by David Bell
“I know I was grounded for something at the time, but that never stopped me. I used to go out the window in my room. It was easy. Gordon wasn’t home a lot, and sometimes I wore Mom out so much she couldn’t keep up with everything I did. She probably felt a great deal of relief every morning when I was still in the house and alive.
“That night I went out alone. Some girls I barely knew had told me there was a party across town. I don’t know how they had heard of it, or if they had any idea what was going on there. I doubt they knew what was really happening.”
“What was happening?”
“I’m getting there,” she said. “I couldn’t get any of my usual running mates to go with me because it was a school night and the party was so far away, so I just decided to go out alone. I did that sometimes, and I wasn’t afraid to do it. I could handle myself. I had the address. The party was supposed to be thrown by these older guys. I don’t think they were in college. This was in Haxton. We didn’t have a college there. But there were older guys in their twenties. Guys who worked in the factories and didn’t mind chasing after a high school girl every now and then. That was all I needed to hear. A party with older guys? I wouldn’t miss it.”
“How did you get there if it was across town?”
“I hitched,” she said. “Don’t look so surprised. People did it a lot more back then. I know it wasn’t that safe, but I think it was safer back then. We did it all the time. So I got dropped off on the street where the party was supposed to be, but as I walked up to the house, I could tell there wasn’t a party. Parties give off that energy, that vibe that something is happening there. The house was dark. Closed down. I checked the number on a scrap of paper in my pocket. I was in the right place on the right street. Since my ride was gone, I figured I’d walk up to the house and take a closer look. Maybe it was a small party. Maybe it had been busted, and everyone was laying low inside.” Beth shrugged. “Shit, I didn’t have anything else to do. You know? I didn’t want to go home and be locked in my room.”
“Sure,” I said, although I didn’t really agree. I would have rather been home than wandering around town in the middle of the night when I was fifteen.
“I walked around the back of the house. It had a detached garage. The house was dark but I could see that lights were on in the garage. It looked like someone had taped paper or something over the garage windows, but some light came through. I figured the party was back there. Who wouldn’t? It might have been safer and less messy to have people trashing your garage than your house. I heard some music playing, so I went up.”
She stopped talking, and I wondered whether she was going to go on. She seemed lost deep in her memory of this night, and I knew whatever had happened back then was playing out in her mind’s eye. Again.
“To this day, I don’t know why they were so stupid as to leave the door to the garage unlocked. Maybe they forgot. Maybe someone had just come in or left. I don’t know. I don’t know why they didn’t have anyone guarding the place. I just walked up. Anyone else could have. Maybe they felt really confident and comfortable.”
I swallowed. I wanted to tell her to hurry up, but I couldn’t. She had to get the story out in her own time.
“I pulled the door open,” she said. “It took me a minute to realize what was going on in there. At first, I thought it was the party. There were a lot of bright lights and the music. It smelled like pot. And there were people standing around. Mostly young people. I don’t think they noticed that I had opened the door right away. I tried to see what they were doing, and then it took them a few minutes to see me. About the time they saw me was when I figured out what they were doing in that garage.”
She sighed and licked her lips again. “I saw a girl, a young girl. She must have been a few years older than me. She was on the floor, and she wasn’t wearing any clothes. She looked… vulnerable. Sad, I guess. It might have been drugs or it just might have been the situation. But she was there on the floor. And there were two guys, two older guys—guys in their twenties, like I was talking about. I guess they could have been the guys who lived there, the ones who were supposed to be having the party. But they were on that girl. They were having sex with her. One on the bottom, one on her… top. And I only realized it wasn’t part of the party because I saw what the lights were there for. They were really bright and on stands. And a camera. They were making some kind of porno movie. And I didn’t really think that girl wanted to be there. I don’t think she even knew where she was. But once I saw all of that, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. She looked so helpless, so exposed. She was so alone.”
Beth stopped talking then. She looked at me and tried to smile, but I knew she wasn’t seeing me. She was seeing the face of that girl in that garage. I didn’t know what to say or do. Beth was a stranger to me despite our apparent blood relationship. I wasn’t the most affectionate person in the world, even with people I knew well, and I wasn’t sure if I should reach out and place my hand on hers or lean over and hug her. I stayed in my spot, trying to make the connection between the horrible story she had just told me and the recent events that had brought me to her house.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She nodded. “I don’t think I’ve ever told anybody all of this,” she said. “Not in this much detail.”
“It sounds…” My voice trailed off. Words didn’t seem adequate, but I tried again. “I think it sounds horrifying.”
“It was,” Beth said. “And I put myself in real danger going in there. People like that—people who do things like that—they don’t like it when they get discovered. They might go to great lengths to protect themselves. If it had just been adults, it wouldn’t have been as big a deal. But there was a young girl there, a minor. That could have been big trouble for them, and they knew it.”
“What did they do?”
