by Unknown
A month later Dan had the vasectomy, and we enjoyed a weird sense of relief that we would never have to face another difficult pregnancy or month after month of dashed hopes. When Spencer was a year old, I resumed my teaching—this time as a full-time English teacher. Our peace of mind about having completed our family pretty much carried us through the next six and a half years until it evaporated that morning when I knew the baby I was carrying couldn’t possibly be Dan’s.
As I waited for Dan to come up the stairs, as I knew he would when the kids were gone, this thought kept pace with my heartbeat: It’s not Dan’s baby...it’s not Dan’s baby...it’s not Dan’s baby. The accusatory tone smothered me in guilt, as if I had anything to do with any of this.
I wanted to yell out that it wasn’t mine, either. But it was. It was my baby. That was the worst part about it. Just like Katie and Spencer had been created from a tiny part of me, so had this child. I was starting to feel a conflicted sense of affection for it, even though I had been aware of its presence for only fifteen minutes.
In the days and weeks to come, a handful of people would counsel me to terminate the pregnancy. But I couldn’t even consider it even though I was a victim of sexual assault and knowing that pregnancies were difficult for me. I couldn’t end the life of the child inside me on my own. And it had nothing to do with politics or social agendas. It had to do with me. I just couldn’t do it. I had longed for, loved, and lost too many unborn children. And since I was fairly certain I would miscarry this one too in due time, what did it really matter?
I heard the front door open and Dan saying goodbye to Katie and Spencer. It closed, and I knew he was walking toward the stairs. Toward me.
God, help me tell him, I prayed.
As the moments ticked by, more and more I reasoned that I would lose this child like I had lost the others. But oddly, underneath this certainty was a grain of hope that scared me because it seemed too impossible to consider. It scared me that deep down I didn’t want to miscarry this child. I was already wishing the child would live.
3
I was standing in the bathroom with my hand on the doorknob when I heard Dan come into our bedroom.
“Claire, you want some breakfast?” he said.
I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against the door, trying to gather strength from the solid oak, I suppose.
“Claire?”
I took a deep breath as a prayer formed on my lips that consisted of just two words: Help me.
I opened the door and stepped out—one of the braver things I have ever done—and looked at my husband. Dan missed nothing.
“Claire! Are you all right?”
He dashed over to me, his arm around me in an instant as I started to falter. He led me to my side of the bed and sat me down.
“What is it? What’s wrong, honey?” He was beside me, strong and yet shaking. I was starting to cry again.
He thought then that he had put it all together.
“Oh, dear God, you’ve remembered it...” he moaned, clearly unprepared to hear what he thought was the explanation for my tears.
I shook my head and whispered, “No, no...That’s not...” but I couldn’t finish.
Relief was etched in his words and manner as he pulled me closer and said, “What is it then? What’s the matter?”
I’m sure Dan was convinced I was worried about my safety that morning. Though my name had been kept out of the media coverage of the assault, the attacker surely knew his victim had survived. That meant he would assume I could identify him, though he would not know that was impossible. Since I was found unconscious near my own van, the police working on my case believed the attacker could have learned of my identity by going through my purse or glove compartment. The investigating detective, Mark Nordahl, told me I may have befriended the attacker or been tricked into helping him and giving him my name. Detective Nordahl also told me the attacker could have been someone I knew by name, though I found this to be very unlikely.
In any case, the month-long, round-the-clock surveillance of our house had just ended. A very sophisticated security system had been installed in its place. Dan was slow to be convinced, but he finally agreed to go back to work after I’d been given detailed instructions on how to work it.
He probably thought I was feeling unsure that the system would work if an intruder did try to get into the house. Actually, I hadn’t worried about that very much, though I knew Dan had.
“Can you tell me what it is?” he said, smoothing my hair and kissing my forehead.
I was suddenly terrified that when I told him, Dan would stop loving me, that he would stop desiring me. I feared there would be no more romance in our marriage. I was worried that whatever passion Dan had would be spent not on loving me but on hating this unknown man who had crashed headlong into our lives.
“Dan...,” I said and stopped.
“Baby, whatever it is, you can tell me.” He sounded so sure of himself.
“I’m pregnant,” I whispered. For some reason I also blushed. I couldn’t look at him.
He said and did nothing for several seconds, as if waiting for the moment that had just passed to rewind.
We seemed to be on opposite sides of an abyss in that moment when I told him and the matching moment when he understood.
Then we both fell in.
“What?” he finally said, though I know he’d heard what I said.
It had taken Herculean strength for me to say it once. I couldn’t say it again. I just nodded my head as if to say, “What you thought I said, I said.”
“Claire, how do you know this?” Each word laced with fear and anger. “How can you know this?”
“I know, Dan.” Tears fell freely down my face. “I know this feeling. I know it.”
“You could be wrong. Maybe you’re wrong. You’ve been through a lot,” he said, as if trying to convince himself, not me, that I was mistaken. “You remember what the neurologist said. Things might be confusing for a while.”
Fuzzy, I wanted to say. He said things would be fuzzy.
