Hannahwhere

by John McIlveen

  You know it happened, a voice within her said. Denial is futile.

  Even if it happened, it might have not been discovered or reported.

  Was that possible? Not likely, she ended up in foster care for a reason.

  “Where to start, where to start?” she mumbled. She changed Cleveland to Lakewood, turning up three-hundred-thirty-five-thousand hits, most of those seemingly linked to abuse prevention organizations, lawyers, and counselors, or sex offender registration. Adding her surname brought 3,200 hits, but nothing relevant—not without hours of deciphering. “Deborah Gillan” Lakewood Ohio brought back a mere six hits, though none were exact—not a hint that anything had ever happened to her in the proximity of Lakewood, Ohio. Christ! She might as well have never existed. It may well have happened in Phoenix, for all she knew. Frustrated, she added her mother’s name Patricia in the search bar, which returned a hit-count of slightly less than sixteen hundred. Again, nothing exact or pertinent turned up.

  Debbie had always been impressed and intimidated by the bewildering amount of information available on the Web. It had information dating back decades, well before the computer was inaugurated, never mind PCs. If anything was to be found, she figured it would be conspicuous like the Cleveland case in England.

  She switched back to Google Earth and was dismayed by the numerous pop-ups born from other windows… there must have been fifteen. Right-clicking on the tabs, she halted when a prominently green thumbnail caught her eye. Expanding the window, she clicked on the link and a page from Cleveland.com opened, displaying a large photograph of a football team in action. Their uniforms were not far removed from the Green Bay Packers’ uniform, except where the Packers had their trademark G within an oval; this team sported an E that looked more like an inverted three. Debbie knew that logo, but she couldn’t place how or from where. The headline read Lakewood-St. Edward High School Eagles – The Big Green Machine!

  The name ricocheted through Debbie’s mind like a distant echo.

  St. Edward Eagles.

  Green Eagles.

  Fly like an eagle…to the sea…

  She could see it above his sweaty, fat shoulder, and amidst the cloying reek of alcohol, cologne, piss, and sex. She stared at it where it hung on the wall near the smiling, lying St. Pauli Girl… the green flyer for St. Edward High School Eagles.

  Good Girl, the fat man panted.

  The faces revealed themselves… those filthy, leering men who used her and hurt her. Debbie slammed her palm on the pointed corner of her desktop. The jolt of pain drove the flashback from her head and brought her back to the present.

  “No-no-no-no-no-no-no-no!” she sobbed, her tears falling to her keyboard and she started to lose grip. “I was just a baby, you bastards!”

  Her biggest fear was realized, the evidence was irrefutable, and it hit her like a knife to the gut. In her heart, she had known it was true, but she had clung onto that shred of doubt.

  With a soul-rending shriek, Debbie fell to the floor and curled into a shivering fetal ball.

  How could they do it? They were monsters! Their faces taunted her and Debbie whispered to herself, “Fly away. Fly away from here.”

  And Debbie flew…

  She soars from her tormentors, to a place where she can be free of the pain and all the ugliness. She gains speed as the hill- and tree-populated world far below her gives way to a huge body of water, its mirror-like surface reflecting the skies. She sees herself from a hundred feet above, spinning and swooping in the company of the dazzling sun. She plunges downward, faster and faster, nearer to the water, and then levels out to speed missile-like mere inches above the crystalline lake. She is impervious when she flies. She leaves everything behind, returning only when the defiling act is complete and the corrupting demons have fled for the time being, leaving her to soak in her pit of agony and shame, blameless, yet feeling worthless and hideous.

  Debbie rises upward, climbing above the trees towards the cleansing heat of the sun. She realizes that this is not Hannahwhere or Annaplace; there are no towering mountains and no foil trees bearing alien fruit. This place has no name, yet she knows it is hers. It has been hers all along and she has carried some of it to this day, apparent in the landscapes of Hannahwhere and Annaplace. This realm may be old and elapsed, but is her place. This is her escape. She traveled here long before Hannah and Anna were born. This is an old talent reborn. It is why traveling came so easy to her. She just put it on the shelf at the back of the closet, only to take it out for a spin years later, like an old forgotten bike. She had needed Hannah and Anna to remind her that it is still hers.

