The Incident

by Andrew Neiderman

  ‘Exactly. Without yer mother, I’d be as excitin’ as a snail on the sidewalk.’

  ‘You would not,’ I said. ‘You know a lot about wine and music, and talking about the economy and politics can be quite interesting, too.’

  He laughed. ‘Before I met her, I usta cure insomnia with ma conversation,’ he insisted.

  ‘Where is Mom?’

  ‘Oh, she was tired and went ta read in bed. She’ll probably be asleep with the book in her hands when I go ta the bedroom. I could never fall asleep with the light on,’ he added. What he was really revealing was that he volunteered to be the one who would wait up for her. There probably weren’t any parents of girls her age who would wait up for them. She was going to be twenty-two years old next birthday.

  ‘I still can’t fall asleep without a light on,’ she said dolefully.

  ‘Lots of folks can’t. My father’s mother burned two lamps.’

  There was no way he was going to make reference to the Incident, even though before it she had been able to fall asleep without a light on since the age of four.

  He looked at her, still smiling, maybe waiting to hear something else, something to keep up that hope he clung to as a passenger off a sinking ship would cling to a piece of drift wood. That’s what she had been all these years – adrift.

  ‘It was a very nice evening out, Dad. I like Bart. He’s polite and considerate and he’s not just about cars.’

  ‘That’s great, Vick. There’ll be plenty more dates in store, I’m sure. Not necessarily only with Bart Stonefield – not that I don’t like him, understand. I mean, once other men see ya out there in the social scene, the phone will ring off the hook and yer dance card will be full.’

  ‘Social scene?’ She laughed. She laughed quickly because she was afraid she might start to cry. This was her first date since the prom, which she didn’t think of as a date. It had felt more like a doctor’s appointment.

  ‘Well, it’s not New York, but it’s pretty busy up here right now and there are lots of new places fer young people ta enjoy. I think,’ he added. ‘I’m really glad you had a good time, Vick. You deserve it. You’ve earned it, graduatin’ with such high honors. We’re very proud of you. Neither of us says it enough.’

  ‘You don’t have to say it, Dad. Anyway, you did – with a car.’ She almost added that her car had led Bart to her or her to him.

  She went over to him, hugged him, kissed him on the cheek and whispered, ‘Good night.’

  ‘Night,’ he said. He watched her walk off.

  Her parents’ bedroom was before hers so she paused and looked in the partly opened doorway. There she was, just as her father had described, asleep with a book lying on her stomach. Her hair was down around her shoulders. In the light, her face looked a little pale, but there was softness in her quiet sleep that reminded Victoria of her years ago, when Victoria was just a little girl. She looked more like the mother who would have no problem hugging and kissing her, comforting her and teaching and laughing with her. As she grew older, her mother seemed to find more distance. It was as if she believed it was necessary in order for her daughter to mature properly and become an adult faster.

  She didn’t kiss her goodnight as often and shook her head when her father treated her more like a little girl. In fact, she would say, ‘Stop treating her like a little girl, Lester. Yer hear?’ she would add, mocking his Southern accent.

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he would say and wink at her.

  But as Victoria looked at her now, it suddenly occurred to her that she had never given enough consideration to just how much the Incident had damaged both her parents. She thought only of herself when she thought about the stain, the victim’s mark on her. She never considered that even, without her accompanying them, the stain her parents carried as well would bring silence into a noisy room and steal away the attention. She never gave much thought to the idea that they would have a burden to carry as heavy as her own. But it was logical to think that if people pitied her and treated her like a leper, why wouldn’t that spread to her parents? No one might come out and say it, but he or she would certainly be thinking, Oh, you’re the parents of that girl who was violently raped in Sandburg, aren’t you? How is she? Did they ever catch the rapists? You must have such a burden.

  How did they answer when someone innocuously asked, ‘How is your daughter doing?’ People asked that of parents whose children were attending college or away from home at a job or even in the services. Did they have to hoist their shoulders protectively to steel themselves in anticipation or search the faces of the inquirer to see if he or she was really thinking about only one thing?

