Doc: The Rape of the Town of Lovell (8 page)

The demoralized seniors returned to high school. "Our friends didn't know us anymore," Minda recalled bitterly. "That's the way Lovell is. We ended up with the rejects, the kids who use bad tanguage and party all the time. They invited us to a kegger out in the hills. Golly, it was such a sad thing to see our new friends drunk, slobbering, mumbling to themselves. Scott and I decided not to try the beer. It would have been a first for both of us."

The two young Brinkerhoffs were only a credit or two away from graduation, and they asked the principal if they could attend class an hour a
day
to enable Scott to earn money and Minda to run their home. The answer was no. Nine weeks before graduation, they dropped out. "We realized later," Minda said ruefully, "how stupid it was. It was kids saying, 'We'll show you.' But nobody gave a dang. We only hurt ourselves."

Every month she visited the clinic. Dr. Story tried to counsel her and always inquired about her sex life. Scott gave her a hickey on her breast and the doctor demanded to know how she got it. "Oh," she said, "I must've bumped into something." He palpated the discolored area and told her to be more careful.

She wondered why he always put her in the stirrups and examined her "down there." Her mother explained that it was his old thoroughness. He complimented the middle child on how pretty she looked, and sometimes complained that it was unfair for so much of the world's beauty to be allotted to a single family.

The visits began to take more and more of her time. There were days when she reached the clinic at
1
:30 or 2
p.m
. and didn't get away till the office closed at 5:30. She would sit in the waiting room for ages before the nurse escorted her to the examining room and told her to strip and get on the table. An hour or so later Dr. Story would come in and ask her to scoot down so that two or three inches of her rear end protruded over the end. Then he would poke and probe.

Sometimes he interrupted himself to see another patient. When he returned, he always seemed energetic and ready for action. Sooner or later he would complain, "I can't get it in far enough," and ask if he could "dilate" her to make it easier to insert the speculum. It didn't occur to her to say no. He was the doctor.

She came to know every inch of his ceiling. A sheet was drawn tightly across her knees and kept her from seeing what he was doing. She didn't want to know anyway. As he manipulated the instrument, the pain made her sweat and turn red. When she cried out, he would complain that they just had to try harder. She knew she had a narrow canal, but he was making her feel like a freak.

She told her mother, "He sure does a lot of pelvics."

Arden said she was lucky to be getting such expert attention.

In July the high-country temperature climbed into the nineties. Minda lifted her blimpish body onto the old tractor and drove into the fields with her dad. Just working with him picked up her spirits. He seemed to be feeling better, too.

"This whole thing's taught me a lesson," he told her in his soft voice. "I thought we were a perfect family—didn't smoke, didn't drink, didn't party, worked hard, obeyed God's laws and man's. I thought we were a little bit above everybody else. But this thing made me realize we're no better or worse'n the rest." He took her hand. "It's made me reach out a little, make a few friends. Feels good, Minda. It's the best thing ever happened to me."

On a scorching day in mid-August 1976, she was driving the tractor when the baby flip-flopped in her stomach. Dr. Story took X-rays and told her that the fetus was in a breech position and wouldn't fit through her narrow canal.

A few days later she staggered the half mile home from church and told Scott, "I've got this water dripping down my legs." Soon she was in hard labor. For a while, the infant was in fetal distress, but Dr. Story's skilled hands delivered a squawling Curtis Scott Brinkerhoff by cesarean.

As soon as her stitches came out, Minda dressed the baby and took him to church alone. Scott was still refusing to attend. She passed the sacrament tray with head held high. Church made her feel good, even without the sacrament. Church was something between her and God. All those staring fools could be danged.

A veterinarian named Ed Lowe became the new ward bishop, and he called Minda to his office. "Well, what do you think?" he asked.

"I think I've been on probation long enough," she answered.

Minda could see that Scott was the bishop's real concern. The church didn't want to lose an active young leader, but Scott's pride presented a problem.

"He's hurt and angry," Minda explained. "He doesn't think this was handled right."

The bishop shuffled some papers. "Look, Minda," he said, "I'm afraid if I don't take you kids off probation, Scott will fall away completely."

Minda knew better—Scott was LDS to his boot tops—but she didn't comment. "And he's too fine a young man for us to lose,"

Bishop Lowe went on. He shoved his chair back and said, "Your probation is over."

Minda's first thought was, Wait till I tell Dad! She stuck out her hand, and the bishop shook it. Then he said, "Do you want to be married to Scott in the temple?"

She'd dreamed of a temple marriage ever since her first excursion as a child. "Oh, yes!" she said.

The bishop summoned Scott into the office and asked him if he wanted to go to the temple with Minda.

Scott looked at her and smiled. "Well, sure," he said. "Well—
yeah!"

"Come back to church. If you make yourselves worthy, I'll see that you get your Recommends."

They were married in the Idaho Falls Temple on Minda's nineteenth birthday, March 25, 1977. The relatives attended, McArthurs and Brinkerhoffs united at last. After the rites, little Curtis was carried into the sealing room, all cleansed and anointed—a cherub in white robes. The family was joined together "for time and all eternity." Minda was so happy she couldn't cry.

If there was any question about the prodigals' complete acceptance by their church, it was dispelled by one of the wedding gifts, a book called
The House of the Lord,
by James E. Talmage, which explained why Mormons built temples ("This then is sufficient answer to the question as to why the Latter-Day Saints build and maintain temples. They have been instructed and required so to do by the Lord of Hosts. . . .
Temples are a necessity").
The book was inscribed in the Lovell stake president's own handwriting, "To Minda and Scott BrinkerhofF and Curtis as they embarked on their Journey to the Celestial Kingdom."

