Confined

by Barbi Barnard

  When I first met Kyle, he was interning in the maternity ward of the hospital where I gave birth to Emma Grace. Our first encounter was… interesting. He had come into my room one evening to check on me. I’d been asleep with the lights out and the door closed. The telltale click startled me awake and I laid there with the blankets clutched to my chin, huddling in the bed, too damned scared to move. As he flicked on the lights, I screamed as loud as I could. His emerald green eyes were wide with surprise, his lithe body tensed.

  Five nurses and another doctor came running to see what the commotion was about. The nurse I was familiar with shushed me, talking softly to me in her attempt to calm me. Finally, they sedated me. I slept through the night and when I awoke the next morning, a pretty blonde shrink was waiting at the foot of my bed.

  She asked me why I reacted the way I did. I hesitated, unsure of what would happen if I told her the truth. When the words rushed from my lips, I was powerless to stop them. She was the first person I’d actually told the events of that night to. Well, beside Curtis, but really, after hearing the boys bragging in the bathroom, he knew that what they were saying was wrong. So in my book, telling him really didn’t count.

  The shrink, a woman by the name of Rachel Howell, encouraged me to call the police and file a report, then come back to see her for regular weekly sessions. I told her that I would think about calling the police and left it at that. When she asked me how the three of them managed to get away with raping me, especially in a town the size of Mora, I shrugged. The way Curtis told it, they were telling people that I was drunk and threw myself at them, practically begging them to screw me, and that it was the quiet ones that were always the freakiest. Rodger’s girlfriend unwittingly backed up their story with her tale of how she caught us in the act. Why Curtis, who knew the truth, never said anything, I never knew. Not that I talked to him enough to find out.

  My last few days in the hospital, Rachel came to see me every day. Eventually she cleared me, stating in her report I was not a threat to my child, or myself, but that I should seriously consider seeking some sort of therapy or counseling.

  The day they discharged me from the hospital, I carried Emma out of the building in her second hand car seat and stood in front of the hospital watching as life marched on around me. I had no idea what to do next, where to go, how to get through the day. Hell, how I was going to keep my job, pay my bills and afford daycare on a meager waitress salary?

  God, if there was a God, stepped in then. The elderly woman who lived downstairs from me in the rent by the week motel I lived in ran a daycare and offered to watch Emma Grace for practically nothing. My boss at the diner where I’d been working before I had the baby gave me my job back with the condition that if I gave him any grief or called out because of my kid he’d fire me.

  It wasn’t great and it sure as hell wasn’t what I envisioned for myself, but it was what it was. Not that it kept me from crying myself to sleep every night and that wasn’t even the worst part. I couldn’t stand to look at Emma. In the hospital the nurses took care of her, I didn’t have to lift a finger. Not that I wanted to. She was the reason my life was so screwed up. I was supposed to love her, she was my daughter, but I didn’t like her. I despised her.

  I didn’t want to touch her, change her, and feed her. I didn’t even want to be near her. Every time I looked at her, it was Rodger staring back at me; she had the same fair hair as he did, the same dimple in her left cheek, the same complexion. Whenever I looked at her, I felt sick and dirty and wanted to vomit. Every time I did look at her, or touch her, feed her, change her, whatever, I had to shower because I felt dirty and used and beaten all over again.

  Don’t get me wrong, I took care of her; I fed her and bathed her, but every time I did, it made me sick to my stomach. When I took her in for her first checkup, the doctor, who was, ironically, Kyle, took one look at me and knew something was wrong. I’d lost all the baby weight and then some, my clothes were hanging off my shrunken body.

  “Have you been eating?” he asked, flashing a pen light in my eyes.

  I stared blankly at the wall just over his shoulder.

  “JoJo.” He called my name authoritatively. “Have you been taking care of yourself?”

  Coming out of my stupor, I looked at him listlessly and said, “I guess.”

  He shut off the light and slid it back into his pocket. They called it postpartum depression and gave me some drugs that were supposed to shake me out of whatever it was I was going through. I took them and of course, they helped a little bit, but there was still this underlying depression that didn’t go away no matter how many pills I took.

  A few months went by and things got a little better. I worked my hours at the diner, went home, fed, and bathed Emma, put her in her bed, then climbed into my own where I cried until I fell asleep. Each day was the same; a mind numbing schedule that allowed me to function without thinking.

  One night I was leaving the diner when this tattooed guy started to follow me across the parking lot. My heart kicked into overdrive and I hurried toward the bus stop. He kept following me, getting closer. I almost, and probably would have, passed out as the overwhelming fear took over me, if a certain green-eyed doctor hadn’t pulled into the parking lot.