  Debbie came to on the living room floor. Her body felt disconnected as she pushed herself into a sitting position, as if some unfamiliar force was moving her. She rose and went into the kitchen and ran a glass of water from the refrigerator tap. She returned to the living room and sat at her desk, hazy, yet intent on finishing what she started.

  She wanted the whole story. She wanted to confront the truth and not fear it… to laugh mockingly in its face like Renfield and say I beat you! You don’t scare me anymore! You can no longer hurt me!

  She was the red-haired child, and she knew now that it all happened in Lakewood, or damned near it. Debbie closed all the browser windows on her computer except for one, which she homed to Google. In the search bar, she again typed Lakewood, Ohio, and Gillan. Debbie figured it was not a very common name, unlike its ancestral predecessor Gillian, which she thought must have been her family name before it fell victim to the Ellis Island name butchery. The search turned up 8.9 million hits.

  “Holy shit! So much for that,” Debbie muttered.

  She used quotation marks to streamline her search, enclosing “Lakewood, Ohio” in one set, and “Gillan” in another. Eighteen-hundred-seventy hits, that’s better. Adding sexual abuse narrowed it down to a mere three-hundred-fifty-six hits. She slowly scanned the links one at a time, looking for hope hiding in bleak improbability. Her surname popped up often. Joshua Gillan, a star tackle at Lakewood High School, looking proud and grass stained. Lakewood’s own Denise Gillan had obtained her undergraduate business degree from Syracuse. Lakewood youth, Jaime Gillan had received minor injuries in an auto/bike collision.

  There were plenty of possibilities for her to follow, but three of the links stood out for Debbie. One linked to Melanie Gillan, a fourth grade teacher at Grant Elementary who received a college grant two years earlier in order to pursue her master’s degree. Using Melanie Gillan’s e-mail link at the school’s webpage, she sent her a quick note explaining that she was interested in Lakewood’s history—primarily the nineteen-eighties—and that perhaps they were related and she’d love a reply or a phone call.

  Another linked to a Facebook profile photo for Stephanie Gillan, a pretty teenager with ivory skin, blazing red hair, and wide blue, owl-like eyes trimmed by bold black eyeliner. She stared coquettishly upward at a camera held at arm’s length in an Oliver Stone worthy angle, displaying a deceitful wealth of adolescent cleavage, tactically forced upward and inward by a snug fitting top.

  Debbie found it disconcerting the amount of personal information people were willing to divulge. Stephanie was seventeen years old and soon to be a senior at Lakewood High School. She liked Adele, Pink, The Black Eyed Peas, Johnny Depp, Hugh Jackman, and laser tag. Her latest post read, “OMG my mother is OTR again!” Stephanie Gillan looked like the alter ego of the seventeen-year-old Debbie who, half a lifetime ago, hid similar assets beneath unflattering jeans and loose-fitting sweatshirts. Debbie bookmarked her page, but was hesitant to communicate with her considering her age.

  The third link pointed to a profile on LinkedIn for Brandon Gillan, a prosecuting attorney with the Cuyahoga Department of Children and Family Services in Cleveland. His LinkedIn photo depicted a rugged man with compassionate eyes and, as it seemed with most Gillans, a rebellious crop of lively copper-red hair. Between the historically botched surname and the red hair, it seemed too unlikel
y that these were happenstance. If nothing else, it was a starting point. Debbie jotted down the number, picked up the phone and dialed.

  A secretary answered and informed her that Attorney Gillan was with a client and that she’d let him know she called. Debbie thanked her, left her number, and returned the phone to its cradle.

  Debbie was freshly showered, dressed, and finishing up with the blow dryer when her iPhone rang. She answered.

