“Yes, Your Honor. I understand.”
“Alright then. Taking into consideration your reputation among the community, your clean record, and constant dedication to serve and protect this town, here’s what’s going to happen. Jim– according to our plea deal, all felony and sexual assault charges are dropped. You are now faced with misdemeanor simple assault and misdemeanor child endangerment. How do you plea?”
“No contest, Your Honor.”
“Okay. Then, I sentence you to one-year probation, one hundred hours of community service, three months of zero contact with the victims, and six months of therapy. That will be all. You are dismissed.”
Judge Norman pounded his gavel which echoed through the courtroom.
For Jim, the reverberations were arousing as he shook off whatever restraint was left in his being. He felt free. He felt alive. He felt empowered.
“Thank you, Your Honor. Thank you, Tom.” He said with a small, tight smile.
Eight.
The Monster
2018, July - 2018, August
Mike sat at his desk in his private office, looking over the Handler’s file one more time. He flipped through the pages, stopping at the highlighted sections, re-reading the trauma and abuse of each separate child, of Ashley, and of Jim’s mild progress in the last three months.
Mike brushed his hand through his dark and barely gray hair. He was exhausted, mostly from worrying about Jim’s re-entry into the home, but also about the fate of humanity. He looked at the picture of his wife and two daughters, standing in front of their school on graduation day last year. They looked so happy smiling, his eldest in her cap and gown, soon leaving for Ohio University. He worried about her then, but even more so now. He couldn’t possibly imagine either of his daughters being sexually assaulted. It was the worst fear of any father, and he struggled with trying to understand Jim’s mind, Jim’s heart, and Jim’s motivations. He feared for the world that he now lived in, where a justice system enabled a father to do the unthinkable to his own family, and a sleeping community that had no idea of the monster that they called “hero.”
He rested his head against his hand, skimming his notes on Jim, and trying to evaluate whether or not he genuinely possessed any amount of remorse or regret. Finally, he closed the file and tossed it aside. He buried his face into his hands, rubbed at his temples, at his forehead, trying to alleviate the pain, the burden of knowing the atrocities that he knows. He massaged the bridge of his nose, squeezing out the pressure of wading through Jim’s truth or bullshit. He pinched at his shoulders and neck, trying to release the weight of this case from his back. He wanted to do more. He wished he could save them all. But, all he could really offer, was to listen with empathy, to take detailed notes, to mark progress vs. regression, to give evaluated advice, to suggest tested coping skills, and to show them all that some people do truly care.
His phone intercom buzzed.
“Mike?”
“Yes?”
“The Handlers are here.”
“Okay, great. Send them in, please.”
“Will do.”
He shuffled the papers on his desk and shoved the file into the bottom left drawer of his desk and walked over to open the door.
“Well, hello there everyone. I’m glad you all could make it. Please, come on in, have a seat, get comfortable.”
“Thank you.” Ashley, motioned for her children to go in and have a seat in the semi-circled cushioned chairs arranged in front of Mike’s desk.
Nikki was quick to take the seat directly in front of Mike’s chair. Ally and Tyler sat in the last chair at each end leaving an empty seat between them and Nikki.
Mike pulled Ashley aside.
“May I talk to you alone for a second?”
“Sure.”
“Give us just a second, guys,” Mike said closing the door and stepping into the hall with Ashley beside the ‘Love starts with YOU!’ red letters on the wall.
“How are you doing, Ashley?”
Ashley crossed her arms and leaned against the wall reading those large red letters, again.
“Fine, I guess.”
“Look, are you sure that you really want to do this? Do you really want to invite him back into your home?”
Ashley sucked in a deep breath through her nose and let it out deliberately through trembling pursed lips. She looked past Mike to his door. On the outside hung a picture of a baby kitten dangling from a small branch, holding on for dear life. Above the kitten in a white oval was written in black: “Hang on! Don’t let go!” Just on the other side of that, sat her children, scrolling through their phones, bored, and waiting for someone to change their future. She wanted to be that change.
“I don’t know, Mike. Jim’s my husband. He’s their father. You don’t know him like I do. You haven’t seen the worthiness inside of him that I have seen. I still have hope. Besides, you said that he feels remorse. You said that he could change.”
Ashley pictured Jim a few weeks ago down on his knees outside of her red Chevy blazer, after lunch, at their second favorite grill, The Cut. It was one of the places where all of their friends would get together, shoot pool, laugh, and throw a few cold ones back. But seeing him so vulnerable, so weak, so in need of her love, nearly broke her. He insisted that he was a changed man, that he still loved her and the family, and that he wanted to be a better father and husband. He convinced her that this family could still work! After all, there had been no talk of divorce, and as far as she was concerned, he was still her husband, for better or for worse, and he was still the father of her children.
“We’re not getting a divorce, Mike. That’s out of the question. He can still be saved. Our family can still be saved. Wouldn’t you say? After months of therapy with all of us, isn’t there still a chance for a happy ending?”