  How this man kept showing up in my life, I never knew, but I figured it to be a sign from the universe. He scared the guy off and offered to drive me home. I politely thanked him and told him I’d rather wait for the bus, he sat at the bus stop, on the opposite side of the bench and waited with me.

  When the bus groaned to a stop, he told me to have a nice night and waited until I’d gotten on the bus and sat down, before he stood and walked back to his car. A few nights later, he showed up at the diner and asked me out on a date. I refused and thought I’d never see him again, but that night when I got off work, he was waiting at the bus stop.

  “Nice night,” he said as I sat down on the opposite edge of the bench.

  That was how it all started. He would wait with me each night until the bus came, talking about the weather or about the dinner specials in the diner.

  Slowly, very, very slowly, I let him in. Two years after meeting him, we went on our first date. It was Emma Grace’s second birthday and he took us to Chuck E. Cheese. A year later, when he was offered a job at a hospital in Los Angeles he asked us to come with him. By this point, I knew he wouldn’t hurt Emma or me. When I asked him what he wanted in return he looked at me, appalled and said, “Peace of mind. I want to know that you and Emma Grace are safe and being taken care of.”

  I don’t know what happened after that, something in me started to defrost, partly because I knew I could trust Kyle. Six months after we moved to L.A., we moved in together. Another six months after that he proposed and we married in a small ceremony as the sun came up on Huntington Beach.

  Kyle encouraged me to go to counseling so that I could, and I quote, “finally put those demons to rest.”

  I went for a few weeks, really trying to get over what happened, but all the hours spent talking about what happened that night and how it affected me and how it changed me, didn’t help. In fact, it made what happened worse. Therapy was like ripping out your stitches an hour after surgery – with rusty tweezers. The nightmares came back, the disgusting feeling of being dirty and worthless plagued me, and I stopped eating and sleeping, spending to choose my nights in the den with a pack of cigarettes and late night infomercials.

  Then one day I just decided I wasn’t going anymore. Instead, I spent time I would have normally spent on the shrinks couch on a yoga mat. Yoga wasn’t a cure all, but it sure as hell helped a lot more than therapy did. Kyle knew I wasn’t going anymore, but I suppose he turned a blind eye, finding it more important to pretend that I was attempting to fix my problems rather than bury them under a carefully crafted façade.

  The years of our marriage went by and for a while, things were good, until they weren’t anymore. I don’t know when it all started, or reall
y, what started it, but one day things were just different. I knew he was seeing someone at the hospital; over the course of our marriage, he had discreet affairs and I was fine with it. He was getting something from them that I couldn’t give him; the only stipulations were that I didn’t have to hear about it and that he was as discreet as possible. It would make us both look bad if his extramarital affairs were disclosed.

  I know that sounds, just… well, ridiculous, I suppose. I should probably explain: Kyle and I were married, yes, but we were never physically intimate. The one time we attempted physical intimacy; I had a panic attack and almost ended up in the hospital. We slept in separate rooms, in separate beds. My door was locked each night, leaving me safe and secure in my own little world.

  I loved Kyle with all my heart, don’t get me wrong, but I just couldn’t be the kind of wife he needed. He claimed to be okay with our relationship, said what I gave him was all he needed. Of course, it turned out to be a lie and he was really quite bitter about the whole damn thing.

  That’s when the issue of the private investigator really started to become an issue. During our relationship, it came up sparingly, then toward the later years it became a more frequent topic of conversation.

  That was when I really started to notice that things weren’t as grand as he pretended they were. One night we got into an argument and he told me that he paid an investigator to “get rid of them” because he was sick and tired of having a wife who “couldn’t stand to touch him.”

  He thought that if the three of them were out of the picture that it would miraculously cure me and make me all better. After that night, I spent hours scouring the internet trying to find out what he’d done to them. I learned that Arnold died from a heroin overdose two years ago. I remember thinking; I hope he suffered, as I read about it. However, as for Tyler and Rodger, there was never anything in the news about them.

  A few weeks and a few hundred fights later, Kyle moved out of the house and filed for divorce. I couldn’t believe it, a huge part of me refused to wrap my mind around it. We’d been through so much, he’s always been so patient and understanding to suddenly give up, throws in the towel, and well it was just unimaginable.

  But he did. The day the papers came, I sat on the floor in the foyer crying over them for hours. Valerie, a friend of mine, made me find a lawyer, and the rest, as they say, is history.

  Which leads me back to where I am now, which is leaning against the front door like a love struck teenager in Mora, Washington watching the baby sitter leave, thinking Steve is unbelievable… amazing. The whole way home, he didn’t ask a million questions or demand to know why I never went to the cops. He was a cop and that could probably be trouble, but it was in the past and for the first time since I’d been raped, I felt as if I could finally move on and start to forget about it.