  ‘Oh, she’s doing fine,’ her mother would probably say. ‘She’s got an A-plus average and will be graduating with honors. She’s in a top college, you know.’

  No one could get the best of her mother.

  Her father would offer a pleasant, appreciative smile and say she was fine – Thanks for askin’ – and leave it at that.

  Were parents of mentally ill children or parents of children who had committed crimes and sent for some sort of rehabilitation treated much differently?

  Funny how she hadn’t given this much thought until now. Surely, what had happened to her had caused changes in them, altered the way they saw themselves, too. Before this moment, she hadn’t thought of herself as self-centered. She often thought about her parents’ welfare, didn’t she? Or did she?

  Well, whatever, she certainly was thinking about them now. In a strange and yet exciting way, she was coming back to life, coming back in so many ways.

  She had Bart Stonefield to thank for that, perhaps.

  She started to turn away when her mother opened her eyes and called to her.

  ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Didn’t mean to wake you, Mom.’

  ‘That’s all right. I thought you were standing there,’ she said, pushing herself up to a more comfortable position. ‘Did you have fun?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Good,’ she said. Her mother gave her a look that told her she was studying her for the truth.

  Victoria rattled off everything she had told her father with just as much enthusiasm. Her mother definitely looked impressed. No, relieved was a better description.

  ‘Well, I wasn’t kidding him. He showed a lot of potential when he was in my class, as short as that was.’

  ‘He’s happy about what he’s doing, Mom.’

  ‘Well, I guess that really is the most important thing when you get right down to it.’

  ‘Did you always want to teach?’

  ‘It just seemed to fit who I was, yes.’

  ‘Dad thinks you could have gone into something dramatic, like radio or theater.’

  She shook her head. ‘He’ll never admit it, but he’s more of a romantic than I am, and despite his world of numbers and facts, he is more of a fantasizer.’

  Could she be right? Victoria wondered. Do you ever really get to know who someone really was, even your own parents? It seemed as if time went by and you grew different eyes, and you peeled away more and more illusion. But didn’t we need those illusions? Cold reality brought on cynicism. A world without fantasy was far too black and white. Beautiful things fell back into weaker and weaker memories, including your prettiest features and light laughter. Who’d blame any woman for eventually wanting to live in a house without mirrors?

  ‘Maybe that’s a good thing,’ she said. Her mother raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Just be careful, Victoria,’ her mother said. ‘Wishing something or someone to be what you want is OK, but forcing yourself to believe it is another.’

  ‘All right,’ she replied.

  ‘I have confidence that you’ll know the difference, Victoria.’

  ‘Night,’ she said and left quickly. She didn’t want to get into that mood of analysis.

  Now she was the one creating more distance between them. What was she afraid of? Raw emotions? Honesty? Needing someone?

  She stood b
efore her full-length mirror and slowly, almost erotically, began to undress. She imagined her hands were Bart’s hands. For the last six years, especially the first two, she was afraid of her sexual feelings. It was a key topic in her therapy. She sensed that girls in her high school had expected her to have that fear, and she knew that most of the boys who might have shown interest in her had hesitated because they had believed she was deeply wounded. They could see it in the way she avoided physical contact, in the way she closed herself up, sometimes looking as if she lived in a cocoon. They had avoided even looking at her. It was part of what made her feel invisible.

  To be sure, there were college boys who, not knowing what had happened to her, flirted with her and even tried to date her, but she turned them all away. One of her dorm mates, Denise Samson, told her that everyone thought she was homosexual. But she couldn’t change their impressions quickly. She couldn’t bring herself to confide in Denise or anyone else at school for that matter and get them to appreciate her emotional struggles. She was afraid of how it would change the way they looked at her. It was easier to let them believe what they wanted to believe, even if they believed she was homosexual. Of course, no one could claim she had made any advances, but anyone could imagine it. Thankfully, she wasn’t important enough or in any way a threat to them to be the center of their conversations. Eventually, she was just as invisible in college as she had been in high school, but for different reasons.

