The Girl Before

by Rena Olsen

  They’re all looking at me like I’ve grown a second head. Why am I the one needing this group when they all appear to be delusional?

  “So being hit is normal?” Heather’s voice holds no judgment, only curiosity.

  “Well, yeah, if you deserve it. I mean, Glen would hit me if I spoke out of turn, but it didn’t mean he didn’t love me. Really, that’s how he showed he loved me.”

  The looks change from disbelief to pity. I see the shift, and I feel it in the air. Even Erin, who had been scowling at me, now looks at me as if I am the child and she is the adult.

  “Listen to me, Clara, and please believe me when I say I mean no disrespect,” Heather begins, choosing her words carefully. “Being hit is not normal. Even when the person loves you. It’s not okay. Healthy relationships do not include physical violence.”

  Her words are met with nods around the circle. Erin speaks up. “I thought it was normal when I was little. But when I started going to friends’ houses, when I saw that their dads weren’t drunks and didn’t hit their moms . . . that’s when I started to get angry.”

  I don’t know how to react. An angry denial is on the tip of my tongue, but I have no examples of other families to give them. I grew up in a home where we were disciplined by pain. It’s all I know. It was always that way. So how can it be wrong?

  Heather turns the attention back to Erin and her journey, but I hear little of anything else the rest of the hour. I don’t even realize when Heather dismisses the group until she comes and takes the chair Tori vacated.

  “Clara, thank you for speaking up today.”

  “Nobody agreed with me.”

  Heather shakes her head. “No, but that’s why we have this group. It’s for discussion.”

  I rub my forehead. “Is what I said wrong?”

  “What you know is what you know. What we are exploring is whether what you know to be true is healthy or not, if it is helpful or not. What these girls have been learning is that not everything they have done is normal, that things that were done to them are not okay, and that none of those things take away from their value as a person. It helps to have the support of others on the journey.”

  “I don’t think I belong here,” I whisper.

  Heather doesn’t respond for a moment. “That’s all the more reason that I believe you do.” She pats my knee and stands to leave. I watch her go, still lost in my thoughts. Connor pokes his head in the room.

  “Shutting the place down, I see,” he says, smiling at me. The smile fades as he sees my face. “Everything okay, Clara?”

  I shake my head. “Connor?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you married?”

  He chuckles. “No.”

  “Girlfriend?”

  “Yeah.”

  I purse my lips. “When she makes you mad, do you hit her? You know, just to make sure she knows not to do it again?”

  Connor’s horrified look is my answer. “Of course not, Clara. Sure, she makes me angry sometimes, but I make her angry, too. We maybe yell a little, but then we talk about it. I’ve never laid a hand on a woman in anger.”

  “How about guys?”

  His face stays serious, though his mouth quirks up at my question. “I’ve gotten into a fight or two. Not for many years, though.”

  “Do you buy your girlfriend presents?”

  “Sometimes, yes.”

  “Why?”

  Connor ponders the question. “Because I love her. Because she deserves to feel special.”

  “As an apology?”

  “Rarely. I don’t like the idea that things can be made better with gifts. Real healing comes from straight talking and real apologies, not trinkets.”

  I nod, still thinking. It is as if my brain is shifting, trying to make sense of the information. It seems obvious to the others that being hit is not normal. Everyone out here can’t be doing it wrong, can they? But Glen is so ingrained in me, I am having a hard time wrapping my mind around a relationship where love is not mixed with fear, pleasure with pain.

  “Do you need to talk to Dr. Mulligan?” Connor asks. “You’re not scheduled until tomorrow, but I can call . . .”

  “No.” I need to mull this over myself. “I just need to sleep, I think. The baby is taking a lot out of me today.” It is an excuse, but I do feel more drained than normal. My hand goes to my stomach, and I pray that Nut is safe and happy in there, even while the rest of me is a riot of emotions.

  Connor is not convinced, but he takes me back to my room anyway. Sleep does not come easily, and my dreams are fraught with needles and panic and screaming.

  Then

  I roll over, reaching for Glen, but his side of the bed is empty. I sit up, confused. It is still dark, and the clock tells me it is hours until dawn. I don’t bother with a robe as I tiptoe out of the room. It is our first night in our beautiful new house, and in the hallway enough moonlight streams in that I do not need to turn on a lamp. Piles of boxes are illuminated in every direction. I skirt them and peek into the girls’ room. Soon the other rooms will be full as well, but for now, just four of the small beds are occupied. Passion has claimed the bed closest to the door, her normally fierce expression softened in sleep.

  Downstairs, a slice of light shoots from the door to the study, which is cracked open. I tap the pads of my fingers across the smooth wood, and I hear Glen shift in his chair. “Clara?”

  I push open the door, revealing a large room filled with more boxes. Glen has purchased a giant desk to fill the space, and he is seated in the plush chair behind it. Papers are strewn across the desk in front of him, and several of the boxes have been haphazardly opened.

  “I woke up and you were gone.” I take a few steps into the room, not wanting to interrupt if he is busy.

