“But I need to be cleaned.” I am almost crying. “Daddy. I don’t know how to do it.”
“You’re my precious,” he says. “Whatever you want. I’ll clean you.”
He doesn’t understand what I’m saying; I don’t understand how to explain.
While the bathtub fills we sit beside each other on the edge. Now, for this moment, he seems tired. He holds his bent head in his hand, his eyes closed. He doesn’t notice the water near the top. I am the one to turn it off and slide into the tub. Then he looks at me and wets the bar of soap to wash me. I begin to feel myself disperse. I am the steam. Each molecule of my body vaporizes into transparent beads of mist. He soaps his hand and washes, washes this body, but doesn’t he know he touches nothing?
“You’re my most precious girl,” he says to me. His hand is there, between my legs. “Tell me,” he whispers. “I know. Tell me how much you want it again. Tell me how much you love it.”
He always says this to me, says he knows when I want him, when my body wants him, and only him. But I don’t understand what it is he feels there, how it is he can tell. And I don’t understand how he can say this, now when I hurt, when I couldn’t possibly want anything. So I can’t—I can’t tell him the only words he ever wants to hear me say. Instead, I pull away from him slightly, knowing I shouldn’t, knowing this will make him angry, make him want it more.
The movement had been slight, but he notices. His fingers are rigid, ordering me not to move. He tells me to unzip his shorts, tells me to make him the way I love him. And I want to say to him: Daddy, no, no. What we need now is sleep. I say nothing. He won’t see, will never see, our exhaustion. I know our bodies are finite. He’s too quickly using them up.
So Celeste smiles. Evil. Disdainful. Taunting. This slutdaughter. Her smile shows short evil teeth as she reaches for his penis.
His hand guides hers, but she can’t get it right tonight, can’t get him hard enough. They’re too tired. He won’t listen to his exhaustion. His tension is greater, and he squeezes her hand tight around it. He makes her move faster, tries to get her hand to grip it tighter, and she’s focused on it, but she can’t do it, can’t do it right, and he’s angry now. He yanks her shoulder up until she’s kneeling and he says for her to suck it. He holds her by the throat to guide her mouth to the proper rhythm but she can’t do this right either, and when she begins to gag, her taunting smile is far away and she is pulled from the tub and is on the floor, water streaming from her body. He has to have an orgasm. She knows this. He has to have one now. It is the most important thing in her life, to give him one. She knows that once he’s this far, there is no way to stop or go back, that she must do everything she can to draw it from his body. He is angry. He smears petroleum jelly on her and touches her where she’s sore, his fingers hurting her, hurting inside her, there—and when she begins to kick at him to stop he rubs her harder until she pleads with him and then, finally, when she is weeping—he loves to see her weep—he is hard now, strong, ready to fuck her. And he does.
Sunday morning, I stay in my bedroom until I hear my parents leave the house. Then I go into the bathroom. No one has bothered to drain the bathtub from last night. Quickly I flip the lever and thoroughly rinse the gritty residue at the bottom with cleanser and a sponge. I wash my face and brush my teeth. My hair is still dirty and tangled. I drag the brush through it, unraveling snarls. I lean over the sink and splash water on my hair until it is damp. I part it, making sure the part is as straight as possible.
In the kitchen, I wipe the counter and put the dishes from the night before in the dishwasher. I spread peanut butter on a slice of bread and stand by the window. The unfinished patio and yard are in disarray with clods of earth, mounds of sand, scattered bricks, rakes, shovels. I don’t want the outside of our house to be messy. I don’t want to see the patio unfinished, looking hastily abandoned. I’m sure my parents hate for our yard to be this way, too. How pleased they would be to return home to a house with a beautiful new patio. They would love me so much if I am the one to suddenly conjure it for them, like magic. I pull on shorts, a shirt, sneakers and go outside.
All day I load sand and bricks in the wheelbarrow and cart them to the patio. I arrange each brick carefully in the sand, each brick in the perfectly symmetrical design, each row separated by four inches of white pebbles. At dusk I turn on the outside spotlights and continue, row by row. The skin on my hands is scratched, my muscles ache, but I barely notice. I have to finish the patio. I feel enormous gratification at the neatness, the orderliness, of each row.
