Spilled Milk: Based on a true story

by Randis, K. L

I sighed and sat up. “I got accepted to Penn State.”

  He moved his hand from his face and the pools of chocolate in his eyes softened. “Are you leaving me?”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Then why are you crying?”

  “Come with me.”

  “I can’t live with you at college.”

  “We’ll get an apartment. I don’t want to live in the dorms anyway.”

  “We haven’t even slept together yet and you want to get an apartment two hours from here, not knowing anybody, so you can go to school?”

  “Yes?”

  He had moved from the bed to the wall length dresser and was staring at his reflection while he tapped his fingers. He had four inches on me, the perfect height to rest my head against his chest when I wanted to but still be able to kiss him without going up on tip toes. Leather hands brushed over his crew cut and rubbed the stubble that covered his neck.

  The corner of his mouth turned up as he looked at me. “All right, baby. I’m in.”

  “Yea?” I uncrossed my legs and wrapped my arms around his waist, bringing my face up to his.

  “Yea, are you crazy? I’m not letting you go. So stop crying.”

  ***

  Heather’s phone call about getting a physical to check for STD’s crept into my mind every waking second, so I made an appointment at Planned Parenthood for Jason and I to get tested. I told him it was the responsible thing to do if we were going to plan on being sexually active, which was true, but I had to know.

  Both of us got a clean bill and a week before high school ended we made fun of each other over our inexperience since we both only had one other partner. We held hands under tangled sheets and whispered in excited voices about living together in an apartment all of our own.

  Graduation was moved inside as the sky threatened to rain all morning. Paper fans littered the stands as we filed to the front of the gymnasium to claim our fake diplomas and return to our seats.

  They mailed the real ones a few weeks later, just after I got a call from Heather telling me that my psych evaluation was flawless, and enough evidence was finally submitted to bind the case over to criminal court.

  “They’ll have a formal arraignment now. David will have to enter his plea. He could plead guilty and there would be no trial, but I wouldn’t count on it. They pushed too hard during the preliminary hearing.”

  Earl entered a not guilty plea, and a trial date was set for three months later. I realized I would be in the middle of my freshman year of college when it started, but I tried to focus on vacation, work and packing instead.

  “It’s called Bridal Veil falls. You can walk behind it you know.” Jason’s mom, Laura, held hands with her boyfriend Sam.

  “How long have you guys been dating?” I asked

  “About five months now, right?” Sam motioned to Laura and she nodded. “Yea, about that.”

  “How did you find this place Sam? It’s breath taking.”

  “It’s an Indian Reserve, you can only get on if you have the proper I.D, which I do. I wanted to bring you guys here. It’s one of the most peaceful places I know.”

  “Brooke, follow me.” Jason descended the boulder encrusted path leading to the waterfall.

  Serenity penetrated my bones the farther we drove away from Pennsylvania. I needed to get away, even if only for a short time. By the time we planted foot on Manitoulin Island I was coaxed into a dreamland. Jason pointed. “Let’s go behind the waterfall.”

  “Have you ever seen something like this?” I yelled. Blankets of water cascaded over the ledge in front of us. Specks danced on my face and I beamed at Jason.

  “It’s beautiful. Just like you.”

  A marquise cut diamond was perched on my ring finger when I examined my hand after Jason had been holding it. “Is this for real?” I asked.

  “I want to know, if you’ll be mine forever. It was my mom’s ring. I’ll get you your own, when we have the money. It’s my promise to you, Brooke. I want to marry you one day. Will you wear it?”

  His body pressed to mine, I steadied my feet on the rocks and kissed him in response.

  “I can’t believe this. Does your mom know?”

  His eyes smiled. “Turn around.”

  Laura and Sam had followed us down to the water’s edge and were snapping pictures of us. Laura noticed we looked up and shook her left hand at me. “Hello lovebirds, smile here!”

  “Oh my gosh. I’m the only one who didn’t know?”

