The Girl Before (21 page)

“Anyway, I took off. I don't know what happened to either of them. They didn't come looking for me. I was on the street for a few weeks when I ran into a crew led by a guy named Brady. Brady took me in, gave me food. Even better, he gave me drugs. All the drugs I wanted. I was high for weeks. When I finally came down, it was hell. I begged the guy for more, and he told me that I had to earn it and pay him back for what I'd already used. And I was more than willing. I started sleeping with guys we knew, others in the crew, who would score me drugs.
Soon, though, Brady started bringing guys back who we didn't know. Or he would hand me a paper with hotel information on it and I would go there. As long as I was high, I didn't care. I got beat up more than once.”

Erin relates all of this without emotion. Just the facts. I am not as drawn in by it as I had been by Mallory's story. It sounds like Erin deserved what she got. At least she had a home. She chose to leave. The street and drugs weren't her only option.

“What changed?” Heather asks. “You are also different in that you came for help yourself. You didn't wait to be rescued.”

“Damn, girl, if I'd waited to be rescued, I'd still be sleeping with ten losers a night. No, I walked into a shelter one day for a meal. Brady usually provided food, but he was out on some errand and I was hungry. There were these people sitting with the homeless bums, just talking to them, listening to them. I sat near a guy and he was talking about his family, how disappointed they'd be with where he was. The lady listening to him asked what he would say if he could see them again. I don't remember his answer, but it got me thinking. What if someone cared that much about me? What if I had a family I cared about? Brady only cared about the money I brought in. I really only cared about the drugs. I walked up to one of the volunteers and asked for help. That was a year ago. I'd been doing it for three years.”

A year? She looks so young. I do the math. She's probably only sixteen or so. Almost Passion's age. I feel sick as I imagine Passion doing drugs and having sex with strange men in seedy hotels. I would never let that happen. I saved her from that sort of future. I wonder if that's what will happen if they don't find a place for her to stay. I make a mental note to ask Connor about her again.

I am overwhelmed with sadness as Macy's face fills my mind. She was this girl's age when she was moved to the brothel. Sure, the brothel was better than the streets, but it still hurts my heart to think about her. It takes everything in me to move her out of my mind again.

Heather is asking Erin more questions. “Where do you live now, Erin?”

“Group home,” Erin says, shrugging. “I'm a little old, but they're hoping to find a foster family to take me in. For now, I'm just attending these sessions and hoping to feel normal again someday. Or normal for the first time.”

“What is normal?” Heather asks.

“Normal is . . . going to high school. Having friends. Not being beat up for making a mistake.”

I cannot help it. I snort. I cover my mouth, but not quickly enough. Heather looks at me. “Did you have something to add, Clara?”

“No, ma'am.”

Erin is watching me. “You think that's funny? To want to be normal?”

“Not at all.” I shake my head. “But it's normal to expect a smack or two if you mess up. How else will you learn?”

They're all looking at me like I've grown a second head. Why am I the one needing this group when they all appear to be delusional?

“So being hit is normal?” Heather's voice holds no judgment, only curiosity.

“Well, yeah, if you deserve it. I mean, Glen would hit me if I spoke out of turn, but it didn't mean he didn't love me. Really, that's how he showed he loved me.”

The looks change from disbelief to pity. I see the shift, and I feel it in the air. Even Erin, who had been scowling at me, now looks at me as if I am the child and she is the adult.

“Listen to me, Clara, and please believe me when I say I mean no disrespect,” Heather begins, choosing her words carefully. “Being hit is not normal. Even when the person loves you. It's not okay. Healthy relationships do not include physical violence.”

Her words are met with nods around the circle. Erin speaks up.
“I thought it was normal when I was little. But when I started going to friends' houses, when I saw that their dads weren't drunks and didn't hit their moms . . . that's when I started to get angry.”

