An Act of Love

by Nancy Thayer

  Perhaps they had been too lucky for too long.

  Chapter Nine

  Tuesday afternoon at four fifteen Emily entered the small conference room and took a place at the oblong table with ten other patients and Tina Dr. Travis, today clad in a green jungle print.

  “All right, ladies and gentlemen,” Dr. Travis began, “we’ve got some work to do. Whose family is coming tomorrow night?”

  About half the group raised their hands.

  “Emily?”

  Emily was studying the scarlet and emerald parrots swinging from Dr. Travis’s ears. “Yes?”

  “Aren’t your parents coming tomorrow night?”

  “I guess.”

  “Could you raise your hand, then, please? Good. Now can anyone tell Emily about the topic block we’re focusing on?”

  Across from Emily, Cynthia sat slump-shouldered, aimlessly twiddling a strand of her hair. Arnold was gnawing on a thumbnail. Fat Bill sat motionless, in his own world. Everyone else was staring impassively at the table or dutifully at Dr. Travis except Keith, who had his head cocked like a bright little puppy, ready to play.

  Dr. Travis rose and wrote on the blackboard behind her.

  POWER

  PRIVACY

  PEACE

  “Every family on the planet deals with these issues. Power is obvious. Who sets the rules? Who gets the car keys? Who decides how you dress? What college will you attend? Minor issues, major issues. Monday Cynthia told us she feels that her parents suffocate her. She has no privacy. No sense of independence.” She looked at Cynthia. “Want to talk about this?”

  Cynthia shook her head.

  Keith leaned forward, aiming his words at Emily. “Cynthia doesn’t like the way her drugs make her feel, so when she lives alone she goes off them, and then she gets manic, and do you know what she did last time?”

  “What?”

  A smile crept over Cynthia’s face. “I catalogue-binged. Used my dad’s Visa and bought about six thousand dollars worth of stuff.”

  “She had to repackage it and mail it all back,” Keith said.

  “My parents had to,” Cynthia said, her face sobering. “They came over to see my new apartment, and the next thing I knew, I’m in here.”

  “So for Cynthia,” Dr. Travis said, “privacy and power are only going to come when she makes peace with herself about taking her meds regularly. Faithfully. Every day.”

  “One day at a time, baby,” Arnold said. “One grisly day at a time.”

  A woman at the other end of the table who had not yet spoken to Emily leaned forward and skewered her with a piercing gaze. “So, Scratch-Face, why are you here?”

  Immediately all eyes were on Emily. She felt them like weight. She knew her face was red. She stared down at the table.

  “Emily was admitted yesterday,” Dr. Travis said mildly. “Emily, take your time. We’re ready to listen when you’re ready to talk.”

  Emily nodded.

  “Keith,” Dr. Travis said, “your parents are coming.”

  “Lucky me.”

  “Would you like to tell Emily a bit about your particular problem with privacy and power?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Come on,” Arnold growled. “Or I’ll do it for you.”

  Keith shrugged, then suddenly went camp, limping his wrist and widening his eyes as he spoke. “Oh, well, I thought I was going to get through high school and out of the house before Mere and Pere Wight found out I was gay. Then one day my mother searched my room, found some homo porn beneath my bed, and, like, totally freaked out. Now they want to send me to a Christian deprogramming camp in the Midwest, where I’ll learn that I’m not gay after all. Where I’ll learn to repent. And you know, I just don’t see that I’d have a very good time there.” He shrugged, nodded, and lightly concluded, “That’s it.”

  Arnold muttered, “Not quite.”

  “Tell Emily what you did in response,” Dr. Travis prodded.

  “Hung myself. With a belt. Calvin Klein, of course.” The room was very quiet. “They’d gone to a movie, but Mother thought it was too violent, so they walked out in the middle and came home and found me. Five more minutes and … they could have had the son they wanted.”

  “Well, fuck them,” Arnold said, hitting the table with his fist. “That’s what I say, just fuck them. How old are you, Keith?”

  “I’ll be eighteen in January.”

  “Why hang around for the punishment? Hell, move out of the house. Get a job. Get a life.”

  “I want to go to college. I can’t pay the tuition myself.”

