"Maybe it wasn't incest in the beginning. My mother lived with him long before they got married."
"Sorry," he said, because it was obvious that reinforcement was needed,"it's still incest.He was an authority figure. Your mother's acceptance of him created that authority even if they never married. "
He'd given it to her :permission to call the abuse by name. He watched her stubbing out the cigarette. She gave no sign that the visible burn on her fingers had caused pain.
"The psychoanalyst eight years ago, he never said exactly what it was we were discussing. And I had trouble remembering after each session. Same thing with the counselor at A Woman's Place, except I think she called incest too, but IG was all sort of . . . vague. Does that make sense to you?
"At one point during my marriage," she said in a voice that became progressively more wondering, "things got so bad that I was treated for Premenstrual Syndrome. The same doctor who had delivered Page prescribed Valium and when that didn't work, he gave me Librium. The tests seemed to go on forever. I'd never seen so many doctors, and needles and pills. No illness was found. But before it was over, they tested me for epilepsy and even though the results said negative, Dilantin was prescribed. It's supposed to slow the rush of blood through your head. It didn't work. I couldn't stop being a bitch to Norman- that's my ex husband; I couldn't stop feeling dizzy or just blacking out."
The wondering voice had hardly faded before she started to laugh. The sound was harsh.
"You'll think I'm ridiculous when I tell you this, but I've got perhaps four or five memories up here." She pointed to her head. That's it.
He assumed that she referred to the abuse. She reached out and seemed to hang onto the coffee table for support. Finally, she took a deep breath. Her words came out in a rush.
"My eight years are gone. I can't buy them back. But if the counselor at A Woman's Place is right - that child abuse caused what I've been going through- and if incest is almost common place with few good therapists to treat it, then aside from clearing up my own situation, I want to make a contribution."
Her condition for taking on her treatment was that he would tlk about it with everyone, to anyone, and the sessions were to be filmed for the eventual training of mental health professionals. It took him a long time to absorb what she was offering, the chance of a lifetime to film the victim's therapy from day one. She explained her desire to break most victims' rule of privacy.
"It hit me for the first time when I went down to that library. All those children, keeping their mouth shut. I can't do it anymore. I'm tired of hiding and feeling dirty. I take three baths a day and still feel dirty. It doesn't go away. Lately, I feel as if every memory I don't have up here is boiling to the surface; as if it's close enough to touch. If I dared. I'm telling myself that I dare. My mother warned us as children, my half brother and half sisters and me, not ever to discuss family business."
"Secrecy," he said, "is incest's biggest friend. But I want you to be sure before you enter into anything"
"I'm sure." She said it bitterly. I've been silent since I was two years old. Maybe it has always been a failing of mine but lately, I find myself constantly fighting the urge to shut this door and never go outside again."
"You said you had four to five memories, can you pick one and tell me?"
"I remember, quite clearly, being two years old. My mother and father and I lived in an apartment in the city. I van tell you the layout of the room, the furniture placement, the kinds of flowers my mother placed everywhere. Just before my mother left my father, a man came to see her. I sat on the man's lap, as I would do with my father, in the kitchen of that apartment, with two pieces of caramel in my mouth, and he smiled a lot. He wore a faded, soft red shirt partway down his chest. I put my hand up against his chest to feel all that dark, feathery hair. And he smiled again and leaned fourthef back into his chair. My hand was so small and the further back he leaned, the further the hand went down his chest. It got sucked below his belt. Warm skin down there, and what felt like the soft bristles of an old hair brush.It seemed to be a game we were playing, because he never stopped smiling the whole time. That's the man my mother left my father for, two weeks later."