by Alan E. Rose
Synopsis
“I’ve often wondered, did anything happen to you at that camp?” his mother asked. “You came back…different.”
Successful financial advisor Peter Braddock’s third marriage is on the rocks. All his wives have described him the same way: as handsome, charming, intelligent, and dead—seemingly incapable of relating on a deeper emotional level. His mother’s question stirs forgotten memories of when he was thirteen and went away to summer camp. As he seeks counseling in an attempt to save his marriage, Peter and his therapist begin to explore his suppressed memories of that summer and of his relationship to Father Scott, the camp director. Eventually, Peter will come to the conclusion that he was molested by the priest. But he is wrong; the truth is far worse.
The Unforgiven is a complex psychological thriller that explores the relationship between memory and guilt, and how the forgotten past continues to bleed into one’s present.
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The Unforgiven
© 2012 By Alan E. Rose. All Rights Reserved.
ISBN 13: 978-1-60282-855-1
This Electronic Book is published by
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P.O. Box 249
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First Edition: December 2012
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Credits
Editor: Cindy Cresap
Production Design: Lee Ligon
Cover Design By Korina Groff, GRÄFWORX
By the Author
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The Unforgiven
With his third wife’s announcement that she wanted a divorce, Peter Braddock turned uncharacteristically introspective. When his first wife left, he had been surprised; when his second wife left, he felt betrayed; now, with Megan’s announcement, he was puzzled, for he considered himself to be a good husband. A successful financial adviser, he was an excellent provider; he had never cheated on any of his wives; didn’t drink; he shared the housework; put down the toilet seat. What more could a woman want?
“Do you love me?” Megan asked him.
“Yes. Yes, of course I do,” he said.
“You never say it. I never feel it.”
He hadn’t thought it needed to be said. Love was one of those self-evident things, like life, liberty, and the pursuit of whatever. Why does one need to say it?
“I’m sorry, but it’s who I am. It’s how I relate to people.”
“You don’t relate, Peter. You schmooze. And you’re good at it. You’re funny, charming, entertaining. You’ve turned schmoozing into an art form. But that’s all there is.”
“You’re saying I’m shallow.”
“I’m saying that’s all you offer to people. Even to me as your wife.”
She sounded angry—low-burn anger—but he knew she wasn’t angry with him so much as the situation, that she had to say these hurtful things. It would have been much easier for her if she no longer loved him.
Her complaint didn’t come as a surprise. All his wives had said the same: He was “private,” “emotionally distant,” wouldn’t let them “in.” They even used the same words. He wondered if they had been comparing notes. Maybe they had formed their own club: The Former Wives of Peter Braddock Society. What was he to do, he wondered. Just another career-driven man out of touch with his feelings. There must be a self-help group for men like him; not that he’d attend, but he was consoled by the fact that he wasn’t alone.
Thank God, there were no children. That would have made this even more difficult. He had always been attracted to bright, professional women who wanted careers of their own. Allison the doctor. Saundra the professor of Middle Eastern studies. Megan the corporate attorney. With each of them, they had decided to wait to start a family until she had established her own career. There would be time for children later. But now he was forty-three and time was running out.
“Please, Peter, get help,” said Megan. “I was in therapy for two years before I realized that it wasn’t me. It’s you.”
“We can work this out,” he said. “I’ll go see a therapist like you wanted. I’ll do whatever you want.” For he truly loved his wife. But then, he had truly loved all his wives.
“I think that would be a good idea, but don’t do it for me. Do it for yourself.”
“Yes, yes, of course. For me. Certainly.”
But he couldn’t convince Megan to stay. The best he was able to negotiate was a trial separation. She would clear out her things on the weekend while he was away helping his mother move into her new condominium.
*
“Do you love me?”
Of course he loved her! He was going to some feminist, man-hating dyke shrink to save his marriage. If that’s not love, what is? As a gesture of his good intentions, Peter had scheduled an appointment with the therapist that very day. He’d rather Megan had asked him to prove his love in some other way—say, walking over fiery coals, bungee-jumping off the Space Needle, or undergoing a colonoscopy.
The shrink’s office was on Capitol Hill in a stately old house, overlooking Seattle. Some houses, like some people, go through a series of career changes. Originally built in the early twentieth century for a large family, it now housed several offices in addition to Shrinko’s: a naturopath, an aromatherapist, a Reiki practitioner, and a feng shui consultant. All much too woo-woo for Peter’s tastes. In its next incarnation, the house would probably become a charming bed and breakfast, he thought as he entered the foyer.
