Driving With Dead People

by Monica Holloway

  I never entered my car without looking in all the windows first, in case someone was hiding inside, ready to attack me.

  Walking across the tranquil town green in Madison, Connecticut, I was sure that someone was waiting to rape me, even though that had never happened to me before.

  I had sex only with men who were married or otherwise unavailable. Once someone was loving, like Daniel, I could no longer be intimate.

  I had symptoms but no evidence. Not really. Now I was really disturbed. Ashes from the cigarette I forgot I was holding tumbled onto my gray sweater, burning a small hole in it. This fucking night was just getting better and better.

  A thought occurred to me. When I had sex for the first time with Adam in high school, there was no question that I was a virgin because of the pain and the blood. That didn’t mean other things couldn’t have happened to me, but I knew for sure it hadn’t gotten to the point of penetration.

  When I was at Kenyon, I had my first orgasm. I thought it was going to be mind-altering—something completely new. But when it finally happened, it was the most familiar feeling in the world—something I’d felt many times in childhood. I couldn’t remember what had been going on when the orgasms occurred, but they were not new to me.

  By the time the sun came up, I’d read most of the book. I was exhausted and disoriented, not knowing what to think. I was not the same person—neither was JoAnn. Who were Mom and Dad? What had happened in our house?

  I put on my new red wool coat and drove to the Sunshine Market to pick up two coffees and blueberry muffins. My throat was sore from smoking cigarettes. I should have left the damn things alone. When I came back, JoAnn was awake.

  “I should stay with you,” I told her.

  “It’d be better for me if you went to Ohio. I could use this vacation from work to figure out what I’m going to do.”

  “I’m worried about you. You’re so thin. Do you want me to pick up some groceries?”

  “I don’t need anything. Look in the refrigerator; you’ll see there’s plenty of food in there,” she said.

  “Do you have someone to talk to?” I asked.

  “I see a therapist three times a week. If I need her, I’ll call. She calls me too, just to check in.”

  Thank God she was being supported by a therapist who knew what she was doing, because I had no idea what to do.

  I was glad JoAnn was okay with my going home. I wanted to see Ohio. Being there might unlock some of the mystery. I expected it to look different now that I knew the depth of what had happened there.

  “If you need me, I’ll drive straight back,” I said.

  “I know, but I’ll be all right.”

  “Mom will ask about you. What should I tell her?” I asked.

  “Tell her the truth,” she said.

  “Really?”

  “She might as well know.”

  I pulled onto Interstate 70 west with my lukewarm coffee and thought about the man who’d raised us, the good Dad and the bad. I remembered my graduation from Kenyon and how I’d spotted him up in the corner of the packed football stadium. He had stood and waved, thumbs up, happy that I’d found him in the crowd, and I had unexpectedly cried because my dad was proud of me and I was glad he was there.

  I stuck in my Joni Mitchell Blue cassette and put on my glasses. My eyes were so tired, the road was looking wavy.

  I remembered Dad taking Becky and me to the Shrine Circus when I was eight. He was mad at Mom for making him bring us, so he refused to buy anything to eat or drink the whole day. We were hungry and afraid to even ask to go to the bathroom.

  I thought of all the things he had almost done: almost bought a Cadillac, almost ran for mayor of Elk Grove, almost created rain on the sundeck of his lake house by stringing up a series of flat green sprinklers from Big Lots.

  I pictured him singing “Goodnight, Irene” around the campfire at the lake, his head tilted to the side, eyes closed. He cooked us Saturday night steaks on the grill even when it was below freezing, even when he hated us.

  When Dad was little, he worked as Papaw’s slave. Maybe he was sexually abused. It said in The Courage to Heal that “the abused often abuse.” There was no way to know. Maybe Dad’s rage was enough to cause all of it.

  I pulled into a rest stop to call Mom. I should have told her in person, but I couldn’t carry that secret by myself any longer. I needed to lock arms with Mom. I needed to know during the long drive back that there’d be support waiting. Mom and Jim rarely stepped in to help with anything, but this was so huge—her daughter being molested by her ex-husband—surely they’d come through on this one.

