Somebody's Daughter

by Rochelle B. Weinstein

  “I lost the game, Daddy.” Her eyes swell with defeat, and tears escape down her face. I hug her, hiding my sadness in her hair. “It’s my fault,” she says. “Me.”

  The heat rises in my cheeks. With all the modern technology at our fingertips, I wish we could press “Pause” or “Delete.” I silently pray for this to go away. Please, for her.

  Bobby sits back down at the table, his tone that of restraint. “Do you remember anything that happened after?”

  I clear my throat to signal it’s enough.

  Silence dips between us, the kind that echoes what we can’t take back. He taps his fingers on the table, and the noise draws Zoe out.

  “You want to know about sex!” she says, latching on to his eyes. Her voice breaks. “You want to know if I took off my clothes or if someone did it for me.”

  I can’t watch her confess her sins. With each attack, she sheds a layer of skin. A soul bound to be forever altered. But she responds to his interrogation with the fiery spirit of someone much stronger. What it must feel like for her to say these things to her own father.

  “Zoe . . .” he starts.

  “No,” she finally says. “I didn’t have sex.”

  “How can you be sure?” he asks.

  She’s adamant. “I’m sure.”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  That’s when it happens. My heart explodes. And though I asked the same questions myself, hearing them from his mouth feels worse. I get to my feet and in his face. “Trust her!” I shout. “Stop badgering her!”

  He won’t break the stare with Zoe and calmly moves me aside. Their eyes are locked, neither letting go.

  “You can’t stand it . . .” she starts, without finishing. It could mean a host of things. I’m not perfect. I screw up. I shudder and fall back in the chair. This is her battle to fight, but I feel responsible. Like I can somehow save her.

  “Zoe,” he says, his voice unsteady. “You’re my child. It’s a lot to take in.”

  “I’m sorry I embarrassed you. I’m sorry I drank.” She stares downward. Her lips pressed together tight.

  “I want your phone,” he says, beaten. “And you’re grounded.”

  Zoe sulks, and hands over her phone. The two of them resemble one another. It’s much more than their shared sadness. Their eyes give them away, a heaviness that clouds the color; the weight makes me want to burst wide open.

  “Is there anything else?” he asks. “Anything else we need to know?”

  “There is,” she says, a face streaked in regret. “He was nice to me. He wasn’t mean.”

  Bobby rubs at his eyes. I am paralyzed by her disclosure.

  “And I thought it would be our secret,” she continues. “Our game. Nobody would ever find out. But now everybody knows, and now everybody’s going to make fun of me and talk about me.” She bites at her lip, and I know it can’t hurt more than what she’s going through.

  Bobby leans against the granite. I feel the earth come out from beneath me, as though I’m suspended in air with nothing to hold on to. So I hold on to Zoe.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I tell her, though I’m doubtful. My daughter’s been bullied. The worst kind. There’s no greater helplessness for a parent. “We’re going to get through this.” I breathe this into her hair. If I say it out loud, it has to come true.

  “How, Mommy?”

  “We will.”

  Lily saunters into the kitchen and grabs her sister’s hand. “Come on, Zoe, let’s go for a walk.” It’s difficult to let her go. She pulls away, and I cling a little tighter.

  She tells me it’s okay, but it’s not. It’s not okay at all.

  Their absence lengthens the space between us, and I avoid Bobby’s eyes. A flood of thoughts ravages my brain. He’s lost inside himself, too. I think about what it means to get caught. How trapped Zoe must feel. But maybe she feels free—her secret no longer bottled up. I imagine him looking at me with the same disapproval in his eyes.

  “How did this happen?” he asks.

  His despair drags me down a spiral of darkness. Before I can answer, my cell phone buzzes. The messages from last night pile up. I read them because I can’t stand to see the disappointment on Bobby’s face. There are thank-yous for the party. Birthday wishes. A text from my family back in Chicago. And one last night that Bobby must have written when I was getting ready for bed: You worry too much. I love you. Great party. The ones from this morning strike a different tone. Lisa urges me to call her. Others tell me they’re thinking about me. Cookie and Dara, Chelsea and Shelby’s moms. They heard. They all know.

