A second later someone taps at my door. “Katie? Is everything all right?” It’s Robert.
I don’t answer because I’m not quite awake. He opens the door slightly and peers in. I notice he’s carrying a plate of sliced fruit.“You okay, honey?”
“Uh …” I sound spacey. “Yeah. I had a bad dream, I guess.”
“I hate those.”
“Me, too.”
“Want a grape?” He holds the plate through the doorway, and for some reason it makes me laugh. He smiles back, pushing the door farther open, but staying inside the frame. “We leave in the morning. Mrs. Hoyt’s sleeping over; she’ll cook and drive you to school and stuff.”
“Good. Thanks.” It takes a second to remember Mrs. Hoyt is the housekeeper.
“And David’s welcome to visit.”
“Okay, cool.”
“Not all night. Mrs. Hoyt will check.”
I smile at him. “Got it.”
“Good.” He pops a piece of fruit in his mouth. I get the definite feeling he’s hanging around to make sure I’m okay. “Well, I guess we’re family now.”
“Yep. I guess we are.”
“I hope that’s okay with you.”
“Yeah, it is.” Then it really hits me. He’s my stepdad now, legally.
“All right then, I’m going to bed. Sleep well, now, and call if you need anything.”
The next morning, “Dad” and I have breakfast on the porch while Mom packs. Michael’s sleeping in. We watch the steady parade of locals out walking or jogging, including the anorexic redhead with the two puppies.
“So how are you doing with everything?” Robert asks, out of the blue.
“Okay, I guess.”
He nods but doesn’t say anything.
“I haven’t had a lot of time to think about it.”
“Would you like to talk to a therapist?” he asks.
“No, thanks.”
“You realize you didn’t do anything wrong?”
“Oh yeah. I’ve been reading up.”
“Excellent, but I still think a therapist …”
I shake my head no.“I’m doing what I need to.”
“Which is?”
“Remembering stuff, talking to Mom.” I reach over for my water and take a sip. Robert’s taking the dad-thing a little far. “My father didn’t mean to hurt me. Something was wrong with him. He may even have been abused himself.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Robert shakes his head.
“What?”
“It doesn’t matter whether he ‘meant’ it or not. There’s no excuse.”
Brick wall. I can’t talk for a minute. “But …”
“No buts, sweetheart.”
“Robert, you’re not hearing me. He loved me …”
“That’s beside the point.”
“You can’t love someone and hurt them too,” I argue,“not on purpose.”
“Happens all the time.”
I don’t like where this is going. “Yeah, well, I don’t think he knew what he was doing. I think he was very depressed, and—”
“Katie, Katie, you’re not hearing me. It doesn’t matter. He’s your father. You’re his child—end of story.”
“I don’t understand—”
“You understand more than you know. The part you don’t get yet is what it means to be an adult.”
I just stare at him.
“It’s a basic truth, honey: He was the big person, you were the little one. Whatever happened in his life was never, ever reason enough to hurt you. He was supposed to keep you safe.”
FORTY-ONE
“Katie?”
I turn at the sound, missing the edge of picnic table by inches, but missing it nevertheless. Layla and Stacey are coming out of the administration building. It’s Layla who’s spoken. “Omigod. Why are you here? It’s summer,” she says.
Stupid Kate volunteers, but the words are already out, sounding smooth and sure. “I flunked geometry, of course. What else? Why are you here? You guys graduated, remember?”
“My transcript got screwed up,” Stacey explains, as if we always talk to each other. “I had to get a new one sent.”
“Because we’re going to Europe tomorrow,” Layla offers. “With Jake and Henry.”
“Henry?”
“He went to Brentwood,” Stacey says.
Layla points to Stacey and smiles.“Big time Love thang.”
“Oh yeah? Congratulations!” Where the hell did that come from and why do I sound like they don’t intimidate me anymore?
“Thanks.” A flash of the old bitchy Stacey flickers and all it does is make me remember her journal.
“We gotta go,” Layla says.“You take care, Katie-katie.”
I look over at David and smile. It’s one of those incredibly delicious summer nights—nine o’clock and the sun is just now dipping into the horizon. Homework’s done. We’re walking down the beach. Mom and Robert are back at the Brentwood house, very happy and very married, and Michael’s left for Santa Rosa. I’ve claimed the Mini Mansion, with Mrs. Hoyt, of course, and David comes every night for dinner. He brings his dog, Jesse.
“Why so quiet?” he asks.
“Thinking.”
“Don’t think so much.”
I’m in love with David. Completely, totally, and not at all in the way adults seem to think teenagers fall in love. You don’t have to be grown to know you’ve found the right person. He loves me the same. It is a miracle, and I totally know it.
