The Prison Inside Me (9 page)

Both had lots of friends, with great pajama parties as they were growing up, using the camp’s small dormitory for their friends when it wasn’t being used for campers. Both also became very skilled at boating and swimming, although neither attended any of the week-long sessions at Recovery Camp. They were sent to another sleep-away camp far from Trout Lake during the summers when their parents had very little time for them.

George reduced his private afternoon tutoring while their children were growing up so that he could spend more time with them. He continued with the successful college prep math courses and the weekend camping, but not on holiday weekends, so at those times the family could be together. Both sets of grandparents doted on their grandchildren, lending an even more stable and encouraging atmosphere to the benefit of both Carolina and Trey.

Caroline was admitted to an Ivy League college, followed a few years later by Trey. Caroline married two years after graduation and had Susan and George’s first grandchild a few years later, followed by another. Trey graduated in engineering and took a job with an engineering consulting firm in another state.

Both were now out of the house, leaving their parents to their professional work. George again picked up some late-afternoon tutoring after his classes at the college had ended. Recovery Camp was now out of debt and beautifully maintained, with an excess of camper applicants far beyond the camp’s ability to accommodate. The Nicholses were now wealthy, each driving an expensive luxury car, traveling to Europe and Asia for tours. Life was very complete.

When George turned sixty, they sat down one evening over their lifelong martinis and discussed where they were going. “It’s time to get out,” George said. “We’ve made more money than we need. We’ve established trust funds to educate Caroline’s two and, when Trey marries, his children as well. We have all we need. I find myself tiring at the end of the day as I never did before.”

“So,” Susan interjected, “just walk away?”

“No need to,” he answered. “I didn’t tell you, but a week ago the owners of a summer camp conglomerate approached me to buy our business. They want me to stay on for a year, but then they want to take it over. I’m not wild about working for someone else for the year, but at what they are offering, I don’t see how I can refuse. It’s time, anyway, to retire from the college and make way for someone who is closer than I am to these young kids. You know I’ve been eligible for retirement for almost five years. It’s time. I can stay and teach an adult class a couple of nights a week so I don’t get bored. I’ll give up the college prep classes, too. The challenge of bringing math to life for adults intrigues me—something new. What do you say?”

“George, what are you going to do without all those young boys to tutor?”

“I’ve gotten too old for that, and for a lot of other things, too. Life is too short to do nothing but work from dawn to late night. It’s time to rest, to have a little fun, and to have a little bit, but not all day, of a professional challenge.”

“OK, my love, if you do it, so will I. I’ll tell the CPS board that I’m also on the way out, staying behind to help anyone they choose to take my place and to continue to assist with fundraising. We have a deal, a new life, where people will leave us alone!”

The deal with the camp conglomerate closed three months later. Susan retired but went into the office three times a week, also speaking at luncheons to raise money for CPS. They continued to live in the lodge and run the camp, but now the finances were in the hands of the new owners. George was paid a small stipend for his yearlong work, but the rental of their living quarters was deducted from it. They started looking for a suitable new home. They found it at 2456 Andrews. At the end of the year, they moved into their new home and a new, more relaxed, but soon to be more challenging, life together.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I
t was just as the session ended. One of the students, Mark West, came up the desk as George was cleaning the whiteboard. “Mr. Nichols, do you have a moment for me?”

It was almost 11:00 p.m. when the three-hour session finished. George was tired. He longed to go back to the other end of the house and get some sleep before the early morning wakeup to get to his classes at the community college on time. He turned from the board to look at Mark, who was a fairly good student, not one of the best, but always interested and alert.

“Yes, Mark, what’s on your mind?” George fixed him with his gaze, and as Mark stared back, George could tell that what Mark was about to say would have nothing to do with mathematics. “But, first, let me ask you why you seem to me, very frequently, to be staring at me during class rather than at the work I am writing on the board.”

“Mr. Nichols, I have always admired you. You have brought something to my life that I have sought, that I have a deep need for. I sense you know my feelings for you. We are of the same type. We both have the same needs. I think you have helped me a lot with my math. I think you can help me in lots of other ways, too. I feel we are kindred spirits and that I can help you, too. We have no reason to feel ashamed of what we are. We should support each other.” During this time, Mark never took his eyes off George’s face. George continued to stare right back, trying his best not to betray any emotion, approval, or disapproval.

