by Zane
I heard my mother call out, “It was Laura! Oh my goodness, did Laura do something to her?”
Marcella said, “Shhhhhhh!”
Little Zoe continued. “All of the kids were out in the street playing when Momma’s friend came out and told her daughter to walk down the street to get her son from his girlfriend’s house because it was time to eat. She told her daughter to take me with her so I could go for a walk too, since we were about the same age.”
My mother interrupted again. “Laura did have two kids. A daughter, Monique, who was about a year older than Zoe, and a son who was in his teens.”
Dr. Graham told my mother to calm down. “That’s great, but let her finish, and then you can fill in the blank spots, okay? We’ve got to let her tell it in her own way!”
“When we got down to the other house, there were a bunch of teenagers hanging around outside. When we went indoors to get him, there were people everywhere, and music was playing. I don’t think any adults were home, and they were having a party. The girl I went down there with asked where her brother was, and some boy told her he was upstairs in the bedroom.”
“She led me by the hand up the stairs. There were a bunch of teenagers in the hallway up there too. One of the doors was open, and everyone was standing around laughing and saying things I knew they shouldn’t be saying because they were all very bad things. We went into the bedroom, and her brother was on the bed doing all sorts of things with this girl. His girlfriend, I guess.”
I heard my mother scream out on the tape, “Oh, God no!” Marcella asked her if she wanted to leave the room and wait out in the hall, but she refused and got quiet again so I could move on.
“They were both naked, and he had his mouth on one of her breastesses.” I sat there, shaking my head at the words I was hearing, but it couldn’t be more realistic. When I was little, I mispronounced several words, and breasts was one of them. I distinctly remember calling them breastesses instead. “He was on top of her and he had his dang-a-lang inside her coochie-coo. When his sister told him to stop, he wouldn’t. He yelled at us to go away. Everyone started laughing and knocking us around.”
I took a deep, restorative breath on the tape. It was almost as if I feared what I was about to say next. “I ran out the room and left the little girl there I had come with, but when I got to the bottom of the stairs, there was this boy there, an older boy, and he smelled like liquor. He wouldn’t let me get past him, and he pushed me down on the steps and starting putting his hands all over me. I was so scared.”
My mother’s sobs were easily recognizable on the tape, but she didn’t say anything else. “He put his hand underneath my T-shirt and started squeezing me, and it hurt. He tried to pull my shorts off, but I started kicking and screaming just like Daddy told me to do if someone ever tried to hurt me. All of the other kids were standing there laughing, but then one boy helped me. He pulled the bad boy off me, and then he hit him.
“They started fighting right there in the living room, and everyone was yelling and screaming at them. I ran out of the front door and down the street to find Momma and Daddy. I got back down to the house, and when Momma asked me why I was crying, I made up a lie because I didn’t want to tell her the bad thing I had done. I told her the little girl had been mean to me and told me to go back to her house because she didn’t want to play with me anymore.”
My mother spoke up then, happy she could actually finally be of some help. “It was Memorial Day! Laura and her husband had a cookout, and she did send them to go get her son because the food was ready. When Zoe came back alone, she was crying, but she didn’t tell me what really happened. I just thought she and the little girl had gotten into a petty spat because neither of them had taken a nap and it was late in the afternoon. The other kids returned to the house about fifteen minutes after Zoe, but no one said anything. They were all acting normal by then, and Zoe and the little girl started playing together again.”
Dr. Graham reassured Momma that she was tremendously helpful and then told her we were going to move on. “Zoe, let’s jump ahead a bit. Do you remember your fifth-grade year? The beginning of the year, when you were still in school in Dallas?”
“Yes, I do remember it!” My voice instantly changed on the tape. It was still one of my youth, but it was somehow more mature than the previous one. It also seemed more tense and uneasy than its predecessor. “I remember everything, including the day they hurt me.”
Jason yelled out, “Who hurt you?”
“Jason,” Marcella jumped in. “Calm down. I know this is hard on you.”
“Hell, yeah, this is hard on me! My wife was molested, and you all are sitting around here acting like she’s talking about a ballerina recital or something!”
“Jason, we’re all just trying to get to the bottom of this, but we can’t do that if you’re going to overreact throughout the whole process.” As an afterthought, she asked, “Do you want to go out in the hallway? I’ll go with you.”
“Hell no, I’m not going out in the hallway! I’m sitting right here on this bed with my arms around my wife!”
“Okay, Jason, that’s your prerogative.”
“Damn right, it is!”
My mother asked him to please calm down. Dr. Graham then asked me, “What happened the day they hurt you, Zoe? What happened on your way home from school?”
“I was supposed to walk home from school with Dena and Kelly, but I had to stay behind for a few minutes to complete a science worksheet I forgot to do for homework the night before. When Mrs. Thompson finally let me leave, Dena and Kelly were both gone, and so was everybody else. The schoolyard was completely deserted, so I started to walk home alone. I was angry they didn’t wait for me, but I knew they were trying to rush home to see Fat Albert and the Kids, our favorite cartoon. Besides, it wasn’t their fault I forgot about my homework.
