Abuse: The Complete Trilogy (86 page)

The color drains
from Grant’s face. “Do you still love him?”

“Of course. Everyone
loves André, even you,” I say lightly. “As it happens, André and I were never
really suitable as a long term proposition.”

“Oh?’ He
straightens at this, looks hopeful. “Really?”

I smile. “No,
you’re my type. Besides, I not only love you, I’m
in love
with
you
.”

A little buzz of
pleasure rolls through me when I see relief and joy in Grant’s eyes. My
feelings haven’t changed, of course. I suppose even the happiest couples run
into difficult triggers and misunderstandings. I doubt this will be the last
fight we ever have.

Marla’s advice
comes to mind,
‘… make sure to get your point across, won’t you? Politely,
of course.’
A courteous Southern lady, good manners were no doubt bred into
her, along with good sense.

“I love you,
too,” he says. My heart lurches as he gazes deeply into my eyes.

He shakes his
head. “I was stupid to jeopardize our relationship, but it was such a relief
when I got the call to meet at my brother’s house. It gave me a chance to calm
down. I have a hell of a temper—a temper I’ve had under control for years.
Getting in touch with my ‘feelings’ has its drawbacks. My emotional control isn’t
as strong as it was. Maybe I need to get out of the house, or go for a run when
I’m pissed. It’s an escape thing.”

“I guess that’s
better than flying into a fury.” I remember my father and clear my throat. “Yelling
puts me at a disadvantage.”

“I know,” he says,
totally understanding the look on my face. “I never want to be anything like
your father. I shit bricks when I came home and found you weren’t here.”

I smile.
“Really?”

“I totally lost
it. I remembered you saying,
‘Maybe I’ll still be here when you get back.’
If I’d found your clothes gone, I would’ve gotten drunk. The thought I may have
lost you? It would’ve been the last straw.”

“Sorry.”

“I think you meant
to scare some sense into me.”

“Yes, I did,” I
admit sheepishly.

“Well, it
worked.”

“Good,” I say
with a smug smile. “As the song says, you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s
gone.”

“So true.” He
gives me a rueful smile. “I’m afraid I gave poor Mitten a fright.”

“Oh?”

“He took off
when I kicked over my trophy display cabinet.”

“Ah,” I say.
“Well, he disappears when I turn on the vacuum cleaner, too. Never mind. He’ll
be back.”

“I owe him an
apology, as well.”

“Good plan—hey,
you want pancakes?” I ask, changing the subject abruptly as I stand up. “I’m in
the mood for thin pancakes. French
crêpes
, actually, but not with lemon.
I want whipped cream, banana, strawberries, blueberries and vanilla ice cream.”

“Sounds
wonderful.” He stands, picks up his full glass and the bottle.

“Do you still
want it?” I ask curiously, looking at his bottle of Scotch.

“Oh, yes,” he breaths
fervently. His eyes lift toward mine. “But not nearly as much as I want you.”

“The more one
judges, the less one loves.”

