Secret Lives
Page 22
“That must be it.” He heard the flatness, the uncertainty in his voice.
“But why would she say it was you?”
“I don't know. Look, let's go pick her up and talk to her. If I can talk to her I'm sure—”
“No! I don't want you talking to her.”
He frowned at her in disbelief. How dare she tell him he couldn't talk to his own daughter? But he spoke calmly. “You can be there too. I'm sure if—”
“You can't, Ben. She has to stay at Alex and Leslie's tonight. I told them we were going out. I couldn't tell them the truth.” Sharon sat down again. Her hands shook as she rested them on the table, and she lowered them once more to her lap. “Look, Pat and Joan wanted to call the child protection people right away but I persuaded them to wait until tomorrow so I could talk to Bliss myself and talk to you… At that point I really didn't believe it. I told them you were the best father imaginable…” Sharon's voice broke. “I defended you. I rattled on. I gave them examples of how you take her places with you, read to her, give up your own activities for her. They kept nodding, and Pat finally said that it's often the fathers who seem most sensitive and caring about their children who are the abusers. I wanted to hit them. I felt they were so wrong about you.”
“And now?” He watched her face, and in the silence that followed he could hear the quiet ticking of the clock on the wall behind him.
“Now I don't know what to think,” she said finally. “But I had to promise them to keep you away from Bliss tonight. That was the only way I could get them to agree to wait on the call.”
“This is insane!” He pounded the table with his fist and stood up. “She's my daughter! Nobody can tell me I can't see her.”
Sharon bit her lip and looked away from him.
“Look, I'll go in and talk to Joan and Pat in the morning,” he said.
“It's not that simple, Ben. They have a legal responsibility to call.”
“Sharon.” He looked down at her. “How long have you known me?”
“Nine years.”
“Have you ever known me to lie to you?”
“No.”
“Then I'm asking you to believe me now.”
She started to cry again. “It's my fault,” she said. “Things haven't been good between us since the surgery.” He sat down again, moving his chair next to hers so he could hold her. He understood what she was saying. A year ago she'd had surgery on her back, and for a long time afterward they couldn't make love. When her doctor finally gave his okay she seemed to have lost interest. But he'd viewed it as a phase. Marriage was cyclical. Eventually sex would be good again. It was true, though, that the lack of physical closeness had spilled over into the rest of their relationship. And it was true that he looked forward to seeing Bliss in the evening more than he did Sharon.
He pressed his lips to the smooth, freckled skin of her neck. Her skin was warm, her scent comforting. “I didn't do anything to Bliss.” He lifted his head. “But even if I did, it wouldn't be your fault. I know you haven't felt like yourself this past year.”
She looked up at him. “I'm so scared, Ben.”
He felt none of her fear, though looking back later, he knew he should have been terrified. He was naïve, a true innocent who trusted that everything would work out. He kissed Sharon and was surprised by the heat in her response. He led her to the bedroom and they made love, hungrily, the way they had when they were new to each other. He was inside her when she came, her body reaching, arching. But then she began to sob and her muscles fell limp, her arms slack on the bed, her legs lifeless when only a few seconds earlier they'd been gripping him. And he couldn't go on, not with her like that, her face turned away from him in disgust. He pulled out of her carefully, went into the bathroom, showered, dressed, and came back to sit on the edge of the bed.
She'd pulled the spread over her and she lay on her side, weeping into a tissue. Her ponytail was coming loose and he gently tugged out the rubber band and smoothed her hair over her throat. “Let's go get Bliss,” he said. “Let's straighten this whole thing out before it goes any further.”
“Oh, God, Ben.” She rolled onto her back to look at him. “Why would she say you did it if you didn't?”
He felt a fury in his chest, like something trying to escape, to explode. “I did nothing!”
She stood up and pulled the spread around her. Her chin quivered; her wet cheeks glistened in the light from the bathroom. "I love you so much, Ben, but I…” She shook her head. “I can't sleep in here with you tonight. I'm sorry, I just…" She pressed her hand to her face as though she might be able to hold back her tears.
“Sharon.” He reached for her, but she stepped away.
“I'll sleep in the guest room,” she said, and he watched her gather the spread around her shoulders and turn her back on him.
He was tempted to drive over to Alex and Leslie's and talk to Bliss himself, but he thought better of it. Later on he would berate himself for not going. That had been his only chance, the last time he wasn't helpless to save himself. Could he have talked to Bliss, understood what she was trying to say? Could he have turned the entire tide of this nightmare right then? If he'd been able to see the future, he would have gone to see Bliss that night. But he never dreamed the devastation that lay ahead of him.
He had nearly finished teaching his two o'clock class the next day when he spotted a police officer in uniform standing outside the open door of his classroom. He tried to slow things down. The dismissal bell rang, but still he talked to the class, droning on as the minutes passed. His students shifted in their seats, their books piled on their desks, ready to make their escapes. They looked at each other, asking with their eyes, What's Alexander up to? Finally he let them go. Then he sat down at his desk and waited.