Soon after ten my parents turn into the drive. I rush to meet the car before they pull into the garage. I open the doors and urge them to hurry, come with me, see what I’ve done. Proudly, I display the patio and walk across each row of bricks, needing to demonstrate how solidly the bricks are settled. My parents are amazed I finished it by myself. Yes, I say. All by myself. I did this for you. I am beaming. They come to me and hug me, admiring it, testing it themselves, exclaiming what a fine job I’ve done. “It adds so much to the house,” they say. Yes, the house. Our house must look perfect, like Jane’s house, like Christopher’s house, perfect for everyone to admire.
We are that New Jersey family, then, admiring our New Jersey house. It is brick with dark gray trim surrounded by a mowed lawn and weeded flower beds. We are that family—we are you, any of you, up and down Lowell Road, standing in our nighttime yard with the spotlight arcing across our newly completed patio. We are that family in the photograph—the one snapped, for example, at the opening of my father’s bank in Saddle Brook. We three girls wear white gloves, nylon stockings, wool suits. My mother and my sister wear dark velvet hats. A white hair-band secures my hair. My father, in a suit, has an arm around me, where he stands between my mother and me, proudly. My sister always stands slightly detached from the family, but no one would consider this curious. Not in that photograph. Nor would anyone notice anything curious in this one, where we stand together admiring our house and our yard.
Because we can be that family, too—this family. Families don’t exist in one dimension only. Who was my family last night? Last night we had centuries of civilization stripped from our skin. Last night we devolved through centuries of time, to a beach white as salt, and as dry. But tonight, as we admire our patio, we ’re just like you and like you, we can be you, when we really, really try.
A month has passed since my father ripped the straps of my bathing suit. Finally, one Monday morning when he is at the bank and my mother is shopping, I decide to repair them. I sit on my bed with my mother’s sewing box. I double the thread for strength. This will hold, as I’ve already decided I won’t actually go swimming. And no one will see the stitches, since I’ll wear a shirt over the suit, as before.
By noon I head toward the pool. I haven’t seen anyone all summer, and I’m scared I won’t be accepted. Scared my friends won’t invite me to put my towel beside them. Scared I’ll be ignored.
Scared there are marks on my body that everyone will notice. Just this morning I shaved my legs to the knee. The skin feels overexposed, my bare legs awkward, walking outside on the street. Heat from the pavement softens the soles of my white Ked sneakers and seems to reflect too brightly off the surface of my calves and thighs. I’m scared of what someone might see.
My friends sit on the grass outside the chain-link fence surrounding the pool. I grip my towel to my chest and slowly walk toward them. A transistor radio plays. Skin gleams with suntan lotion. Many have summer tans. Relief: I am not told to go elsewhere. Everyone invites me to place my towel here, or here—you’ll get better sun here. Where’ve you been all summer? I say I had to help my father build a patio. This is accepted. Yet the girls in the group are nervous, I can tell, and I wonder what’s wrong. As I sit beside Robin she touches my hand, asking my eyes to follow her gaze down the length of the grass to a smaller group of kids from school. Christopher. He’s with a girl named Lynn. Robin whispers she’s seen them toget
her from the beginning of summer. No one knows how he could possibly like her more than me—but then Lynn is not part of our crowd.
I pretend I’m not upset, yet all I want to do is run back to my home, to my room. I can’t speak. For a moment all I do is watch Christopher. If I stare long enough, maybe the forcefulness of my gaze will erase him. Robin advises me to forget him, pretend I’m interested in another guy. She whispers that Ryan broke up with his girlfriend and lists other available guys. “We’re all going to Palisades Park on Saturday and we won’t invite Christopher,” she says. “He’ll see. He’ll regret it. Ask one of the guys to go swimming.”
One of the guys. Ryan lies on a towel at the edge of the group, reading. The tips of his fingers carelessly flick pages of a magazine.
He drums them against paper as he pauses to glance at a picture. What I’d felt in Steve’s fingers I now feel in Ryan’s—that urgency, that need. I lie back on my towel with the sun hot on my face, thinking of Ryan. With Ryan, I could be the girl who sneaks away from dances to have her back pushed against walls, her stomach hard against his. Now I understand I have worn this suit for Ryan, as if I knew all along I would be with him today, not with Christopher. With Christopher I would hide beneath my shirt, careful not to scare him. I know my body scares him. I know Ryan will never be scared. He will desire my body. The shyness I feel with Christopher is absent with Ryan. I will be much happier with Ryan.
