I had repeatedly asked myself if there was anything that we, as her parents, could have done differently in order to keep our daughter from committing to Brandon, and the answer was always the same. It all came down to what I believed would be a fatal flaw in Ryan’s character. I recognized in her a trait that was all too familiar to me. Her insistence on clinging to her initial impression of Brandon rather than seeing him for the man he actually was strongly resembled my own mother’s compulsion to hold fast to her initial impressions of people. This realization terrified me because I knew it would be difficult, if not impossible, to ever convince her that she’d given herself to someone unworthy of her love and devotion. Just as my mother could never give up on and escape from my malevolent father, Ryan would most likely lack the ability to ever admit to herself that she’d chosen poorly. Regardless of what kind of monster Brandon would become, I had come to believe that Ryan would somehow justify his behavior and remain committed to him. I could only hope that my predictions regarding my future son-in-law were incorrect and that I had unjustly vilified him in my mind.
I was down to the last swallow of my IPA. As I held the bottle to my mouth and tilted my head back to finish it off, I noticed the time displayed on the clock that hung on the wall above the entertainment center. It was six p.m., which meant it was time for me to get my reluctant ass out of my comfy club chair and fetch Mandy and the girls from our bathroom, where they were probably putting the finishing touches on their hair and make-up. I knew I’d find Corey sitting in his gaming chair in his room, annihilating a virtual terrorist camp or alien outpost. We needed to be on the road in fifteen minutes, on our way to the godforsaken wedding rehearsal.
This is actually happening, I thought, as I tossed my empty bottle in the trash bin, where it clinked sharply against the other fallen soldiers that I had deposited there following similar exercises in introspection. Tomorrow, I would be forced to give away my daughter to a man who would, at best, fail to bring her happiness. Unfortunately, I couldn’t shake the feeling—more accurately, the premonition—that he would bring something much worse to her life than a simple lack of happiness. It was more likely that he would bring to Ryan’s life a misery that would progress from disappointment to fear, and eventually descend to the level of profound and irreversible sorrow.
Section Seven:
When Your Worst Fears Come True …
Chapter 22
Ryan had missed an appointment that she had scheduled with one of my associates. She hadn’t called for a few days and had sent a text saying that she wouldn’t be able to make it to a family dinner we had been planning in celebration of Lizzie acceptance into Texas A&M. Something wasn’t right.
It had been 8 months since the wedding. Ryan was undergoing her physician assistant graduate training at Southwestern Medical School and it was not atypical for the family to go weeks at a time without seeing her. She was a driven individual who was willing to give whatever it took to excel in her training, so we all understood that this was a period in her life when she might have to choose to miss family events sometimes in order to stay on top of her training.
However, as the daughter of a medical practice owner, she knew how infuriating it was to have patients schedule an appointment and then simply not show up. It’s bad enough to have deadbeat patients essentially steal your time by scheduling an appointment and then failing to show or even call to cancel with enough time for us to fill the appointment spot. When your own kid pulls a no-show, though, it kind of pisses you off. We had raised Ryan with integrity and a sense of responsibility, so it was unusual for her to be thoughtless in this or any other way.
Mandy mentioned to me that she had tried to call Ryan all afternoon after she missed her appointment. As more and more time passed and she still wasn’t able to get ahold of her, Mandy’s mind had gone the way of most mothers when they can’t reach their kids. With each successive unanswered call, Mandy had to try harder and harder to convince herself that Ryan had not been the victim of a car accident or even something worse, like an abduction. Finally, after seven previous fruitless attempts to get Ryan on the phone, she was relieved to hear her sweet daughter’s voice saying, “Hi Momma. Sorry that I haven’t been answering. I had turned off the ringer during class and forgot to turn it back on. What’s up?”