“They saw me. And there was a guy there. Not a very big guy and not one of the people in the movie. But he looked like a security type. He was just thick necked, you know. And really stupid looking. He came after me. He took about two steps and it felt like he was right on top of me. He took me by the arm and asked who I was. I said I was in the wrong place and to just let me go and I wouldn’t tell anyone what I saw. That was probably a stupid thing to say because then they knew I had seen something. But I was scared. Terrified. This guy had me, and he put his hand over my mouth so I couldn’t breathe. And then another guy came over. I thought I was going to pee in my pants, I was so afraid. I could feel myself giving up, I guess. The thought went through my head, ‘This is how you’re going to die. Right here in this garage, you are going to die.’”
“How did you get away?” I asked. Or did you?
“I heard someone shout. A man’s voice. It said, ‘Leave her alone. I’ll handle it.’ Or something like that. You know, for just a moment, I thought the voice sounded familiar. And then I thought that was crazy. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be… And then the big guy took his hand off my mouth, so I could breathe a little. Because of the lights, I couldn’t see who had said it, but I got the sense he was the guy in charge or something because of the way they all backed off as soon as he spoke. The one guy just held me by the arm so I couldn’t run off, I guess. But he loosened his grip. He wasn’t rough with me anymore. It took a minute, but then the guy who spoke appeared. He came out from the glow of the lights so I could see him.” She swallowed hard. “That was the worst thing of all—seeing him. If I thought I couldn’t believe what I had already seen, then I guess I really couldn’t believe what I was seeing now.”
“Why?” I asked. “Who was it?”
But as soon as I asked the question, I knew. I didn’t need her to answer it, but she did.
“It was Gordon,” she said. “It was my dad.”
Chapter Forty-eight
“He came right over to me,” Beth said. “He seemed to loom over me, even though I was as tall as he was. He didn’t say anything to me, and he didn’t let on that he knew me
. He didn’t tell anyone that I was his daughter.” She laughed a little bit, a dry sound from the back of her throat. “Maybe he wanted to protect me from those people. I don’t know. He could get a little violent when I was a kid. He hit me when I was little, and I guess he shook me or shoved me a few times. I felt real fear looking at him. His eyes were vacant in a way that made me afraid of him. It was like there was nothing there. I don’t think he was really seeing me. He didn’t seem to be angry, just calculating. I was a problem he needed to solve. I’m not sure he saw me as anything more significant than a fly he needed to swat away.”
“What did he do to you?” I asked.
“He took me by the arm. He took my arm from the guy who was already holding me, and he pushed me back through the door. As we left, he told the people in the garage to just keep going. ‘We need to get that finished,’ he said. ‘Keep them going.’ I assumed he meant the actors in the movie. Then he said to someone else—someone I couldn’t see—‘I’m going to need your help in a minute.’”
Beth abruptly stood up from the couch. She took a couple of steps to the center of the room and again wrapped her arms around her body as though she was cold. I was worried about her. She seemed upset, and I was bringing it all out. But the story needed to be told.
Beth faced away from me. Then she dropped her arms and said, “This is a hell of an introduction to a long-lost family member, isn’t it? I’ve been thinking about this day for a while now, and I always imagined we’d hug and we’d maybe cry a little. And then we’d tell each other about our lives. I could tell you about my kids and grandkids, and you could tell me all about school and whether you have a boyfriend or not.” She turned around. “Hell, I even hoped we’d share girl talk, you know? I thought you could seek my advice about the world, the way sisters do. Instead, we’re talking about this. I’m surprised you haven’t run away already.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I want to know. I want to know the truth.”
I tried to sound light when I said it. I didn’t really care about having someone I could share girl talk with. And I didn’t bring my relationship problems to anyone. I simply wanted to understand the past so I could understand the present.
Beth sat back down. She looked a little more relaxed, even though I suspected her story wasn’t going to get any easier to hear.
“Dad—Gordon—led me by the arm. He practically dragged me down the driveway and out to the street. His car was parked there in the dark. I hadn’t noticed it when I walked up to the house, but he led me straight to it. It was raining then. Fat drops of rain. I felt them tapping on my head as he hustled me down the driveway. He unlocked a back door and shoved me inside. But he didn’t close the door. He stood with the door open. The rain came into the car, but Gordon didn’t even seem to notice. He leaned against the door frame so I couldn’t get past him. ‘You don’t like me very much, do you?’ he said. ‘You don’t have much respect for your mother or me.’
“I thought it was an odd thing to say to me at a moment like that,” Beth continued. “He was the one I had just caught making a pornographic movie with an underage girl. I would think my lack of respect for him would be obvious. He said, ‘I don’t suppose it would do any good to tell you that you probably don’t really understand what was going on back there. That wasn’t what it looked like. We’re working on a movie project, a real movie project. It’s not something dirty. I’m helping these people out by producing the movie for them.’
“I had a choice then, I guess. I could have just gone along. That’s what he was asking me to do. Play along. Be a good girl. Keep my mouth shut. I’d like to think if I had just said what he wanted to hear he would have taken me home and left me alone.”
“Do you really believe that?” I asked. “How could he know you wouldn’t ever tell?”