  I toss the phone on the table. Bobby faces me in our white, modern kitchen, but his eyes pass right through me. He’s searching for answers that aren’t there. “We have no definitive proof she wasn’t drugged.” He raises the point again. “How would she know? It could’ve happened.”

  “She said it was consensual. I believe her.”

  “She doesn’t remember!” he shouts. He gets up and reaches for the coffee, filling a mug from a recent bar mitzvah. The smiling face of Shelby’s younger brother mocks us. “How did we not know our child was drunk at someone’s house last week? How did she walk in here the next day acting like everything was fine? Are we that blind to what’s right in front of us?”

  I stare him in the eye. Yes. We are.

  The doubts return. I didn’t know. I should’ve known. The disappointment in his eyes grows, the disgust he’s trying hard to muffle.

  This is the side of Bobby I’d always feared most. Old-fashioned and conventional. Admirable qualities in any man, but dangerously limiting. I knew how Bobby felt about fast girls. Every girl Jonny fooled around with was a slut. And there were a lot of them those teenage years. My family often questioned our raising the twins in a flashy, untraditional setting, but we defended our choice and what the hotel provided. I scan the contemporary but lived-in space where we join together. It’s a mixture of warmth and light against steel finishes and clean lines. It reflects the way we live. Sturdy and soft. But today it feels stifling, and I have to escape.

  I get up, and he follows me to the balcony. The beauty that’s our backyard only taunts me. Below, the girls are walking toward the ocean. Zoe’s hair floats in the breeze, and her hands are stuffed in her pockets. Lily is close to her side. I shut off my phone and its symphony of notifications. It all seems so trivial. What once connected me to a bigger world is now an adversary.

  Resting my hands on the railing, I watch the girls kick at the sand, arm in arm, and I study Zoe. Havoc changes a person. Beside her sister, she appears small. Oh Zoe, what I would do to take this away from you.

  I start to cry, and Bobby tries to comfort me, but his weak arms feel more like I should comfort him. Worry shoots off my tongue. “This video . . . her reputation. What if it goes viral? What do we do about school? Her friends? That boy . . . do we call his parents?” By now I’m hysterical.

  “Someone did this to her,” he says. “Somebody filmed her. We have to call the boy’s parents. Or get me the number of the family who threw the party. They must know something. What if it happened to other girls?”

  “Do you think they’re going to offer any information? They won’t want to incriminate themselves. And even if there were drugs, isn’t it too late to get her tested? It’s been over a week. What will it prove?”

  He grips the rail. “It’ll prove she’s not . . .”

  “Don’t say it!” I shout, landing a palm across his lips. “Don’t you dare say it, Robert Ross. Zoe’s a good kid. Whatever point you’re trying to make . . . she made a mistake. Nobody did this to her.”

  He pulls back. “She was drunk, Emma. That boy shouldn’t have touched her. He should’ve walked away. He should’ve gotten her help. Get me his number.”

  I’m freaking out and return to the shoreline and Zoe. The gray sky shrouds her in a thick haze, or perhaps she seems blurry to me. “She must be going through something . . . we need to help her.” T
his forms a new swell of sadness that almost tips me over. “She’s mortified. Everyone’s talking about her. Anything we do will give her unnecessary attention.”

  “She’s a teenager, Emma. She has no idea what’s in her best interest. That’s our job. We’re supposed to keep her safe.” His voice cracks, and he dabs at his eyes. A single tear breaks through.

  Bobby. My arms come around him, and I force him to hug me back, but he’s hardened. “I can’t, Em. I’m calling the parents. I’m going after the person who did this to her.” His smell mingles with the salty air, and I remember the nights we sat on this beach thinking we were invincible. “I have to do something,” he says.

  “I understand.” And I raise my lips to his cheek, but he draws back.

  His gaze bounces along the balcony. “You need to call their friends’ parents and ask them to make sure the kids deleted the video.” His hands choke the railing while he addresses the ocean below. “You can’t trust anyone.”