Mandy had told her how worried she’d been getting and explained that she was calling to check on her after she had missed her appointment. She had gotten so carried away worrying about her that she felt like she needed to see her, even if they couldn’t actually be in the same room together. She told Ryan, “I just need to see your sweet face, so let me hang up and get to my computer, where I can Skype you.”
Ryan replied, “No Mom, I really don’t have time to …”.
Mandy sensed a problem, as she and Ryan had made a habit of Skyping each other ever since Ryan had initially gone away to college, so she insisted, “Nonsense, it’ll just take a few minutes. I’ll see you in a minute.” Then she quickly hung up and went to the den, where we keep our laptop.
As Ryan’s face appeared on Mandy’s computer screen, Mandy could see something was definitely wrong. The ambient lighting at Ryan’s computer workstation was very dim, so her face was in shadow. Even so, Mandy could see bruising across Ryan’s right cheek and a split in her upper lip. Mandy gasped and said, “Honey, what on earth happened?”
Ryan replied with a laugh, “It’s no big deal. It doesn’t even hurt. You know me, always such a klutz. You know how our kitchen door swings shut automatically. I was following Brandon into the kitchen and glanced back to see if Charlie was following us. As I was turning back forward, the door was swinging shut and I walked right into it. I actually saw stars and almost passed out.”
“Oh, poor baby! You need to be careful! Did Brandon get you some ice for your lip?”
“Umm, yeah. He was real sweet. He, uh—he got me, umm, a bag of frozen peas.” Ryan’s reply was hesitant and lacked authenticity. Mandy, however, didn’t want to challenge the story of the injury or how Brandon had attended to her. Ryan had obviously been through something traumatic and there was no reason to upset her further at this point.
They talked a few minutes more, exchanging updates on each other’s lives and discussing when we could all get together again, and then Mandy told Ryan how much we loved and missed her. She went on to say that she was always available if there was anything Ryan wanted to discuss.
“Oh, I know, Momma,” Ryan said. “You’ve always been there for me and I know that you always will be. I love you. Tell Daddy that I love him, too.”
They exchanged their goodbyes and ended the Skype session. As Mandy shut down her computer, feelings of doubt and concern overtook her. She sat there for several minutes, thinking about what Ryan had said. It was true, our daughter tended to be clumsy and it was not hard to imagine her walking into a door. We’d actually seen her walk into a closed sliding glass door and end up with a big goose egg on her forehead. She was also well known for tripping over her own feet and spilling coffee and other assorted beverages on herself. It was just hard to imagine how the facial bruising and split lip could have been the result of the mechanism of injury Ryan had described. Under her breath, she asked her reflection in the dark computer screen the question that she sensed she might not want to know the true answer of, “What is she not telling me?”
Mandy described the whole interaction to me when I arrived home that night. I agreed that the story sounded very fishy and I wanted to call Ryan myself in order to get to the bottom of what had transpired. Mandy forbade me from calling, however, saying that Ryan would just get upset and insisted that we wait to talk to her in person. She didn’t believe that I was going to get anywhere by interrogating our daughter over the phone, and I agreed that she was probably right.
I was worried about Ryan and knew in my heart that Brandon had hit her. As I walked to the bedroom to change into my workout clothes, I couldn’t help but form an image in my mind of
Ryan’s agitated husband screaming at her and then backhanding her across her angelic face. I shook my head and clenched my eyes shut, trying to get the terrible image out of my head. As I tried to focus on something else in order to rid my mind of the scene of abuse playing out in my head, over and over, I mumbled, “That asshole. That motherfucking asshole!”
*****
It was noon on Saturday the following week and Mandy and I had surprised Ryan by dropping by her apartment. We knew that Brandon would be at the golf course, where, weather permitting, he habitually spent his Saturdays. After less than a year of marriage, he was fulfilling every prophecy I’d had about the type of husband he would be. It was so typical that a controlling, egomaniacal guy like him would leave his woman at home to complete the household chores while he spent half of the weekend playing golf and hanging out at the clubhouse with his buddies. Mandy had reminded me of Brandon’s predictable behavior when we had come up with the plan to drop in on Ryan.