I don't know how to react. An angry denial is on the tip of my tongue, but I have no examples of other families to give them. I grew up in a home where we were disciplined by pain. It's all I know. It was always that way. So how can it be wrong?

Heather turns the attention back to Erin and her journey, but I hear little of anything else the rest of the hour. I don't even realize when Heather dismisses the group until she comes and takes the chair Tori vacated.

“Clara, thank you for speaking up today.”

“Nobody agreed with me.”

Heather shakes her head. “No, but that's why we have this group. It's for discussion.”

I rub my forehead. “Is what I said wrong?”

“What you know is what you know. What we are exploring is whether what you know to be true is healthy or not, if it is helpful or not. What these girls have been learning is that not everything they have done is normal, that things that were done to them are not okay, and that none of those things take away from their value as a person. It helps to have the support of others on the journey.”

“I don't think I belong here,” I whisper.

Heather doesn't respond for a moment. “That's all the more reason that I believe you do.” She pats my knee and stands to leave. I watch her go, still lost in my thoughts. Connor pokes his head in the room.

“Shutting the place down, I see,” he says, smiling at me. The smile fades as he sees my face. “Everything okay, Clara?”

I shake my head. “Connor?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you married?”

He chuckles. “No.”

“Girlfriend?”

“Yeah.”

I purse my lips. “When she makes you mad, do you hit her? You know, just to make sure she knows not to do it again?”

Connor's horrified look is my answer. “Of course not, Clara. Sure, she makes me angry sometimes, but I make her angry, too. We maybe yell a little, but then we talk about it. I've never laid a hand on a woman in anger.”

“How about guys?”

His face stays serious, though his mouth quirks up at my question. “I've gotten into a fight or two. Not for many years, though.”

“Do you buy your girlfriend presents?”

“Sometimes, yes.”

“Why?”

Connor ponders the question. “Because I love her. Because she deserves to feel special.”

“As an apology?”

“Rarely. I don't like the idea that things can be made better with gifts. Real healing comes from straight talking and real apologies, not trinkets.”

I nod, still thinking. It is as if my brain is shifting, trying to make sense of the information. It seems obvious to the others that being hit is not normal. Everyone out here can't be doing it wrong, can they? But Glen is so ingrained in me, I am having a hard time wrapping my mind around a relationship where love is not mixed with fear, pleasure with pain.

“Do you need to talk to Dr. Mulligan?” Connor asks. “You're not scheduled until tomorrow, but I can call . . .”

“No.” I need to mull this over myself. “I just need to sleep, I think. The baby is taking a lot out of me today.” It is an excuse, but I do feel
more drained than normal. My hand goes to my stomach, and I pray that Nut is safe and happy in there, even while the rest of me is a riot of emotions.

Connor is not convinced, but he takes me back to my room anyway. Sleep does not come easily, and my dreams are fraught with needles and panic and screaming.

I roll over, reaching for Glen, but his side of the bed is empty. I sit up, confused. It is still dark, and the clock tells me it is hours until dawn. I don't bother with a robe as I tiptoe out of the room. It is our first night in our beautiful new house, and in the hallway enough moonlight streams in that I do not need to turn on a lamp. Piles of boxes are illuminated in every direction. I skirt them and peek into the girls' room. Soon the other rooms will be full as well, but for now, just four of the small beds are occupied. Passion has claimed the bed closest to the door, her normally fierce expression softened in sleep.

Downstairs, a slice of light shoots from the door to the study, which is cracked open. I tap the pads of my fingers across the smooth wood, and I hear Glen shift in his chair. “Clara?”

I push open the door, revealing a large room filled with more boxes. Glen has purchased a giant desk to fill the space, and he is seated in the plush chair behind it. Papers are strewn across the desk in front of him, and several of the boxes have been haphazardly opened.

“I woke up and you were gone.” I take a few steps into the room, not wanting to interrupt if he is busy.