The officer identified himself and said, too loudly, “You are under arrest for the sexual abuse of your daughter.” He read Ben his rights and, although Ben said he would go quietly, handcuffed him. He was led out that way, through the interminably long hallway of the science building, past openmouthed students, many of them his. He wanted to smile at them reassuringly, offer a joke or two, but his throat was dry. He kept his eyes focused on the stream of sunlight pouring through the door at the end of the hall.
The policeman pushed him into the backseat of the car with a growl of disgust. Everyone was taking this very seriously, and for the first time he thought that maybe something had happened to Bliss. If that was the case, it had to have been someone other than him. He trembled in the backseat of the car. His wrists burned where they were cuffed. He could not tolerate the thought of anyone touching her.
He ran down the list of people Bliss spent time with. Joan Dove. Sam and Jen. Alex and Leslie. Bliss's occasional baby-sitter, the elderly Mrs. Blayton. None of them fit. What about the kids in the neighborhood? There were a few older kids that were pretty rough with the younger ones. Maybe when Bliss was playing at another child's house? Someone else's daddy? Or maybe the young maintenance man who worked at Bliss's day care, that ferret-eyed, seedy kid that Ben had never liked to see around the children. It would all have to be looked at, wouldn't it?
He used his one phone call to reach Sam at the clinic. Sam was in a session with a patient, but Ben told his service it was urgent, to interrupt him, and he sounded desperate enough that the woman put him through.
“I've been arrested,” Ben said. “I need you to post bail.”
Sam was quiet on the other end of the phone. What could he be thinking? Ben in jail? Ben, who had never even had a parking ticket?
“Why are you there, Ben?” Sam's voice was quiet, gentle. Ben pictured Sam's patient sitting in the brown leather chair, imagining that Sam was talking to another patient, a fellow sufferer.
“I don't want to go into it over the phone. How soon can you get here?”
“I have one more patient and then I'll see you.” Sam chose his words carefully. “About six-thirty. And Ben?” There was no euphemistic way f
or Sam to ask this question. “How much do I need?”
“One thousand.” Ben shut his eyes. Sam could afford it, but that didn't make the asking any less humiliating. “I'll pay you back tomorrow when I can get to the bank.”
“No problem. See you later.”
He sat in the passenger seat of Sam's Mercedes, staring at the streetlights, their white glow blurred by a freezing rain. He'd told Sam he couldn't go home, that he wanted to go to Sam and Jen's instead. But he didn't tell him why. He didn't tell him he was not allowed to be in the same place as Bliss. “If you want to stay at home, your daughter will have to go into foster care,” they'd told him. That hardly left him a choice.
He was quiet as they drove, dreading the moment he would have to tell Sam the truth. He didn't want to see the same revulsion in Sam's face that he saw in everyone else's.
Sam pulled up at a red light. He looked over at his brother. “C'mon, Ben. Get it out.”
Ben met his eyes. “They think I hurt Bliss,” he said. “Molested her.”
Sam's jaw dropped and Ben quickly resumed staring out the window. “Jesus,” Sam said.
“I didn't do it.”
“Of course you didn't.” Sam started driving again. “I can't believe anyone would think you did.”
“Even Sharon thinks I did.”
Sam nodded. “Well, that's good. That's healthy. Bliss is her baby. She wants to protect her at all costs to herself. She can't think straight about you right now. What evidence do they have?”
“A rash. But it's worse than that—Bliss told them I did it.”
“What?” Sam looked at him and Ben thought he saw a glimmer of doubt about him in Sam's green eyes.
“I didn't do it, Sam.” His jaw ached. He was close to tears.
Sam shook his head. “She's such a happy-go-lucky kid.”
“She used to be. She's changed, though. Sharon and I noticed it but we didn't make much out of it till now.”
“She seemed fine when we saw her last weekend. The only problem with spending time around Bliss is that it upsets Jen, she's so hungry for a baby.”
“How's the adoption process going?” Ben thought of the hours Jen and Sam had spent having their lives scrutinized to see if they'd make suitable parents. He wondered now if he'd be a liability for them.
Sam sighed. “Another year or two of waiting. I'll be forty by the time we get the baby. Forty!” He shook his head.
“I hope this doesn't screw anything up for you,” Ben said. “I mean, if the adoption agency discovers you have a brother who—”
“Shut up, Ben. We're calling a lawyer friend of mine the second we step inside the house. You'll come out of this thing smelling like a rose.”
Even Jen believed him. At least she did until she drove over to his house to get the clothes Sharon had packed for him. When she came back she was very quiet. A few times he caught her staring at him. Just before bed she hugged him and said, “It's hard for me to believe you could do it, Ben, but even if you did, you can get help. Sam knows people who could help you. And we'll stick by you no matter what happens."
