Girls with Bright Futures

by Tracy Dobmeier

  As they waited for their food, Winnie worked on her AP Physics homework. It was a stunning day, and Maren looked out the window at Puget Sound, the nearby commuter islands, and the majestic Olympic mountain range. The natural beauty of the scene was an incongruous backdrop for the ugly conversation Maren was anticipating. “Mom, look.” Winnie kicked her mom under the table, her voice interrupting Maren’s musings.

  Maren looked to her right and saw the server coming toward them with a large round tray. For a second, she didn’t see the couple trailing the server. And then her rapist was standing before her. Her throat turned dry and scratchy, and she felt the first telltale itching of her palms. She reached into her purse for two Benadryl and tossed them into her mouth. She would not give him the satisfaction of watching her break into hives.

  “Hi, Maren. Hi, Winnie. I’m Chase Alder,” he said, with Naomi standing by his side. Both appeared exhausted and tear-stained, as though crying was their default mode. “This is my wife, Naomi.” Naomi looked about as awful as Maren felt, with stringy hair, wrinkled clothes, no makeup, and dark, almost purple-hued circles beneath her bloodshot eyes. Maren was pleased she’d had the foresight to dress up for the meeting, though a small part of her felt sorry for the woman. As for Chase, she thought, let him suffer. At least he knew better than to extend a hand in greeting to Maren or Winnie.

  Maren kept her face blank as Chase caught her eye, but it was only for an instant; he looked away red-faced as soon as propriety permitted. However, he couldn’t resist the pull of the familiar features of his offspring. Maren and Winnie were similarly drawn to his face. It was lost on no one that Chase and Winnie had identical blue eyes and the same small dimple in their chins. Clearly, the DNA test had not issued a false result.

  “May we sit?” Chase asked politely.

  Maren waved her arm in invitation to take the seats opposite her and Winnie. “I trust you don’t mind footing the bill for Winnie’s meal today.”

  “Of course! Order anything you want, Winnie. I mean, both of you, of course,” Naomi babbled. “Winnie, do you want an ice cream sundae?” Chase glanced at his wife with raised eyebrows but stayed quiet. Maren immediately glimpsed the strong physical resemblance he bore to his hateful cousin Charles Brown, the man she’d erroneously blamed for all these years.

  Winnie squinted at Naomi, and Maren predicted her daughter’s snarky comeback, something like, “No, I don’t want an ice cream sundae. I’m seventeen, not seven.” But instead, Maren heard Winnie’s actual response: “Yes, please,” she said. “Can I have it with whipped cream and a cherry but no nuts?”

  “That’s exactly how my kids like theirs,” Naomi said softly, her eyes wide.

  Maren’s stomach sank. Was she going to lose her daughter’s undivided love and affection to these people when all was said and done? There was no way she’d endured so much to end up alone. “You’re here early,” Maren remarked, as much to divert her own thoughts as to clip the small talk.

  “I know, ” Naomi said. “We figured we’d come straight here from the airport and have some coffee while we waited for you. We didn’t want to risk being even one second late.”

  “As long as we’re all here, we might as well get this done.” The sooner Maren could push her way through this surreal meetup, the sooner she could go back home to her comfy couch and her soft blankets—and pretend this entire scene was a product of her imagination. She looked directly into Naomi’s eyes. “Before we go any further, I need you to first explain why you were in the ER the night of Winnie’s accident. I know I saw you there. Did you cause the accident? And remember: the truth or we walk.”

  “Please don’t leave. I’m begging you. I’ll tell you everything,” Naomi said.

  Maren stared at her and waited. The one revelation she’d had in the wee hours of the night that still held water when she’d forced herself out of bed in the morning was this: Maren was and would always be Winnie’s mom first and a rape victim second. No matter how sympathetic this Naomi might appear, Maren could not allow herself to soften or she might miss a crucial clue about Winnie’s hit-and-run.

  “I swear I told the police everything I saw. I was driving a ways behind a dark SUV that seemed to be closely following Winnie when I saw her fly off her scooter onto the parking strip. The car sped off without stopping or even slowing down. I was the one who called 911, and then I waited with you until the medics and police arrived,” she said to Winnie. “You don’t remember that at all?”

