Girl of Rage (12 page)

Jessica sat down on the low stone wall that edged the parking lot. She pulled her legs up close and wrapped her arms around them, then lowered her face so she was resting it against her knees.

Adelina wanted to weep at the sight. She’d spent so many years trying to protect herself and her daughters, and she’d failed them one by one. Every single one of her daughters.

Slowly, she opened the van door and stood. Jessica’s shoulders were shaking. A pit of anxiety in her stomach, Adelina walked to her daughter and sat on the wall next to her.

Without raising her face from her knees, Jessica said, “Either I believe you and lose my father, or I assume you’re crazy, and I’m stuck in a car with a crazy person.”

Adelina slowly nodded her head and picked at her fingertips, knowing that Jessica’s accusations were deserved.

“Father was the only normality we had, you know. Carrie used to sneak us out of the house and take us to the zoo or the park or the pool or the movies or anywhere she could think of, just to get us out of your way. Because you were crazy. You were always screaming or crying or falling apart.”

Adelina closed her eyes. Then she whispered, “It’s true. Carrie was your mom because I couldn’t be.”

“Yeah, but who took care of her? Who took care of
Julia?
”

“I think maybe God protected them,” Adelina said. “I couldn’t. You’re right. I was literally out of my mind with fear. All the time. I’m so sorry, Jessica. I’m sorry I failed you.”

Jessica choked a sob. “Are you kidding me?” she spit out. “You’re
sorry?
Do you know what it’s like to not be able to bring your friends home because you think your mother might be having a freak out? Do you know what it’s like to grow up in a house where everyone goes from cold to hateful in just a second?”

Adelina took Jessica’s hands in hers. She looked her daughter in the eyes and whispered, “If I could take it all back, I would. If I could make it better, I would.”

Jessica’s eyes welled up, and tears began to run down her face. “Mama,” she whispered, reaching out.

Adelina pulled her daughter close. Jessica began to cry. First a thin, reedy cry, but soon she was wailing in great open-throated sobs, her shoulders shaking, her face buried in her mother’s shoulder. Adelina knew it wasn’t just this revelation she was crying for. She was crying for her lost love. She was crying for her twin, still recovering from an accident thousands of miles away. She was crying for all of the lost moments, the isolation and the quiet cold in their home. She was crying for the father she was losing, the father she’d never had.

Adelina. February 12, 1984

The alarm blared in a grating, angry tone, startling Adelina awake. She rolled over, groggy. She’d been awakened twice the night before by a dream of choking. More specifically, it was a dream that Richard was choking her.

It wasn’t the first time, not by any means. But she hadn’t had the dream in some time. Partly, she thought, because he’d made no physical demands of her since their first night in Bethesda.

That night, he’d been insistent. He’d arrived home from Pakistan and made arrangements to purchase a brand new condominium in Bethesda, Maryland, right around the corner from the Metro station that was under construction.

“The location will be really valuable once the station is opened,” he’d said, droning mindlessly about matters she’d cared little about.

She didn’t care how his real estate investments did. She didn’t care how his career did. She hated him and how he’d destroyed her life.

Her disinterest had antagonized him, and he’d forced himself on her that first night back, then not allowed her to leave the room, even when Julia’s cries from down the hall indicated their daughter had wet her diaper.

Adelina thanked God she’d not had to deal with it since then. And that he hadn’t managed to impregnate her that night.

After that night, they’d fallen into an uneasy truce. She promised to handle their social engagements flawlessly. He promised not to hurt her.

It was no way to live, and she needed to find a better answer.

That morning, though, she knew exactly why the dream had come. Normally, the dream was formless, and it always started the same way—Adelina, in the practice hall of the National Youth Orchestra. Richard walked in, always in the black jeans and black t-shirt he’d worn the day he raped her the first time. Smiling. Menacing.

Last night, the dream had been different. Because
he
had been there. The smiling twenty-one-year-old Prince George-Phillip.

You’re a charming woman, Adelina,
he’d said.

You’re too kind,
she had whispered.

