I Will Find You

  I found Laura, who took me to the church that had saved her, and pushed me to the altar when the time came for saving me. Laura calls me “sister” and “sweetie” every time we talk. She tells me she loves me.

  I found Father Tom Gallagher, who marched from Selma to Montgomery with the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and would not let being held at gunpoint, tied up, and locked in a closet stop him from doing what he was put on this Earth to do.

  I needed to hear their stories. They needed to tell them.

  “We did our part; we kept it inside so long,” Laura said to me. “It’s something that needed to be told.”

  I’ve gone to Laura’s church many times, even though I don’t have the religious faith that she has. I often wish I did. I find my faith in the power of stories to bring us together and heal. As a reporter, I have asked so many other people to open themselves up and let me tell their stories, all the while withholding my own. I owed this to them. I owed it to other women who have been raped. I owed it to my children.

  As I worked on the story that went into the newspaper, I kept saying, “I’m having a hard time with this. I can’t write it.” My therapist said, “Maybe you’re saying, ‘I can’t right it.’”

  Maybe.

  And maybe that is the point, in the end. James Baldwin wrote, “Whatever one’s journey is, one’s got to accept the fact that disaster is one of the conditions under which you will make it.”

  We all have burdens we carry through life, grief and disappointments that we can’t change. But we can make them lighter if we don’t hide them, if we don’t try to bear them silently and alone.

  I cannot protect my children. I know this. It is the terrible truth of being a parent: The day comes when we have to send our very hearts out into the world, unprotected.

  That day came while I was working on my story. They are out in the world now, in cities so far away I have to board a plane to see them. I try not to do it too often. They don’t want my protection, any more than I wanted my husband’s protection after I was raped.

  They are smart and funny. I look at them with amazement and pride, most of all because they are kind to everyone. My son works as a lawyer for the homeless and for poor tenants facing evictions. My daughter studied psychology and plans to train to be a therapist.

  They have some of me in them, and though I can disappear for hours into deep pools of guilt over some of what I passed on, they don’t seem to mind.

  They had veto power over the story that ran in The Plain Dealer in May of 2008, and over this book. They did not ask for any changes. My daughter cries when we talk about the rape. My son doesn’t like to talk about it.

  I know now that while I was focused so intensely on protecting them, my children were also protecting me, all those years. They tethered me to all that is hopeful. They made me brave. They held me to this life until I was ready to come back to myself.

  Sitting there in Eldred Theater, I looked back up into the fly space. What happened to me in 1984, when I floated up there, has a name: disassociation. It’s a well-known psychological term, though I didn’t know it back then. Disassociation is how our psyches protect us from experiencing trauma we can’t handle. It removes us from the event and gives the pain to someone else. That someone else is us, floating somewhere above.

  She was up there. She was always up there, watching me, removing me from my life. She helped me push away the pain I was afraid to experience but needed to experience. The Buddhists’ First Noble Truth says: Life is suffering. They teach that we live fully only when we stop pushing the pain away and accept that suffering is part of life.

  I looked up again. I’m OK, I told her. You can come back now.

  Acknowledgments

  This book started as a story for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. My gratitude goes to my editor, Debbie Van Tassel, who wisely stopped me from trying to write about myself in the third person and kept me going; Susan Goldberg, who gave me time and support; Debra Adams Simmons, who made the book possible; Karen Long, my wise reader; and Lisa De Jong, an artist and a comrade. Thanks also to Clara Roberts, Stuart Warner, Wendy McManamon, Lynn Ishay, Madeline Drexler, and Rosie Kovacs.

  I still can’t believe my good fortune to have Elisabeth Schmitz as my editor and Grove Atlantic as my publisher. Through many drafts, Elisabeth’s sensitive editing and kind, calm manner helped me transform a newspaper story into a book, and Katie Raissian’s editing and enthusiasm came at just the right time. Thanks also to Morgan Entrekin, Deb Seager, Justina Batchelor, and to my agent, Jane Dystel, who led me to them.

  Cuyahoga Arts and Culture gave me a generous Creative Workforce Fellowship grant just when I needed it. Thanks to everyone at CAC and the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture.

  The Cleveland Rape Crisis Center was there for me from the beginning, and still is. Thanks to Sondra Miller, Megan O’Bryan, Kirsti Mouncey, Sarah Trimble, and all the staff and volunteers at this wonderful and necessary healing center.

  My deepest thanks and love to Laura Wills, Charlene Blakney, Pastor Anthony Singleton, and First Lady Pam Singleton, and everyone who welcomed me at Emmanuel Christian Center, and to the Rev. Thomas Gallagher.

  Thanks also to: Larry Donovan, Richard Thoma, the University Circle Police Department, Judge Harry Hanna, the doctors and nurses at University Hospitals Case Medical Center, Sue Johnson, Debbie Axelrod, Meryl Johnson, Diana Tittle, Marcie Goodman, and K.J. Montgomery.

  I’ve saved my most important thanks for last.

  To Dan and Zoe, who make me proud and fill me with love. To Chris, who stood by my side.

  To Nancy Connors and Claire Connors, both generous with their advice, their unshakeable support, and their memories. They are first-rate writers and readers, and even better sisters. And in memory of our one-of-a-kind mother, Susie Sterrett Connors Mackenstadt.

  This book truly would not exist without Jim Robenalt, a historian and writer of extraordinary books, who showed me how to do this by his example, encouragement, and love.

  Finally, to all the survivors. And to the lovely, lost girls.