  “You know now. And stop covering your face, she’s trying to take pictures.”

  Jason nudged me as he sat down at the table that night for dinner. “You don’t need to make sure it’s there every two minutes. It won’t fall of ya know.” He passed a beer to me from the cooler and clinked the necks of the bottles. “To us.”

  Jason was six beers deep when I realized he was an emotional drunk and I hustled him to bed with his arm around my neck.

  “Baby, I love you, you know. You’re the greatest-”

  He hiccupped. “The greatest woman of them all. You, right here.” He patted the bed next to him and I struggled to keep a straight face while I pulled his sneakers off.

  “I know, Jason. Hey, come here. Are you crying?”

  “I would have stopped it you know.”

  “Stopped what, baby? I think you should lay down.”

  “I would have stopped him. That jerk. I’m so sorry he did that to you, Brooke. I wasn’t there, I wasn’t there and I couldn’t stop him.”

  I realized his intentions and soothed his wet face with kisses. “It’s not your fault, baby. There was nothing you could have done.”

  “Why. Why though. I could have stopped him.” His cries ripped my heart in half. Drunk Jason had no doubt that if we were together he would have been able to save me.

  The truth was, I wasn’t ready to save me. I had kept it a secret for so long, that when it did come out, the people closest to me felt like they missed the mark and blamed themselves. It told me I did an exceptional job of concealing my secret, but a lot of people I loved felt responsible.

  “No honey. It’s okay. I wasn’t ready to let people know yet. Even if we were together, you wouldn’t have known.”

  “I would have known. And he’d be dead. That’s for sure.”

  “Okay, all right let’s lay down.” My hand feathered through his hair until he was breathing softly beside me.

  It was a rough morning for Jason as we packed the car and headed for the Canadian border. I turned on my cell phone only after we got into upstate New York to make sure I didn’t get any roaming charges. I had two voicemails from my mom.

  “Hey, I’m still on my way back from Canada but I saw I had two voicemails. What’s up?”

  “I haven’t got the six hundred you owe me for this month. I need it.”

  “Ethan okay? He’s screaming in the background.”

  “He’s fine. I need the money.”

  “I had to buy my textbooks for college. I got them online but they were still over three hundred dollars.”

  “I don’t care how much they were, my name is on your car and if you don’t make a payment it’s my credit that gets screwed. When will you have the money?”

  “I know, Mom. Next week. You know I only get paid every two weeks.” Jason looked at me as I tried to remain civil.

  “And what’s this I hear you’re getting an apartment? You would rather give some stranger your money than help out your own mother and just live at home?”

  “Yea because I’ll be closer to school. And I would have to share a bedroom with Kat again, plus Jason couldn’t live there.”

  “He doesn’t need to live here. You do. I don’t know what you’re doing with him anyway, not like he’s going anywhere in life.”

  “Where exactly is he supposed to go?”

  “Look at yourself Brooke. You don’t dress up anymore or wear makeup. It’s like you let yourself go and you’re only eighteen. And for what? To b
e with a guy with no future cause he doesn’t even want to go to college?”

  “We can’t go to college at the same time Mom, one of us needs to keep a roof above our heads.”

  “You can do that here. That’s just an excuse.”

  “I love Jason, Mom. I’m sorry that him treating me like a princess isn’t good enough for you. I’m sorry that a lawyer or doctor would make you happier. This isn’t about you, this is about what I want.”

  “It’s always about what you want. What about me huh? You think I chose this? You think I wanted to live like this? Now I know why women don’t tell on their husbands, how are they supposed to survive?”

  I gasped in a stunned silence. Did she really just tell me that she didn’t tell on Earl because of money? Would that imply that she knew all along?

  “I don’t care what you think of Jason mom, I love him and he loves me and I’m sorry that’s not good enough for you. Maybe if you would have chose someone based on their character instead of their wallet you wouldn’t have had a pedophile for a husband. Jason is my fiancé now, and I could care less what you think.”