“Hmm. Yes. I want to believe that there is still a chance for happiness, for healing. You know, for him to get better. I desperately prefer to believe that. But… I just worry about you and the kids. I worry that, even after everything we have done, all the therapy and help, I worry that nothing will change.” Mike rubbed at his tired neck. “The truth is, sometimes it just doesn’t.”
“I think, no matter the evil that he has or hasn’t done… I think my kids still need a father figure. He does bring discipline to the household. You have to give him that. He holds the kids accountable. I’m pretty sure that you can agree that is something that they need, right?”
“No, I totally agree. They certainly need that. But what they don’t need is more abuse. Do you think that he is capable of any more abuse?”
“I want to forgive him, Mike. I still want to hold onto the man that he used to be. I want this to work. I need my family back together.”
Mike rubbed at his chin. Then, he scratched at the back of his head.
“I suppose I can understand that. Alright then, let’s get to it.”
Mike opened the door for Ashley, and she smiled at her children as she took a seat. Mike sat down in his rolling chair and scooted it up to his desk. Once comfortable, he pulled out his notepad from under a stack of files and flipped to an empty page. At the top right, he wrote the date and time. He wrote each of their names in order of age from Ashley down to Nikki at the top center of the page. The Handler family sat in silence gathering their thoughts and waiting, accustomed to this brief procedure.
Once he finished organizing his notes, Mike looked up and offered a heartfelt smile to the group.
“I just want to start by thanking you all for agreeing to meet together. I know from speaking to you individually that you all have gone through similar trauma. I think that incorporating family
therapy, at least a couple times a month, will really help the healing process. Honestly, it’s amazing what comfort and strength you can get from a group of people who have endured the same forms of trauma.”
He paused as mental flashes of their stories played out in his head. He quickly blinked them away.
“Well, I guess the biggest issue that I’d like to tackle today would be Jim moving back into the home. What are your thoughts, concerns, stresses? What would you all like to discuss about this situation?”
Mike looked around the room waiting for any of them to respond. Ally shifted her eyes to the floor. Tyler turned his gaze to the different books on the shelf beside him, twirling the hair behind his ear, nervously. Ashley looked at her children waiting for one of them to speak up. Nikki’s eyes darted back and forth from Mike to her journal sitting on her lap. When she first mentioned it in one of her sessions, Mike’s face lit up with happiness, “Oh, that’s wonderful!” He had said. “Journaling is such a great coping skill. I would love to see some of your journal entries. Please, please, bring it in with you from now on.” She had used her journal as a way to share the things that she found most difficult to talk about.
Now she cleared her throat and shifted her body to get comfortable.
“Nikki?” Mike encouraged with raised eyebrows, “Would you like to get us started, today?”
She looked down at her journal.
“Well, I wrote a poem the other night about Dad coming back home. Should I read it?”
Mike folded his hands under his chin and gave her his full attention.
“Yes, please, that would be wonderful. Thank you.”
Nikki opened her journal and flipped to a dog-eared page towards the back.
“Okay, well, it’s not finished yet, but… but I think you’ll like it.”
She looked around at her family, who were all giving her their undivided attention.
“It’s called, At Daddy’s Hands.”
At Daddy’s Hands
At Daddy’s Hands, I start to tremble, like a craft wood taking shape.
His rough sandpaper scratching at my thighs, rubbing, marking, etching his name, boldly, into what he claims is his.
At Daddy’s Hands, I feel no love, like what I used to feel when he would help reel in a fish, or the times he placed his gun into my little hands and told me to shoot at that Campbells can as if it were trying to hurt me.
At Daddy’s Hands, I cry at night, trying to understand his hate.
When they used to be so soft and warm, but now sharp and hard, stabbing at my mind, at me, like a knife into flesh.
At Daddy’s Hands, I try to forgive all the pain and sorrow that strangles from the pointy tips of his raging hands, when he seeks at night to fill his bed, with a desire I wish would leave him dead.
. . . . .
While listening to his football coach give a speech about family in the locker room, Tyler faded back to a few weeks ago on the first day that his father moved back in.
“Kids, could you come down here, please?” Jim yelled up the stairs to his children who were reading, writing, and watching TV in their rooms.
Jim stood in front of the couch and his favorite chair. The blinds were open, letting the orange glow of a fading sun glare across the room. Small speckles of dust floated across the beams of stretching light. It was quiet enough to hear the faint chirping of the crickets and tree frogs. It was a perfect summer evening, Jim’s first back in the home.
“Please, have a seat. Tyler, you can sit in my chair, if you’d like.”
“You serious?”
“Yeah, go ahead. You’ve been the man of the house since I’ve been away. You earned it.”
The girls joined Ashley, leg-tucked on the couch, and Tyler took an awkward seat in his father’s chair.