She will be.
Celeste’s blonde hair tumbles down my back. Her red lips pout in a smile as she sheds the shirt and leads Ryan into the swimming pool. She laughs and splashes him with water and dares him to jump off the high dive. He does. She watches, holding onto the side of the pool until he returns, shaking water from his eyes. Her arm drifts against his; their bodies drift in the movement of water, brushing against each other. When he turns to ask her something, his gaze lingers at the top of this too-small bathing suit. And Celeste smiles at him with her taunting eyes.
But I am the one who now notices Christopher and Lynn wade into the water. He says something and she laughs—her smile, hers, as shy as his. He holds her hand in a way he never held mine, because he can hold hers. Her hand doesn’t threaten. And suddenly I understand why I’m not with Christopher. He knows about Celeste. Even though he has never seen me in this bathing suit, he knows about it—understands what it means. Like that tight knit sweater. He knows about… I don’t let myself fully understand what he knows, but I believe that if he glances in my direction he will be horrified by what he sees.
I release the ledge and push myself far below water, straining against its bouyancy, kicking and cupping my hands to carry me down. Vibrations from swimmers rock against me. I feel a dull pounding in my ears, louder as I sink toward the bottom. I want to hear this pounding, nothing else. Chlorine burns my eyes, but I keep them open, wanting them burned. I know—I know what I will do with Ryan, and I know I will always miss Christopher, will always want him back. But I know I have done something too awful to deserve him—that I would have to be cleansed in order to get him back. All the water and astringents my mother pours into my body will not be enough. My body overwhelms me with disgust. I believe only if I drain all the blood from it will this horror that lives in it be gone.
Ryan swims to the bottom of the pool to find me, to pull me back up. I let him, let his hand brush the top of my suit, let his legs brush my thigh. When I reach the surface I am crying—it is only tears—I make no sound—and Ryan thinks my eyes are irritated from chlorine. He jokes: “I can make you feel better.” I tell him, yes, I believe him. I know that he can.
At home I pull on slacks, a heavy shirt, socks. I put two blankets on the bed and huddle beneath them, shivering. My hair is damp, but I don’t want to roll it or sit under the dryer. I press my hands between my knees, trying to warm them. I’ve closed windows and curtains to shut out light. I tell my mother I’m too sick to eat dinner. Later, she brings me a bowl of soup and Ritz crackers, my favorite, but when I pick up a cracker I begin to cry. She feels my forehead and says I’m warm and must take my temperature. I plead with her—no. At school the nurse uses a mouth thermometer, but we don’t have that kind. I can’t have my temperature taken, I tell her. I can’t. I think I will scream if she takes it. She says if I’m not sick I have to eat, and if I’m sick she has to take my temperature and call the doctor.
My father comes in the room to see what’s wrong. My mother pulls down the blankets, my slacks, my underwear. By now I am frigid with shame, and she’s unable to insert the thermometer. They say I am stubborn and willful and that if I won’t let them a doctor will make me. My mother slaps my thighs, but the cold deepens. I’m not breathing and feel as if I’m sinking back down in the water. I shiver harder. Only their anger is colder and harder than I, and I know I should not be doing this. They are right: I am a stubborn and willful child. To stop this, all I must do is let go. I must leave me, let who I am go, but I can’t. I can’t stop shivering.
My father tells my mother he will do it. He knows exactly where I keep the White Rose Petroleum Jelly and dabs some on the thermometer. But as I feel it enter I push back with a force, with an explosive strength I know is greater than I could ever be. I do not want my temperature taken. I fall over onto the mattress before sliding onto the floor. The thermometer breaks. I want this, yes. I am grateful.
I have slept. Or fainted. When I awake I’m on my bed with a doctor bending over me. Even with my eyes closed, I know my mother is in the room watching me, fascinated by what the doctor does to my body. To me, it doesn’t matter what he does. I am quiet and have stopped shivering. I am good now. A good girl. He says I’ll be fine. When he touches my forehead I notice a throbbing—I must have banged it. My mother tells the doctor I was delirious and fell from bed. Even though I can’t open my eyes I nod, yes, this is true. If given truth serum I would still confirm her statement. For it is true. I was delirious, have been delirious since floating to the floor of the pool. But my temperature must have broken, he says, as I have no fever now. I’ll be as good as new by morning.