  Winnie shook her head in response.

  “I didn’t see any other identifying details of the car or driver,” Naomi continued. “It was dark, and it all happened so fast. Please believe me, I would never try to hurt your daughter. I went to the ER to make sure she was OK.”

  “Is that so? But you didn’t tell the police everything, right?”

  “No. You’re right. I didn’t tell the police that I knew who Winnie was. I’d actually been following her since the night before, trying to work up the nerve to talk to her. But I promise I didn’t cause the accident.”

  “And tell me again what exactly you wanted to talk to Winnie about?” Maren raised her eyebrows in question.

  “Like I wrote to Winnie in my apairofgenes messages—although after Winnie seemed to have no idea who I was yesterday at her school and after your email last night, I’m totally confused about who I was communicating with…” Naomi’s voice trailed off briefly. “Anyway, according to her DNA test, she was my husband’s biological daughter. I was only trying to get a good look at her and figure out where in Seattle you lived so I could ask you both for help. I was desperate to have Winnie tested to see if she’s a stem cell match for our son, Eli. Obviously, I didn’t know at that point what Chase had done to you, Maren. I hope you can believe me—I had no clue until he told me everything last night.”

  “Wow. That must have been a real shocker, learning the father of your children is a rapist. Welcome to my life,” Maren muttered. And then, into the stunned silence, she continued. “So, about that night…” It was the moment of truth. Maren turned to look at Chase and pushed through the catch in her throat. “Chase, I have this funny feeling we’ve met once before. Can you please refresh my memory?” Maren knew her words sounded sardonic and glib, but it was the only way she could handle the weight of this moment without falling apart. She could feel her nerves shake and her windpipe constrict, threatening to silence her.

  Chase recoiled and seemed to shrink in his chair, as though it was just now dawning on him that he would be confessing his sins to his victim, his wife, and the daughter he was meeting for the first time. He looked like he was going to throw up right there on the table.

  Maren took a centering breath and summoned some steel to her voice. “And please, don’t leave out a single detail. I demand total honesty or you will never see us again. I know you don’t know me, but take my word for this: I never make idle threats.” She stiffened her back and stared him down. This man had stripped her bare once before; she wouldn’t let it happen a second time.

  “Chase?” Naomi elbowed her husband, who looked like roadkill at the moment of impact. “You need to start talking. Now.”

  “Uh, yes. OK. Sorry. I just… Well. OK,” he stammered. “First, let me say I am so incredibly sorry for what I did to you that night. I can’t imagine how terrible the past eighteen years have been for you. I mean, other than you, Winnie. Of course.” Chase ran a hand down his face.

  Maren said nothing. Winnie was playing with a french fry. Naomi was crying. The server walked toward the table, probably to ask how Winnie’s burger was tasting so far, but he took one look at the body language around the table and astutely turned back. She hoped Chase was a good tipper.

  “So, yeah, that night. I was sixteen, and my family was visiting my cousin’s family, the Browns, for a week of tennis and golf at their country club. Which was also your country club. Kickapoo?”


  “Yes, I’m familiar with it.” Maren forced a smirk, her insides lurching. “Please continue.”

  “As you know, obviously, there was a big party at the club that night, but my family was leaving early the next morning, so we didn’t go. At about midnight, Charles came back to the house and woke me up to drag me out to the after-party. He said it was on fire, and he was going to help me get lucky. I was still a virgin and had made the big mistake of admitting that to Charles earlier in the week. I didn’t want to go, but he called me a pussy and all sorts of other things. He’d already finished a year of college, and I was only going into my junior year of high school, so I gave in. While we walked back to the club, he made me pound tequila. I know it’s no excuse, but I really hadn’t partied that much, and I didn’t realize how hard straight tequila would hit me. Before I knew it, I was wasted.

  “When we got to the after-party in the pool house, everyone was dancing, and he told me to look around and pick the hottest girl. I had seen you at the pool earlier in the week. It was an easy choice. I still had no idea what he was up to though. I just thought he was going to get you to dance with me.”

  “Jesus,” Winnie whispered.