Every time his eyes grazed over her, she felt herself flush. It wasn’t that she hadn’t felt desired before. After all,
Richard
had desired her. But it was different. George-Phillip was kind. He’d been interested in what she had to say about the Youth Orchestra and her opinions of international politics, which she’d spent considerable time studying in the last year. His expressive face and animated eyebrows demonstrated how closely he was paying attention to what she said. Adelina might have had to drop out of school, but she was a very intelligent woman. No more than five minutes into their conversation, George-Phillip and Colonel Rainsley both realized that. The conversation had naturally shifted, mostly to the circumstances of Colonel Rainsley’s run for the Senate.

“The problem wasn’t that the orders were badly thought out,” Rainsley had said. “The problem was no one in the White House
cared enough
to think through the implications of putting us there with rules of engagement that wouldn’t allow us to defend ourselves. Do you know that was the deadliest day for the Marine Corps since Iwo Jima? And here’s the thing—the White House couldn’t even decide on a response. Too much political infighting, so we pulled our guys out, used a battleship to bomb the crap out of the wrong people and left it at that. Every single one of those young lives was
wasted.
”

Of course the discussion had circled around politics and international affairs. Richard was a Foreign Service officer, and their guests included people who weren’t high government officials yet, but likely would be one day.

Adelina found herself staying careful. Periodically Richard’s eyes wandered to her, and it was important to maintain the pretense that she was entertaining their guests solely for his purposes.

In fact, she’d found herself more and more drawn in by George-Phillip. Rainsley, initially, was dismissive of George-Phillip’s opinion of anything military. That lasted right up until George-Phillip described the British recapture of the Falkland Islands almost two years before.

“You were part of the landing force?” Rainsley asked, disbelief on his face. “You’re too young.”

“I was nineteen at the time, sir. After my father passed, I served a two year tour with the 5
^th
Infantry Brigade.”

“Under General Moore?”

“Yes, sir, you know him?”

“I do, I was briefly assigned as Liaison to Royal College of Defense Studies in ’77. General Moore was assigned there at the time.”

Adelina watched George-Phillip, intrigued. At first she’d taken him as a fop. Royal, perhaps, but a fop. But apparently he had enough substance that he’d volunteered to serve in an infantry regiment and fought in the Falklands War, when he could have just as easily sat at home spending his inherited wealth.

Colonel Rainsley had turned his attention from George-Phillip to Adelina. “We should turn the conversation to other topics,” he said, “so we don’t bore Adelina.”

At the opposite end of the table, Leslie Collins and Richard were leaning close to each other, nearly whispering. Prince Roshan seemed equally involved in whatever they were discussing, which left Brianna Rainsley and Myriam Roshan stewing in the two middle seats of the table.

“No need to worry about boring me, Colonel, I’m quite interested in the topic. Unless Brianna or Myriam would prefer we discussed something else?”

George-Phillip gave Adelina a warm look, a slight twinkle in his eye, one side of his mouth slightly upturned. Adelina felt a deep sense of satisfaction at Rainsley’s clear look of discomfort.

Myriam Roshan took the opportunity to ask Rainsley a question about his experience in Beirut and to lament the damage caused by the civil war, and the conversation moved on.

That night, Adelina dreamt of George-Phillip. Dreams that slowly turned back to the familiar scene, dreams that ended the same way they always did. With Richard’s hands around her throat.

Her eyes had popped open and she sat up instinctively, terror clogging her throat, her heart thumping in her chest. It was four in the morning when she awoke from the dream, and it took her a long time to get back to sleep. She got up and got a glass of water, then went back to her room and lay down alone. With the door locked behind her. When the alarm woke her at six am, she felt strung out. Exhausted.

All the same, she dragged herself out of bed. She didn’t expect to see much of Richard, but Sunday mornings she attended Mass at the Saint Jane Frances de Chantal Catholic Church on Old Georgetown Road. Services. Communion. But since her arrival in the United States, she’d not attended confession. Maybe soon, she thought. She’d been telling herself that ever since the day almost exactly three years before when Richard had walked into her father’s shop. The day of the coup. The day he raped her.