He backed away from her, disappointed. “I didn't do it, Jen.” He turned and walked into the guest room to spend the first of many nights alone.
–29–
It was dusk when she reached his cabin. Darkness already filled the forest and was spilling into the clearing, and the stillness of the air sent a shiver through her. She slipped the picnic basket over her arm and knocked on the door.
Several minutes passed and she knocked again. Ben's truck was parked in the clearing, so he was here. She thought of the Valium in his bathroom and put her hand on the doorknob, but it turned in her hand as he opened the door.
He looked at her without interest, as though he was neither surprised nor pleased to find her there. He still wore the sweaty blue T-shirt he'd had on in the pit, and in the dusky light she could see a smear of dirt across his cheek.
“Can I come in?”
He stood back to let her into the room. The smell of whiskey, faint but unmistakable, teased her as she passed him. There were no lights on in the cabin, but in the triangle of gray light from the open door she saw the stony mask of his face. She knew that mask. She'd seen it in the mirror any number of times.
“I've been worried about you,” she said.
“I don't want your charity.”
“Kyle and Lou think you're innocent.”
He sighed, and she heard anger in the sound. “Fine.”
“Ben…” She spotted the open whiskey bottle on the apple crate by his bed and didn't finish what she'd started to say. “I'd like to use your bathroom, please.”
He shrugged and closed the door. “Be my guest.”
The Valium was still on the sink. She poured the pills into her hand and counted them. Twenty. She dropped them back into the container and left the bathroom.
“I brought some food with me.” She nodded toward the basket. “You probably haven't eaten yet.”
He picked up the bottle of whiskey and sat down on the bed, his back against the wall. “Why are you here?” he asked.
She took the bottle from his hand, screwed the cap on, and set it on the crate. “I want to hear your side of what happened.”
Even in the failing light she could see his cheeks redden as he leaned forward. “What gives you the right to come here and tell me that I can't drink and I have to spill my guts to you? Do this, Ben, do that. Jump through this hoop and then maybe I'll believe you.”
Eden spoke quietly. “Because I need to believe you. I trusted you. I let myself feel something for you and I haven't done that in a very long time.”
Ben looked down at the blue-and-white quilt and smoothed his hand across it. “I thought by some miracle you might say to me, 'Ben, I know you couldn't possibly have done it.' “
She sat down on the edge of the bed. “Please tell me everything, Ben. Please convince me you're innocent.”
His laugh was bitter. “I couldn't even convince my lawyer I was innocent.”
“Maybe I have a bigger investment in believing you than your lawyer did.”
“Well, Sharon certainly had an investment in believing me and even she…” He shook his head.
“She thought you did it?”
He screwed up his face. “I never did figure Sharon out. I felt sorry for her. I know she loved me and I think deep down she believed I was innocent. I'd watch her on the stand and she'd say nice things about me. But every good thing she'd say would be turned around by the so-called experts until I looked like the biggest pervert that ever walked the earth. The evidence was very convincing. I would have been convinced myself, so I can't blame her for assuming I'd done it.”
He'd had a good marriage once, she thought. There was still caring in his voice when he spoke about Sharon. “Tell me everything.” She moved next to him on the bed. She could just make out the line of his nose, the white of his eyes.
And he began to talk.
His voice was quiet as he described the change in Bliss's behavior, the day-care teacher's suspicions. It was hard for him to get the words out, and pauses stretched between his sentences like silent bands of pain.
“The thing I feel guiltiest about is that her teacher picked up signs that we completely missed. Like the masturbation. We thought it was best not to make an issue of it. What would you do if Cassie started masturbating a lot?”
“Same as you did, I guess,” she said. “I don't know. Cassie never does, as far as I know.”
“Well, the teacher got out of Bliss that I put my finger inside her, and that was that. I was arrested, I got out on bail and stayed with my brother and his wife for a few months while we were waiting for the trial. I wasn't allowed to see Bliss at all. At first I thought she must have dreamt it. Sometimes I would snuggle with her when we'd read a story together before she'd fall asleep. I thought maybe she imagined it.”
“Could the teacher have planted the idea in her mind somehow?”
Ben looked out the window into the darkness for a long moment, and Eden's heart pounded hard against her ribs. She was sitting shoulder to shoulder with this man. She thought of him making love to her the night before, his fingers stroking her, slipping inside her. Kyle and Lou believe him, she reminded herself. They know him very well and they believe him absolutely.
“Ben,” she said. “I don't think a four-year-old could make something like that up.”
“No, I guess I don't either. It's so inconceivable, though. She said it was dark, she never actually saw the man, and he was behind her. But she said she knew it was Daddy. She called the man Daddy and he answered her. I've wondered if it might have taken place somewhere else and she was confused and thought it happened to her in her own room. Or maybe making the man me in her mind made it less scary for her. I lay awake night after night trying to figure out what might have happened. I still do sometimes.”