  Jason reached for my hand as my cell phone went sailing across the car. “It’s okay, take a second. Just calm down.”

  Laura’s voice trailed from the backseat. I had forgotten his mom was there.

  “Brooke, honey, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.” Stifled cries followed and Jason turned up the radio to soothe the air.

  Jason reviewed my car insurance policy when we got home and I was stunned to find out that Mom had been telling me I owed her two hundred dollars more a month than I needed to give her. I had been paying for everyone else’s insurance in the whole house for over a year.

  Jason demanded that I confront my mom and insist I only pay what I owed for my own vehicle, so I did. It only made her hate Jason more, and I was livid that my car would have been paid off before I even started my freshman year of college had I not been giving her so much extra money each month.

  “She was using you Brooke,” he said. “I’m sorry. I guess she didn’t know where else to get the money from with Earl being away so she just told you that your insurance was so much each month.”

  As I watched the relationship with my mom deteriorate in front of my eyes, I tried to reason in my head that after the trial everything would go back to normal.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “They wanted to use my journals as evidence.” I twirled a fringe of wavy hair around my finger. “But then they took it back when they realized that I probably had more damaging information in them than supportive for the defense.”

  “I imagine you would have been really upset. Those are personal to you,” Midge said.

  “Yea. Beyond personal. I’ve had a journal since I was what, seven?” I stared at the advocate posters littering Midge’s office walls. Coloring pages that clients had given her with rainbows and happy faces were tacked behind her desk. The bean bag chair I squished into every week was beginning to wear at the stitching and I plucked at a lose string.

  “What’s bothering you, child.”

  “I just can’t believe you’re really leaving.”

  “No need to whisper, I’m movin’ on I aint dyin’. Besides, you moved two hours from here, maybe you need to find a counselor closer to where you living and save you some gas. I got a good opportunity to help those kids in Colorado, it’s a good thing for me.”

  “I know. But the trial is next week. I thought I would have you here until it was over at least.”

  “No telling how long those take. You’ve been going to court, what, well over a year now and you just gettin’ into the main arena?” Midge shook her head. “Sad I tell you. They wonder why women give up, drag them through the mill for justice and a year later still nothing?”

  She leaned forward in her chair. “You got Gina, you got your knight in shining armor, and your Mom. Even though we both don’t agree with her, she still gonna be there for you. You even got Miss Heather. That’s a good support team if I ever saw one.”

  “Midge, did anything ever happen to you? Is that why you counsel women?”

  “Would it help you any if you knew?”

  “I think so.”

  Midge nodded. “Mmm Hmm, get on over here close to me so I don’t gotta talk loud about it, make myself all rattled up. Normally I don’t tell my story, but I’m movin’ on anyways.” She cleared her throat.

  “I was thirteen, growin’ up on the banks of North Carolina when my older brother Jon came in my bedroom. He was a man now, just turned twenty one and had a bottle of Jack in him before dinner time that day. Mama was at work, my daddy died when I was three from heat stroke. It was just me and Jon.

  He came in my room with that empty bottle and closed the door behind him. Turned my blood cold when I saw the look on his face. My pants were ripped off, shirt undone, and I screamed, oh lord did I ever scream. He raped me over twenty minutes before he stumbled off me, drunk as a skunk, and I took my chance and I ran.”

  I reached out for Midge’s hand as she continued. “Ran straight through our sliding glass door I did, straight through, shattered it. All the way down to the neighbors house, about two miles. Neighbor pulled up just as I started bangin’ on the door and she about fainted when she saw the blood. Bleedin’ like a pig, she said and naked as a newborn. She wrapped me in a blanket, called the cops. They showed up, Police man Smitty, that his name. Smitty. Took them two hours to find him hiding in the fields behind our house. They found him, arrested him on the spot.”

  “Good, I’m glad they got him.”