Mark was a senior in high school. George had only known him through the evening course in which he had been enrolled for these past two months, only twice a week. In the middle of each session, there was a ten-minute break. George had noticed how the others, some male, some female, would get up, stretch, talk to each other, gossip, laugh, compare notes, or even discuss something on the whiteboard. George discouraged contact with students during this break, using the time to put additional work on the board or prepare a slide for the overhead projector. However, he noticed that Mark was a loner. He would remain in his seat. Rarely, if ever, did anyone come over to speak to him. He would either review some work in his seat, or, as George noted from time to time, just stare at him. He thought little of Mark’s separation from the others.
I’m here to teach math, not to adjust kids to the realities of social interaction.

Now the situation was different. He was alone in the room with Mark. The others had left. Mark was making an approach. George was overcome with a feeling of discomfort. He thought of himself as an enabler of adult student achievement in mathematics, perhaps extending to similar benefits in each one’s self-image. How was he to respond to this needy young man without harming him, yet keep him interested in achieving something in his ability in math, at least to get acceptable results in the examination he was preparing for?

“Mark, you are a great kid,” George began. “I think you are going to do just great in the college entrance exam next semester. You show ability to concentrate, to reason, and to stay calm when faced by frustration of things you don’t know yet. You are admirably ‘test wise.’ The way you have been so open in speaking to me just now shows that you have the stuff of which successful people are made.

“But, Mark, you may have miscalculated who I am and what my needs are. I am a married man with a wife to support and, I hope, soon a family as well.” George looked for some sign of recognition, perhaps some disappointed rejection in the boy’s eyes. There was nothing but the continuous, expectant stare, as if Mark were hoping that something George could say would bring comfort and acceptance of the needs unreflected in his unsmiling face.

With the boy’s continued silence, George felt he had to continue. “There is nothing either one of us has to be ashamed about. We are who we are. We were created this way. I suppose there is nothing either of us can do about the way we are. I bring mathematics to life. It’s a gift I have been given. I enjoy that gift. I am sure you have other gifts of which you can be proud.”

Again, the boy continued only to stare at George, as if hoping for some sign as a go-ahead to his offer.

Am I going to stand here all night and hint around the unhintable?
thought George.
Better come out directly and see what happens.
The word “gay” had just come into common usage, replacing others that had a pejorative, demeaning tenor.

“Mark, I don’t know what you saw in me. I am not gay. I regret that you may have interpreted something I did or said to make you feel that way. Now, I don’t think there is anything wrong with anyone’s choice of lifestyle. To each his own. It’s not my place to judge anyone in any matter or manner, except as they do their math.” George smiled at these last words in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere. There was still no reaction from Mark, other than that continuous stare.

George began to feel badly for his student.
Why did I say that?
he thought.
The kid needs something, and I’m not making things better for him. Poor thing, he doesn’t know what to say. I know that feeling. I’ve had that feeling. I still have it. Dad hit me for it. I almost went to jail for it. I can’t even discuss it with anyone, not even that psychologist at Demotte. Not even with Susan. And it goes on. How can I help this kid? He’s too old for me. He wants a permanent relationship. I have one, and that’s enough.
As George continued to stare at him, he thought,
Why aren’t you eight years old? A pity that eight-year-olds don’t just come right out and talk like that. I have to groom them, sometimes for months. Here is a kid offering to give it away without impediment! I have to sense it, and I do. Ha, I have to be right all the time, too, or else I’m back in a courtroom, and all this—the lodge and Recovery Camp—comes down like a house of cards. I’ve got to finish this and get to bed. How?

Minutes passed in silence, neither lowering his stare, neither speaking, as if expecting the other to find the exit from the situation.
I’d better reassure him,
George said to himself.