She had nodded her agreement when I’d said, “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. What a total douchebag! Well, at least we know we won’t run into him. I’m not sure that I can pretend I don’t know what’s going on, or if I could keep myself from decking him.”
Ryan’s injuries were healing up. The bruise on her face was completely gone, but you could still see the small fissure on her lip where it had previously been split wide open. It was a good thing we hadn’t given her any heads up because we caught her wearing a sleeveless, casual blouse and it was easy to interpret the pattern of bruising on her upper arm as caused by someone with a large hand grabbing her there and squeezing tightly. I was sure that, had she known we were coming, she would have covered the area with a long sleeve top or a sweater.
We made casual conversation for a few minutes, listening to Ryan describe how she was doing in some of her classes. Of course, she was kicking butt and taking names and it was looking like she would graduate in the top five of her class. Mandy and I updated her on my practice and briefly reviewed what the other kids were up to. I could tell that she was happy to see us, but she seemed a bit apprehensive about our impromptu visit, like she was wondering if this had been just a random idea or if we had an agenda, which we did.
“I just made some coffee. Do you guys want some?” she asked.
We both took a cup and as I was adding sweetener, I saw a stack of mail on her counter that she had been going through. I happened to notice a white envelope addressed to Ryan. The sender was Walnut Hill Radiology associates and across the front of the letter was stamped ‘Bill Enclosed.’
“What kind of radiologic studies did you have done?” I asked.
“Um, excuse me,” she replied. “That is private. I don’t mean to be rude, but that is really none of your business, Daddy.”
“Mark, you know you shouldn’t be going through their mail.”
“Come on you two. I wasn’t going through their mail, or snooping,” I said, while making quotation marks in the air with my fingers. “The letter was sitting right out in the open, and I can’t help that I happen to notice things with a medical theme, like bills from radiology groups. I was not aware that Ryan had any recent injuries or illnesses, so it kind of jumped out at me.”
Although Mandy had originally chastised me about violating Ryan’s privacy, she now understood my interest in what I’d stumbled upon. “Well,” she said, “your father has a point. Besides, we have every right to know if you are having a health issue. You are never going to stop being our little girl, Ryan. The cat’s out of the bag now, so why don’t you just tell us what kind of X-rays—or whatever—you had done.”
“I’d really rather not talk about it,” she said. As the words came out of her mouth, her voice broke and she turned away from us. She pretended to clear her throat, which was an obvious cover for her attempt to stifle a cry. “I’ll be right back,” she said as she walked hurriedly out of the kitchen and down the hall.
“Ryan, sweetie, what’s wrong?” Mandy inquired. But Ryan had reached the door to the master bedroom and was stepping through the threshold into the room, where we couldn’t see the tears that we both knew were welling in her eyes.
She closed the door most of the way, but before closing it completely she called through the opening. “I just need a minute,” then pulled it closed behind her.
“Jesus H. Christ!” I growled, “I’ve had enough of this bullshit!” I picked up the bill and slid the statements out of the envelope, which had already been opened.
The statement showed that Ryan had undergone X-ray studies of her chest and what’s called a KUB abdominal series, which I knew stood for kidneys, ureters, and bladder, so named because an ordering physician intends to assess the entire abdominal cavity. If the area contained within the radiology study includes the kidneys, the ureters, and the bladder, it will necessarily include all of the abdominal organs of interest. The medical diagnosis associated with these studies was ‘rib fracture’ and the date of study was February 13th. There was also a separate statement for an X-ray study of her left upper arm and clavicle (collar bone) from January 8th. The diagnosis of the latter was ‘no bony abnormality; evidence of soft tissue inflammatory findings consistent with bruising around superior aspect of the humerus.’ Both studies had been performed at Azalea Urgent Care Clinic in northern Dallas.