  Everyone looked at Winnie.

  “Your cousin roofied her, didn’t he?” she said.

  Maren watched in disbelief as Chase nodded at Winnie and then turned to Maren and locked eyes with her for the first time since he’d arrived at the table. “I’m begging you. You have to believe me. I had no idea what Charles was up to. I didn’t even know what a roofie was back then. He handed me the tequila bottle and told me to keep drinking, and then he went to the punch table and filled a cup. He gave it to you and danced with you while you chugged it.”

  Chase took a sip of water. “After that, he came back over to me and told me you thought I was cute and wanted to do me on the golf course.” His head was bowed like he was relating the story to the flatware on the table. “I honestly couldn’t believe my luck. I was horny and drunk, and a beautiful girl wanted to have sex with me. Charles told me to take the tequila bottle and he’d meet me on the twelfth hole in a few minutes.

  “But when he got there with you, you were so drunk you were barely conscious. He was actually carrying you fireman style. I remember telling him this didn’t feel right and trying to leave, but he swore to me over and over that you told him you couldn’t wait to have sex with me.”

  Maren could barely swallow. Or think. She felt like she might pass out. She lowered her head and covered her ears.

  “Mom? Are you OK?” Winnie tapped Maren’s shoulder. “Mom? Here, drink this.” She placed the glass of sparkling water in Maren’s hand. Maren robotically obeyed her daughter. “OK. Keep going,” Winnie said harshly to Chase. “My mom needs to hear the rest.”

  Chase nodded once. To Maren, his eyes looked as far away as she felt. She realized with a start that they were both back in that life-altering moment, sand rubbing on bare skin, only he was supplying the memory for both of them. “I remember him laying you down in the sand trap and pulling up your dress. Charles spoke loudly to you and said, ‘Mare-mare, here’s your boy. Ready for him?’ Your head moved up and down, but deep down, I think I knew he was moving it for you. You never had a chance to consent. Then he ripped off your underwear and told me to get to it. I was so drunk by then and, to be honest, terrified, that I almost couldn’t, um, you know, physically do it, but then Charles was taunting me. Said he’d tell everyone I was a cocksucking faggot—that was the worst insult to a teenage boy back then. So I did it. Afterward, I remember Charles saying, ‘Man, those roofies are like magic, huh?’ All I could think to do was stumble back to Charles’s house, puking the whole way.

  “I knew it was wrong. So wrong. I was raised to respect women. I couldn’t believe I’d done such an evil thing, but then I just wanted it to go away. I figured if I never spoke of it again and never saw Charles again, maybe it would somehow disappear. But now, I have to confront what I did. I can’t imagine all the suffering I caused you. I want you to know I have never and will never forgive myself. I know it’s far too late, but I’m so sorry, from the bottom of my heart. And I want to make amends to you.”

  Maren was crying, tears of agony but also of relief. The one piece of the puzzle she’d never understood: she’d been drugged. It made so much sense she was surprised she’d never suspected it. Even though she hadn’t recalled drinking nearly enough that night to black out, she’d always accepted her mom’s accusation that she all but asked for it. Of course, Maren was enlightened enough these days to know that even if she hadn’t been roofied, it still wouldn’t have been her fault. But rational thought had never been enough to shake the suffocating shame she’d internalized long ago as a seventeen-year-old girl whose parents believed she was a drunken floozy who’d had it coming.

  “Mom, it’s OK. See? It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault at all.” Winnie looked up at her biological father. “It was his fault. And his cousin’s fault. Not yours.”

  “She’s right,” Chase echoed Winnie. “It was my fault. And not that this makes it any better, but I want you to know a few more things. First, I’ve never seen or spoken to Charles since the morning after. As I was about to get into my parents’ car, he threw his arm over my shoulder and whispered in my ear, ‘No worries, bro. I got your back. Told everyone at the party it was me who popped her cherry. Told them she was crying after cuz she didn’t realize it would hurt so much the first time. No one will ever know.’” Chase shook his head in disgust.

