An Act of Love

by Nancy Thayer

  Owen’s chest filled with gratitude and to his chagrin, his eyes blurred with tears. “But Emily …” he began.

  “You’ve only known Emily since she was, what, six? You don’t know what could have happened to her before you met her. Lots of shit happens to infants and little kids that works its way out when they’re older, and this is exactly what’s going on here.”

  “Linda—”

  “Linda may not even know what happened. Hell, think of all the baby-sitters Emily had when Linda worked. Maybe one of them molested her and this is the way Emily’s working it out.”

  “I have a responsibility to Linda—”

  “Your first responsibility is to your son, and don’t you ever forget that!” Celeste snapped. She rose and settled herself on the arm of Owen’s chair and wrapped her arms around him so that his head rested on her breast. “Go on and cry, honey. God knows you deserve to. I won’t tell anyone. It’s not like I’ve never seen you cry before.”

  “We’re caught in such a hideous mess,” Owen admitted. “I don’t know how we’re going to find our way out.” And feeling like a traitor, he relinquished his pretense of bravery and gave himself over to his tears.

  Linda watched Owen drive away from the house. The morning was hers. She could work, or pretend to. She could clean the house. Or make jam. Or spaghetti sauce.

  She forced herself up the stairs, intending to head for her study door. Instead found herself entering Bruce’s room.

  And why not? Owen had searched Emily’s room.

  Bruce’s room in many ways hadn’t changed since Bruce was a little boy. The same wallpaper, a tan background with colorful Batman characters, covered the walls, and his carpet was the same noncommittal tan. His bunkbeds were ugly, chunky, reproduction Early American, as was his desk. Over the years Owen had built shelves on all the walls for Bruce’s books and general stuff, and Linda sighed as she looked around, wondering when last she’d dusted in here.

  Seating herself at Bruce’s desk, she began methodically to go through the drawers. What did she expect to find? A diary describing in detail how he raped Emily? No, but something, some sign. He was her stepson, she knew him well, she thought she knew him well. He had always been a good, sensitive child. Perhaps something was in the desk, in the room, anything, that would indicate how he had changed.

  The top middle drawer held what one would expect: old pencils with the points snapped off, crumbling rubbery erasers, dry ballpoint pens, a ruler, a pair of scissors, a snarl of Scotch tape, some felt-tip pens, and, sweetly, a box of Crayolas. The side drawers were stuffed with junk: tennis balls, a broken Walkman, batteries, pieces of a magnetic chess game Linda and Owen gave him years ago to occupy him during the ride into Boston, packs of baseball cards neatly contained by rubber bands, a Hedden mug with a chipped handle, loose change. Three years of the Hedden facebook, a small paperback with pictures, names, and addresses of all the Hedden students and their parents’ names and home addresses. And some letters in lavender envelopes.

  She remembered last summer when one had arrived in the mail. Owen had brought it in with the rest of the mail they collected daily from the post office box in town. He’d tossed it carelessly on the kitchen table, yelling, “Mail for you, Bruce.” He hadn’t waited around to find out who wrote to his son, but Linda had. She’d wiped the kitchen counters—or something, there was always something to do in the kitchen in the summer—hoping Bruce would tell her, but not wanting to intrude on his new adolescent dignity by asking. He’d never mentioned the letters to her. He’d always stuck the envelopes in his back pocket, not caring that the paper got wrinkled, and gone off without a word.

  She had never trespassed into either child’s private life before, and now she felt a frisson of guilt, but even so, she opened the envelope.

  Hi, Bruce,

  Isn’t it fab to be free for the summer? If you can call spending most of your life crewing for your demented father on his racing yacht free. Dad gets so carried away. Sounds like your parents do too. I’ve never known anyone who got to ride to the hounds before. I wish you’d send me a photo of you in your red hunting jacket. I bet you look really aristocratic.