Tyler looked over at his sisters, who seemed understandably nervous. “It’ll be okay,” he mouthed from the chair as he nodded at them. He had taken on the role of the man of the house for the last three months since his father had been gone. In those three months, he and his sisters had grown closer. Tyler had shown Nikki how to catch a football and even made it a goal of his to finally become friends with Ally’s boyfriend, Brian. But now sitting in his father’s chair, he couldn’t help but to want to comfort them, to protect them, to let them know that he was capable of downing this monster – if it came to that.
Jim cleared his throat, took a drink of his ice water, and set it on the coffee table.
“Thank you. Uh… well, I’m just going to come out and say it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything that I put you all through. I mean that. I honestly and sincerely mean that.”
He reached for his water and took another drink. He clearly looked nervous to Tyler, who studied him, searching for clues of the truth. Tyler had learned how to read his father’s body language over the last year and he caught onto Jim’s nervous ticks: his rapid blinking, his eyes drifting in the upper left-hand corner when he was searching for another lie, and his thumb rubbing against his fingertips as he stretched the truth to nearly unbelievable extents. Tyler was becoming a pro at reading his father’s bullshit.
But Jim had been called out on his nervous ticks in his sessions with Mike. Mike was quick and unafraid to call him out on his lying.
But Jim adapted. Just like a wild animal trying to survive, he adapted to his environment. He learned from it. He grew from it. He became skilled in it. Jim had learned how to adjust the charades that Tyler had become so good at understanding. Therapy for Jim had become a way to practice and fine-tune his art of manipulation. He had become an even better trickster, a magician, smoke and mirrors for his audiences’ amusement. Jim’s mental disorder had covered itself in camouflage, and his prey could not see the death trap that they were walking into.
“I know that I have hurt you all, so much. I know that I have been more of a monster than a father. But I want you all to know, right now, that I am a changed man. I am a better man. Honestly, therapy with Mike opened my eyes to this sickness, this… devastation that I have been wreaking onto my family. He has shown me ways to change the way I think, to… to correct my thinking errors, to use my coping skills, and to stop focusing solely on my needs, but the needs of my family as well. I mean, after all… that is what we are, right… a family?”
Tyler thought back to that first-day speech that his father had given the family. Now, sitting in a team football meeting with his coach, hearing him preach about this family, about his football family, Tyler’s arms bumped up with understanding, with fear… with shame. Tyler had wanted to believe his father’s apology and willingness to change.
But that was back then, and this was now, and in the two months since his father had been home, Tyler had watched his father’s slow, trembling hands transform back to rock and hammer. He had felt his father’s anger across his cheek. He had heard his younger sister’s sobs as she prayed to God for help. He had seen his mother slip further away into her own addiction and self-medication of booze and pills. He had witnessed his father’s blatant disregard for fatherly love and compassion, and in its place, instead, boomed confidence… arrogance, a sense of comfortability realizing that he may very well get away with anything that he pleased. Jim had faced the system and won. And it had only taken him two weeks at home to reclaim his prize… his family.
Tyler faded in and out of his thoughts, literally shaking them away when they became too vivid. Squeezing the foam padding of the weight bench that he sat on while his coach roared inspiration throughout the locker room, in that inspiring moment he decided that, no matter what it took, he would no longer bear the curse of his father’s blood. He didn’t want to be anything like his father. And on that sweat-stained
weight bench, he vowed to never become that monster.
“Look at one another!” Coach demanded. “This is your brother! This is your family. You are soldiers… and that field is our battleground. That field is our ground. Will you fight for it? Will you defend it? Will you count on one another when things get tough? When they go south? When shit hits the fan? Will you embrace your brother when he has made a mistake or let you down? Will you pick him up when he has fallen?”
Coach turned to his dry-erase board and wrote FAMILY in large black letters.
“Gentlemen, families look out for one another. They bleed with each other, they cry with each other, they heal with each other, and, men, they win or lose with each other!”
Tyler let his coach’s speech pound into his core. He thought back to when he was almost removed from the team for his “incident.” He allowed his thoughts to wander back to last year, to the “incident,” and to what he did to Green Bean. He felt ashamed. He felt weak and ugly. And in that moment of terrible realization, he felt as disgusting as his father.
Tyler felt sick. With his hand over his mouth, he quickly excused himself into the restroom and vomited into the toilet. He never thought it possible that he could resemble the monster that he was born from. Beyond his worst nightmares, he never imagined that he would harm anyone else in the way that his father had harmed his family. It was this thought that ate at his soul, it rotted in his gut, and it spewed out of him in loud, groaning heaves.
The door to the bathroom swung open, and he heard a group of familiar voices heckling and laughing at a younger classman. He wiped his mouth on his shirt and flushed the toilet one last time before he stepped out of the stall. It was the starting defensive linemen, all with shaved heads, muscles bulging in their cut-off shirts, and matching stubbled faces that they thought made them look cool.
“Heyyy, Hands! There you are, just in time,” Mac, the biggest and eldest of the three said grinning.
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