  She might have had a romance, if only she could have permitted herself to take the first step, but despite her therapy and her own desires, she couldn’t do it. What was different now? Was it because she was dating someone she once had a crush on, or was it because his dating her gave her the sense that it was over, that she had progressed enough to live a normal life after all? If she could do it here, she could do it anywhere. That’s it, she thought. Instinctively, she knew it and thought that was why she had come home.

  When she slipped her dress off, she stood there daring to admire her figure. Her curves were natural and her skin soft and firm. She had no doubt that someday she would have to work at keeping this figure, but for now she could match herself against any other young woman Bart Stonefield might feast his eyes on.

  She imagined him doing that now. She wasn’t facing a mirror; she was facing him. She undid her bra and slipped it off her shoulders and down her arms, holding it against her breasts for a moment and then dropping it to the floor. She straightened her shoulders and lifted her bosom slightly, her nipples now erect with those slightly orange areolas. She closed her eyes and imagined him reaching out to touch and lift her breasts gently, appreciating her, breathless with desire. She pursed her lips and felt his lips just the way she had when he kissed her goodnight.

  Then she brought her hands down to her panties and slowly slid them off, stepping out of them gingerly and dropping them beside her bra, stripping off all inhibition as well. Oh, she was ready. How ready she was. He was bursting with passion. He was coming forward again. He would put his hands just beneath her buttocks and lift her gently so he could carry her to the bed. She sprawled back, her head against the pillow, and then, throwing off that chastity belt that the rapist had locked around her that night six years ago, she spread her legs and welcomed Bart Stonefield to enter her and bring her back from the dead.

  She was suddenly surprised by the sound of her own moans. It was truly like waking from a dream. For a moment, she was embarrassed and froze. Could either of her parents have heard her? She waited, her heart pounding, and then she got up from her bed quickly and went to the bathroom.

  The sight of her flushed face frightened her. She looked back at her bed as if she thought Bart Stonefield might very well be there. She would have preferred that to the realization that she had just masturbated to a fantasy. Yes, fantasies were safer, but she was afraid she could become addicted to them to the point where she wouldn’t want really to be with anyone.

  Her therapist had once suggested that possibility. It was toward the last year of therapy. She had avoided a discussion about it and Dr Thornton had let it go. She shouldn’t have, Victoria thought. She should have forced me to face up to it.

  She prepared for bed and then slipped under the thin cover sheet. She still felt too hot even for that, but she also felt like snuggling, embracing her pillow and dreaming about tomorrow.

  Would it last?

  If she held back or stepped away, would he give up and agree with that part of him that was surely warning him about getting involved with a bird that had a broken wing?

  She was determined not to let the doubts keep her awake. Instead, she relived almost every word spoken at dinner and smiled to herself as she remembered how proud he was when he was walking around that Corvette and explaining it to her as if he had built it himself.

  Then she thought about his father in that doorway and the expression on Bart’s face when they had driven around and saw the bookkeeper’s car.

  Everyone is broken in one way or another, she thought.

  Maybe that was what really attracted him to her.

  They were both wounded birds.

  Unlike most every morning when she was home and had no college class to rush to, she didn’t sleep late. She was up practically at the tip of the sun’s head rising over the mountain to the west. She hadn’t bothered to close her drapes. Not long after the Incident, her mother had redesigned her bedroom, one of the key new features being the bright pink flower-power vintage pinch-pleat lined drapes. It was as if she hoped to change the face of Victoria’s world and sweep away any deep, dark depression. This was now a room that would look happy even on completely overcast days which cast dreary light in vain. She had her carpet changed to the pink looped and her bedspread and pillows matched the drapes. Even the light fixture was updated so it could be brighter. Her mother anticipated that Victoria would spend much more time alone in her room now, and she wanted to make it more difficult for her to fall into gloom and doom.