Adelina left her room cautiously, as always. She didn’t know if Richard was home—he often wasn’t—but she didn’t want to take the chance. Julia would be awake any moment. Adelina wanted at least a few moments before she was. She walked down the hall, passing Richard’s closed door on her way to the kitchen. At first he’d balked at the idea of separate rooms, but he’d finally given in, with the admonition that she was to never tell anyone.

People will think we don’t love each other. Married couples don’t sleep in separate rooms.

We don’t love each other,
she’d replied.
No amount of lies will change that.

He’d snarled at her and she’d walked away, knowing that antagonizing him any further was a bad idea.

The coffee pot—a new one, with a built in clock—was already on with a fresh pot.

Thank God.
She poured herself a cup, generously adding cream and sugar, and walked toward the sliding glass doors and the balcony. She passed the mantel, with its bizarre decorations, including a gigantic brass head he claimed to have bought in Indonesia. It was heavy. One day she wanted to use it to smash in
his
head.

She slid open the sliding glass door and slipped into one of the cast iron seats at the table overlooking Bethesda, Maryland, and in the distance, Washington, DC. She left the door cracked—Julia would be awake soon. This was the one compensation for living here instead of San Francisco—or, for that matter, Madrid or Calella, or anywhere else on earth without Richard. She loved the view from this balcony, she loved sitting out here and drinking her coffee and relaxing. She rarely had moments of unguarded relaxation. Very rarely. She closed her eyes and leaned her head forward and whispered a prayer.

“Mummy?”

Adelina swallowed and opened her eyes.

Julia had awakened and was standing at the sliding glass door. Her brown hair was tousled, curling around her head, framing green eyes that looked alarmingly similar to Richard’s. She wore a blue nightdress with white flowers.

Adelina smiled and stood, then slid the door open slightly.

“Come here, baby,” she said. She sat down, and Julia scrambled up into her lap and stretched her arms around her.

Adelina stiffened for a moment, then fought that down and hugged her daughter back, cursing herself. It wasn’t Julia’s fault Richard had … it just wasn’t her fault. But all the same, every time, she had to fight back the initial reaction. She had to fight against her instinct to shy away, her instinct to not be touched, ever.

“I love you, baby,” she whispered in Julia’s ears. But she wondered if her daughter would someday wonder why Adelina recoiled against touch. She sat there, holding her arms around that precious baby, and promised herself that no matter what else happened, she’d take care of that little girl.

“I love you, Mummy,” Julia said.

The phone inside rang. Adelina felt a flash of irritation as she stood up to go get it, swinging Julia around to rest on her hip. Was it the babysitter again? She was late last Sunday, and Adelina ended up being late for Mass, which was yet another sore point with Richard, because he’d insisted Julia be brought up as Protestant. Not that he would make arrangements for Julia to have any other religious instruction. Nor could he be bothered to take any interest in his daughter in any other way.

You’re not even religious!
Adelina had shouted.
You’re only doing this to spite me!

She’d lost that battle, and Adelina had learned long since that she simply
couldn’t
win all of them. But she would teach her daughter in private, no matter what he said.

Adelina reached the phone and picked it up.

“Hello?” As she answered the phone, Julia began to squirm in her arms. Adelina held on tightly.

“Mrs. Thompson? It’s Marcy Whitsun. I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to make it on time this morning.”

“That’s fine,” Adelina snapped. “Don’t bother. Don’t bother coming back at all.”

“Miss Thompson? Wait, it’s just that—”

“I don’t really care what it is. You’ve worked for me for three weeks, and this is the second time you’ve called to say you’re late or not coming on Sunday morning.” Julia began to kick in her arms, but Adelina held on. She continued speaking into the phone. “I have limited patience. You’ve reached the end of mine.”

She slammed down the phone, hard. Unbidden tears sprang to her eyes. The only thing that tethered her to reality was going to Mass. That was all she had. She
needed
to go. She needed the time.