“I got to the walkway at the edge of the playground that led out to the street and noticed there was a group of boys standing at the end of it. The walkway was surrounded by woods, and I was scared to walk down it because one of the boys, Chucky, had teased me earlier that day at school. He said I had big breastesses for a girl my age and asked could he feel them. I told him no.
“The only other way for me to get home was to take the long way around, and I knew Momma would be worried if I did that because I was already late. I walked down the wooded path, and when I got closer to them, they all started whispering and laughing. It was Chucky and his younger brother, Steven, and some other boys I’d seen around school, but I didn’t know their names.
“They started pushing me back and forth between them and calling me bad names. Suddenly, Chucky and Steven dragged me into the woods. I dropped my bookbag on the walkway and tried to yell out, but one of them, I can’t remember which one, put his hand over my mouth so I couldn’t. They told me they would kill my momma and daddy if I didn’t do what they said.
“They did some really bad things to me. They pulled my panties off from under my skirt and yanked my shirt up over my head so I couldn’t see. Then Chucky pulled his pants down and was rubbing his private part up against mine. It hurt me, and the rocks and branches underneath me hurt. I felt his tongue on my chest, and he bit me on my breastesses, and it was very painful!
“Chucky got angry at me about something. He kept yelling, ‘I can’t get it in!’ He picked up a stick and started hitting me all over, like it was all my fault. He hit me in my privates, and I started screaming. That’s when I heard a woman’s voice call out, ‘Who’s over there?’
“Chucky and Steven jumped up off the ground and ran away. So did the other boys. Somehow, I managed to stand up. I was crying and covered with their sweat and spit. I pulled my shirt down and put my panties back on. I had cuts and bruises all over my body. Then, this lady came running into the woods. I’d never seen her before. She asked me was I all right. I just cried and ran away. I found my bookbag and ran home to Momma, but I couldn’t tell her what happened. I though
t it was my fault. After all, I had done a bad thing by not doing my homework.”
There was a brief moment of silence and then I started screaming, “Why did they hurt me? Why did they hurt me, Momma? Why did they hurt me?”
That’s when Dr. Graham clapped and woke me up out of the trance, only to see them all sitting around with their mouths hung open. After I heard the tape, my mouth was the one hanging open and waiting for the imaginary bee to strike.
“Dr. Graham, I don’t remember any of that! None of it whatsoever! Was it real?”
“Yes, Zoe, it was very real. That was you—well, the younger version of you—relating the whole thing.”
I knew he was right, but I still didn’t want to face the facts. I just laid my head back on Jason’s chest and wished none of it was happening. Marcella was full of energy and appeared to have gotten a second wind from somewhere. “This is a great start, Zoe! At least now we know what the underlying reasons are for your behavior and attitude toward sex!”
I looked at her in amazement. “Have you lost your fuckin’ mind? What does any of that have to do with me cheating on Jason?”
I felt bad as soon as the words left my lips. It was bad enough everyone in the room knew I cheated on him without me making public announcements. “It has everything to do with it. Dr. Graham and I will explain it all to you a little later. But first—”
“First what?” I noticed her eyes were not on me. They were directed toward Jason.
“Jason, listening to Zoe throughout our therapy sessions and hearing about your apparent fear of sexual openness has caused me a great deal of concern. Dr. Graham and I discussed it, and he tends to agree with me.”
Dr. Graham was standing there, nodding his assent. Marcella continued, “Do you think if we hypnotized you, we might be able to figure out why that is?”
Jason gasped, and I sat up to stare him in the eyes. He looked back at me with his beautiful hazel eyes before he whispered, “That won’t be necessary, Marcella. I already know why.”
chapter
thirty
“Could you all please leave Zoe and me alone for a few minutes?” Jason was on the edge, and I was falling over the cliff with him. I wasn’t sure I could handle everything in one day after all. I would’ve preferred another day of everyone kicking my ass and getting hit by a delivery van.
“Jason—” Marcella looked almost as worried as I did. “It would really be better if this all came out with Dr. Graham and I present.”
Jason snapped back, “NO! I need to talk to Zoe alone. At least at first, and then you can all come back in here. Once she knows everything, I don’t give a damn who finds out!”
I convinced them to go get something to eat, since lunchtime had rolled around. If Jason didn’t want them there, that’s the way it was going to be. They all filed out of the room, headed to see what nasty yet nutritional food the hospital cafeteria was dishing up that day. My mother, being her typical indulgent self, asked Jason and I if we wanted her to bring us something to eat, but we refused. The last thing either one of us needed was heartburn or a gas attack on top of everything else.
Jason and I were left in the room alone. I wasn’t about to pressure him or rush him to tell me, so I ran my fingers through his hair and waited. “Zoe.”
“Yes, baby?”
“Let me say straight up this has nothing to do with cheating. I already told you I would never do that to you, and I haven’t!”
“I know you wouldn’t, baby. I believe you.” I gave him a kiss on his forehead and then raised his hand up to my lips so I could kiss it too. Then I asked him what I’m sure was on everyone’s mind. “Were you sexually abused when we were kids, Jason?”
He jumped up off the hospital bad. “No, hell no! I was never sexually abused or molested!”
