Talk

by Rachel Zachary

  Dad was scolding and yelling at me for making a mess, his hand on my arm and I jumped so startled, so alarmed by his touch that I knocked a chair over as I fell flat on my butt. Dad grabbed me by my arm yanking me up asking what was the matter with me and that I was going to help him clean up this mess, and how I was as crazy as Mom was. I don’t know why I did that.

  In fact the more I thought about it, I had acted that way a lot growing up. I had always chalked it up to wanting to be out of Dad’s reach when he was drinking, because when he drank and depending on what he drank he could be a fun drunk or a mean drunk.

  I didn’t think it was a over-reaction, when he was drunk and he was angry he would pick a fight with Mom, me, the furniture, and the moon if he thought if looked at him funny.

  But I had never thought that Dad was going to touch me that way.

  And after when Dad had sobered up he had a funny way of making everybody feel like that they were the crazy ones and not him. That we should be the ones were embarrassed while we were cleaning up the glass he had broken that Mom had left for Dad to see and that Dad staunchly ignored. Like we were the ones who had broken it.

  I rubbed a hand over my arm, that feeling...but why now? I needed to think. Mary had gotten into my head, those words, those memories hadn’t come from nowhere. I smoked another cigarette and put the ashes out into an empty soda can. I couldn’t go back to sleep. I couldn’t call Dad. I thought about calling Mom, but what if Mom already knew? What if she didn’t know but she didn’t believe Mary? I thought about calling Dad, about that fragile friendship breaking. I took a soda from the fridge popped the tab and drank it.

  My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

  I felt like I had been caught in a hurricane. Like the walls had opened and everything had been turned inside out and upside down, and all of the windows had broken and the floor had fallen out from under me. I couldn’t do anything but sit there and try to figure out what went there and what was salvageable and what should be thrown out and where I should start cleaning. And when I was done cleaning and the house was inorder and the windows were replaced and the furniture and the cabinets that had been ripped out of the walls you call the first realtor in the phone book and sell because the storm had already gotten you once and you didn’t want it to get you again.

  I thought about Dad with that butcher knife crying, I thought about how we had always been on the run, moving from place to place how I had always brought my fear and anger and kept it locked deep down inside of me. My whole life I had been told not to ask questions.

  Be quiet.

  Don’t upset your father. Don’t ask yourself why you still have to sleep with some kind of night light. Why you make sure that you don’t leave blankets in the car in case people get the wrong idea. Why you’re always looking over your shoulder, why you always keep your doors and windows locked in case someone tried to come in. Why every apartment you had, had bars on the windows. Not to keep you in, but to keep people out.

  After Paul I hadn’t had sex, but even when I touched myself, somewhere in between the mind numbing pleasure had been a strange familiarity of hands on my privates. I had as much evidence as Mary and even less evidence, I didn’t even have the memories that she had to rely on. I only had my thoughts. Even though I wasn’t sure that anything had even happened to me, I was still disturbed.

  I finished the soda.

  I had been a virgin when I had sex with Paul, that much was clear (I remembered how much it hurt, how much I had bled, I had worried that Paul had torn something important and that I was going to have to go to the hospital because I was bleeding so much, but thankfully it had stopped) but that didn’t mean that nothing had happened.

  They might not have penetrated deep enough to break my hymen, or they might not have penetrated me at all. I remember how familiar my first orgasm was.

  I stayed up all night thinking and drinking. The next morning I was exhausted but to wired to sleep, I didn’t know what to think, I still didn’t know what to do. Dad had left me three messages but I didn't answer any of them or call him back. I hadn’t called Mom either. I felt strange, like I was sick. Like I had been poisoned. It was like I had been looking at the world through a glass full of water and now it was empty.

  “I believe you,” I told Mary when she woke up.

  “Thanks,” she whispered flashing me a watery smile before heading straight for the coffee.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked her. I can’t make these decisions for you.

  “I’ve been talking to someone the past couple weeks.”

  “Like a therapist?”

  “Yeah,” she smiled. “I know it makes me sound crazy.”

  “No it doesn't.” I say seriously.

  I sent up a silent thank you to God that she had told someone, that she had someone who to talk to, who would listen to her and know what to do, what to say because I was completely clueless.

  “Do you want me to pick anything up for breakfast?” I asked her.

  “No thanks, there’s some leftovers in the fridge.” she said.

  “I think that you should move back in with me.” I said.

  Mary refused, she said she was doing okay, she was talking to her therapist, she had her friends and she didn’t want to be a burden on me even though I assured her that she wasn’t. I told her to sleep on it. I needed time to think. I needed to go see Dad. I wanted to go see if he had changed, if I could see what Mary saw and what I remembered.

  ***

  I drove around Brooklyn for hours before I pulled into a gas station to fuel up grab some coffee and to call Mom . I needed help. I had asked but Mary hadn't wanted to give me the number for her therapist yet and I wasn’t even sure what I would ask her if she could even tell me anything. Hi my name is Susie Hale, my sister Mary is one of your patients and she just dropped a nuke on my life by saying that our Dad molested her and I was wondering what she told you?

  No.