  Trust. He holds it so heavily in his heart. Monty’s face flits through my mind. His fingers running down the length of my back. I’m relieved when Bobby goes inside and I can stretch across the deck chair and stare at the clouds. I settle on a time when I was Zoe’s age and how desperately I crushed on Bobby right there on the sand. “We’re too young,” I’d say, fighting it, fighting him, while kissing turned to touching and neither of us could stop. It wasn’t our fault we had fallen in love. Being with Bobby was as natural as taking a breath. Which is why my chest is tight and the air catches in my throat.

  My eyes press shut, and a chill nips at my skin. Either a cold front is moving in, or it’s what happens to an insulated world when holes poke through. A vignette of memories appears, our narrative, but it is eclipsed by Bobby’s reaction, how he brushed me aside. My mind wanders to my college apartment in Vermont. It’s the dark place I tried to cover up and forget. Now it stares right at me, bringing forth secrets and shame. It had crossed my mind over the years, but I am able to file it away. Pretend it didn’t happen. But Bobby’s disappointment and the pain in Zoe’s eyes make it impossible to forget.

  Excuse me, do I know you?

  Anything but Monty.

  The worry is so potent it fills every crevice in my body.

  No. You don’t know me.

  A banging at the door startles me, and I jump to my feet.

  Ours is a private floor in the hotel, one in which access is permitted with a specific code entered by the front desk or by key card. Only a handful of people—close friends, family, and staff—can gain entry. And when they reach our glass-enclosed foyer, they still have to be buzzed in. That’s where I find Chelsea, clad in her volleyball uniform.

  She collapses into my arms before I can speak.

  “Mrs. Ross,” she cries, sweaty from practice. “How’s Zoe? We’re all so worried about her.” The girl tries to catch her breath. Her dark ponytail falls crisply down her back. Her milky white skin is splotched in red, either from exercise or something else.

  She leans against the wall, the one that has our holiday cards lined up vertically by year. Her head lines up with Zoe and Lily age eight. “We got the text at the end of the party. It started with a few of us, and then it made its way around fast. No one wanted to tell Zoe . . . or Lily. It was so mean . . . we didn’t want to upset them on their birthday.” She stops.

  This video and its contents have scarred me. “Everyone’s a suspect,” I say. “You did the right thing.” But I wonder if she’s covering up. Or if she knows more than she’s saying. “Do you have any idea who the text might have come from?”

  She wipes her nose with her jersey. I should grab her a tissue, but I’m rooted in place.

  “There’s no way to find out,” she says, sniffling. “It came from a blocked number.”

  “Did the message say anything? Was it only the video?”

  She catches her breath. Her full lips are less pouty, and she says, “The person said happy birthday.” And she stops and hands me her phone.

  “You didn’t delete it?”

  “I should’ve, I know,” she says, searching the floor, “but I didn’t send it to anyone—my parents told me never to do that . . .” She meets my eyes. “But I thought maybe I could help Zoe . . . maybe I could show you or someone . . .”

  The phone brands my hand. It’s wrapped in a case of powder blue with one half of a pink heart drawn across the back. It dawns on me this is the phone I picked up only a few hours ago. I hadn’t paid attention to the case, but now I wonder who has the other half of the heart.

  “Here,” she says, pointing at the screen and swiping through apps, though I know exactly where to go. “There.” She points.

  Blocked Sender: Happy Birthday! Someone’s not so innocent. Which one of the birthday girls is it? SMH

  The video was shocking enough that all else faded into the background, but the spite behind the words strikes me now.

  She asks if she can see Zoe, and I explain she’s on the beach with her sister. “I’m not sure she’s up for company.”

  “Okay,” she says, searching the floor. “The Zoe I know wouldn’t do something like this. I can’t believe this happened to her.”

  I replay her words. This happened to her. This happened to Zoe. Zoe didn’t make it happen.

  “I didn’t even know she was friends with Price Hudson,” she says. “None of us did.”

  “Can you tell me about him? I heard he just moved here.”

  “I don’t know much.” She stops, toys with her ponytail, and her eyes dart around the room. “Do you think he could’ve done something to Zoe? To make her do this?”