  I knew it wouldn’t be that easy, but I felt like I was taking a step in the right direction. I sighed happily and turned to lock the door and shut off the porch light. As the front yard went dark, I noticed a car parked across the street that just looked out of place. I didn’t recognize it, the dark color and tint was severely out of place here in Mora. I dropped the curtain and headed toward the stairs. As I gripped the banister, the phone rang; I hurried into the kitchen to answer.

  “What did you forget Steve?” I asked as I picked up the receiver.

  “Did the cop fuck you good?” a creepy voice asked.

  I drop the receiver and stare at it, my whole body shaking, and the good feeling from a few seconds ago now a fleeting memory.

  Get a grip, I scold myself, and call Steve.

  I reach for the phone and hang it up, then dial Steve’s number.

  “Everything okay?” he asked in lieu of a greeting.

  “I uh, I don’t know. I think I just got a creepy phone call.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve been getting these calls and I thought it was just some kids playing a prank, you know, heavy breathing, stuff like that. But they just said something this time and there’s a strange car parked across the street and I’m really freaked the hell out.”

  “I’ll be over in a minute.”

  “No, Steve, it’s fine.”

  “I’ll be over there in a minute,” he said more adamantly.

  “Okay, hurry, please.”

  A few minutes later, there is a soft knock at the door. I lift the curtain and smile at Steve. “Come in,” I beg opening the door.

  Steve is on the porch in a pair of grey sweat pants and a navy blue hoodie. “I’m here to slay your creepy caller,” he reports with an easy smile.

  I laugh nervously and step aside allowing him access to the house. “Thanks for coming,”

  “No problem. How long have you been getting these calls?”

  I shrug. “They started right after I moved back here; sporadic at first. They’d call every few weeks, never say anything, then just hang up. Then recently it’s become more frequent, numerous calls every day, heavy breathing, you know, the normal stalker phone calls. At first I thought it was just kids being silly, and then tonight they spoke.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He asked if-“ I paused, my insides shaking as the voice echoed in my head.

  “What?”

  “If you, um,” I drop my voice to a whisper and say, “fucked me good.”

  “What the hell?” He crosses the kitchen in two long strides and pulls back the kitchen curtain. Peering out into the dark night, he looks up and down the street, searching for any sign of my mysterious caller. “First thing in the morning I’m putting a tap on your phone. “We’ll keep track of how many times they call and hopefully put a stop to it.”

  “Thanks. Um, do you think you could do one more thing for me?”

  Steve drops the curtain and turns toward me. “Sure, anything, just say the word.”

  “Do you think you could stay here tonight? I just, I don’t feel safe. You don’t have to, if you don’t want to, though.”

  “No,” he states. “I’ll stay. I’ll hunker down on the couch.”

  I exhale, instantly at ease. “Thank you. I’ll go get you some blankets and a pillow.”

  “I have to run home real quick, but I’ll be right back. If the phone rings, don’t answer it. I’ll be right back.”

  I follow him out of the kitchen and to the front door. As soon as it shuts I wait for the phone to ring, but it remains silent. Quickly I climb the stairs, still waiting for the shrill sound of the ringing phone to cut through the stillness.

  I stop outside of Emma’s room and push open the door. She is sprawled in the center of the bed, her left foot dangling over the edge, the tinny laughter of Hanna Montana on the television. I fish the remote out of the comforter and click off the TV effectively bathing the room in silence. Turning my attention to my daughter, I set the remote down on the nightstand and gingerly lift her foot, sliding it back under the covers. Emma grins at me then rolls over. I tucked the blankets in around her and smoothes her hair off her forehead, dropping a light kiss on her head.

  At the front door, there is a soft knock. Even though I know it was Steve, my heartbeat kicks up a notch. I slip quietly out of Emma’s room and shut the door behind me. With one hand trailing down the banister, I peer toward the front door. A shadowy shape stands on the other side. I take a deep breath and open the door.

  “Everything okay?” Steve asks, his eyes lingering on my wide-eyed expression.

  I nod wordlessly and shut the door behind him, the deadbolt clacking against the metallic plate with a loud clink. “No phone calls,” I inform him. “Make yourself at home; I’m going to get you some linens.”

  I scold myself for not grabbing the blankets as I climb the stairs for a second time. Wearily, I wrench the hall closet door open and pull a thick quilt down off the shelf. Not having any extra pillows, I decide I would give him one of mine, but not before, I put a clean pillowcase on it. I grab the crisp, cool cotton case and set it atop
of the quilt, then shove the door shut with a hip.