Dr. Lucia March was somewhere in her sixties, he guessed. She wasn’t really what he had expected: a slender, attractive woman with silver-gray hair cut in a stylish bob, and gray, luminous eyes as if accessorized to match her hair. High, elegant cheekbones gave her face a statuesque kind of beauty. In spite of his resentment at having to be here, Peter found her very sexy.
They sat facing each other in armchairs. He had spent the first twenty minutes completing the necessary insurance forms, filling out a confidential questionnaire whose questions seemed to him either invasive (“How often do you move your bowels?”) or irrelevant (“How many glasses of water do you drink each day?”), then reading and signing the statement of his so-called “Client’s Rights” (You have the right to remain silent no matter how much we torture you.)
He looked around the office as she read through his questionnaire responses. The lighting was natural; a trace of earth-sweet sage hung in the air, subtle like his second wife’s perfume—or was it his first’s? Wicca symbols decorated one wall and a display of African aboriginal masks decorated another; and plants, lots and lots of plants. It all looked like the den of the Earth Mother, or, considering her age, maybe Earth Grandmother.
She removed her glasses and put aside the questionnaire. “Before we begin, did you have any questions for me?” She spoke with a British accent, which made her slightly exotic, and even more sexy.
He cleared his throat. “How did you and Megan meet?” he asked, trying to postpone the barrage of embarrassing questions he knew were coming. Besides, he was paying for this fifty-minute hour.
“I was teaching a workshop on harnessing t
he energy of one’s aura.”
Auras. Of course. Woo-woo.
“Megan attended the workshop, we connected, and in time, she asked to do some work with me.”
Right. To work me over, thought Peter, but he smiled his most charming smile and kept his mouth shut.
“Megan has given me permission to share with you what she has said in our sessions when it’s appropriate, hoping it will help your own work.”
“I suppose it’s not very flattering.”
“She described you as handsome, intelligent, charming, and dead.”
“Dead?” He turned down the charm.
“That you have no feelings. No warmth. No human connection. Would you agree?”
“Well, it’s true that I’m not what one would call ‘emotionally demonstrative.’ I never have been.”
“Do you see that as a problem?”
“Uh, well, apparently. As far as my wife is concerned.”
“Wives. They seem to share the same perception of you.”
He knew they must have been talking together! “What else can you tell me?” he asked.
“I can tell you that Megan’s still in love with you.”
He nodded soberly. “I know. All of my ex-wives are.”
“Do you love her?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Do you love her?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Megan says that sex between the two of you is very rushed.”
Might as well just jump into it. He knew that sex would come up, but he’d hoped not until the third or maybe twenty-fourth session.
“She says that it’s more a physical need for you than lovemaking. Like you’re trying to get it over with.”
“Yes, but don’t all women say that about their male lovers?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“Do you enjoy sex with your wife?”
He gave a nervous laugh. “Yes, of course. It’s better than the Super Bowl.”
“Are you gay?”
“What? No, of course not.”
“Why ‘of course not’?”
“Because I’m not. I’m not wired that way. Never have been.”
“Do you think there’s anything wrong with being gay?”
“Not in the least. I have a number of friends who are gay.”
“Friends?”
“Well, casual acquaintances. Colleagues really. It’s just that I like women. I’ve always liked women. And if I were gay—which I’m not—I would’ve had plenty of opportunities to act on it, but men just don’t turn me on.”
“Megan says that your other wives also said that sex was fast and quickly over for you.”
“Yes, but I do everything fast. I eat fast, talk fast, drive fast, read fast—”
“And fuck fast?” The unexpected vulgarism jolted him. He hadn’t expected this out of a grandmother, even a sexy, earthy grandmother. “It does sound more like fucking than lovemaking, don’t you think?”
“I told you, I’m not gay.”
“No, I don’t think you are. I’m just wondering why lovemaking for you is primarily about physical release rather than love and affection.”
He held up his hands. “I...don’t know.”
“What would you like to get out of these sessions?”
“Megan. I want Megan back.”
“Besides that. For yourself.”
He was stuck. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
“Megan says that you’re not happy.”
“Like, who is?”
“You don’t believe people can be happy or fulfilled?”
“Look, Dr. March, I enjoy my work. I’m good at it. I make lots of money. People respect me.”
“But you’re not happy.”
He was feeling increasingly irritated by this line of inquiry. “I have my moments. Like I said, I don’t want to lose Megan. In my own way, I do love her. Maybe...maybe I can learn to express it better.”
She looked at the clock. Their time was up. “Next week then?”
He gave her one of his best schmooze-smiles, thinking, I’ll count the days.