  I never got to thank you for your help with biology this year. I really do think old Brewster has it in for me, don’t you? Besides, why should everyone in the universe have to know what a frog’s intestines look like? I’ve heard so many people say that Brewster hates women. He was the one faculty holdout who would not make it a unanimous vote to let women attend back in 1972, and he tries to flunk out all the females he can. The old fart. I just don’t know what I would have done without your help.

  Are Terry and Lionel and Pebe coming to stay with you this summer? Lucky guys. Maybe someday you’ll actually invite a female to visit you! Until then, keep cool.

  XOXOXO Alison

  Returning the letter to the envelope, Linda shook her head, feeling sad that Bruce had felt the need to lie. An image flashed in her mind: old Babe and Fancy Girl trotting with Bubalu wriggling goofily along and Maud waddling behind. Ride to the hounds indeed.

  But it was a lie. It was proof that Bruce lied.

  Still … not evidence of anything, not really.

  Ruefully she dropped the letter back into the box and only glanced at the next two lavender letters, which were notes about how boring Alison’s summer was, how she couldn’t wait to get back to Hedden.

  The next drawers held nothing exciting: poker chips and several decks of cards, a wooden Chinese puzzle, some empty cigarette packs and half-used books of matches, postcards from Terry and Lionel and Pebe and other guys off on summer vacations with their families, a school key chain, a Polaroid camera that she didn’t remember Bruce ever using, his old blue china piggy bank with the leather tail, books of coins he’d collected then lost interest in, a half-eaten Three Musketeers bar.

  His bureau drawers were all half-empty, and what was left, not taken to Hedden, were the worn-out, torn, stained, outcast bits of clothing meant for some emergency or for wearing while doing some particularly grubby farm chore. When Owen and Linda were married, they held a family conference and agreed that since Owen and Bruce had done their own personal laundry all their lives, the fact that a woman was on the premises did not mean their laundry was suddenly her responsibility, and the men would continue to do their own wash. In recent years Bruce had grumbled more and more about this, and left larger piles of dirty clothes in the middle of his bedroom, hoping, Linda assumed, that she’d be unable to bear the sight and would start doing his wash herself. It hadn’t bothered her at all, though. She would walk right past that pile and on down the hall to her study, and grudgingly, with loud complaints, he’d take the laundry down and do it himself.

  Still his clothes were all familiar to Linda, every last torn T-shirt and grass-stained holey sock. She usually helped him pack when he took off for Hedden each fall, and with each changing season she was the one who remembered to bring him the heavy coat or the raincoat, the snow boots or the swim trunks, who brought the other items home to wash and put away.

  Nothing hid beneath any of his clothing. Shutting the drawers, Linda turned to his closet.

  Why did Bruce’s inability to arrange his clothes properly on the hangers fill her with an emotion very like pity? It was the same when she put something into Owen’s closet. It was as if they were both just slightly retarded. Her first husband hadn’t been this way; he had taken meticulous care of his clothes. Linda’s mother had always cared for her husband’s clothes, hanging his suit jackets on padded hangers, taking pains to place his pants to keep their crease; she’d even ironed his underwear. Linda had seen to it that both men had plenty of good wooden hangers as well as thick, strong plastic ones, yet Bruce, like Owen, tossed all his clothing over pegs in the closet, or over the closet rod supporting the mostly empty hangers.

  On the top shelf of the closet were outcast caps, hats, mufflers, and a sombrero Terry had brought Bruce two winters ago from a vacation to Mexi
co. Bruce’s farm boots, still caked with mud, were on the floor along with sneakers with the toes worn through that he refused to throw out and wore every vacation, bedroom slippers that he never used, dress shoes that had become too small but were too expensive to discard. For a moment Linda was sidetracked, thinking, Perhaps we can give them to Sean when he’s old enough.

  Then she saw the boxes.

  She tugged them out from the corner to the door of the closet, so she would have enough light to see by.

  The first box, the biggest, held Legos and Batman figures.