  Arnold disagreed. “Of course you can. If you really want to.”

  “You’re avoiding the issue,” Cynthia said.

  “Look, if your parents won’t change, it’s a hopeless situation. Ditch the shits.”

  “Let’s remember that Keith is an only child,” Dr. Travis reminded them. “His aunt and cousins live in Australia. So his parents are his family. And we all know, no matter how difficult the situation may be, our family is woven inextricably into our lives. If we’re going to be adults, we have to come to some kind of peace with our families.”

  “There’s no escape,” Cynthia said.

  Emily began to cry.

  It was so lame, having classes on Wednesday morning, Bruce thought, when all anyone could think about was getting out of there at noon. Why didn’t they just let everyone go Tuesday night? Other schools did.

  He jogged full speed from trig class to his dorm. If his parents didn’t take forever giving him his stuff, he’d have time to see Alison before she left for the airport. She was taking an earlier shuttle than Bruce and Whit. Probably he wouldn’t see her until Friday.

  Bates was in chaos. Parents and drivers milled around the entrance hall, guys collided on the stairs, and the air was filled with the hyena laughter of students freed for vacation.

  Bruce found his parents in the lounge. One good thing about them, they weren’t like a lot of other parents who assumed a guy’s dorm room was theirs to enter because they paid the tuition bill. There were guys in Bruce’s class, seniors, and their mothers came right into the room and opened all the drawers and closets and packed and unpacked their clothes and even “tidied up” the clutter.

  Bruce had always known his parents were cool, good-looking, and youthful for people as old as they were, and it was a shock as he approached them this morning to see how they’d aged overnight. Especially Linda, whose face looked sunken on the bones.

  “Hey, guys,” he said.

  They’d been sitting on chairs by the fireplace, both of them staring at the grate as if a fire burned there. At Bruce’s words, they turned, rose, and gave him absentminded smiles.

  Owen handed him a leather suitcase, his good leather suitcase, which he’d refused to let Bruce use since sophomore year when Bruce went to a friend’s house for spring break and someone at a party had vomited on it.

  Linda handed him his camel overcoat. “You may not need this,” she said. “The forecasts are for an unusually warm weekend.”

  “I’ll take it anyway. You never know.”

  Owen was peeling bills from his wallet. “One hundred fifty dollars. I wish it were more. But with the plane ticket …”

  Bruce took the money. “Thanks, Dad. Thanks, Linda. This is great.”

  Linda put her hand on his arm. “Look into my eyes and repeat after me: I will call my parents to let them know I’m safely in New York.”

  Good-naturedly, Bruce echoed, “I will call my parents to let them know I’m safely in New York.”

  “You could call other days, too,” Linda added. “We’d love to hear about your trip.”

  “Yeah, sure.” He didn’t want to be rude, but he wished they’d leave now.

  “Your lip looks better,” Owen observed. “But your eye’s pretty spectacular.”

  He knew his father wouldn’t let the matter drop. “Yeah, well, I’d better finish packing.”

  “If it were up to me,
you wouldn’t be going on this trip,” Owen continued. “Linda convinced me to let you go, but I want you to be aware that your actions the other day will have consequences. You know we never have condoned violence.”

  Bruce gritted his teeth and stared at the floor.

  “If you could just tell us what it was about …” Linda suggested.

  “Nothing. Something stupid.” Why wouldn’t they just go?

  “You’re sure it wasn’t about Emily?” Linda pressed.

  Exasperated, Bruce said with clenched emphasis, “It wasn’t about Emily.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw his father’s jaw set. Quickly he added, “How is she?”

  “Not so good,” Owen replied.

  Linda continued, “They called us this morning. They had to sedate her last night. She can’t seem to stop crying. We were going to see her tonight, at Family Group at the hospital, but they think she’s at a crisis point and it might help if we came in to talk to her today.”

  “Weird,” Bruce said.

  “Would you like her phone number?” Linda asked him. “Maybe if you called over the holiday, toward the weekend, just so she knows you’re concerned …”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  So of course Linda had to go sit down at a table and root around in her purse, dredging up a pen and a piece of paper and her little address book, and doors slammed and guys yelled as they ran down the walk and Bates was getting that echoey hollow feel that happened when it emptied out. Bruce’s leg jiggled with nervousness.