― Honoré
de Balzac

~~~

Renata
Koreman

I sit at the
kitchen table with Grant while sifting flour into a bowl. I’ve already sent a
text off to Sky and Alex, telling them Grant is here at home and all is OK.

“So, what set
you off, anyway?” I ask him. “You seemed fine, then you totally lost it.”

He cuts freshly
washed strawberries into neat quarters and sighs. “In my mind everything mixed
together.” He gestures toward my bowl. “Probably something similar to your
crêpe
batter. Out of the blue, André began to eerily remind me of my father. There
are similarities—both have charismatic charm and manipulating ways.”

I arch a brow.
“Ah.”

He gives me a
faint smile, takes a deep breath. “Then when you mentioned André’s interest in
men, it seriously freaked me out. Stupid really, as my father preferred
children, not men. But all the times André spent in a tent with me… I imagined
him taking advantage—maybe when I slept, or him having secret sexual thrills.”

“Ouch.”

“Tell me about
it,” he snorts. “Add that to the fact André was screwing my sister, and had also
been in bed with you—it was all a huge trigger. I just lost it. I panicked,
certain that André couldn't be trusted and would hit on me next.”

Surprised, I
laugh. “Not with your history.” I make a well in the center of the bowl, then
whisk in milk and eggs.

“No,” he says,
putting sliced strawberries into a bowl. “Anyway, I’m sincerely sorry for being
a jackass,” he says. “I was insanely jealous—I felt I’d been duped by André
and
by you. I doubted everything and everyone, especially myself. I fell right
back into feeling I was a monster. I knew no one could ever like me, much less love
or
want
me
.”

“Oh, I get it,”
I say, continuing to whisk the batter. “When
you
get seriously triggered
you slide right back into feeling like a monster and a pervert. I slide into self-blame,
panic and I hear the phrase in my head that upset me as a child,
‘Stupid,
stinky, stutter girl.’
Old habits die hard.”

“I really thought
I was past all that crap,” he says with a heavy sigh.

I shrug. “We all
think
we’re ‘past’ our past—until it turns around and bites us in the
ass. I’ve been working on my own crazy for years, but I still have a long way
to go.”

“You. Are. Not.
Crazy,” he says vehemently. “You’re wise and kind and perfect. I can understand
doubting myself, but I should never,
ever
have doubted you.”

“Aww,” I say
with a smile.

Pretty damn smooth.
Using a wooden spoon, I begin to stir in a liberal amount of butter. Grant’s
buttering me up all right, just like I’m doing to these
crêpes.

“Will you
forgive me?” he asks.

I glance at
Grant briefly, but say nothing. Instead, I keep working, careful not to
overwork the batter, yet going for an even, creamy mixture. He’s not getting
off so easy; I’m making him wait.

“Renata?”

“Well,” I raise
an eyebrow, meet his eyes and say, “OK, apology accepted.”

“I knew you’d
forgive me,” he says happily, beginning to cut up the banana. “It was one of
the things I obsessed about all evening, how to apologize and whether you’d
excuse my behavior. I calmed down once I realized that you would.”

I laugh out
loud, not certain whether I want to kick him, or kiss him.

“I know you
pretty well,” he says with mischievous complacence. “We’ve already decided on
children, we want at least one girl and one boy. A person doesn’t just give up
on something like that.”

“True,” I agree,
still smiling for all I’m worth.

Ideally, I
should leave the batter in the fridge for an hour to rest, but we’re hungry
now. The non-stick pan is already heating on the stove. I add butter, tip the
pan to evenly coat the surface, then pour the first
crêpe
. As it cooks,
I quickly get out the ice cream and whipped cream, placing them on the table.
We’re all set.

“Mmm. That
smells incredible,” Grant says, as the edges curl and the base turns golden.

“Didn’t you eat
dinner?”

He shrugs. “I
wasn’t hungry. I’m starving now.”

“Then you get
the first one, you might as well eat it while it’s hot.” I slip the finished
crêpe
onto a plate and hand it to him.
“Et voila!”
I say and pour the next
one.

“Mmm,” he hums
when he takes his first bite.

“Good?”

“Delicious,” he declares
with genuine admiration. “So. You ask what happened tonight? André did a
wonderful
and
terrible
thing. What an evening. The Wilkinsons’ owe that man for
cutting open a festering family wound. I decided that I didn’t even mind that
much if he did fuck Betty Jo. What difference does it really make?”

“Good point.”

“Also, despite
what appeared to be similarities, André’s
nothing
like my father.”

“No, he really
is one of a kind.” We both laugh at that observation. “Are you going to tell me
what happened tonight?”

“I’m getting
around to it,” he protests, scooping more ice cream onto his
crêpe.
“Anyway,
I sent André a text asking,
‘Are you screwing my sister?’ ‘No,’
he
texted back.”

“Ha!” I exclaim,
loading two more
crêpes
onto his plate. “I knew it!”

“How did you
know?”

“André treats
each person individually, his management fits the circumstances. In Betty Jo’s
case, he sensed her vulnerability and jumped right into counselling mode. He’d
never take advantage of someone like her. Sex with your sister would confuse
the issue. It would all end in tears.”

“I see.” He
looks away, falling silent for a couple beats. "Uh… I guess I should
mention something. I called my mother tonight,” he admits. “I told her my
father was a pedophile.”

Shocked, I spin
on my heel to face him. “You didn’t!”

“I was pretty
low, feeling sorry for myself and my whole family, actually. It was payback, I
guess. I decided she should suffer, too. Anyway, I phoned her and confessed that
our father sexually abused me and Alex, but not Betty Jo.”

“Jesus,” I whisper.
“How did she take it?”

“She didn’t
believe me, of course,” he says. “She’s absolutely certain I’m making it all
up. So, I explained about the photos of others he abused, the victims outside
the family, just to hammer in the truth. I didn’t mention names.”

“That must’ve
been some conversation.”

“
Dammit,
Renata! I’ve wanted to tell her this for years. I’ve wondered forever. No one
could be that clueless. She had to have known, it
must
have been
obvious!”

“Did she believe
you in the end?” I ask, turning off the stove and setting down a plate of
crêpes
on the table.

“No. Mother’s
pissed at me. She thinks I’ve lost my mind, but I told her she’d find out in