Scott hired on at a nearby bentonite plant, shoveling the slick finegrained mineral that was mostly used as an oil-drill lubricant but also turned up in ice cream, cosmetics and medical products. He hated the job and the product. Bentonite had an extraordinary capacity to absorb water, but it also insinuated itself into the nearest available nose. The plant's informal slogan was "Bentonite builds bigger boogers." Scott swore they bounced.

Minda tried a few jobs of her own but soon became pregnant with Garret Mac (for McArthur) Brinkerhoff, delivered by Dr. Story in another C-section on January 17, 1978. This time the prenatal care was even more intensive—a pelvic per month for eight months, then one a week till she delivered. Dr. Story explained that the extra exams were necessary because of the previous cesarean, and advised her to build herself up before getting pregnant again. She began using foam.

Early in 1979, she stepped on a lag screw and rushed to the clinic. As always, Dr. Story asked about her sex life. "It's fine," she said. "Just fine."

He gave her a tetanus shot and told her to come back the next day to make sure there was no infection. On her return, he remarked that she hadn't had a thorough examination in a year and a half and that he needed to see how her last C-section was healing. "Do you have time for a pelvic?" he asked.

She dutifully took off her clothes, climbed on his automatic table, and lifted her feet to the stirrups. He stepped on a pedal and the table whirred and groaned as it raised her head a few degrees and lowered her bottom half. He kneaded her breasts, the customary first step in his exams, then began his finger work, first one and then two, occasionally asking if it hurt. She confirmed that it did.

After a while, he said, "Minda, maybe if you help guide it in, it would be better. I can feel you're really tight."

She thought, I'm not gonna help him hurt me. What makes him think I can guide the instrument any better than he can? "No, Dr. Story," she gasped. "I don't think I can get it in any easier."

He stepped to the side of the table. Something warm slipped between the fingers of her hand. At first she thought it was the medical instrument and jerked her hand to her mouth, coughing nonchalantly so he wouldn't think she was offended.

My word, she said to herself, that's a penis! Nothing else felt like a penis; she'd known that since age seven.

Then something poked against her bare thigh. It felt like his belt buckle, but it wasn't cold. He stepped back from the table and told her the exam was over.

As she was getting up, he said, "Did you know you're two months pregnant?"

On her way home, she was more upset about the poke in her side than the failure of her birth-control foam. Was the Uncle Bob craziness starting all over again? Was it some kind of bad karma, some unknown signal she emitted? No, she thought, it can't be. Not Dr. Story.

After a discussion with her mother, Minda was sure that she'd misunderstood. You dum-dum, she berated herself, why would you even
think
a filthy thing like that. Come on, Minda, ya know? Are you sick or what?
You're really sick. . . .

Six months later, when the baby was almost due, she went through the same experience and again jerked her hand away.

When she got home, her mom was serving dinner. Minda went upstairs to her parents' king-size bed and lay there shaking. My land, she said to herself, once was bad enough.

Arden came in and said, "How'd it go?"

"Just fine," Minda said, and murmured, "Oh, yeah, just fine."

"You can't lie to me. I know there's something wrong."

"Nothing's wrong!" Minda said, and started to cry.

Arden climbed into bed and held her daughter tight. Minda flashed on the silliness of the scene—I'm an adult, this is my third child, my mother's comforting me like a baby, and she wants to know what's wrong. When does the middle kid grow up?

At last she managed to say, "I think I felt Dr. Story's penis today, during the pelvic exam."

Her mother pulled away and said, "Oh, for heaven's sakes, you did not. No way. I don't know why you would think that." She didn't seem flustered, just a reasonable woman stating obvious facts. Minda wished she were like her mother—always so
sure.

Arden was saying, "Nothing like that would ever happen. Dr. Story loves us. We trust him with our lives. He's good, kind, gentle, caring."

"Mom, I know what a penis feels like."

"Honey, you're just blue. Get some rest. When you wake up, you'll feel better. Criminy, he's the only doctor you've ever had! He loves you. He'd never do anything to hurt you. Why would he do a thing like that?"

"Well, I don't know why," Minda said. "I think I felt it once before. But I convinced myself it wasn't."

"Of
course
it wasn't! It could've been an instrument. It could've been . . . anything."

"But Mom—"

Arden hugged her and said, "You're not feeling well. You want this pregnancy to be over with, and you're just a little bit distraught. You need to relax."

Minda thought, She's probably right. Mom knows him better than any of us.

She'd already taken one of the Darvon samples he'd given her at the clinic. She thought, Maybe it went to my brain. She began to feel better, knowing how much her mother loved her. It was so reassuring that her mom had simply corrected her instead of ridiculing or laughing. After a while she dozed off.

Two weeks later, Scott drove her up the hill to deliver. It didn't feel as though her time had come, but Dr. Story had booked the delivery room. She wondered, What makes him so sure of the date? He's never been that sure before. Suppose my baby isn't ready?

They wheeled her into the delivery room and put her under for her third cesarean. The scalpel cut into her old scar and she doubled up. She heard him say, "Give her some more."

Nurses grabbed her legs and tried to straighten her body, but she couldn't help resisting. "Give her
more,"
Story ordered in his soft voice. The anesthetist shot her again and again—five times in all— and she could still feel the doctor's hand inside her body. She thought of the Prophet Joseph Smith lying in the grove of trees, unable to open his eyes.

She lost track, then heard Dr. Story say, "The baby's not breathing. There's something in her lungs. She's either swallowed liquid or she has a wet lung."

Minda thought, I'm gonna lose my first little girl!

Dr. Story said, "We've got to take the baby to Billings. I wish Minda would wake up."

She tried, but she couldn't move or open her eyes.

After a while she felt a tap on her shoulder and heard Dr. Story say, "Scott, we've really got to get Minda waked up. That baby has to go to Billings. I want Minda to see her in case she doesn't make it."