  I needed Mom.

  I needed to know if she would be there, actually be there to support Mary. That she would be able to shed some light on things. That for once in my life I could ask my Mom to help me and she would.This was bigger than tuition, bigger than losing an apartment, Mary thought she had been raped, Mary had been raped, by our father. She was his ex-wife. If anyone knew what had happened, if it might be true it was Mom.

  The phone rang and rang.

  “Susie.” Mom said. I could hear the washing machine running in the background and then a timer dinging.

  “We’re not going to Dads for Thanksgiving,” I told her.

  “Great,” I could hear the smile in Mom’s voice. “You girls can come up here, watch the parade, Bob’s been dying to show off his new flat screen its forty-”

  I cut Mom off.

  “We’re not coming up to see you guys either.”

  “Why not?” Mom asked, with an angry pout in her voice.

  “Something’s, something’s happened.” I said searching for the right words.

  “What Mary’s still mad at your Dad?” Mom asked.

  “No, yes.” I said then rubbed my forehead. “Well that was what I thought when I went over to see her, but she’s angry, she’s depressed but that isn’t why.”

  “Then what is it?” Mom snapped.

  “I don’t know how to say it, I couldn’t believe at first when Mary told me and I don’t know if you’ll believe me when I tell you, but I want you to Mom. I need you to.”

  “Well I can’t make any promises,” Mom said but I knew she was listening.

  “Mary told me that Dad touched her,” my voice sounded thick and clumsy, I cleared my throat and tried again. “That he raped her when she was younger. That this happened for years. Until she moved in with me.”

  Mom was quiet for a long time.

  “Mom, are you still there?”

  “Yes.” she said.

  “Aren’t you going to say anything?” I asked.

  “About what?” M
om asked.

  I stared out the window incredulously. “About Dad molesting Mary.”

  “Oh that,” Mom said.

  “Yeah, that.” I said angrily.

  “Well I just don’t believe it,” Mom said. “Your Dad would never do something like that.”

  I might have believed her, but she took too long to answer and she sounded uncomfortable and panicked, just like she always did whenever I was asking a question that I wasn’t supposed to.

  “Why couldn’t he?” I asked.

  “Because,” Mom spluttered. “He just didn’t. He couldn’t have. He would never hurt anyone.”

  “Are you serious right now?” I asked her. She couldn’t have forgotten

  “That way,” Mom snapped. “He would never hurt anyone that way. “

  “How do you know?”

  “Look your father is a lot of things,” Mom said. “He’s a drunk, he’s a liar, and he’s a stubborn jackass who liked to pick fights to make himself feel bigger but he’s nothing like what you and your sister are accusing him of.”

  “I don’t know why you believe her anyway,” Mom said when I didn’t say anything. “You know those two enver got a long, she’d do anything to hurt him if it meant she won. You have no idea what it was like living with the two of them when you left. No idea. They were fighting every day. And when she wasn’t picking a fight then she would get into one of her moods, and she would sulk for days. For weeks. She wouldn’t talk, she wouldn’t eat, and then she would be back to her usual self and she and your Dad would be at each other's throats. She hated him. She still does. That’s why she’s doing this. To hurt me, to hurt your father and now she’s dragged you into it.”

  “You told me once that you didn’t like the way he looked at me.” I reminded Mom.

  She laughed.

  “I never said anything like that.”

  I reminded her of how we had to wait for Dad to leave before we snuck into the soup kitchen, of the food we had eaten, how we had been living out of a car then. Mom didn’t remember any of it. She told me that I was making it all up.

  “Listen,” she said angrily. “I’m sick of this. are you coming up for Thanksgiving or not.”

  Just me. Not Mary. Mom didn’t even want to hear her name and threatened to hang up several times every time I tried to get the conversation back on track.

  “Mom I need to know okay, I need to know if this happened. I hope that you’re right about Dad,” I said.

  “Listen why don’t you come up,” Mom said. “We can spend time together, just the family,”

  It made my blood boil.

  “I’ll be staying here with Mary, you and Bob have fun, oh and mom don’t expect us for Christmas.”

  It was the ultimate sin. No matter how poor we had been, or hungry, or where we were we had always celebrated Christmas together.

  I hung up while Mom was screeching down the line about how selfish and hurtful I was being.

  I put my head down on the steering wheel. Mom was no help, she would deny and ignore anything that didn't fit in her happy bubble, everything was okay, problems were for other people to solve. Life was just one big freakin adventure. Mary’s revelations about our childhood had no effect on Mom, but it had sent me into a tailspin. How could Mom still be focused on Thanksgiving? Who cared that much about stupid sweaters, turkeys, frozen cranberries and making cookies shaped like pilgrims? Why didn’t Mom care about what happened to Mary? What may have happened to me?

  A slimy feeling like a dead octopus curled and uncurled in my stomach. Mom hadn’t been surprised when I told her about Mary’s suspicions. She had been afraid.

  She knew.

  And she let the bastard do it to us.

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  In January I found myself sitting in the emergency room with my sweater covered in drying pea soup, watching Mary watching the wall. There were IV lines running into her arms and bandaids over her fingers where she had bitten them until they were bloody. I had come back and stayed with her through Thanksgiving, but I had to leave the first week of December for work.