  “Bruce! There you are, man. You ready?” Whit burst into the lounge, radiating energy. He’d changed into his gray flannels and navy blazer and even a tie.

  “Don’t you look handsome,” Linda said.

  “Thanks, Mrs. McFarland.” Whit turned to Bruce. “We’ve got forty-five minutes before the limo arrives.”

  “I’m almost packed. I just have to throw stuff in the suitcase.” Desperately he looked at his parents.

  “Here’s the number,” Linda said, handing him a slip of paper.

  “Great.” Bruce stuffed it in his wallet next to the cash. “Okay, I’d better go.”

  Linda grabbed his shoulders and pecked a kiss on his cheek. “Have a wonderful time.”

  He shook hands with his dad.

  “Call,” Owen said.

  “I will,” Bruce promised, then grabbed up the empty suitcase and raced to his room.

  They sat in the small conference room: Linda, Owen, Emily, and Dr. Travis, who today was arrayed in orange tights and a nearly knee-length sweater in a fall leaf design. Small metal leaves in rust and gold and scarlet swung from her earrings, and Linda found herself staring at them as they sat in a miserable silence, waiting for Emily to talk. She could scarcely bear to look at her daughter’s face, so ravaged by the long angry scratch marks on each cheek.

  “From the tests we’ve been able to do so far,” Dr. Travis said, “we feel certain that Emily’s problem is not physiological. From taking a family history, we also feel that in all probability nothing in her childhood aggrieved her, remained hidden, and is surfacing now. It’s most likely that something has happened to Emily within the last few months, something frightening, something harmful. Traumatic.”

  “Is that true, Emily?” Linda asked. “Darling, please. Let us help you.”

  Emily did not speak.

  They sat in silence for a few more minutes, and then Linda said, “I don’t know what’s happened. I really don’t. Everyone seemed fine. Now this with Emily, and then Bruce beating up Jorge, it just seems so—”

  “Bruce beat up Jorge?” Emily’s face was red.

  Owen nodded. “Yesterday morning. Dean Lorimer—”

  “Bruce beat up Jorge? I don’t believe it!” Fury transformed her face and she clutched her hair with her hands, as if to pull it out by the roots.

  “Emily,” Linda whispered, frightened, rising, wanting to take her child in her arms. Dr. Travis signaled Linda with a look, and she sat back in her chair.

  “Why does he hate me so much? Does he want to take everything from me? I really loved him. Why is he doing this?” Emily pounded her legs with her fists. “God damn him! Damn him! I hate him! I wish he would die!”

  “Emily,” Dr. Travis asked, “are you talking about Jorge?”

  “No! I’m talking about Bruce!” Spittle formed at the corner of her mouth and her eyes were wild. “I won’t hide it anymore, I don’t care, I don’t care anymore, I don’t care what happens, he can’t take everything from me.”

  “Emily, what about Bruce?” Linda implored.

  Emily lifted her tear-streaked face toward her mother. “You want to know? All right, I’ll tell you! It’s all your fault, anyway!”

  “What’s all my fault?” Linda asked.

  “Bruce raped me!” Emily spat. She was overcome with shuddering sobs.

  Chapter Ten

  Linda and Owen looked at each other, dumbfounded. Dr. Travis reached over to a small table holding a box of tissues and handed the box to Emily, who tore them from the box and pressed them to her face.

  When Emily’s sobs had subsided, Linda leaned forward. “Honey, I don’t understand.”

  Hugging herself, Emily looked at her mother. “It’s all your fault. You went away. You left me there.”

  “Emily, when?”

  “When you and Owen were at that writers’ conference at the end of August.”

  “Em, we’ve left you and Bruce alone before,” Linda said. “And we were only gone three days.”

  “Yeah, well that’s long enough. Long enough to be raped more than once.”

  “More than once?” Linda could hardly take in what Emily was saying. At the same time she could not stop staring at her daughter’s hands. Emily was clawing herself, repeatedly dragging the jagged ends of her fingernails deep into the skin of her hands and arms, leaving reddish welts. “Emily, your hands, honey.”