time. I warned her everything would come out during the trial.”

Contemplating
this new development, I wrap the leftover batter in cellophane and put it in
the fridge. Then I sit down and put a
crêpe
on a plate for myself. All
the while, I’m considering Grant’s mom’s vehement rejection of this news about
her husband.

‘Methinks the
Lady doth protest too much,’
as Shakespeare would say.
But what will
happen when his mother discovers her son’s stories of abuse are true?
Surely
she’ll have a nervous breakdown.

“Will her denial
last, do you think?” I ask.

He shrugs, takes
another bite. “I’ve no idea. Everyone will know about my father soon enough,
though. This is far too big to hide, especially with a trial coming.”

“Yes,” I agree. “I’m
sorry she didn’t believe you. That must’ve hurt.”

“Not really,” he
says. “I’m not surprised. That’s how I thought she’d react if I ever told her, which
is probably why I never told her. For some inexplicable reason, physical
displays of affection were vulgar to my mother. I felt neglected and
unprotected, even though she treated me well, really—better than my father did,
anyway. I hated her for such a long time. I wanted nothing more than to rub her
nose in the steaming pile of shit I was buried in up to my neck. Of course,
this made me feel even more of a monster and a bad son. Guilt was a huge issue
for me all of my life, until I met André… and you.”

I take his hand
in mine. “Your mom is seriously screwed up. She has something else going on. Trust
me, I honestly think a normal mother would believe you.”

“Thank you,” he
says, squeezing my hand gratefully. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Grant goes on to
tell me how he spent his evening, the horror story of Betty Jo’s upbringing,
and the details of how she was shunned and excluded because she was a girl. Her
feelings of being unwanted and unloved, her low self-worth, and her constant
longing for attention from her father.

I can see it all
so clearly. The image of an innocent, loving little girl, excited and happy,
waiting… waiting… waiting to be loved, but always being ignored. The sadness of
that picture is devastating.

The cruel words her
father said, ‘
Why would I be interested in a silly little cunt like you?’
Terrible!
Horrible! What a piece of shit! When Grant explains how Betty Jo reacted by
throwing him off of the balcony, I don’t know if I want to cry for her lost
childhood or applaud her actions. I do know I like her better for it.

Who deserves to
die more than a cruel, child molesting asshole like Chester Wilkinson?

“We’ll contact
our attorney in the morning to figure all of this shit out,” Grant says. “Alex
and I discussed it. We don’t want Betty Jo doing time if we can avoid it—that
is, if she admits what she’s done.”

“André will help
her figure out the best thing to do.”

“Yes. I’m glad
she’s with him right now.” Her frowns. “No matter who ends up going to trial, we
need to present the sexual abuse issue. No one feels sorry for a pedophile. I
may be able to get some of the others who’ve been abused by our father to
testify as well.”

“It’s going to
be a media circus. How do you feel about that?”

He smiles. “Surprisingly
OK, actually. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. There are plenty before
me who’ve faced the haters and ended up changing the world. Courageous
individuals who admitted to being gay or lesbian, or others who’ve stood up and
spoken out for justice and civil rights. Because of them, the world is a better
place. Maybe I can make a difference.”

I arch an
eyebrow. “You’ve made a huge difference to me.”

He smiles. “Back
at ya, darlin’, but I don’t think our relationship will particularly feature.” His
chuckle is slightly hollow. “I survived child abuse. Traditionally, people like
us keep our mouths shut about our past, but why should we?”

“No reason at all,”
I nod my agreement.

He shrugs. “Sure
we were fucked seven ways from Sunday by predators, but it wasn’t our fault.
There’s nothing for us to be ashamed of.”

“Many will be
moved by your story,” I say. “Lots of people have had similar experiences.
Abuse is terribly common, way
too
common."

“Right. Maybe I
can even use my ‘Sexual Abuse Therapy Foundation’ as a means to generate
publicity for survivors like ourselves.” He gives me a self-deprecating smirk.
“I’ve still got all of my journals. Perhaps I should write a book.”

“Oh, good idea! What
would you call it?”

He smirks. “How
about,
‘Intimate Relations?’
Does that work for you?”

“Smart ass,” I
say. “If you’re going to do that, you may as well call it,
‘Sexual Predators
101.’”

“What about, ‘
How
I Was Reared by My Father?’ Or is that too visual?”
He throws his head back
and laughs uninhibitedly.

I can’t help it,
I laugh, too. “Oh my God! What a
terrible
play on words!”

“It’s wonderful
to get to the point where you can laugh about a subject like this. It’s not at
all funny, but it is! Grant, who was once so somber and serious, has changed.
When we’re alone, there’s a newfound playfulness around him and a readiness to
laugh.

“I could call
it,
‘My Universally Popular and Charismatic Father—the Child Molester.’
I imagine that would sell, don’t you?”

“Oh,
absolutely.” Still smiling, I shake my head. “That would be a best seller. But I
was thinking of something sweet like,
‘How I Found True Love after Abuse.’”
I
say, batting my eyelashes at him. “No?”

“Nice,” he says
with a warm smile, the kind of smile that makes me melt. We both stand up and I
naturally step into his warm embrace.

Mitten comes
back inside, purring and chatty, rubbing up against our legs and demanding to
sit on my shoulder as though nothing’s happened. Grant lavishes him with
attention.

Eventually, we
clean up the kitchen together, then vacuum and tidy up the mess from the trophy
stand so we don’t shred our feet from shards of glass. We both need a good
night’s sleep.

In bed, we hold
each other tightly, taking refuge in each other’s arms, but neither of us feel
like making love. There’s too much to think about. The last twenty-four hours
have been far too intense.

I fall asleep
and wake to the sound of Grant’s phone ringing in complete darkness.

“Hello?” Grant
says blearily. The digital clock displays 3:00 a.m. in brilliant green
numerals.

“Grant
Wilkinson?” a male voice murmurs, I can hear him clearly in the silence of
Grant’s bedroom.

"Yes… I'm
Grant Wilkinson.”