“I’m thinking about what Carol said,” I tell him. Carol is the medium David goes to see. She’s also a “relationship therapist”— two birds, one stone—and I’ve met with her twice. Robert and Mom think it’s great that I’m “dealing with things.”They don’t know we just talk about past lives.
“Want to tell?”
“Not yet. It kinda has to settle first.”
“Got it.” He takes my hand and kisses it. “Oh, guess who I saw at Starbucks?”
“No clue.”
“Stacey and Layla. Stacey’s going to Tisch, after they come back from France, of course.”
“Good for her. She’ll be away from the asshole.” I’m not sure why I don’t mention I saw them too.
Jesse comes bounding up the beach. He races in and out of the surf, and when he finally reaches us, he’s sopping. Of course he jumps on me.
“I think I may just have to give him to you, ”David says.“He’s obviously fallen in love.”
“Yeah,well, can you blame him? Me—you—hardly a difficult choice.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“So you think maybe he’d—”he scoops me up in his arms—“save you if I happened to toss you in?”
Kicking does no good—he’s entirely too strong. “You wouldn’t!” I scream obscenities, among other things, and he marches toward the water. Jesse trails happily behind.
“David!!!”
“You’re going in!”
And I do—but I take him down with me. Jesse throws his sandy dog body into the surf right along side us, no doubt feeling like one lucky pup to have owners who know how to play.
Half hour later, we’re changed and dry and sitting on the deck with hot chocolate. Mrs. Hoyt brought it out, wanting to make sure we know she’s here. I cuddle with David on the swing and Jesse plops his huge self on top of us. It’s like that day in rehearsal when everything fit. There’s nothing I have to do but be here.
I feel more than hear David take a long, slow breath. Jesse echoes. We both laugh. A few minutes later he checks his watch. “Time,” he murmurs.
“Yeah.”
“Hey, maybe I should stay a little bit longer, huh? Mrs. Hoyt’ll be in bed soon, and . . .” He looks like such a puppy himself right now, I can hardly stand it. I tilt my head to one side, but don’t say a word. “Okay, okay, got it. But Jesse stays.”
“Yes sir.”
“It’s a damn good thing you’re so fucking beautiful.”
“See you tomorrow, baby.”
FORTY-TWO
Midnight, and a full moon. It shines down from the sky and up from the ocean at the same time. All the stars are visible—no fog cover at all. I creep past Mrs. Hoyt’s room, chuckle at her snoring, and venture out onto the sand to sit huddled in the breeze, facing the water. Jesse snuggles down next to me. An entire country is behind us; this makes me smile.
I don’t stay on the balcony anymore, or even the deck. I like to be close to the ocean, on the sand. It’s a radically different perspective from here, watching the waves gather themselves and surge forward, pounding, then end in a swirl of froth, sometimes inches in front of me. It’s an exquisite place to cuddle with a big warm dog, think about life and death and souls circling.
That little voice whispers:
Circle the soul softly . . .
…and a photo that used to hang in the hallway in the blue and white house slips into my head. I’m five and a half, on my way out the door for my first day of kindergarten. I’m bundled up in a sweater and jeans, holding a brand-new Snoopy lunch box, which is almost bigger than I am. I smile as I see me, so young and so perfect and precise. And tiny. Very tiny.
But I like being little. I’m skinny, too, with gaps in my teeth and long thick hair pulled back tight from my face, braided. When I smile I tip my chin down a bit and peer up from under lashes that I curl with a dab of spit on my finger, absently and endlessly, sitting in the backseat of the car on the way to school.
I like to wait and find out how a place will be or what the other kids are doing before I jump in—then I’m fearless. I’m the one who’ll jump over the creek in the back field behind my house. Who can climb higher in the old oak than Michael, and he’s almost seven. I love my dog, Jonti. I love my brother, too, even though he ignores me at school just because I’m in kindergarten. When I get my feelings hurt, which happens a lot, I sit in the corner of the laundry room and Jonti crawls on my lap and I cry. Then I’m better.
The best day ever is when one of the first graders says I can play spy plane with them. Only me. Heart pounding and my cheeks flushing red, I follow him to “Spy Port” under the willow in the back of the yard. He puts me in the formation with the other first graders, and the five of us fly down the yard with arms flung backward. I can keep up! The joy of it is almost too much to bear. I feel the power of myself. I am important and amazing and I know for sure I can do anything.
My life is good. I have a best friend named Ginny. Even though Michael teases me, he doesn’t do it mean like my next-door neighbor does. Once he even stuck up for me at school, when Maria Modine tried to push me down. I like our blue and white house, especially the willow tree on the side. I like watching my mom pour pancake batter into letters first, then filling in the edges of the circle so I eat a big K in a wheel. I like sitting on my daddy’s lap when we’re watching TV at night. I like the way he smells like Old Spice and cigarettes, and how he tickles me and makes funny faces. I don’t even mind that his face is scratchy. When I’m with him, nothing in the world can hurt me.