“Mark,” he said, in as kindly, supportive, and fatherly a tone as he could muster, similar to the one he used on his young boys with whom he fostered a close but very transitory relationship, “it’s perfectly all right to feel the way you do. Ignore what others think. Do your own thing. It will work out, and no one will think any the less of you for it. I am sorry that I can’t be of help to you, other than in math, where you are now doing so well. You are still my student, and I will support you when you need me. I hope that’s OK with you.”
Come on, Mark, answer. It’s your turn.

Mark said nothing. His unmoved stare, completely uninterpretable to George, continued as before. George gave one more try to help.

“Mark, don’t worry. What we have discussed here will go no further. If anyone asks, you stayed to get help. Anyone will think it’s in math. Whatever you don’t wish mentioned won’t be, certainly not by me. Now, I have to lock up.” He smiled. “We both have to get to school tomorrow! Life goes on!”

Mark said nothing. He turned, shoulders slightly slumped, said “Good night, and thanks” with his back turned, and walked out of the classroom.

George thought,
There but for the grace of God. What have I done to have brought that out of him? Am I that transparent? Who else sees me for who I am?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

T
rey called Susan the week before he came back to Trout Lake on business. He would be flying in early morning for a meeting with a potential contractor on a construction job that the engineering company he worked for was intending to bid on. He could steal an hour away for lunch with her, or they could wait for a longer visit over the next three-day holiday weekend. Susan jumped at the chance to have lunch with her youngest, her only son.

She had made an appointment to return to the offices of Child Protective Services after lunch to meet with the new supervisor about a case in which Susan had been involved several years before. After lunch with Trey, she called CPS to inform them that she couldn’t make the appointment; she had an upset stomach but would call back the next day to establish another time at their convenience.

She drove home, so completely distracted that she forgot to make several turns. She sat in her bedroom, looking at herself in her vanity mirror.
It’s come to this; finally it’s over. How else was it going to end? What was I thinking? How could I have deceived myself all these years? Ha, just me?
She smiled—she knew she was really deceiving the whole world.

She looked at the saddened, lined face in the mirror, eyes reddened by tears she fought hard to contain.

George must not see me like this when he gets home. What have I done? Did I ever love him? He gave me a good life; he was an ardent lover; he never betrayed me.
Again the smile smoothed out the lines in her face through a single tear that slowly ran down her cheek.
Ha, at least not with other women. And he was great with Caroline, and even with Trey. Or so I thought.
She moved over to their bed, lay down staring at an empty ceiling, and closed her eyes.
Maybe it will all go away; maybe he’ll be killed in an accident on the way home. What am I going to do?
She looked over at the night table on George’s side of the bed.
The pistol is in there. One squeeze and all the problems are solved. At least, all my problems.

She drifted off to a fitful nap. She was up a few moments later.
Maybe a cup of tea will clear me up.
She went downstairs to the kitchen to heat the kettle. She looked at the clock. It was five in the afternoon. George wouldn’t be home for at least four hours from his evening adult education courses at the community college, his last efforts to bring math alive to adults. As she sat and finished her tea, wild thoughts ran through her head.

Maybe Trey was lying. Maybe it never happened. Should I bring Caroline into this? She has so much on her plate with her two kids. What can she contribute? Who can I talk to about this? Talk to? You’ve burned all your bridges behind you. You’ve lived in this secret world with only one other person in it, George. Talk to George? Are you crazy? Forget it. It will go away. Trey will go on. So what if he’s been involved? It’s too late to do anything about it.

It has to stop. That’s all, over, finished, finito, done, no more. Divorce? Maybe that’s an out, after all these years. What do I tell a lawyer? My God, when you’re into this thing, there is no one to be trusted, not even your own kids! I’m alone, and now I’m naked, about to be exposed to everyone I care for, all my friends. I can’t do it; I can’t go on lying to myself, to all the others, about this. Oh, Susan, this has got to stop; don’t look at those sleeping pills; that pistol doesn’t exist. Just go on and do nothing, and maybe it will all go away—one day. I’m sixty-two years old, and there’s no way out. That’s it, the police! Yeah, and spend the rest of my life in the lockup. At least it will all be behind me. I can start anew.

