her hands over her face, sobbing, and Samuel’s wide eyes just staring. I have never before seen eyes so wide.