Except—he does. He hurts me.
He creeps into my bed and changes everything.
He crushes my power and my importance.
He gives me secrets I can’t even tell myself.
He steals my freedom and my trust.
He makes me disappear.
Jesse whimpers quietly and snuggles closer. He knows. With arms wrapped tight around my knees, I rock gently back and forth and watch as the tide comes in and the ocean finally reaches my feet. I don’t actually feel it, though I think it must be cold. I’m numb with an understanding I can’t fully describe. I’m remembering how it was to be small and helpless and hurt by the one person in the entire world who would never hurt you.
I’m remembering how it felt to disappear.
Robert is right.
There is a big person. There is a little one. And there is an order to that, which is sacred. The adult takes care of the child. The roles may not be reversed.
He’s my father.
He was supposed to take care of me.
I’m his child.
There are boundaries that should never be crossed.
AND NOW
Crying wears me out. But each time I slip down to the ocean and bring my little girl out, I do it. For hours.
I think: I’m in mourning. Again. This time it’s not for my father who died—but for the death of the man I thought he was.
And for the life of the little girl.
My “truths” have shifted. There’s no final answer, no absolute right or wrong. There is an order that works—a relationship between souls that allows them to grow. But no one truth. Each soul seeks its own. I have to search for mine and the way it fits into my life now.
“And if you say everything has a purpose in the world—what is the use of pain?!” Tilda’s words from my audition monologue drop into my head. I don’t dismiss them; the universe speaks in many ways.
I won’t stop loving my father.
One day I might stop hating him.
And in the meantime, I have to cry.
Sometimes the tears thrash about and tear at me like a wild animal; I rage at my father and my mother and every single adult in my world then who didn’t notice something very awful was happening.
Sometimes the wound seeps quietly and the pain is low and mean and relentless, and the tears that finally, barely, escape from my eyes and throat are pinpricks of release, and welcomed. This kind of crying is the worst.
Always I am tired after.
Always, strangely, I feel just a little more “right.”
And life goes on.
Mom answers my questions the best she can and we both cry and hold on to each other and try to place our hurt. Michael calls every week and attempts to talk me into moving back to Santa Rosa. He misses me. Robert lets me know he’s there and will provide for me. Carol explains how my soul is strong and capable and can handle whatever it has to—and I think one day I’ll tell her about me and my dad. Probably after I tell David and maybe Michael. When I’m ready. But not yet.
I was alone in the bedroom in the blue and white house; I was alone with the memory I couldn’t have for all those years; and that’s what I need to be for now, alone, to figure me out.
That’s the purpose of pain.
Each time the crying stops, another fragment of anger and hurt is sliced off the gigantic mass of ugly feelings I’ve collected and hidden all these years. It floats out and away and in that instant I sense what it will be like when I fit into my self—like I did when I was five.
Then, of course, I crash—back to Stupid Kate, knowing nothing; helpless and hurt and scared—just like my little girl. Except the door’s no longer shut. And now there’s David and Robert and Michael. And my mom.
So I can cry again.
Jesse doesn’t like it. He whimpers his little dog sounds and nudges my hand with his nose. He wants me to smile, so I do. I hug him and he burrows under my arm and lays his big head on my lap and relaxes. He’s fine then, because he feels connected. I’m starting to feel connected too, to David, to my mom and brother, to the world. My soul shifts, and I circle it softly.
I try to stay here, in this moment. I try to breathe. And listen. And just be …my self. It’s really all anyone has to do. It’s very simple.
Oh wait . . .
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DAVIDA WILLIS HURWIN is the author of A TIME FOR DANCING (an ALA Best Book for Young Adults) and THE FARTHER YOU RUN. She teaches theater at Crossroads School for Arts and Sciences and lives in Southern California with her husband, Gene, and their daughter, Frazier Malone.
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CREDIT PAGE
Jacket Art © 2006 Paul Thomas / Getty Images
Jacket design by Sara Rabinowitz
COPYRIGHT
Circle the Soul Softly
Copyr
ight © 2006 by Davida Wills Hurwin
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © February 2009 ISBN: 9780061880643
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hurwin, Davida, 1950–
Circle the soul softly / Davida Wills Hurwin.— 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Suppressed memories of childhood sexual abuse resurface, jeopardizing fifteen-year-old Kate’s relationship with her new boyfriend.
[1. Self-perception—Fiction. 2. Child sexual abuse—Fiction. 3. Incest—Fiction. 4. Post-traumatic stress disorder—Fiction.] I.Title.
PZ7.H95735Cir 2006 2005005714
[Fic]—dc22 CIP
AC
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FIRST EDITION
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
Circle the Soul Softly Page 12