It was true there were some things I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t remember if I had assigned The Grapes of Wrath or A Farewell to Arms to my American Lit students. And I couldn’t remember the name of the new salon where I got my hair cut. And I couldn’t remember what Katie had played for her piano recital three weeks before.
But I did remember what it was like to be pregnant.
“I know I am,” I simply said.
He stood, and I glanced up to see him drop his head into his hands, his shoulders and back slumped by a weight I was becoming rather familiar with. But I had never seen him look quite so defeated.
I closed my eyes and let the anguish fold itself over me. There was no stopping it. There was no stopping anything.
We were both in the black hole, but I felt completely alone. I wondered how in the world I would get through this by myself. The road ahead looked so dark and lonely.
But the next moment, Dan was at my side, gathering me in his arms. He held me tight as he cried softly, his tears falling into my hair, sliding down my neck, and finally blending with my own.
“It will be all right,” he kept saying.
He was wrong.
And he was right.
*
I don’t know how long we sat there in each other’s arms, but eventually Dan whispered to me that he wanted to call Nick, our pastor. He got up, picked up the phone on his side of the bed, and went out into the hall with it. After a moment of silence I heard Dan say, “Nick, it’s Dan...” And then he closed the bedroom door and walked toward the end of the hall. I think he was trying to protect me from hearing what he was going to tell Nick, but I again felt like I was alone in the abyss. His voice became muffled as he walked away.
Dan had been calling Nick a lot lately. Dan must’ve thought I was unaware of his frequent calls to both the church office and Nick and Becky’s home, because he always returned to me after being on th
e phone with Nick as if he were returning from putting a load of clothes in the dryer. And I, in turn, pretended like that was just what he had been doing.
It was obvious that he was wrestling with accepting what had happened to me on a deeper level than even I was. It was silly of him to think that he was to blame, but I knew he felt he was responsible for what had happened.
I don’t remember this, but apparently I had wanted to pick up his parents’ anniversary gift at a nearby mall on the night I was attacked. It was a Tuesday and the mall closed at eight o’clock. There was going to be a party for his parents that Friday night. We were going to be celebrating their forty-fifth wedding anniversary, and I had ordered a gravy boat in Dan’s mother’s china pattern. It was something she had wanted since the day she got married. I don’t remember ordering it, but I remember her wanting it. It had come in that day, and I was anxious to get it. I had asked Dan if he wanted to come with me, but he declined. It was no big deal. I had been to the mall dozens of times alone. This was the only time that it mattered. I don’t recall asking him to come with me, and he cannot forget that I did.
So I went. The police found the gravy boat in my van, still in the box and bag it came in, so I obviously had made it to the mall. A clerk remembered me buying it, but she didn’t look at the clock, of course. She estimated it was sometime between seven fifteen and seven forty-five.
I was found at eight thirty, lying next to my van in the back alley of a used-car lot four blocks away. The couple that found me had been lost and were in their car, turning around in the alley, when the wife saw me crumpled by my van in the glare of their headlights.
Neither she nor her elderly husband knew what to do with me. Both of them thought I was dead. They agonized over what to do. After several panicked moments, the man sent his wife out to the street to flag down a passing car while he stayed with me.
The police arrived first, and the first cop to reach me detected a pulse, which greatly relieved the elderly couple. But I guess my breathing was shallow. And I was bleeding from two sizeable head wounds. My clothes were a mess, and I had been deposited in a puddle of muddy water.
By eight forty-five I was in an ambulance on my way to Abbot-Northwestern Hospital, and one of the three squad cars that had sped to the scene was on its way to my house to inform Dan I had been the victim of an apparent assault. They didn’t know it was a sexual assault then, though I think they had already guessed. My purse, which was still in my van, was untouched. Seventy-five dollars was still tucked inside it, along with several major credit cards.
Even though all of this actually happened to me, it may as well have happened to someone else. I remember none of it, which frustrated the police to no end, and later, Mark Nordahl. I could give them nothing to go on.
When I regained consciousness, I was in the emergency room, but I don’t remember this. The doctor treating me told me I tried to speak but couldn’t. I kept reaching for my throat, and they had to restrain my arms. Dan was in the room then. He told me later he kept telling me he was there, though he had to stand off to the side.
When I woke up again, my head was pounding, and it felt like there was a bucket of bricks on my neck. I reached up to remove them, but of course there was nothing there. Dan was at my side. I was in a semi dark room. Two IVs were poking out of my left wrist. My wedding ring was off my finger.
“Claire, honey, I’m here...” Dan said gently, stroking my ring-less hand.
“My ring...” I tried to say, but nothing came out except rasps of air.
“Shhh,” he said. “Don’t try to talk, hon.” Two tears were at the corners of his eyes. I watched as they tumbled over the edge of his eyelids and slid unchecked down his cheek.
I had never felt more confused in my life. I knew I had to be in a hospital, but I didn’t know how I had gotten there, or why.
“What happened?” I whispered.
His wet eyes got very large.
“You don’t...you don’t remember?” he said.