  “I wanted to find some correspondence my father left,” Glen says, watching me, but not really seeing me. His eyes are far away. It has been a year, but his father’s death still eats at him. Their last conversation was not a happy one. I don’t know the details, but Glen carries the guilt like an iron blanket.

  Instead of asking more questions, I nod. I don’t want to push my luck. Though Glen has been in a better mood since we bought the house and the land, he has been much angrier in general for the past year, quick to explode, quick to punish.

  “Joel and the boys are patrolling. We begin recruiting next week.”

  Another nod. Glen doesn’t always share that part of the business with me. I do not want to break the spell.

  “Soon we’ll be back at the size we were when . . .” Glen trails off, but I know where his mind is. Back when Papa almost lost everything. Back when we had to abandon the compound where I grew up. Back when Glen was learning the ropes and ended up having to learn the hard way.

  I walk a few steps closer, around the desk, daring to enter his space uninvited. “Papa would be proud, Glen.” I keep my face smooth, but my heart is pounding, in fear or excitement I am not sure.

  Glen reaches for me, clasping my hips and pulling me closer. A wry smile crosses his face. “He would tell me it was about time I figured this shit out.” He buries his face in my stomach, his breath hot through the thin fabric of my nightgown. His arms come around me and he pulls me closer, urging me down until I am straddling his lap. He pillows his head on the soft curve of my breast, and I run my fingers through his sleep-tousled hair.

  We sit like that until the sun comes up. There is nothing sexual about it. I give him comfort, as I always have and always will.

  Now

  “I understand you had a difficult group yesterday.” I am in Dr. Mulligan’s office. My eyes are gritty from lack of sleep, and I am lying on the couch, curled up, staring at the diplomas on the wall.

  “I guess.”

  “Want to tell me about it?”

  “Not really.” I know better than to
hope that she will leave it alone.

  “It might help.”

  “How would it help?” I ask. “How could you possibly help me? You have no idea what I’m going through.”

  “I might if you would tell me.”

  “Even if I tell you, you don’t know. You can’t know. My life is nothing like yours.” I’m not really angry with Dr. Mulligan. I’m angry with myself. For being so unsure. For doubting. For disrespecting everything I have been taught in my life by questioning it.

  Dr. Mulligan purses her lips. “Sometimes just saying out loud what’s on your mind can help you process it. I may not know your life, but I am an excellent sounding board.”

  It gets really annoying when Dr. Mulligan makes sense. She raises an eyebrow, and I release a sigh.

  “I don’t feel like I’m normal.”

  Dr. Mulligan laughs, but it is not unkind. “What is normal, Clara?”

  I shrug. That is the question that kept me up all night. “I’m starting to think . . . I’m starting to wonder . . . What if how I lived my entire life was not how I was meant to live?”

  “What do you mean?”

  I sit up, wringing my hands as I try to piece together my thoughts into coherent statements. “For so long I’ve been focused on the idea that love makes everything better. But yesterday in group, they told me that being hit for making mistakes is wrong. But that’s all I’ve ever known. So how can my normal not be normal? If it is what has always been, isn’t that normal? And how can that be wrong?” I have no idea if I am making any sense, but Dr. Mulligan nods.

  “There are a lot of things in your past that many people would not consider normal, Clara. I spoke with Heather a bit, and she said that she told you how to identify whether things are healthy or unhealthy, whether they are considered normal or not.”

  “Yeah, I remember her saying something about that.”

  “So tell me. When Glen hit you, did that make you feel better or worse?”

  I make a face. What kind of question is this? “Well, it didn’t feel good. But it was for my own good.”

  “Explain that to me.”

  “It happened mostly when I was being nosy or questioning Glen.”

  “Can you give me an example?” Dr. Mulligan’s face remains neutral, though this is the most I have talked in any of our sessions about my relationship with Glen.

  “Like when I asked him how long he would be gone on a business trip. I was upset that he would be gone over our anniversary, and he reminded me that the job comes first. I got a little hysterical and he had to hit me to help me calm down.”

  Dr. Mulligan’s lips tighten. “So when you expressed emotions he didn’t like, he would hit you?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “And did it work?”

  “Well, I definitely thought more about what I said to him. He had a look he could give me where I knew I was in trouble. If I could stop myself, I could make him happy and save myself some bruises.”

  “So your husband taught you, through hitting and intimidation, that you were not allowed to express yourself to him.”

  When she says it that way, it sounds terrible. I do not respond. Glen would not like the direction my thoughts are going, but for the first time I start to question him. Why did Glen not want me to think for myself? He always said I was smart and had good ideas, but if I shared out of turn, I was punished. If I looked at him wrong, I could be punished.

  “Sometimes he would just be angry,” I whisper. “It would make him feel better to have sex, but it was always rough. Then he would buy me presents. Connor said yesterday he doesn’t like to buy his girlfriend presents after they fight. But he never gave her bruises, either.”

  “How did you feel when Connor told you that?”

  “Confused.”

  “Why?”

  “I always felt spoiled when Glen would give me presents, especially when I deserved to be hit, or when I had absorbed his sadness.”