My mother says I caught the flu at the pool and that if I’m not careful I will catch something worse. By now, I think I must almost believe her. Really, what is wrong with me might as well be called flu, because it has no other name for identification. It could be called flu. It could be called strep throat, leprosy, tuberculosis, leukemia. Perhaps I have them all. Surely it is something that gnaws my body. Why should the name matter?
It is dusk when our group arrives at Palisades Amusement Park, spinning with neon color. We eat hot dogs, cotton candy, caramel apples, while wandering around Ferris wheels and roller coasters. But it is Celeste who devours cotton candy. It is Celeste who is intoxicated by gaudy lights, by the tinny sound of music, by the whirl of rides, by the taste of sugar. She is as enchanted with Ryan as much as I miss Christopher. And I do. For while Celeste leans close and brushes Ryan’s arm, I wish Christopher walked beside me. Ryan and Celeste move quickly from games of chance to speeding rides. I want her to—I don’t want her to stop.
On the Ferris wheel he kisses her, a long, round kiss. His mouth tastes of sugar, and I want this—Celeste does—wants him to kiss her and kiss her, kiss all the lipstick off her mouth. And I am grateful for Celeste, who keeps us focused on this kiss, unfocused on Christopher. In the gondola they swing from the ground up, up to the night, and she feels as if she’s swinging around the sky. His heart slams against her hand, and Celeste kisses him harder, deeper, craving the power of his heart. She believes she controls it, is powerful enough to control the beat of it.
Later, she sits between Ryan’s legs in a scooter car as they rocket through space like a bullet. He can’t kiss her now, her back is to him, but his hands are under her shirt while she presses against his chest. Now the back of her head feels the slamming of his heart. And her power, her strength, grow. On the carousel they sit beside each other in a chariot, kissing, and he asks if he can take her out Saturday night. He has an
older friend with a car and they can go to the drivein movie in Paramus. Yes, she says, she will go. In the haunted house he places her hand on his penis while his fingers slide beneath the leg of her shorts. He whispers how much he loves her. Celeste knows what this means, knows what he wants, although he would never, never ask for it, would never believe a Glen Rock girl would know how to do it, would agree to do it, ever. Celeste, Celeste, no, I try to warn her. Stop. I don’t want her to do what I know she is destined for.
She doesn’t stop. She unzips his pants. Her treacherous mouth lowers over him. In a moment it is over. He is too quick for her, too easy. Then she can stop.
For the rest of the evening he doesn’t look at her. And she, now without purpose or reason for being, can’t hear the sound of her footsteps, can’t see neon lights, can’t hear rock ’n’ roll music blaring from loudspeakers. Her heart drains from her body. All she is left with is that taste in her treacherous, treacherous mouth.
On Saturday night I lie rigid in the back seat of the car at the drivein movie. There are no neon lights, no whirling rides. Celeste is not with Ryan, I am, and while I know what she can do and how she does it, I am exhausted and confused with his hand under my dress, exhausted with his mouth kissing mine, exhausted by the sound of his heart slamming. I want it to stop. He’s furious I won’t touch his penis. Furious I won’t allow it in my mouth. Furious he’s spent this money to take me to the movies. When I am finally exhausted with his fury, I put his own fury in my mouth. And then, when it is over, we can stop.
Our family is to drive to Londonderry, Vermont, for a two-week vacation. As we pack up the car to leave, my father is in a rage. He can’t arrange the suitcases the way he wants—we have brought too much—and he arranges and rearranges the trunk while screaming at us. My sister, my mother, and I stand in the garage watching him slam suitcases. Once, my mother tells him to quiet down or the neighbors will hear, but her reprimand detonates an explosion of sound. I could stop his abuse, I know it. I know how to soften it, but he doesn’t even glance at me. I lean against the cool cement wall of the garage, waiting for this trip to begin. But of course it has begun. All our trips begin in rage, and all the way to Vermont I feel it.
Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You Page 14