  “Miss Gillan?” a man asked.

  “Yes, this is she.”

  “Brandon Gillan, returning your call?”

  His voice was as common as milk yet sounded shaky, giving Debbie the impression that he might be elderly. This surprised her. The photo of Brandon Gillan depicted a man just about the same age as her. Maybe this was Brandon Gillan, Sr. She also found it remarkable that he returned the call not even an hour later. The divorce lawyer she hired after Kenny left did well if she called within three days.

  “Oh, hello. Thank you for calling back so promptly.”

  “My pleasure. How are you?” he asked.

  How are you? She found the question odd. She was expecting what can I do for you? or some remark about having the same surname.

  “I’m fine, thank you,” Debbie said after a short pause. “Well, I’m actually not fine. I’m sure you’re very busy, but could I trouble you for a few minutes?”

  “Certainly,” said the attorney.

  “Thank you. You see, I’m originally from Lakewood,” Debbie said, unsure of how to begin. “I spent the first few years of my childhood there. The problem is that I remember very little of it. When I was around nine or ten, I was put in foster care. This started a cycle that eventually landed me here in Riverside, Massachusetts. I’m sure you’re aware we have the same last name. Quite candidly, I’m calling because I saw your name and photo on LinkedIn and I think we may be related. We have very similar red hair… and facial features, for that matter. I know I’m rambling, but I’m looking for answers about my life in Lakewood and I’m hoping you’ll be able to help me.”

  “I’m glad you called, Debbie,” said Brandon. “Though I never imagined I’d ever actually speak with you again.”

  “You know who I am? Are we related?”

  “Yes, we’re cousins, Debbie. I was only fourteen when you… when you were put into foster care, but I always remembered you,” Brandon said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Just how much of your life in Lakewood do you remember?”

  “Very little, as I said, but I know major events—devastating events—happened during my time in Lakewood. I’m positive of this, and I have a good idea the nature of it, but I’m not clear on what exactly happened. It sounds as if you might know. Can you help me, Brandon?”

  She heard a heavy, quavering sigh over the receiver, and then Brandon said, “I do know what happened, Debbie, but over the phone is no place to talk about it.”

  Debbie digested this for a while, and then said, “Brandon, I’d come to your office, but I’m in Riverside, Massachusetts, and I can neither afford the time from work nor the money. I’m aware that horrendous things happened to me and I had repressed it for years, but a series of recent events have triggered some gruesome flashbacks. I don’t want to go into detail except to say they are about unspeakable men—many men—who did hideous things. They’re crippling me to the extent that lately I can’t function properly. What happened back then, Brandon?”

  “Memories are surfacing? That was bound to happen eventually. Are they that vivid?”

  “Too vivid,” Debbie acknowledged.

  “My God,” Brandon said, and Debbie heard sorrow in his voice. “When I found out what happened I wanted to kill them, I swear it, but, like I said, I was only fourteen.”

  “I see them clearly, as if they are right beside me. Who are they, Brandon?”

  “I shouldn’t say any more. You don’t need…”

  “Brandon, please… I know what I need, and that’s answers and closure. You’ve been very kind, but I need to know why this happened to me.”

  Brandon paused for so long that Debbie thought he had broken the connection. “Are you sure you want to hear it, Debbie?” he finally asked.

  “Hear it? I’ve been living it. I need to face it if I want to survive.”

  “Do you have a support system there? A counselor, or someone to confide in?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Debbie lied. The day Kenny had left, so had Debbie’s support system, and she had flown solo ever since. As for now, Essie Hiller was the closest thing she could consider a support system, and she couldn’t even act as her counselor legally. Calling this a support system was like calling a silk thread a lifeline.

  “Okay,” Brandon said. “I’m bringing my daughter to check out UConn in Storrs, Connecticut, this weekend. I can redirect to Logan instead of Hartford, and if you meet me somewhere in Riverside on Thursday, we can talk more on this.”