  We had talked on the phone but I hadn’t been able to see here in person. She promised that she was eating and taking care of herself, but her roomates told me that she hadn’t been doing anything, but laying in bed. She had stopped going to her acting classes, she had stopped auditioning for plays and bit roles in movies, she had even stopped talking to her therapist.

  By the time I had been able to see Mary, she hadn’t eaten anything for five days and had stopped drinking for three. She had knocked the soup out of my hand when I had wrestled her down and tried to force it down her throat after hours of pleading and cajoling and threats to have her hospitalized had failed.

  I picked at the three small butterfly strips on my cheek from where Mary had scratched me. Mom didn’t want to come see her and we got into a loud argument over the phone over who she should stay with and who was responsible for her being there. Mom didn’t want to hear any mention of Dad or accept any responsibility. She didn’t even seem to care. She was more focused on taking down the Christmas decorations and getting ready for Valentine’s Day than helping me talk Mary down from the edge.

  I tried but couldn’t get her discharged into my custody, after a week in the hospital on suicide watch, she had been sent upstate to a clinic (that the insurance thankfully covered) where she had been tube fed the majority of the time (she refused to eat anything) was on IVs for a week (She had refused everything even water) and had gained back enough weight (not enough for me) and somehow convinced the doctors that she was okay enough to leave. As soon as she was released she bought a bus ticket to Oklahoma, but I talked her out of using it just yet. I couldn’t convince her to move in with me or to even move back into the apartment with her friends. She packed everything she owned into three suitcases and took the subway back to the hostel we had stayed at when she first moved in with me.

  I went to sleep early and woke up a couple hours after dawn, I took the day off and waited to see if she would call me. Mary had asked me not to come. She hadn’t let me take her home from the hospital. She hadn’t let me help her pack. I felt useless.

  ***

  It was February when I heard from Mary again. I went over to the hostel happy to see that she wasn’t as thin as she had been in January. She was wearing a loose green t-shirt that showed off the thick white-grey gauze covering both of her forearms. She stared at me unflinching, as if she was daring me to ask what had happened. I put the pizza I had bought down on the table and offered to change the bandages because they were getting dirty.

  She looked surprised but began to pick at the tape and unwind the long strips until I could see the long cuts. Two on each arm. It must have been terribly painful, I couldn’t imagine how much it had hurt. It made me think about Dad. I was disturbed but I tried not to show it too much. It took me awhile to clean and then to rebandage it but by the time her therapist knocked on the door I had finished.

  Mary had been furious, she told me I had no right to call her therapist or tell her where she was living. That I had betrayed her. I had read several books on trauma and dealing with victims of trauma. I didn’t yell, I didn’t shout. I explained why I had called her therapist (I am not equipped to deal with this, I don’t know what to do and you’ve shut me out, you’re scared and hurting and I am too). We asked her why she had cut herself (she just wanted it to stop) and promised that she wasn’t going to do it again. But she had done it. She had wanted to deal with it on her own, she had wanted to fight it on her terms but she just couldn’t anymore. Mary was too tired. I asked her if she thought it was working, doing everything on her own.

  “No.” she whispered.

  I was relieved when the therapist suggested that she go back to the clinic. Mary told me she wished that she had never told anyone, that she had kept it a secret. She told me that she wished she had died.

  ***

  It was Valentine's Day. I got off the phone
with Mary who was just about to go to group (she told me that she was embarrassed to be there, that she didn’t want to talk about these things with complete strangers but she did grudgingly admit that it was helping) threw on my scarf and headed out.

  It was just after six p.m. I had finally finished grading all of the term papers and projects from Christmas break and walked to Madison Square Avenue. I was going to meet Adam Green (the new math teacher) for dinner, it was my first date in years He was handsome in a white v-necked short, tan slacks, with a pine scented cologne holding a stuffed animal and a small bouquet of sunflowers (they were all out of roses). I took them with a smile.

  It was wonderful, he was funny and smart, he made small talk interesting and we laughed over chianti and shared a large plate of pasta. We walked through central park and bought two ice cream cones from a street vendor. When our cones were gone he walked with me down to the subway. He asked if he could see me again sometime. I told him when I would be free. I thought about kissing him but I didn’t. It was just too soon.

  As soon as I was back in my apartment I screamed into a pillow and jumped on my bed almost dizzy from happiness. And then my old fears and insecurities came creeping back in. Dad was always there like an itch I couldn’t scratch. I got up and locked my door then took a sleeping pill and crawled into bed.

  I had been having strange dreams, and flashbacks the past few weeks, a smell, a sound, a touch would dredge something up from the back of my mind. A reaching hand, a wet kiss pressed against my cheek, the smell of tobacco. I had never felt so small and afraid before. Whenever I went to sleep I would wake up with some new ‘memory’ or half remembered dream that I could not confirm or place. It was terrifying. I had almost stopped sleeping but now I chose to slip into oblivion. A part of me, the selfish ugly part of me hated Mary for bringing it up now, for what she’d done, for what she’d started.