“Did you know that Ryan had two broken ribs six weeks ago?” I asked Mandy. It was early April on the day that we had popped in on her and discovered this revelation.
“No, of course not. How could we have known that? Why wouldn’t she have told us about that?” she asked, looking puzzled. Almost immediately, it clicked, and she gasped, crying out, “Oh, God. What has he been doing to her?”
“Well, I think we can come up with a pretty good guess. What a piece of shit! I haven’t even mentioned the second statement yet. She was seen about a month prior to that for an injured left arm, or shoulder maybe. Something. That sounds like an injury someone would get by being jerked around by the arm, by someone much larger. And that is exactly what would cause the bruising on her arm right now that I’m sure you noticed just like I did. The fact that she didn’t even mention going to the urgent care clinic is pretty good evidence that she was trying to keep this from us. That motherfucking asshole! I’ll kill him. I swear to God I’ll kill him!”
“Mark! You need to calm down. We don’t know for sure what is going on. This could all just be a series of coincidences. Let’s ask her what she has to say about it. Maybe there’s a good explanation.”
“You’d better fucking believe there’s an explanation! That motherfucker is abusing our helpless daughter!”
“Hey, sweetie,” she said, “I need you to calm down. We need to handle this the right way. I need you to go take a walk and try to get control of your temper. If she feels like we’re backing her into a corner, she’s just going to clam up and we’re not going to get anywhere. Trust me, I am just as upset as you are right now, but we’ve gotta make sure we listen to any explanation she might have. I know you and right now you can’t have a meaningful conversation. I can see in your eyes that you’ve already made up your mind. It’s going to be hard enough for Ryan to tell us if Brandon is hurting her without you flying off the handle. We don’t want to make her feel like she has to defend anything he’s done.”
I could see the logic behind what she was saying, but I just wanted to knock down Ryan’s bedroom door and force her to level with me. Knowing my daughter as well as I did, however, made me realize that Mandy was exactly right. If this shit was really going down as we were imagining it, she would be very ashamed, and she would probably just deny it and make up some other excuse for her injuries. I decided to take Mandy’s advice and go for a short walk around the apartment complex to blow off some steam. Maybe, just maybe, if we handled this situation correctly, I thought, we’d be able to find out what exactly Ryan had been going through over the past few months and maybe we could help her.
Chapt
er 24
As I walked along the sidewalk that bordered the parking lot for the apartment buildings, I tried to take some deep breaths, then told myself that maybe Mandy and I were making inaccurate assumptions. Maybe it was just my preconceived notions about Brandon’s violent temper and his predisposition to domestic violence as well as my memories of my own abusive father that were creating the story in my mind. Maybe Ryan had just had a run of bad luck and her clumsiness had finally caught up with her.
The apartment complex was laid out in an ovular pattern, taking up two city blocks on one side and three on the other. Outside of the distorted ring of apartment buildings and adjacent to the streets was one continuous parking lot. On the inside of the misshapen ring was an area devoted to exercise and recreation. There was a good-sized pool next to an outdoor dining space, complete with gas grills and covered seating. After all, this is Texas and until the sun goes down at night, you need to find some cover or you will bake in the hot sun, so if you want to enjoy grilling and chowing down on some burgers and hot dogs, you don’t want to be fully exposed to that great fusion reactor in the sky. Also, within this park like apartment dweller paradise there are play areas for kids, complete with swing sets and jungle gyms, and an indoor exercise facility. Among the aforementioned facilities and lining the paths which wound throughout the large area enclosed by the apartment buildings were large Mexican fan palm trees, lush banana plants, coconut trees, and an assortment of other tropical plants, which make the entire plot of land just gorgeous. From within the gym, those dutiful folks climbing their stair masters, riding their exercise bikes, or cruising along on their elliptical trainers, all could gaze out the floor to ceiling plate glass windows at the tropical paradise surrounding them.
Fatal Flaws Page 15