Deep Night (17 page)

When the silence stretched for a whole minute, Chris grabbed the remote and turned it off.

“Hey…!” she complained. Her head jerked around.

“What did he do to you?”

She didn't answer right away. Finally, she said, “Nothing.”

“Oh, come on,” he countered.

Riley whimpered and nudged her hand.

“I said
nothing,
” she repeated forcefully. She scooted off the couch and stalked to her room without another word. The door slammed firmly behind her.

The dog trotted after her and sat outside her door with his nose thrust against the crack. He pawed the door, then looked back at Chris as if asking for help.

“Sorry, boy,” Chris said with a frustrated sigh. “She won't let us in.”

She didn't try to sleep because she knew it would be futile. Nights always made her uncomfortable. It was as if she could feel eyes on her, watching her every move. Even with the lights on and her blinds shut, she felt like he could see her.

And going back to the living room and watching TV wasn't an option, either. Chris had suddenly turned into the great interrogator. She ended up sitting on the floor with her back against the bed, studying for her last exam tomorrow. After her head was crammed with diseases and drugs, she spent the rest of the night watching
Mamma Mia!
and
Phantom of the Opera
on her laptop. After dawn, she crept to the door and listened, but couldn't hear the TV, so she assumed Chris was asleep.

He was the best friend she had in the world. But right now, she didn't want to be around him. There were things she couldn't talk about to anyone…especially him. Things she didn't want to think about or even remember. Things that were too shameful to admit. What would he think about her if he knew what she had done? She couldn't bear seeing the disapproval and disgust in his eyes. She knew what it would look like because she saw it in her own eyes every time she looked in a mirror.

It had taken her years to bury the memories deep and only minutes for them to bubble back to the surface.

First, seeing that little girl's haunted expression struck her because she knew, at some point in her life, she probably had that same hollow look in her eyes. They hid secrets, horrible, painful private memories that couldn't be shared.

Then second, when her father had suddenly reappeared, it shook her to the bone. After all these years, why would he come back? What did he want from her? She had nothing left to give him. He had already taken it all.

She thought he no longer had any power over her. She was a grown woman with a great job and plans to become a pediatrician. She thought he'd never be able to touch her…or hurt her…or take away her right to say
no
ever again. But when she saw him, her knees turned to jelly and her heart stopped. Suddenly, she was ten years old, and he was her father, a man she had looked up to with an almost godlike adoration. She had always been daddy's little girl, sitting on his lap, giving him hugs and kisses and following him around. When he started coming into her room after her mother left for work, he convinced her it was a normal thing for daddies and daughters to do.

It had hurt…a lot. That first time she bled. The next morning when she saw it, she had been horrified, afraid her mother would notice. So she waited until her mother went to bed, then scrubbed all the blood out and washed her sheets before making her bed. Silly girl, she assumed it would be that one time. But he had come back again and again. Her mother had been a nurse on the night shift at Adventist Hospital, so it was only Sara and her father at home five nights a week. Thankfully, it hadn't been every night. But that had its own downside, because she never knew when her door would open and he would pull her covers back.

That led to many sleepless nights. She would lie there, tense and shaking, with the covers pulled up to her chin.

When the door opened, she would squeeze her eyes shut, hoping he would think she was asleep. Once he was there, she never moved. But that never mattered to him. The wood floors creaked beneath his feet as he approached her bed. Gently, he pulled the covers down, then removed her cotton panties. He always arrived with a full erection, so it was just a matter of seconds after he forced himself inside her that he would pump a few times, then grunt when he climaxed. The dark kept her from seeing him naked. And the dark helped her shut out that her father had his penis inside her.

As a child she hadn't known about sperm and pregnancy in anything but the vaguest terms. After she was older, she realized he must have used condoms because he never left any sperm behind.

At the time, she just tried to endure the agony of his penis tearing her dry, immature canal open. She would lie there, passively, motionless while her mind went off to whatever happy place she could find. Then it would be over. Luckily, he never asked for more. She never had to touch him or put him in her mouth. He never kissed her down there or caressed her prepubescent breasts.