*
That evening, Peter traveled to his family home in Enumclaw, in the foothills of Mt. Rainier. His father had died the year before, and his mother had decided that the large, old farmhouse and its twenty acres were too much for her to manage. To her children’s surprise, she had sold it and was now moving into a condominium in Seattle. Following the session with Earth Grandmother, Peter drove down to help his siblings, Carl and Jenna, and their families with the move the next day. That evening, he had a quiet dinner with his mother, just the two of them, their last in the house he had grown up in.
“Won’t you miss this place?” he asked as they were clearing the table.
“Your father wanted to live in the country. I’ve always preferred the city.”
“But there’s a lot of memories here.”
“Memories are portable—at least the important ones. And besides,” she said, looking around the dining room, “this house has too many memories.”
“Too many?”
“Memories can keep one in the past. It’s a problem as one grows older. You’ll see.”
They carried the dishes into the kitchen.
“How’s Megan?” she asked as she began running hot water into the sink.
He knew the topic was coming up, was surprised that it had waited this long to surface.
“We’re working on it. I’m still hoping that she’ll come back.” He looked at his mother. “I do love her.” She remained silent as she began washing the dishes. “I do. She’s really everything I’ve ever wanted in a wife.”
“You’ve always had good taste in women.”
It was the tone.
“Are you saying it’s my fault?”
She turned to him. “It’s your third marriage, Peter.”
“So it is my fault.” He realized he was acting childish and was embarrassed by it. Still, with one’s parents, one’s forever a child.
“They’ve all left for the same reason,” she said as she rinsed and handed him a plate to dry. “They say you’re cold, aloof, and distant. That you don’t let them in.”
“You know, there just might be my side to the story.”
“Yes, I’ve told them. You don’t let anybody in.”
What was this: Beat Up on Peter Week?
“I happen to have a lot of friends,” he said as he took and dried the next plate.
“You have a lot of associates. People who like you, respect you, even admire you. You’ve always had associates, even in high school. But I doubt you’ve had any close friends since you were a child.”
He hadn’t been prepared for this degree of maternal candor. Why the sudden tough love? He fell silent, quickly progressing from petulant child to sullen teenager. It was great being back home.
His mother continued washing the dishes. “I’m sorry, Peter, but there are few greater pains for a mother than to see her child unhappy with the life she’s given him. It’s like watching your gift being discarded.”
“Well, I’m sorry, too. But it’s who I am.”
“It’s who you became. You weren’t always like this.”
“Well, as far back as I can remember. I don’t know when I changed.”
“I do.”
He stopped drying the plate and looked at her.
“It was the summer you were thirteen. I remember because it was so sudden. Like you grew up overnight.”
“Well, adolescence does have a way of changing things, I suppose.”
She returned to the dishes. “You went away to church camp and came back…different. I’ve often wondered, did something happen to you at that camp?”
“No—I mean, I don’t know. I don’t even remember it.”
“Until then, you had always been a happy child. Fun, affectionate, trusting. But you returned quieter. Much more serious. Dad and I both noticed it. It was as if your childhood
had ended during those two weeks you were away.”
“I barely remember the camp,” he said as he dried a glass.
“I asked you if something had happened, and you brushed me off. Dad thought it was nothing and said to let it go, but it has always bothered me. Now I’m sorry I didn’t press you further at the time.”
He shrugged as he put the glass in the cupboard. “I really don’t recall what I was like before.”
She smiled, remembering. “You were a very happy boy, very sweet and kind and generous. And very open, wonderfully frank about everything. I remember you told us when you had your first wet dream.”
He grimaced. Whoa. Way too open.
“But after that summer, you became a very different person, guarded and private with your feelings. I felt suddenly shut out of your life and was sad to see you grow up so quickly. Your father said that I was making too much of it, that it came with puberty.”
“I don’t remember anything special about that summer, no different than the summers before. Just swimming and singing around the campfires and lots and lots of mosquitoes.”
“I spoke with Father Scott. He said that you had a good time, and he, too, suggested that you were just growing up. But something didn’t feel right. Call it a mother’s intuition. I felt that he wasn’t being fully honest with me. Then, the next summer you refused to go to camp. Said it was for children.” She handed him another glass. “You were fourteen and we decided that you could make up your own mind. But I’ve always wondered if something happened to you that summer.”
“Is that why you never allowed Carl to go to camp?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“He’s never forgotten that, you know.”
She sighed, which spoke volumes about her youngest, the forever-aggrieved, deeply deprived one for whom life was inherently unfair. “If that’s the worst of my failings as a mother, I can die in peace.”
He chuckled. “Even to this day he complains about the unfairness: that I got to go to camp three years and he never got to go even once.”