  “On the long drive back home,” he continued, “I swore to myself I would do everything in my power to make up for what I’d done, to be a better man. I didn’t want to be anything like that pig. So I hit the books hard junior year, determined to get into the best college I could. I ended up at Yale and was one of the few men there to major in gender studies. I learned all about sexual harassment, assault, consent, and justice. Then I went to law school. That’s where Naomi and I met. Naomi was the first and only woman I had relations with after, um, that night. And I hope to keep it that way forever.” He looked at his wife, who glared back at him with an expression as hard as marble. “Now I work in San Francisco for a law firm where I primarily represent victims of sexual harassment in Title IX cases. I know this is all probably cold comfort to you, but I want you to know I was a stupid kid who made an immoral and illegal decision, but I’m not a monster.”

  “That’s a sweet story,” Maren said with a deadened voice. “But you never sought me out to apologize or see if I was OK, did you? Or turn yourself in to the authorities? You were able to keep control of your narrative the entire time, accountable only to your own quaint ideas of what it means to ‘be a better man,’” Maren air-quoted.

  Chase looked down at his hands.

  “And you never thought it was important enough to tell your own wife.”

  “Believe me, the past few weeks have been hell for me.”

  “You’ve got to be fucking joking. Are we supposed to feel bad for you?” Winnie bit out, her voice tense with rage.

  “No! I’m sorry. Of course not. That’s not…that’s not what I mean,” Chase stammered. “It’s just once I found out about you, I was so torn. On the one hand, I never wanted anything more in my life than for Naomi to find you so we could have a chance of saving Eli. But I’m ashamed to admit that another part of me hoped you’d be unreachable since I knew finding you would blow up my entire life. I was such a coward. I didn’t tell Naomi at first on the off chance she might never find you. Like she said, I didn’t tell her until last night when we got your email. We stayed up all night before heading to the airport this morning.” He paused and looked over at his wife with tears in his eyes. “I honestly don’t know if our marriage can survive this, but I’ll do absolutely anything to save our little boy.”

  Maren glanced at Winnie. Winnie’s face was still twisted with resentment, but her eyes
were brimming with tears. “We will consider—and I’m not promising more—but we will consider getting Winnie tested if you are truly ready to take full responsibility for your actions.”

  “What do you want me to do? Child support in arrears? Pay for Winnie’s college? Whatever you want. Just name it. I’ll do anything. Please.” Chase pulled out a checkbook from his sport coat pocket.

  Maren took a deep breath. She couldn’t deny that after two decades of financial struggle, the offer of restitution was highly tempting. All night long, Maren had wrestled with the question: What exactly was her endgame today? Was it a revenge fantasy à la The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in which she turned the tables and tormented her attacker? Was it to provide Winnie with her unvarnished origin story now that she was on the cusp of adulthood and poised to make her own life decisions? Or was it as simple as finally being allowed to speak her truth out loud? As with most multiple-choice questions, the correct answer was the catchall Option D: all of the above. Did money fit into the equation at all? Maren sighed. The answer was no. Profiting off the pain of her past would not help her heal.

  But after all she’d endured, she deserved to know if this man was willing to publicly acknowledge the consequences of his actions the way she had been forced to for years. On the way to the hotel, she and Winnie had discussed what this might look like. Now, Maren cast a glance at Winnie, who nodded slightly in return. “You have Instagram, right?” Maren asked Chase.

  “I do,” Naomi answered for him. “I’ve been trying to spread the word about Eli.”

  Winnie took over. “How many followers do you have?”

  Naomi pulled out her phone. “About fifteen hundred.”

  “OK, that’ll do,” Winnie said. “Chase—take a picture of me with Naomi’s phone.”

  Winnie posed for the camera while Chase obeyed and took the picture.

  Winnie said, “OK. Now type this caption. Ready? ‘Hi, this is Naomi’s husband, Chase Alder. I want to introduce everyone to my biological daughter, Winnie. I viciously and violently raped her mother after she’d been roofied when I was sixteen and she was seventeen. I never knew Winnie existed until a few weeks ago. I am so sorry to everyone who trusted me and believed in me. And especially to Winnie’s incredible mom. I hope someday she can find it in her heart to forgive me. She’s raised a spectacular young woman all on her own, and I deserve to be in jail.’”