  “Hello?” Mom sounded happy. Her Greatest Songs of Christmas album, which she’d had since I was in first grade, was playing in the background.

  “Hi, Mom,” I said. “I’m running late. I’m still seven hours away.”

  “What happened?” She was talking in her “baby” voice, wanting Christmas to start as soon as possible.

  “I got a late start from Washington. Is Jim home?” I asked, making sure she wasn’t alone.

  “He’s sitting in the breakfast nook cracking walnuts for me. I’m making fudge,” she said.

  “JoAnn’s not coming home this year,” I told her.

  “Why not?”

  “She’s going through something difficult,” I said. “Remember how depressed she’s been, how depressed she was even as a kid?”

  “She’s sad about Christine,” Mom said.

  “That’s what I thought, and I’m sure the breakup didn’t help, but that’s not what it is,” I said.

  Mom didn’t say anything. She was holding off the inevitable. I knew how she felt.

  “Well, there’s no easy way to say it so I’ll just say it; Dad molested JoAnn. For years.” There was an excruciatingly long pause. “Mom?”

  “It’s not possible,” she said. “In bed your dad was always gentle and sweet with me.”

  “That’s your response?” I asked. My brain was about to explode.

  “What am I supposed to say? Your dad didn’t do this. He couldn’t have.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s not capable,” she said. “He wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

  “Wouldn’t hurt anyone? Are you serious?” She couldn’t have been living in the same house as us.

  “He’s a bully, that’s all,” Mom concluded.

  “When Becky was in junior high, you told her to be careful around him.”

  “I don’t remember saying that,” she said.

  “I do.”

  “He did not do this.” She was getting irate.

  “I hope you’re right, but I doubt you are. JoAnn seems sure of it,” I said. “And he was inappropriate with me, too.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, this is absurd,” Mom said. “It’s Christmas.” There was a pause. “Let’s at least try to have a nice holiday. We can deal with this after.” I stared at the receiver as if Mom was inside it. She had already hung up.

  I sat down on the cement curb and put my head in my hands. For Mom, JoAnn’s crisis was just one more thing to deal with later, like taking down the Christmas tree. But for me, JoAnn’s revelation had upended everything I’d ever known to be true. Who cared about Christmas?

  I walked back to the car remembering the quote from the book: The family might refuse to believe her or even disown her so they can keep up the false pretense under which they have been living.

  If JoAnn were my daughter, I’d be tearing down to Lake Hiawatha to confront the bastard who’d molested my child. But I knew Mom was just standing there, stirring the Christmas fudge.

  Seeing Ohio did not make it better. Looking at the familiar—the flowered wallpaper in my bedroom, Pizza Palace, the cemetery behind the house, Whitmore’s field—only made me realize how ordinary the unimaginable felt to us.

  My first night there, Mom and I sat up until three thirty in the morning talking over what we knew so far about JoAnn’s recollections. Actually, I talke
d; she sipped Earl Grey tea and busied herself stringing popcorn for the Christmas tree. I wanted to run my fist through a window and feel every jagged shard piercing my skin. How could we be having Christmas as if nothing were wrong? And yet, I didn’t know what else to do.

  Becky had flown home from San Diego. She’d built a great life for herself out there, and was standing on her own two feet with good friends and an excellent job. She’d bought a flute and was finally taking lessons—a lifelong dream. We had started talking on the phone regularly after I’d moved to New York, but she had recently started dating someone, so now we rarely spoke.

  After Mom talked to Becky, I approached her.

  “What do you think about JoAnn?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged; her face was flushed. She was as scared as I was.

  “Did anything like that happen to you?” I asked.

  “Of course not.” She was knitting the last corner of a pink afghan she’d been working on for my Christmas present.

  “I can’t remember anything,” I said, watching her fingers push thick pink yarn around two knitting needles. “I’ve racked my brain, and I don’t remember what JoAnn remembers.” Becky didn’t even look up. “Aren’t you worried he might have done something to us?” I asked. “I’m worried.”