She finished her cup of tea and mixed herself her favorite martini.
This always makes me feel better.
She took her drink and the shaker with the overflow up to their room, sat down before the mirror again, and slowly sipped her drink.
Enough of these and either I’ll reach a solution, or I won’t care if I don’t. S
he giggled out loud. She turned on the television to watch the news and her favorite adventure program. Her mind wandered as she drank and watched, coming back to reality from her daydreaming.
How distracted can I get when I can’t even concentrate on something I like?

It was almost 9:00 p.m. when she heard the automatic garage door open and George’s car drive in, the door closing behind him. She heard him call from downstairs, “Susan, I’m home. Let’s have a drink.”

She called back, “I’m up here. We need to talk.”

She was sitting by her vanity when he came into their bedroom.

“George, I had lunch with Trey today. He told me everything.”

“Everything what?”

“Stop it, George. You know, Trey knew, and now I know. As if I didn’t know, or should have known. We got into a long discussion about how a thirty-five-year-old man, successful in life, with lots of lady friends and some serious affairs, never once mentions marriage. I asked him when he would join Caroline and give us a few more grandkids. And then he told me.

“George, how could you? Our own son? My own baby? How could you?”

A long moment of silence followed as they stared at each other. Her voice became very steady and calm, almost ethereal, as if she were speaking to herself. “Oh, yes, George, I’ve known for some time. Years ago, when I was pregnant with Caroline, I wandered into your office at camp to do some cleanup. You left that folder on your desk, the one you used to look at many times before we made love. I guess you forgot to put it away. Maybe you thought that no one would come into your office. I thought I knew what was in it. I was sure it contained the finances of our camp.” She half smiled. “I thought that seeing all the successes we achieved in our little venture turned you on so that you would come to bed all excited.”

The smile left her face. Her expression reflected her exhaustion, her resignation, and her desperation at the approach of what she knew was the final hour—the hour in which she and her husband of these last forty years would have to face the disaster they, no,
she
, knew awaited them.

Her voice trailed off as if it mattered little if George heard her. “Then I had another happy thought that the folder contained some type of pornographic pictures—you know, the ones known as ‘hard-core’—that you needed to turn you on. Oh, George, my darling, how I loved our lovemaking. You made me feel like the woman I always wanted to be for a man, the woman I could never be for my father. How I loved it when you came to bed, when you wakened me and wakened all the love I had for your ardor, for your need of me.”

Ha, your need? Mine was much greater, and only you could fulfill it. I couldn’t live without it, without us locked in embrace. I couldn’t get enough of you. And then I joined you in your addiction, your vice. How could I? I knew all along, didn’t I? I knew, but I didn’t know; I didn’t want to know. I was part of your addiction, because you were my addiction! No, George, I don’t hate you for what you did to me, to yourself, to all those helpless little boys. It’s not your fault. It’s mine. I could have helped you; I could have stopped you; I could have saved all those babies. What have I done? How could I have thought that it would do them no harm, that it all would pass, that they all would grow up and leave those few painful moments behind them? I’m a trained psychiatric social worker with decades of experience. I knew better; I didn’t have to do this. But I looked the other way; I closed my eyes—worse, I closed my mouth, my thoughts. I lost all sense of reality. Like those young boys of whom I thought, “It will all go away,” I closed my mind to the painful reality that it wouldn’t just all go away, and we wouldn’t all live happily ever after. And now it has come back, the crime both of us shared, the crime both of us lived all these years, each of us for our own pleasure, to attend to our own needs. No, George, I look at you, and I see myself. We exploited each other; we abused each other with our needs, just as surely as you abused all those innumerable poor babies you defiled. You? No, not just you. You’re not guilty alone; I am too. If anything, I am guiltier than you.

“I sent you all the kids you needed all these years. I was sure that you would never touch Trey, your own son! And then you do it! Why did you need Trey, too?”

He sat down on the bed, almost falling, looking from Susan’s face to the floor. Susan could barely hear him as he spoke with his head bowed. “I can’t help it. He was there, and this is an urge I just can’t control. I think you always knew that. You’ve known it since our wedding night. Susan, help me. I can’t help myself. So many terrible things have happened to me, and then I go on repeating them. I can’t control it.