  The lid of the second box lifted to expose a scant gathering of memorabilia of Bruce’s mother, Michelle. There was a photo of her holding Bruce as a newborn baby. A photo of her with him as a little boy, both grinning wickedly as they climbed into the seats of a roller coaster. A photo of the two of them at her opening in Boston. As well there were several postcards, Christmas cards, birthday cards, and two or three letters that Linda read with shameless eager curiosity only to discover that in typical Michelle style they were breezy, affectionate, and devoid of any real sense of Bruce’s interests or health or life.

  The next box Linda opened made her draw a quick breath of surprise, although she had suspected this was going on this summer. Cradled next to a stack of magazines—Hustler, Oui, Penthouse—were three empty half-gallon bottles of vodka. She dragged the box out into the middle of the room where Owen would see, would have to see it, the moment he walked in.

  Still, it was proof of nothing except that the boys were doing what boys were expected to do.

  She returned to the closet.

  In the deepest corner, where the light scarcely shone, was a box she had almost missed. A flat box, meant for a tie or a scarf. This one had the lid taped onto it. For a few moments Linda sat staring at the box, considering. She would infuriate Bruce if she cut the tape, but Bruce had harmed her daughter and outraged Linda and turned Owen into an enemy, and so in a spurt of anger Linda rose and grabbed Bruce’s Swiss Army knife from his desk and cut through tape. She lifted the lid.

  Inside was an envelope. On the front, in black ink, scrawled so fiercely that the paper puckered slightly around each letter, were the words For Owen McFarland.

  Bruce’s handwriting. Larger than usual, the letters slightly shaky, not connected to one another: As if he had stabbed them individually onto the paper.

  How could she not open it?

  She slipped her thumbnail under the edge and carefully eased the flap back.

  She lifted two sheets of paper thickly covered with words. She sat on the floor, reading.

  She read it through again. Lifting her head, she stared across the room, then quickly folded the letter and slipped it inside the pocket of her jeans. Rising, needing to move, to do something, she pulled on the box of magazines and vodka bottles, tugging it back into the closet. Shoved it to the back of the closet. Hefted the box of toys on top of it, and the box of Michelle memorabilia on top of that. She shut the closet door. Picked up the flat tie box and the tangled mass of tape and carried them from the room. In her study she tossed the tape into her wastebasket, then found her scissors and quickly cut the box into fragments and threw those in the wastebasket, too. She took Bruce’s letter from her jeans and after a moment’s quick thought, opened her closet and shoved the letter beneath a stack of yellow legal pads. Owen would never look there.

  And she never wanted him to see that letter. It would not help him believe that Bruce had raped Emily, and it would only bring him immeasurable pain. And at the moment, both she and Owen already had more than enough of that.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The psych ward was decorated for Christmas with giant paper trees suspended from the ceiling of every room, giving the place a celebratory but disorienting atmosphere. Linda had come early for this Wednesday night Family Group, hoping Emily would talk to her. For the past week she’d called Emily every evening, and every evening when Linda said, “Emily? It’s Mother,” Emily had hung up the phone.

  Now as everyone gathered in the dining room, waiting for Dr. Travis to arrive to formally begin the family session, Emily continued to ignore her mother. She sat on a metal folding chair next to Bill, both of them sullen, silent as logs. Emily looked terrible, Linda thought, drained and shadowed, infinitely sad.

  Keith approached her. “Do you like the trees, Mrs. McFarland?”

  At least someone was speaking to her. “Very much.”

  “We made them in O.T.”

  “O.T.?” She was not really paying attention, she was looking to see if Emily was listening to them.

  “Occupational therapy. We spread them out on the floor and colored them in. Everyone got to do whatever design he wanted on the ornaments.”

  “Which did you do?”

  “My color scheme was dark blue and silver, and I did stripes and dots.”

  “I see them. Very elegant.” How is Emily, she wanted to ask. Did she participate in coloring the balls? Did she laugh? Did she talk?