He would pull her covers back up, drop a kiss on her forehead and promise to take her out for ice cream the next day.

God
…she hated ice cream.

It wasn't until she was twelve and had her first health class that she understood what was happening. All they taught was the mechanics, not the emotions. She still hadn't realized it wasn't normal, acceptable father-and-daughter behavior. When she started her period at age thirteen, she welcomed those few days of respite because her father was disgusted by her menstrual flow. However, it was that blood that changed her life.

One day she had ruined a pair of panties and was washing them out in the sink. Her mother had come into the bathroom and caught Sara in a weak moment. For some reason, maybe hormones, maybe growing frustration, she started sobbing. The menstrual blood on her panties reminded her of the many times she had washed bloodstains out of her underwear. After each of her father's nighttime visits, she climbed out of bed and put her panties back on, clinging to what little modesty she had left. And often there would be spots of blood.

Sara's father had always told her not to tell her mother because it would hurt her mother's feelings. But that day, Sara was feeling grumpy and mad at the world. She resented the fact that her mother got to go off to work around all the excitement of the emergency room while Sara had to stay home and tolerate her father's unwelcomed attention. When her mother came into the bathroom and tried to use the sink, Sara blurted out that she wouldn't have to have sex with her father if her mother stayed home at nights.

Of course her mother hadn't believed Sara at first. Chalking it up to petulant preteen moodiness, her mother had blown it off. But it must have planted a seed of doubt, because the next day her mother sat Sara down and questioned her. Sara couldn't remember all the dates, but there must have been something about her answers that had been convincing. Her mother had gone pale, then run from the room. Sounds of her vomiting startled Sara. Once her mother recovered, she returned and pulled Sara into a protective hug.

They cried together, sharing a mother/daughter bond that had somehow gotten broken during the past few years. Later that night, Sara had been in her room when she heard her father come home. The walls of the house were pretty solid, but not thick enough to block the sounds of her mother screaming at her father and the crash of things breaking. It seemed to go on for an hour as Sara cowered in her room, alternating feeling guilty for causing the uproar and getting her father into trouble with the realization that what she had been doing was horribly wrong.

The slam of the front door marked the last time she had seen or heard anything from her father. He disappeared into the wind, probably to avoid prosecution. For that one thing, Sara had been grateful because she didn't know if she could have survived the humiliation of a court trial. She and her mom tried to get back to normal, but things were never the same. She couldn't help but feel her mother believed that Sara had somehow encouraged her father. She and her mother never spoke of it again, which had built a permanent barrier between them.

There was no child support, of course, and money had been a big problem. Her mother worked longer hours and Sara had gotten part-time jobs to help her pay for college. When she was a freshman at the University of Colorado, her mother died in a car accident and left behind a small life insurance policy and the house, which Sara promptly sold. The proceeds from that and the insurance paid for most of her tuition, books, and room and board. Scholarships and grants paid for the rest. And now she squirreled away every extra penny so she could pay her way through medical school.

But some things about her childhood couldn't be shaken. She never slept with the lights off and rarely at night because of her fear of waking up with someone standing next to her bed. She never slept in the nude or went commando. And she never talked about it with anyone. She'd learned to live with those little quirks. Having her father reappear was something she hadn't counted on. She couldn't let him ruin her adult life, too.

And she couldn't let another father take away his daughter's childhood. There must be some way she could stop him before more damage was done. She dressed and gathered her notes together for a last-minute review before her exam. Right now she had to focus on that, but later…

Riley was waiting outside her door. Apparently, he had pulled an all-nighter. As soon as he saw her, he danced around, his long, pink tongue hanging out of his mouth as he smiled his approval that she was all right.