  “I can’t have you do that!” Debbie said. “That’s at least a hundred miles out of your way and you’d be missing work. Can’t you tell me over the phone?”

  “These are things you do not talk about over the phone,” Brandon said. “You may find them easy to handle or you may be devastated, depending on your frame of mind. I have made a career of trying to protect people, and that will not change. I cannot and will not take that kind of risk.”

  Debbie felt like she’d been reprimanded, but she understood… her job had similar ethics.

  “Why are you willing to do this?” Debbie asked. “You don’t even know me.”

  “You are family, and yes, I do know you. I remember the little girl you were back then and I cared very much for you, so please.”

  After some deliberation, Debbie conceded. “Okay, but please let me cover the expenses.”

  “Debbie, I’m a wealthy man and I don’t just mean monetarily. I’m called brutal, ruthless, and a hard-ass, and I know defense attorneys fear me. As an attorney who specializes in child advocacy, I take pride in that. I feel I owe you and my brother a lot. I do my best to prevent what happened to the two of you from happening to others, or if it does, that the perpetrators are punished to the fullest possible degree.”

  “I still feel wrong about taking you and your daughter’s time.”

  “We’re already heading that way. Besides, the UConn meeting is on Saturday. My daughter loves the cities and I personally think Boston is a lot more fun than Hartford. I’ll take her there Friday.”

  “I’m guessing your daughter’s name is Stephanie?”

  “Yes! How do you know that?” Brandon asked, genuinely surprised.

  “Her Facebook profile came up when I did a Google search for Gillan and Lakewood. She’s beautiful.”

  “Oh, jeesh!” He gave an exasperated huff. “Well, thank you. Yes, she is beautiful and she is well aware of it. I get nervous about the pictures she posts. I hope she’s at least not public.”

  “Don’t know very much about Facebook, but…. well, according to Stephanie, your wife’s not in a good mood,” Debbie said, not able to keep the smile out of her voice.

  “Yeah, I’ll bet,” he chuckled. “Okay, so Thursday can you have someone with you when I come there? Maybe a close friend, or if you have a therapist, even better, we can meet with him or her.”

  “Yes, I think so,” Debbie said.

  “Good! Call me with a time and an address.”

  Debbie hung up feeling wrung out but appeased by finally knowing the truth… or more of the truth. She looked at the kitchen clock and did a double take. It was not yet 11:00 a.m. and she felt like she’d already had a full day. It felt like ten at night.

  She pondered her conversation with Brandon. Knowing she had a blood relative—especially one willing to offer so much while not knowing her or if he’d ever meet her again—felt odd. Not bad, but awkward, like wearing a shirt backwards.

  Debbie called Essie and left a message. She said, “Hello, Essie, it’s Debbie. Could you call me? I’d like
to meet in Hannah’s room at one this afternoon. I have something I’d like you to see. I think it just may change your life.”

  Essie returned the call within minutes.

  Chapter 27

  Hannah was dressed and sitting on the edge of the hospital bed when Debbie and Essie walked in. She wore the second set of clothes that Debbie had bought her: skinny jeans and a white-and-aqua-blue blouse that brilliantly emphasized Hannah’s eyes. The rings under her eyes had nearly faded and she looked healthier and more rested today. Debbie latched onto this as an omen of good things to come.

  “Hello, Sunshine! It looks like you were expecting us,” Essie said.

  “I was,” said Hannah. “Debbie said we’re going back to the park today.”

  “Yes, we are,” said Debbie.

  On the television, an NBC News reporter moved to one side as the camera panned across the front of a white clapboard tenement building with yellow crime scene tape strung across the front porch. Across the lower quarter of the screen, bold red letters on a bright yellow background declared Murder in Brockton! The volume was at a barely discernible level, but Debbie quickly changed the channel to Disney. Hannah already had too much trauma and violence in her life.

  “Who turned that on?” Debbie asked, planning to have a word or two with the tactless dolt. She switched the channel with the remote pendulum.