  Dr. Travis seemed to shake her head once, briskly, at Linda. At the same time, she said to Emily, “Go on. Start at the beginning. Tell us everything.”

  “It was terrible. He was so mean.” Emily was trembling. As she spoke, her left thumb dug deep into the skin around her right thumbnail. She found a tiny tab of skin and grabbed it and pulled. And pulled. A transparent sliver of skin came away.

  “Tell me, Emily. Please.”

  “That first night, I thought he was just, oh, you know, like, being friendly.” A scarlet blush mottled her neck and chin.

  “The first night.”

  “The first night you were gone. The first night you left me alone with him.” She took a deep breath, and now the words poured out. “We watched a video and then I went to bed and he came into my room. I was almost asleep. I was just under a sheet. It was hot. You know. And he lay down next to me, but on top of the sheet. Just sort of threw himself down next to me like we were watching TV, except on the ceiling. You know.”

  “I know.”

  “He kept touching me. I mean we were talking about school starting and stuff and he said that Terry had a crush on me and I told him Cordelia had a crush on him. And he just, well, first he turned on his side and kind of bumped into me with his, um, against my leg, and he put his hand on my arm near my breast. Touching my breast. I pulled away. Told him I was sleepy. After a while he left.”

  Owen interrupted. “If that’s all—”

  “The next night he raped me.” Emily stared at her stepfather. Her entire body shook. “I know what rape is. He came in my room and this time he got under the sheet, just like it was normal, and I go, ‘Hey, Bruce, what are you doing?’ and he goes, ‘Take off your clothes.’ And I said no and pushed him and suddenly he was like, strong, and mad. He held me down with his arms and hands and I twisted and tried to kick him and he shoved me down into the mattress and tore off my pants, and I was just wearing a big white T-shirt and underpants. I screamed at him to stop—”

  “Take your time,” Dr. Travis said.

  Emily’s forehead creased in anguish.
“I yelled, ‘Bruce, don’t be so rough, you’re scaring me. I didn’t know you wanted, I didn’t know you liked me!’ ” Emily’s eyes flew to Linda’s. “ ’Cause I always thought, whenever I saw a scary show? How if that happened to me I could talk them out of it? So I thought I could talk Bruce out of it, but he said—” The next words were distorted by sobbing.

  Linda asked, “What did he say, Emily?”

  “He said, ‘Like you! I hate you, you fucking bitch!’ ” Shuddering, nearly retching, Emily said, “Then he stuck his penis in me really hard and fast and I was screaming no but he held me down.”

  For a few moments the three adults sat aghast while Emily sobbed.

  “Then what happened, Emily?” Dr. Travis asked.

  Emily struggled to control her breathing. “When he was through he just got off me. I pulled the sheet up over me. He said, ‘If you tell Dad and Linda, they won’t believe you. And I’ll make it hell for you at Hedden.’ ”

  “Oh, sweetie,” Linda said.

  “I waited till I heard him shut his bedroom door. I ran into the bathroom and locked the door and stayed there all night. The next day I called Rosie to see if she could use me for a baby-sitter. I said I’d do it for free, my last chance to be with Sean before I left for school, but she said no, Sean was sick, I shouldn’t come over. So I took food and went out in the woods and stayed there and read all day and that night I took a blanket and hid in the barn, but he found me, and he laughed at me. He goes, ‘You stupid little sack of shit, don’t you know I’ll always be able to find you? This is my farm.’ And … he did it again. He raped me again. I was crying and fighting the whole time. When he was through, he went up to his room. And I stayed there till you and Owen came home.”

  Linda remembered returning to the farm on that brilliant day. Summer was not yet gone, but there had been an autumnal clarity and a light to the air, as if the landscape were gilt-edged. Owen and she had spent three nights together in a cabin in Maine at a writers’ conference, and three days of talking with other writers about their work. They were closer than they’d been in a long time, and happier. It had been really idyllic, the romance of the ocean, the luxury of all meals prepared, no housework looming, the exhilaration of discussing their work, the pleasure of talking with people whose lives were centered on books.