“Come on, Riley. Let's go for a walk.” She clipped the leash to his collar, pocketed her keys and her phone, and they went downstairs and circled the block. She kept a cautious watch around her, but there were only the usual people heading toward work or the gym or wherever it was they went each day. She returned to the apartment, filled Riley's food and water dishes, grabbed a granola bar, stuffed her class notes and a bottle of water into her backpack and left. She hesitated for a moment in the hallway. Chris also had a final exam today. Should she wake him? That would only bring a new wave of questions and guilt. Finally, deciding that he was a big boy and she wasn't his keeper, she pulled the door shut and locked it, then hurried down to the garage.

Three hours later, she left campus and stopped by a drive-through for a celebratory cheeseburger. In spite of the lectures she gave Chris, there was nothing better than a little fast food as a reward. No more classes or exams for three months. Then, of course, she would be entering the whirlwind world of rotations, internships and applying for residencies. She felt confident with her test scores, and it was quite a load off not to have to juggle classes, work and sleep for a while.

She parked under a tree in the parking lot of the fast-food restaurant and enjoyed every last bite of the burger. Wadding up her trash, she drove by the garbage can and tossed it in.

A young girl with a long, blond ponytail walked out of the restaurant, hand-in-hand with her mother. Sara watched them cross in front of her and was reminded about her earlier vow to check out the girl whose mother had fallen down the stairs. Instead of turning toward her apartment, Sara headed toward the Stapleton area.

She tried not to think about how many regulations she would be breaking if she actually made contact with a patient. Maybe she would just drive by slowly and see if the little girl was outside or if everything looked okay. But she knew how deceptive a nice paint job and a mowed lawn could be.

Kids were just getting out of school. She hadn't driven but a couple of blocks before she saw her, walking alone, her head down. Her long, blond hair was pulled back into a French braid that hung over one shoulder. Jeans and a loose blouse covered her small body, in sharp contrast to the shorts and tight, midriff-baring tops the other girls were wearing. To the casual observer, she could be shy or deep in thought. But Sara knew the girl was trying to be invisible and not call any attention to herself. That could be a sign of an awkward childhood. Or, it could be the silent cry of a child trapped in a situation from which she couldn't escape…or wasn't aware that she should try.

Sara's heart twisted. She wanted to jump out and tell the child the truth about the birds and the bees and the inappropriateness of sexual relations at her age…or at any age with her father. But she didn't want to frighten the girl by snatching her off the street. It was a fine line between concerned counselor and crazy kidnapper.

No, Sara really needed to talk to the child's mother. If she could plant a seed of doubt, maybe the woman would start noticing the signs and deal with the situation herself. The damage was done, but if the girl could be saved a few years of abuse, it would be worth it. The healing couldn't begin until the threat was over.

Sara followed the girl to her house. When she went inside, Sara continued down a couple more houses before she parked in an empty space on the street. She glanced at her watch and saw it was only three forty-five. She hoped the husband worked until at least five o'clock. She certainly didn't want to run into him. There was something about bullying macho males that reduced her to a quivering mass. They were her kryptonite.

Sara summoned all her courage and walked up the three steps that led to the front door. Her knock was answered by the woman she had last seen when they left her at the hospital ten days ago. Sara was struck by how young the woman was, probably barely thirty. But the bags under her eyes and the sallow shade of her skin aged her well beyond her years. Her left arm was in a cast, her foot was encased in a walking boot, her broken nose had been set but was still swollen and there were yellowish bruises on her jaw and forehead.

“Can I help you?” she asked in a soft, hesitant voice.

Sara realized that the woman had been unconscious after her fall and wouldn't recognize her. Now that she was face-to-face with her, Sara tried to quickly run through all the pros and cons of announcing her true identity. Finally, she settled on full disclosure, hoping her medical background would add credibility to what she was going to say.

“My name is Sara, and I was one of the paramedics who treated you when you fell down the stairs.”

The woman's gaze skittered past Sara and searched up and down the street. It wasn't clear whether she was looking for someone to help her or checking to see if she was being watched.

“I'm really busy now. I can't talk.”

“I wanted to check back and see how you were doing,” Sara persisted, not crowding her, but not stepping back, either.

“I'm fine.” The woman started to shut the door.