  Maybe it helped. The moment Jena saw her redecorated room, she began to whine about her own and pressured her parents to update her dull cave, as she called it. Victoria was embarrassed whenever she was at Jena’s home and she began to complain and compare her bedroom with Victoria’s. She could almost see Jena’s mother’s thoughts. You weren’t raped. You don’t need to be treated like a mental patient.

  Victoria was never happier about the room changes than she was this morning. It really did enhance and complement her mood. She practically leaped out of bed and hurried to get dressed and into the kitchen so she could surprise her parents by making them breakfast, something she hadn’t done for years. She wanted the table set and everything going before they opened their eyes. The aroma of the coffee would do that. She tiptoed past their bedroom and worked as if she were in a silent movie.

  And when her mother appeared in the kitchen doorway, the expression on her face was worth her effort in spades. It was written clearly on her face.

  Her daughter was back.

  What had happened couldn’t be completely forgotten, but at least it could be put in storage where it could wither into a skeleton and eventually decompose into dust.

  EIGHT

  It was raining hard the day she was released from the hospital after the Incident. How appropriate that it is gray and dreary, Victoria thought as her father brought his car up to the entrance where she and her mother waited with a nurse. It was hospital rules that she be taken from her room to the door in a wheelchair. The nurse would escort her to the car and then the hospital could wash its hands of her. She was deposited back into the world and her bedding would be stripped away, her charts filed and the memory of her stay washed out with antiseptic cleaning fluid.

  More serious patients needed attending: heart attack victims, cancer and stroke sufferers. They were fighting for survival. A teenage girl, sexually abused, would mend. In no time at all, she’d be out on the weekend having pizza and giggling with girlfriends. Those thoughts might just as
well have been written on the instructions the hospital provided for care during recovery.

  You’ll live was written on their faces. Get over it.

  Physically, she was on the mend. Her traumas were easing and the bruises were fading, but as her parents drove her away from the hospital that day, she felt she was leaving herself behind. The girl who had been brought there was not the girl leaving. Everything she looked at, tasted, smelled, heard and touched was different. Her mother had taught her that everyone sees the world around them differently. The differences could be slight or severe.

  ‘Just look at how some of your friends and parents look at black people,’ she pointed out as an illustration. At the time, there were only two in her class. ‘This is far from the deep South – no Jim Crow here – but please, the discrimination and prejudice is palpable sometimes. You’ve invited Nina Williams to our house. Any of your girlfriends invited her?

  ‘People even see shapes differently. Some love arches in their homes; others find that ugly, if not awkward. I’ve heard people complain about the Marxes’ house color. It’s too dark brown. On and on. Sometimes it’s as if we’re all different species.’

  She always appreciated these instructive conversations she had with her mother. She thought they gave her an advantage over her girlfriends. Her mother was a college teacher, a woman who had graduated with honors, and someone whom people in high and powerful administrative positions admired or whose opinions they valued. Men didn’t like to show their appreciation as obviously, but even when she was only eleven, Victoria could see it in the way they looked at her mother, listened and nodded.

  ‘Your mother is like Eleanor Roosevelt or someone,’ Jena once told her. All her girlfriends had agreed.

  Is she? Victoria wondered.

  ‘She should run for something,’ Mindy said. ‘Maybe governor. It’s time we had a woman for governor and she could do it.’

  This view of her mother as some kind of celebrity had an odd effect on Victoria. It wasn’t that she loved her more or less; she found that she was more intimidated by her. Everyone’s parents handed down edicts, set out rules and made decisions that were often unpopular, but her mother seemed to become more intimidating, her word gospel. Yet, especially when she was younger, Victoria wanted to be more like her. She was conscious of her posture. She worked hard in school and achieved very good grades; she even took more care with her enunciation of words, and she was always aware of her mother’s adage, Think before you speak.