“I never told you this. I never told anyone. I never told my own father that his brother, my uncle Ed, whom I loved so much, God rest his miserable soul, would take me out to ball games and camping and touch me all over. He told me it was OK. I never understood what he was doing. Of course, I knew something terrible was happening, something wrong, something dirty, something no one talks about. Who could I tell about this? Even when I had the chance, when the court ordered me to see a psychologist—you don’t know that either—I spent my thoughts outwitting her so that I wouldn’t have to tell anyone what had happened to me.”

George looked at the shocked expression on Susan’s face. He went on, “Isn’t it funny? Here we are, married almost forty years, dating since we were in our twenties, and you haven’t a clue of what I’ve been through!”

Oh, George, my poor darling,
“court ordered”
? What have you done? When? What court? My God, to whom am I married? All these years and I’m just meeting him. Where have I been? There are none so blind! Why didn’t I open my eyes? What was going on inside of me that I couldn’t control? That made me not want to know? But I knew; I knew. I just didn’t want to know. George, you worked so hard—all those nights with your high school kids, all those afternoons tutoring, all those days at the college, all those promotions, all that constant work year round at the camp—you made us what we are; you gave us the good life; you made it possible for us to send our kids to college. You dedicated yourself to us. Why couldn’t I dedicate myself to you?

“Between my freshman and sophomore years at Demotte, before we met each other, I worked as a swim instructor at a day camp. Some kid accused me of touching him in the locker room. It was so many years ago that I can’t remember if I did or not, but what difference does it make? He accused me, they fired me, his mother reported me to the police, I was booked, and my lawyer got me a plea bargain with the DA to reduce a pedophile felony charge to lewd and lascivious conduct. I agreed, although I should never have done that, because if the whole thing came out in the press, my name would be ruined. Instead of a jury trial, my word against the kid’s, I had a trial in an empty courtroom—no press, no public. I got two years’ probation, no going near kids, and I had to see a psychologist and a probation officer. It was easy, and then it was all gone. We met after all this happened.

“No, I didn’t tell you; what for? It was all done, and I thought I would never do anything wrong again. But when the tutoring of all those young kids started again, I fell back. So many of them needed someone to love them, to pay attention to them, to give them something that no one, not even their fathers, could give them. Just like Uncle Ed gave me when my father could not. They loved being hugged by me, being touched, and touching me in return. Who was going to be hurt? If they rejected me, I didn’t force them. It took weeks, sometimes months, to establish a relationship that made me happy and made them happy, too. I never forced anyone to do anything; I never threatened; I never lied to them. I just made them feel wanted, happy that they could spend time with me. I made them feel that they could learn math and succeed where they never succeeded before. They became better people because of me. Just look at all the successes we made of the kids at the camp; see where they are decades later. Is that worth nothing? Susan, I did a lot of good.”

He’s not a criminal. He’s sick, and I should know that. I was trained to help people, to care for those who are uncared for or who cannot care for themselves. My profession was to help people live a better life for themselves and for their families. What did I do for George? I looked the other way. I looked the other way to take care of my own needs. I didn’t help him; I didn’t help society. I made him even more ill, more depraved. How could I have done that, betraying everything I studied, everything I learned, everything I was trained professionally to do? My God, I am worse than you, George. All this is my doing, my negligence, my betrayal of my ethical and professional obligations. I am your wife, in sickness and in health. I betrayed even that promise I made to you. I just let you get sick. No! I made you sick because it was what I wanted. How can you forgive me? How can I ever forgive myself?

He continued in a controlled, calm, even quieter voice, as if speaking to himself. “I should never have been born. I’d be better off dead. That’s another thing I can’t control. Susan, help me; how can I stop? If I weren’t such a coward, if I didn’t love you and the kids so much, I would end it all. It’s the only way out. So now the worst is out. I guess I’m saying that I’m sorry, that I thought it wouldn’t make much difference, that I regret every moment of this nightmare I am forced to live. We were in this life together, and look what I’ve done to you.” He raised his head to look at her. “I am so sorry, Susan.”

He stood up slowly. “I need some time alone to think, to leave you alone, to get out of your sight. I’m going downstairs to sit a few moments in the study. I’ll be up for bed in a while.”