  “Absorbed his sadness?”

  “Glen puts on a good face, but I saw the real Glen. The Glen who was angry and sad and tortured by the thought of never living up to his father’s expectations. When we would have sex when he was in one of those moods, I felt like I could take that from him. And it always showed up in bruises. But it was okay, because he always seemed lighter after.” I draw my knees to my chest, holding them tight, holding myself together.

  Dr. Mulligan’s eyes look sad, and my fears are confirmed. I am not normal. My beautiful relationship with Glen is not right.

  “I would like to write in my notebook now.”

  She nods and retrieves it. I don’t speak for the rest of the session, but I do not write, either. The blank page stares back at me. I’m not even tempted to peek at the sketch of Glen’s face.

  Then

  I throw what I can into the waiting boxes. Mama is across the room, wrapping her nice china and mumbling to herself. Over the past three days we have sent truckloads of boxes to an industrial area in the city, to an apartment building that will become our home. I pause and look around the room, memorizing the lines of the house I grew up in.

  Glen and I have already cleaned out our cabin. We did not have much there to begin with. I wanted to cry over the loss of our first home, but any tears earned me a slap across the face and a stern lecture about being strong.

  It was less than a week ago that Papa came home distraught. Glen and I had been visiting with Mama, and Papa burst into the room, lip bleeding, eyes wild.

  “It’s gone, Mae,” he said, and it was the first time I had ever seen him look lost. He was always so in control, and I was frightened by this side of him.

  “What do you mean?” Mama asked, standing and walking over to him. “What’s gone?”

  “Everything. Everything. I lost it all.” Papa’s voice cracked, and Glen’s arm came around me to pull me close. He had never seen Papa that way, either.

  It was the biggest fight I had ever seen between Mama and Papa. He was quite drunk, so even when he went to punish her for yelling at him, his strikes were ineffectual. Glen and I sat in the background, dumbstruck, as the story came out.

  Papa took a big risk and messed with the wrong business partner. He got drunk and made a stupid bet. Not that I know much about gambling, but the consequences speak for themselves. He lost the entire operation—his side of it, anyway. We were to be out of the compound in a week, when his partner would come to take over.

  I glance at Mama now, trying to ignore the green and purple bruises scattered over her exposed skin. Though Papa was too drunk to punish her the first night, she had showed up the next day to bring us boxes, and she was covered. My guess is that Papa took out more than his frustrations with her.

  The only saving grace is that Papa had already turned over a portion of the business to Glen, and that part he has not lost. We had already secured the building in the city, a building Papa’s partner knows nothing about. It is an old warehouse with a large apartment on the top floor. Not ideal, but there is enough room for now. The girls on Glen’s roster, the ones we are raising, have been moved to the apartment. Papa and Glen will have to build the business from practically nothing, but the seeds are there. I only hope Mama and Papa are able to find another place to live sooner rather than later.

  Joel runs in, breathing hard. “They’re here!” he shouts. I lock eyes with Mama, and we both scramble up. We were supposed to have another couple of days. Glen and Papa emerge from the study, loaded down with boxes.

  Glen dumps the boxes into Joel’s arms. “Hide these in the truck when they’re not looking, then duck down in the backseat.” Most of Glen’s guys are at the new place. Papa’s guys will be turned over to the new boss.

  The front door slams open as Joel slips out the back. I cross my fingers that he will make it.

  “Well, well, well.” A tall man
strides in, followed by a group of at least fifteen armed men. “I see I have arrived just in time to stop you from taking all my things.”

  Papa steps forward. “We were just trying to get the personal stuff. Mae’s china, our mementos.”

  “I think you mean my mementos,” says the man. He looks around the room. “I don’t believe I’ve met your charming family. I am Neil. Neil Anderson. And you are all in my house.”

  “We’re going.” Papa says, gesturing for us to follow him.

  “Not so fast,” Neil says. “I need to make sure everything is here.” He consults a list in his hand. “All the girls are accounted for?”

  “Girls!” Mama shouts, and I am surprised at the strength of her voice. I’m not sure I could even say a word at this point. The girls we have been training, some for years, some only weeks, filter into the room, coming to stand in a line as they have been taught. They know little about what is going on, but they will adjust. My heart breaks as I look at their faces, knowing this is the last time I will see them, unsure about how they will be treated.

  Neil walks down the line, counting. “Very good. All here.”

  One of Neil’s men comes in the back. “All the men accounted for,” he says, his tone brisk, businesslike. Taking inventory of the people who live here as if they are furniture.

  “Excellent.” Neil waves a hand. “You may leave my house now,” he says. “Take nothing else.”

  We are not allowed good-byes. I lock eyes with each girl, trying to convey my feelings to them without words, and start to pick my way through the boxes and toward the door. I make a wide berth around Neil, but, quicker than I might have expected, his hand shoots out to grab my arm.

  “And what of this one?” he asks, and I look at him with wide eyes. “She is not on the roster.”

  I try to yank my arm free, but his hold is secure. Glen starts across the room, his expression murderous. I am not sure whether I am more fearful for Glen or Neil.