  “We know about the drinking, but nothing else.”

  “I told her she was drinking too much. I told her to slow down,” she confesses.

  “You girls have to watch out for one another.”

  Bobby’s footsteps fill the quiet between us. “Chelsea.” It’s cold and unwelcoming, nothing like ordinary times. He waves the Blue Book, Thatcher’s student directory. Chelsea bows her head, realizing it’s time for her to leave. She retraces her steps to the foyer and says a jumbled goodbye.

  As soon as the elevator door closes, he comes at me. He’s determined and vengeful and searches for a phone. I beg him not to. I beg him to trust Zoe, but he has a mind of his own. He believed me once. I was that convincing.

  I’m cross-legged on the couch, and he paces around me. His gray jeans hug his legs, and a white pullover shows off his olive skin. I’m unprepared for this call in my Ross bathrobe. I should get dressed, but I’m lacking will.

  “Mr. Hudson?” Bobby’s tone is abrupt. He’s holding the phone hard against his jaw. “This is Robert Ross. My daughter’s Zoe Ross.”

  My heart pounds to the point of pain and sends a tremor through my limbs. My palms are a clammy wet. He puts the phone on speaker so I can hear. A man with a stern voice says, “I know who you are.”

  “This is a difficult call to make.”

  There’s silence on the other end of the line. They know. My hand covers my eyes.

  “I don’t want to jump to conclusions or make accusations. My daughter drank at a party with your son.”

  Mr. Hudson curtly responds, “We know about the video, Mr. Ross. My wife and I are utterly shocked.”

  “Does your son know who might’ve filmed them?”

  “My son’s a victim, too, Mr. Ross. Did you ask your daughter?”

  I drop my hand and watch Bobby walk circles around the couch. His anger darkens his features.

  “With all due respect, Mr. Hudson, my daughter was drunk and underage. Your son took advantage of her. He should’ve stopped it. He should’ve never let an inebriated girl do what she did.”

  I encourage Bobby to sit, but he brushes me aside.

  Mr. Hudson’s effort at politeness turns sour, and Bobby quickens his pace. “Mr. Ross, I don’t appreciate you calling my home and accusing my son of being some kind of monster.” I hear a woman’s voice in the back
ground. “Hang up, Daniel.” He continues. I can hear him shushing his wife through the phone. “Price is a good kid. Never any trouble. I’m hanging up, Mr. Ross. If you have something to say to me or my family, contact a lawyer.”

  And the line goes dead.

  Perhaps none of us know each other at all.

  CHAPTER 6

  “I’m calling Nathan,” Bobby huffs. He’s our lawyer. “He knows people. There’s a video of Zoe going around town, and we need to stop it.”

  “The kids will delete it,” I assure him. “They’re all friends.”

  “Em, half of them will forward it to a friend. The other half will be calling Zoe names for weeks. We have to shut it down. There are people who can do that.”

  I can’t focus. There are too many darts being thrown at us at once. I descend into a quiet that allows me the freedom to obsess and ruminate about everything that’s gone wrong.

  “I know you’re upset.” He walks toward me. “I am, too. I want to know how this happened. God, I really just want to kill that kid.”

  Upset is the wrong word. Upset is when we couldn’t fly to Florida because they were expecting a hurricane. Or when I lost the anklet he bought me for my sixteenth birthday. The time we drove to our favorite restaurant in the Keys and it was closed for renovations. This was way more than upset. He sits next to me and paints the picture for me again.

  “Zoe could’ve been drugged. She could’ve been forced. Alcohol can do that to someone. Make them think it’s okay to act out in ways they wouldn’t have normally done.”

  He’s going around in circles, repeating himself with the drug angle.

  “Bobby.” The explanations he’s holding on to are pointless. “She did this. Enough with the excuses.”

  I don’t go on. The accusation comes too close. Monty’s handing me another drink, and I take it. The foolish charm. The naughty eyes. The temptation drips off his tongue. I clamp my eyes shut, but I hear the large diamond on my finger clink against the glass.

  “Emma?”

  “I’m here.” Though I’m somewhere else.