  “I can’t think about it right now. I need to finish this or you won’t be able to take it back to Brooklyn.” She leaned down and grabbed her knitting bag.

  “I’m scared something really bad is going to happen,” I told her.

  “It already has,” she said, cutting and tying off the yarn.

  “I’m going to confront Dad on Christmas night,” I told her.

  “Good luck,” she said, getting up and gathering up her knitting.

  “I’m not going near him.”

  I watched her walk up the stairs.

  In the kitchen, I loaded Mom’s dishwasher, and thought about one Christmas at the old house on Main Street when we were young. Becky and I were the first ones awake, jumping from her bed to mine, waiting for Mom and Dad to wake up.

  “Peek downstairs and see if Santa came,” Becky dared me.

  “They’ll kill me if I look.” I kept jumping. We weren’t allowed to go downstairs until Dad had the bright lights of the movie camera focused on the stairway. Christmas morning was the one time he filmed his children as meticulously as he filmed disasters. It took forever.

  “Stop jumping,” JoAnn grumbled from under her covers.

  “It’s Christmas morning,” I told her.

  “It’s dark out,” she responded.

  “But Santa came. Don’t you want to get up?” Becky said.

  “NO!” She kept sleeping.

  Becky and I jumped quietly. I hopped off the bed and put my face against the metal register in the floor to see if I could spot the Christmas tree down there. I couldn’t see it in the dark.

  The register looked down into the living room and was perfect for spying or dropping small plastic animals through. If Mom or Dad were sitting on the couch below, watching TV or eating popcorn, we could see them, cut up into tiny squares through the intricate opening of that grate.

  “I can see something,” I said.

  “What?” Becky demanded, pushing her face close to mine over the grate.

  “You got a gigantic dog poop from Santa.” We started laughing like crazy. She pushed me off the register and looked down.

  “You got a moldy cheeseburger,” she said, and laughed.

  “That’s exactly what I wanted,” I told her.

  “Good, ’cause that’s what you got.”

  Jamie’s room was downstairs next to the bathroom. He must have still been asleep. I whispered through the register, “Jamie? Jamie, wake up, it’s Christmas morning.” Nothing.

  “He’s not getting up,” Becky said.

  “We’re on our own,” I confirmed.

  I poured detergent into the door of the dishwasher and closed it. I pushed the knob and heard the water pouring in. Jamie walked into the kitchen. He’d flown in from Salt Lake.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked.

  “A drink, if you know what I mean.” He winked. He knelt down and peered into the liquor cabinet.

  “If there’s rum in there, pull it out,” I told him.

  “Now the party’s finally gettin’ started,” he said, rubbing his hands together. After rummaging around in there, he came out with a fifth of Bacardi. “Is this what you had in mind?”

  “Perfect,” I said. I wiped my hands on a dish towel and opened the fridge to get a Coke. Encouraging Jamie to drink was terrible. He had such a bad problem that there were warrants out for his arrest in at least one state because of the DUIs he’d accumulated. But I needed to relate to someone, and Jamie and I loved each other, even though he scared me sometimes.

  “What are you mixing your whiskey with?” I asked, pulling down two glasses.

  “I don’t mix whiskey,” he said. “It kills the taste.” He took one of the glasses and filled it with ice.

  “For you,” he said, handing it over.

  “Thanks.”

  Jamie filled his glass halfway up and downed a big gulp. I was no different, filling my glass halfway with rum and chasing it with Coke. Jamie leaned on the counter and looked directly at me.

  “So Dad really did this to JoAnn?” he asked. What a relief! Someone finally came right out and said it.

  “Seems that way,” I told him.

  Jamie began pacing around the kitchen, shaking his head.

  “What a bastard,” he said.

  “Pretty much.”

  “I should go down there and take care of him with a shotgun.” Jamie stuck his arm out and acted out aiming a rifle.

  “He’s not worth ending up in jail,” I told him. “He’s taken away enough of our lives already.”

  “I thought I’d gotten the worst of it, but I guess not.” He downed another gulp.