“You’re right,” she said. “And it didn’t really matter. I was never good at just going along with people, and I wasn’t going to do it for him. I told him I was going to tell Mom and the police. I didn’t back down at all.”
“And how did he take that?”
“He played his trump card,” she said. “He told me that I could tell Mom all I wanted, and it wouldn’t matter to her.”
“Why?”
“He said that Mom knew all about the movies. More than that, she didn’t just know about them; she had helped him produce them. And if I told the police or anyone else, Mom would suffer the same consequences he would. Maybe worse. And he said that I’d end up in a foster home, living a miserable life without anyone to look out for me.”
Her words dropped between us like a heavy stone. I waited for Beth to say more. When she didn’t, I said, “That’s not true. It can’t be true.”
Beth’s voice was low when she spoke again. “I didn’t know what to think back then. I could tell he was threatening me in a way. And I worried that he might hurt Mom.”
“Did he ever hit her?”
“I don’t know,” Beth said. “He acted like an asshole around the house. He certainly yelled at her. He tried to intimidate her. But overall, I guess he seemed… kind of normal. And that made it all the worse when I found out who he really was.”
My phone buzzed again. It was Dan.
“Do you have to get that?” Beth asked.
I sighed. “Maybe I should. Ronnie… I guess you don’t know what happened to Ronnie today, do you?”
“No.”
“But you’ve met him, haven’t you?”
She nodded. “A couple of times. Mom thought it would be easier to meet him first, and then meet you after she’d talked to you more about… everything.”
“Ronnie has a picture in his room of two little kids. Are they related to you?”
“Two of my grandchildren. You said something happened to Ronnie today?”
I told her about the suicide attempt and the pills, the trip to the emergency room at St. Vincent’s and his move to the ICU. Beth listened with her hand to her heart. I watched the fear and anxiety fill her eyes as I gave her the details.
“I think I should take the call—maybe something happened at the hospital.”
“Go ahead,” Beth said.
I called Dan back and he answered right away. “Are you okay?” he asked, without so much as a hello.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Everything is fine. Did something happen there?”
“Yes,” he said. “They’ve moved Ronnie to a regular room. He’s doing better.”
I felt relief rush through me, like air returning to my lungs after being underwater.
“He’s awake?”
“He is. They’re going to try to get him to eat something.”
I looked at Beth and nodded. He’s okay, I mouthed.
“And they found out what he took,” Dan said. “Apparently it wasn’t the sedatives he was on. It was some heart medicine he takes. Digitoxin? No—I don’t know. They did a blood test and found a dangerous level in his system. The doctor tried to ask me some questions about Ronnie’s heart condition, but I didn’t know the answers. I guess people with Down syndrome can have heart problems?”
“Sometimes,” I said. “But I didn’t think Ronnie was on medication for that anymore. He was when he was a kid. Did they ask Paul these questions?”
“He’s not here,” Dan said. “He had to leave. I think he was tired.”
“You’re just there alone?”
“I thought you wanted me to stay here and keep an eye on things.”
“Dan, you don’t have to,” I said. “I’m glad you did, but it’s too much.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “I brought a book to read. George Eliot.”
“Oh, Dan. Look, I have to go, okay? But thanks for calling me. And please call me if anything else happens. Please.”
“I will,” he said.
“And, Dan? Thanks. Thanks for everything.”
I disconnected and looked at Beth.
“Ronnie’s okay,” I said. “It looks like he’s going to be
okay.”
I saw more emotion on Beth’s face at that moment than at any other time. “Thank God,” she said. “I don’t think I could handle losing anybody else.”
Chapter Forty-nine
Her comment struck me as strange. Someone else, someone besides my mother and my uncle, cared about Ronnie. I wasn’t used to that, and I wasn’t sure how quickly I could open up and include someone else in my family. I’d mouthed those words to her—He’s okay—out of instinct. Beth seemed troubled by Ronnie’s condition, and I wanted to ease her mind. But would we always be like that, the two of us? Would I have to include her from that moment on?
“Is Dan your boyfriend?” Beth asked.
I hadn’t realized I had said his name. “Not really,” I said. “We tried that. He’s… he’s just a guy. A pretty decent guy.”
“Those can be hard to come by,” Beth said.
“I know. I need to appreciate him more.”
“Take it from me,” Beth said. “Good men are hard to come by.”
I didn’t want to get sidetracked into relationship talk. She still had a few things to tell me, and it was getting late. Neal was waiting outside in his car, and we had an hour-long drive back to Dover.
“Are you able to finish the story?” I asked.
I didn’t want it to be a question, even though I framed it as one. I just wanted her to tell me the rest.
“Sure,” she said. “There are only a few things left to tell. Where was I?”
“Gordon said Mom was involved with his illegal activities,” I prompted her. “There’s no way that was true. Mom would never harm someone. She’d never get involved in anything like that.”
“I know that now,” Beth said. “I asked Mom about it, when I came back. It hurt her just to know Gordon had ever told me that. But you’re right, of course. Mom wouldn’t do such a thing. It was just Gordon messing with me.”