I turned on my side to face him while he stood by the window, looking out. “Then what is it, baby? You know you can tell me anything.”
“Zoe, I don’t know how to say this, so I’m just going to come on out with it full force. Willard and Lorraine Reynard are not my real parents.”
He kept looking at the window, at nothing in particular.-I started feenin’ for some Prozac or something. “Ummm, Jason, what do you mean, they’re not your real parents?”
He glanced at me and then walked back over to the bed. He didn’t lie back down beside me, but pulled up one of the chairs and sat down in it. “I should’ve told you all this a long time ago. You had a right to know. After all, you’re my wife, Zoe.”
“I had a right to know?”
He took a deep breath. “I’m going to make a long story short. I was adopted when I was six. Before then, I lived in an orphanage and was a ward of the state.”
I couldn’t talk, so I just reached for his hand and held it tight. “My mother, the real one, was a prostitute. I remember her clearly. She left me on the stoop of the orphanage when I was only four, telling me she couldn’t take care of me anymore and had to go away.”
He started crying. I reached over on the metal table beside the bed and retrieved one of the rough, generic-brand tissues the hospital provided. I dried his tears for him. “Did something happen to you in the orphanage, Jason?”
“No, Zoe! Actually, the nuns at the orphanage were very nice. That’s why I believe in Catholicism, even though we don’t attend church that often.” I made a mental note to myself to start taking my kids to church— we all needed some religion. “I’m not an expert on orphanages, but I’ve heard horrible stories about some of them. The one I lived in was nothing like that.”
“Okay, I believe you. Did the Reynards do something to you?” I was sitting there calling my in-laws the Reynards like they were strangers instead of my husband’s parents. Every thing was getting weirder by the minute. “Did they hurt you, baby?”
“No! Of course, there were times when they would get angry at me and throw it up in my face. Telling me I should be thankful they even took me in when they could’ve just left me there. They didn’t really mean any of those things, though. It was all said out of anger and frustration.”
I was missing something! “Baby, if you weren’t abused and nothing happened at the orphanage, then why are you so afraid to touch me?”
He hesitated, and there was no sound in the room for a few minutes. “Like I said, my real mother was a prostitute. Her name was Delilah. At least, that’s what she called herself.”
“Did Delilah hurt you?”
“Not physically!”
“Then what?”
“She used to leave me alone in this nasty, dank, ratinfested motel room for hours at a time. One time, she left me alone for several days. I lost count after the fifth one, and I was so scared she wasn’t ever coming back.”
He started sobbing uncontrollably. I pulled him back on the bed with me, whether he wanted me to or not. I pushed his head down on my chest, hoping my heartbeat would somehow comfort him for a change. “She would go out and sell her ass to support her heroin addiction. She spent all of her money on drugs and hardly ever bought me anything to eat. I was so skinny and frail, my ribs were showing and my cheeks were sunken in.
“I would have to watch her shoot the poison into her arms and legs, and sometimes, when she didn’t have anyplace else to take them, she would bring her tricks back to the motel with her. She would make me sit in a corner and watch when she was high and thought it was funny, or tell me to go sleep in the bathtub while they were there.”
“Oh, baby! I’m so sorry!” I just kept kissing his forehead over and over again because I didn’t know what else to do.
“Looking back on it now, I realize Delilah did me a favor by abandoning me outside that orphanage. I was real sick when the nuns found me. I had pneumonia and an extremely high fever. While I was upset my mother would leave me like that, she actually saved my life, because I was literally hours away from dying. The nuns rushed me to the emergency room, and they were able to pack me in ice and bring down the fever before I had a seiz
ure.”
He slid up more on the bed so that we were face-to-face and kissed me gently on the lips. “Besides, if she hadn’t left me there, Willard and Lorraine never could’ve adopted me, and I never would’ve found you!”
“Well, you did find me. Somehow, in this big old fucked-up world, we found each other.”
“Yes, we did, Boo!”
“This is meant to be, Jason, and we are going to get through all of this. Together!”
He grinned at me. “Like the lemon to the lime! Like the bumble to the bee!”
chapter
thirty-one
About an hour later, Marcella,Dr. Graham, and Momma all came traipsing back into the room. It couldn’t have possibly taken them that long to eat that nasty hospital food. I pictured them sitting around a table in the cafeteria, downing coffee like springwater and worrying about what the hell Jason and I were upstairs talking about. I was glad they took so long because it gave me a chance to calm Jason down some.
He was having trouble telling them all the things about his past, so I did it for him. It was like shock therapy, part two: they were all once again sitting there with their mouths hanging wide open. When I finished, I added my whole take on the situation, trying to add a little humor. “Pretty wild, huh? Two fucked-up-in-the-head people end up married with children? You think they’ll make a TV sitcom about us? The Crazy Bunch?”
“Zoe, that’s not funny!” Obviously, my mother was not in a humorous mood.
Dr. Graham decided he couldn’t possibly do anything to rectify the situation in the span of one day and left the room to call his office from the nurses’ station. Upon his return, he informed us he would be staying for an additional three days. Marcella was happier about his extended stay than anyone. She thought she was going to be left to sort out the entire mess alone.