I shook my head. It hurt.
I found out later that was the third time that night I’d asked that question. Dan had to tell me three times I’d been attacked and nearly strangled. He left out the part about the sexual assault, and I guess I don’t blame him. I kept asking about my ring. Dan assured me over and over that he had it in his pocket. He kept taking it out and showing it to me. I only recall his doing it once.
It wasn’t until the afternoon of the following day that a doctor told me my would-be killer was also a rapist. He urged me to be tested for every sexually transmitted disease in the book. He also asked when my last period was. I told him I didn’t know. It had nothing to do with my short-term memory loss. I really didn’t keep track anymore since we weren’t going to have more children. My cycles had never been regular. I managed to squeak this out through swollen vocal cords. I also told him it took well over a year for me to get pregnant the four times I did conceive.
That was the last time I thought about the possibility this assault would lead to a pregnancy. Actually, I hadn’t even thought of it then. The doctor had. I knew better. Or so I thought.
4
I’d dressed and run a brush through my hair when Dan returned to our bedroom. I could tell breaking the news to Nick had been hard on him. I took a sip of the coffee Katie had brought me and winced. It was stone cold.
“They’re coming over,” he said, as he put the phone back on his nightstand. “I hope that’s all right.”
I nodded.
He came to me and we embraced. Neither of us said anything for several minutes.
“Claire, I think you should see a doctor before we do anything else,” he finally said. “I...I just think we need to know for sure.”
Again, I nodded.
Nick and Becky arrived not long after that, and though I appreciated their presence and prayers, I hated being the pitied center of attention. Again. After five weeks of it already, it now seemed it would never end.
Becky, too, felt it was imperative I get to a doctor, that day if possible. She asked for the name of my gynecologist and used the kitchen phone to call his office. I actually hadn’t been to see Dr. Chapman in several years. Dr. Fremmer, who had seen me through the births of Katie and Spence, both miscarriages, and every infertile month of my early childbearing years, had retired not long after Spencer was born. That, coupled with my disappointing retirement from baby-making, left me with no great desire to step into an OB/GYN office of any kind. I’d had just one exam in the past five years. I had been told five weeks ago at the hospital to make an appointment with my own gynecologist. But I hadn’t. It really didn’t seem like I needed to. I just wanted to get back to my normal, day-to-day life.
Becky was gone for several minutes, longer than it would have taken Dr. Chapman’s receptionist to tell her there wasn’t an opening until the following month. I knew she was talking them into seeing me that day. That meant she was telling them why. More people to pity me. Her bargaining must have worked. She came back into the room and knelt by me.
“Dr. Chapman can see you at eleven thirty, Claire,” she said. “There’s been a cancellation and they’re giving you the slot.”
“Okay,” I mumbled.
“I’ll come with you if you want,” she said.
I looked over to Dan.
“It’s okay, Becky, I can take her,” he said, sort of to both of us.
Nick and Becky stayed a little while longer, and I was actually sad to see them go. Nick prayed for us before he left, pleading with God to give us wisdom and peace. Interesting choice of words. Wisdom and peace would turn out to be exactly what we needed most and utterly lacked.
*
The ride to the clinic was a quiet one for Dan and me. I hadn’t been in the van since the attack, but I’m sure Dan didn’t think of that or he would have grabbed the keys to his Bronco instead.
The van had been impounded for several days during the initial investigation as Mark Nordahl and a team
of forensic experts combed it inside and out searching for clues. I didn’t think they had found much. They believed the attacker somehow tricked or forced his way into the passenger side, probably in the mall parking lot. The door handle was wiped clean. There weren’t even any prints from Katie or Spence, and they both had used that door handle several times that day.
There was no evidence inside the van. No signs of struggle. No blood. Whatever happened to me had happened somewhere else, most likely in the alley. Doctors at the hospital believed the two gashes on my head were the first wounds I received. One, delivered by my own steering-wheel locking device, knocked me to the ground, perhaps while I was trying to run away. The second one was caused by my subsequent fall to the ground, I was told. Scrapes to my left arm, side, and hip were contaminated with mud, tiny stones, and asphalt from the alley. Everything else happened while I was unconscious.
It sounds so much worse than it actually was, at least for me. Patty, the victim counselor recommended to me by the hospital, was a little unsure what to make of me. I had none of the usual post trauma disorders, not even anxiety. There were times when I believed she wished I did. But I wasn’t fearful of my attacker because I didn’t even remember meeting him or having been afraid of him before. Patty no doubt believed the memories locked inside my brain would one day spill out and she wouldn’t be around to help me mop them up.
We arrived at the clinic in plenty of time for my appointment but still sat until nearly noon in a waiting room full of women with protruding tummies. Finally when my name was called, I stood, and Dan started to rise to his feet too.
“Want me to come?” he asked.
“Not really,” I said, displaying the tiniest of grins. It was my first attempt at humor in weeks.
I think Dan truly appreciated it. He grinned too. It was a wonderful two seconds.
“I’ll be right here, then,” he said and sat back down.