  Midge held up a finger. “Over two hundred stitches to close me up. Jon spewed some story that I was in the shower, and he scared me with a Halloween mask so I ran through the glass door all on my own doing.” She shook her head. “When we went to court, he spat at me, stood up in front of that judge and told me when he got out of jail he was gonna kill me.”

  “He went to jail right?”

  “Sure he did. For all of eight months. See Jon was a bargaining man, and he found himself messed up in the wrong crowds of people, drug people. He gave over some names and they let him out in eight months.”

  “He plea bargained and got out in less than a year?”

  Midge nodded. “That ain’t even the sweetest part, child. When he done his time, Mama let that fool back into our house like nothin’ happened. For four months I slept with my dresser up against my door, waitin for him to come and kill me. But he disappeared one night, and we never saw him again.”

  “Midge, I can’t believe your mom let him back in. Did you ever ask her why? Why would she do that to you?”

  A hand trembled across her wet face. “Oh sure, I asked. She say Because he my son, Midge, what you want me to do? Last we heard he made his way to California, even got a woman to marry him. Wound up raping his wife’s two year old baby. Can you imagine that? They got better laws now, makin’ sure he won’t ever see the outside of those California walls again.”

  “I’m so sorry Midge. I am.” I patted her hand as she grabbed a tissue. “I can’t believe your mom let him back in the house. You’re such a strong person.”

  “We both are, child. And you know why? We don’t have the luxury of fallin’ apart, for someone else to come picking up the pieces. We have a gift, you and I, we feel people’s hurt and pain when we talk to someone. That’s what makes you protect your siblings like you do, without even being asked. It’s what makes me work at a place like this, to do what I can. Ain’t nobody gonna tell us it’s all right to fall apart.” She wagged a finger at me. “But you, you are somethin’ else. You got something I didn’t at your age, and I wish I did.”

  “What do I have that you didn’t?”

  “You have a Midge. And a Gina. You had a helping hand guide you to me, make you realize that your worst fears were real. And we supported you, didn’t we?”

  I nodded, wiping my own face. “Then why do I feel so alone?”

  “Because he wants you
to feel like that. So you step down and you give up. But you look at me child, and you promise me, promise me, you won’t ever back down. Don’t you feel sorry for him about to sit in a jail cell the rest of his life, and don’t you feel sorry for your mama’s money problems now that he’s gone. You doing the right thing, for you, and anyone else he’ll never be able to hurt now.”

  I promised Midge, and hugged her after our last session together. She was there for me when my journey started and I hoped I learned enough to see the trial through to the end without her.

  I met Heather at the courthouse that weekend. “I want to give you a tour of the courtroom and explain what will happen the day of the trial. There will be a lot more people in here than you’re used to from the preliminary hearings, including a jury.”

  I followed her into the elevator as she spoke. “David changed his lawyer, a woman this time. Guess he didn’t like the way the preliminary hearing turned out. Subpoenas are all out too.”

  “What’s a subpoena?” I held the elevator door open for a police officer as we got off.

  “It tells the person it’s addressed to that they’re being asked to serve as a witness in criminal court, so they have to be here. You and your mom get one, so did Gina and your Aunt Jean, and your mom’s friend Ellen since David called her when you guys fled to New York.”

  We stopped in front of a white door with three wooden chairs lined up along the outside wall. Heather pulled a chain of keys from her pocket. “This is where you’ll wait until your name is called to testify, usually if you’re subpoenaed they don’t like you to sit in the courtroom listening to other people’s testimony.”

  “Why not?”

  “Everyone’s testimony needs to be their own. We don’t want people adding things to what they say based on what another person said. It happens sometimes, even if you don’t mean it to.”

  “This is a big courtroom. Very white.” I said, staring around at all the empty space.

  “The judge sits at the front.” Heather pointed to the tallest mahogany bench at the back of the room. “That door behind her bench is where she’ll come in. The smaller seat to the side of her is where any witnesses will sit. If you’re looking out at your lawyer, the jury will be to your left, in those rows of benches.”