  Dr. Travis entered, and the room came to order. Keith sat down next to his parents. Other people pulled their folding chairs into a loose half circle, and Linda found herself on the end. Bill was on one side of Emily, Cynthia on the other. Had Emily asked her friends to protect her in this way?

  Dr. Travis was brisk. “Good evening, everyone. It’s nice to see you all. Tonight I think we’ll stay on the subject of holidays, and I’m pleased to announce that one of our patients has worked out a compromise with his family and will be leaving us in a few days to go home. Keith, would you like to tell us about it?”

  “I’m going to attend my parents’ Christmas party,” Keith began.

  “Gala,” his mother corrected automatically, then looked around the room with a nervous smile. “Well, you see, it’s much more than a party. It’s an really an extravaganza.”

  “And I don’t have to bring a girlfriend,” Keith continued.

  “And in turn you won’t bring a boyfriend,” Keith’s father added.

  Keith went on. “And I get to choose the clothes I’ll be wearing—”

  “But they have to be something we approve of,” Keith’s mother firmly concluded.

  Amused, Linda sent a grin toward Emily. But Emily was not looking at her. Emily was not looking at anything, but staring dejectedly at her hands.

  “Compromise,” Dr. Travis said. She stood up and wrote the word on the blackboard. “Families are a lot of work. Families with adolescents and young adults require a certain kind of work rather like that of any group, from the United Nations to a church committee: Everyone’s feelings and point of view needs to be taken into consideration. Concessions need to be made. Give and take is the necessary tool. Cynthia, would you like to talk about your negotiations with your family?”

  Cynthia shrugged. Her mother and father watched her anxiously, desperate smiles twitching on their lips. Like Cynthia, they both looked underweight and exhausted, but unlike Cynthia, they looked eager to please.

  Cynthia’s mother raised her hand. “Can I tell?” At Dr. Travis’s nod, she announced with girlish enthusiasm, “We made a contract! We all discussed it, and I typed it up on my computer at work—I’m a secretary at a dentist’s office—and we all signed it.”

  “And what does it say?” Dr. Travis asked.

  “Well, first, that Cynthia’s medications will be kept in her room. Not in the kitchen, not in the bathroom, not in Daddy’s and my room. Cynthia will have control of her medications. She’ll take them every day. But we won’t ask her if she’s taken them. Instead, she will come to us, find us, and either say, ‘I’ve just taken my medication,’ or she’ll find us and take the pills with us watching!”

  “And if she doesn’t tell you or show you that she’s taken the medications?”

  Cynthia’s mother’s face fell. She twisted her hands in her lap. “Then we won’t ask her. We won’t harass her about them. We won’t mention it.”

  Cynthia’s father spoke up. “But she’l
l have no access to our credit cards. Nor to our car keys. She has to gradually earn the right to use those things. Over time.”

  “And if I continue to stay on my medication for a month,” Cynthia said, “I’ll get to start looking for my own apartment. And Daddy will pay the rent for it as long as I’m taking my medication. But I’ll get a job to pay for everything else. For food and clothes … and especially for my medication.”

  “Good,” Dr. Travis said. “Emily? What do you think about all this? Could making a contract be helpful to you and your family?”

  “No,” Emily said flatly, not looking up. She was ripping a nail off her thumb.

  “Why not?” Dr. Travis asked mildly.

  “Because my stepfather hates me.”

  They all looked at Linda. Her cheeks burning, she said, “Emily, that’s not fair. That’s not true. Owen doesn’t hate you, not at all.”

  Emily stared at her ripped thumbnail. Linda could see the beads of blood speckling the skin.

  “Emily?” Dr. Travis asked gently.

  “I have nothing more to say. What I say doesn’t matter,” Emily said, and began to rip at the other thumbnail.

  “Emily, it does matter,” Linda insisted, leaning forward. “Honey, Owen loves you.”

  Emily looked up at her mother with burning eyes. “Owen hates me. Bruce hates me. And you’re on their side. I’m completely alone.”