  “You had it plenty bad,” I said. “The way Dad treated you was unforgivable.”

  “I guess,” he said, finishing his drink. “I just can’t picture him messing around with one of you girls. I really can’t picture it.”

  “I know.”

  I didn’t tell Jamie I was confronting Dad, because he’d insist on going with me, and someone would end up either shot or beaten to death—and it wouldn’t be Dad.

  The phone rang and Jamie picked it up. It was our cousin Paul—which meant Jamie would be partying all night.

  After he got off the phone, he went into his room, put on clean jeans, and a white button-down shirt with a turquoise bolo tie. “I’m going out with the guys. Be cool.”

  “Yes, that’s me all right,” I said. He started toward the door, pulling on his coat. “Jamie?” I called. He turned around. “Be careful in the snow.”

  “No problemo,” he said, heading outside.

  The next night, as guests arrived for the Christmas Eve party, Christmas carols rotated on the turntable and the manger scene glowed on a cushion of spun glass near the front door. It was the first Christmas Eve we’d sing without JoAnn’s piano accompaniment.

  Jamie had too many beers and told Granda about Dad. Grabbing my arm in the kitchen, she asked, “Did he use his fingers or his penis?” My mouth dropped open.

  “I have no idea,” I snapped.

  “If he used his penis—”

  I stopped her right there. “Granda, I can’t discuss it like this.” I walked out of the kitchen. I had to get out of the house.

  I threw on my coat and walked to the back fence. I had forgotten how black it got at night in Ohio farm country, especially with no moon. The myriad stars seemed to stretch into infinity and multiply the longer I stood there.

  I glanced back at our house, with every window lit. People I’d always known—the Whitmores, Uncle Dale, Granda—walked past the windows with glasses of iced tea in their hands and smiles on their faces.

  I knew, just as you know when someone you love
has died even before you get the call, that I would leave this family, these friends, and my home forever. I was watching my last bit of life there. I was watching it from the outside in, and from then on, I always would.

  I looked across the field and up again at the stars. The next day, I would confront my father.

  On Christmas night Mom wanted to know why I was going to Dad’s. “Why waste gas to go see him?” she asked, wiping the counter.

  “To find out what happened to JoAnn,” I said.

  Mom looked skeptical. “I bet that’ll go over well.”

  “I’m surprised it hasn’t occurred to you to confront him. You’re the one who married him.” I turned on her.

  “I’m not going anywhere near him,” she said. “One day, I stood in front of the washer and decided I was done with him. Just like that, it was over between us.”

  “What about your daughter?” I asked.

  “He’s a load of hot air and always has been,” she said. “He’s harmless.”

  “Harmless?” I smacked the top of the counter. “Are you kidding me? Harmless?” I was flailing my arms around, trying to control the urge to smack some reality into the back of her head. “He wasn’t harmless. He was violent and mean to all of us.”

  “You’re the great exaggerator,” Mom said, wringing out the sponge over the sink.

  “I’m not the one who said Dad molested me. JoAnn said it, and I’m going down there for her sake,” I said.

  “Well, everyone knows you’re the martyr,” she said. “The Truth Patrol.”

  “I don’t live in a happy bubble, pretending life is bliss,” I assured her.

  “No one would accuse you of that,” she quipped.

  “If you and I really get into this whole thing, our relationship will NEVER survive.” I stormed out of the room.

  Mom turned on the heat under the teakettle.

  That night, it was snowing like hell and the pitch-black road to Dad’s lake house was winding and slick, which added to my feeling of danger.

  As I slid up my father’s driveway, I noticed his house was decked out with Christmas lights, but not traditional lights like everyone else at Lake Hiawatha, and not like the strings of lights wrapped meticulously around the fourteen-foot wooden totem pole that greeted you at the entrance. Instead, Dad had hung enormous white plastic bells everywhere, with multicolored lights sticking out all over them like neon porcupine quills. They were swinging on the trees lining his driveway and swaying from the eaves of his seventies-style A-frame house.