“I wanted to find some correspondence my father left,” Glen says, watching me, but not really seeing me. His eyes are far away. It has
been a year, but his father's death still eats at him. Their last conversation was not a happy one. I don't know the details, but Glen carries the guilt like an iron blanket.

Instead of asking more questions, I nod. I don't want to push my luck. Though Glen has been in a better mood since we bought the house and the land, he has been much angrier in general for the past year, quick to explode, quick to punish.

“Joel and the boys are patrolling. We begin recruiting next week.”

Another nod. Glen doesn't always share that part of the business with me. I do not want to break the spell.

“Soon we'll be back at the size we were when . . .” Glen trails off, but I know where his mind is. Back when Papa almost lost everything. Back when we had to abandon the compound where I grew up. Back when Glen was learning the ropes and ended up having to learn the hard way.

I walk a few steps closer, around the desk, daring to enter his space uninvited. “Papa would be proud, Glen.” I keep my face smooth, but my heart is pounding, in fear or excitement I am not sure.

Glen reaches for me, clasping my hips and pulling me closer. A wry smile crosses his face. “He would tell me it was about time I figured this shit out.” He buries his face in my stomach, his breath hot through the thin fabric of my nightgown. His arms come around me and he pulls me closer, urging me down until I am straddling his lap. He pillows his head on the soft curve of my breast, and I run my fingers through his sleep-tousled hair.

We sit like that until the sun comes up. There is nothing sexual about it. I give him comfort, as I always have and always will.

“I understand you had a difficult group yesterday.” I am in Dr. Mulligan's office. My eyes are gritty from lack of sleep, and I am lying on the couch, curled up, staring at the diplomas on the wall.

“I guess.”

“Want to tell me about it?”

“Not really.” I know better than to hope that she will leave it alone.

“It might help.”

“How would it help?” I ask. “How could you possibly help me? You have no idea what I'm going through.”

“I might if you would tell me.”

“Even if I tell you, you don't
know
. You can't know. My life is nothing like yours.” I'm not really angry with Dr. Mulligan. I'm angry with myself. For being so unsure. For doubting. For disrespecting everything I have been taught in my life by questioning it.

Dr. Mulligan purses her lips. “Sometimes just saying out loud what's on your mind can help you process it. I may not know your life, but I am an excellent sounding board.”

It gets really annoying when Dr. Mulligan makes sense. She raises an eyebrow, and I release a sigh.

“I don't feel like I'm normal.”

Dr. Mulligan laughs, but it is not unkind. “What is normal, Clara?”

I shrug. That is the question that kept me up all night. “I'm starting to think . . . I'm starting to wonder . . . What if how I lived my entire life was not how I was meant to live?”

“What do you mean?”

I sit up, wringing my hands as I try to piece together my thoughts
into coherent statements. “For so long I've been focused on the idea that love makes everything better. But yesterday in group, they told me that being hit for making mistakes is wrong. But that's all I've ever known. So how can my normal not be normal? If it is what has always been, isn't that normal? And how can that be wrong?” I have no idea if I am making any sense, but Dr. Mulligan nods.

“There are a lot of things in your past that many people would not consider normal, Clara. I spoke with Heather a bit, and she said that she told you how to identify whether things are healthy or unhealthy, whether they are considered normal or not.”

“Yeah, I remember her saying something about that.”

“So tell me. When Glen hit you, did that make you feel better or worse?”

I make a face. What kind of question is this? “Well, it didn't feel good. But it was for my own good.”

“Explain that to me.”

“It happened mostly when I was being nosy or questioning Glen.”

“Can you give me an example?” Dr. Mulligan's face remains neutral, though this is the most I have talked in any of our sessions about my relationship with Glen.

“Like when I asked him how long he would be gone on a business trip. I was upset that he would be gone over our anniversary, and he reminded me that the job comes first. I got a little hysterical and he had to hit me to help me calm down.”

Dr. Mulligan's lips tighten. “So when you expressed emotions he didn't like, he would hit you?”