Part 12 (1/2)

I skipped the formalities. I could barely talk, let alone chitchat about the weather.

”Ann, I'm going to ask you one question, okay?” I said, out of breath.

”Sure, what is it?” She acted as if she were hurrying me along.

”Don't think about it, just answer, okay?” I instructed her.

”Okay, okay!”

”Your very first feeling,” I commanded.

”What's the question? I'm on the other line a””

I blurted it out, ”Do you think Dad ever molested us?”

Dead silence.

Then, ”It's him on the other line, it's Dad,” she said, no emotion in her voice.

”Oh, my G.o.d” was all I could say.

”I'll call you back,” she said calmly.

”Soon!” I pleaded.

”Soon,” she promised.

Gently, I put the phone back down on its receiver and waited in darkness for Ann's call.

What terrible timing. It wasn't surprising that Ann was talking to my dad. We both spoke to him several times a month.

After my parents' divorce ten years ago, he had changed. He mellowed. He started to treat each of us as individuals, not just as a gang of children. He remarried. Once lonely, he now seemed genuinely happy.

When the phone rang, after what seemed like an eternity but couldn't have been more than two minutes, I jumped.

It was Ann.

”Good Lord, Kris,” she sounded mad.

”So what's your answer?” I asked, as if she were on trial.

”s.e.xually, you mean?”

”Yes,” I said, feeling like I'd throw up.

”I don't know,” she said, exasperated. ”I don't think so.”

I didn't believe her, because behind the exasperation, I heard fear in her voice, the same fear I felt in my stomach.

”Where did this come from?” Now, she sounded as if she were accusing me.

I told her everything I knew. About my dreams (although I couldn't bear to be explicit), about his fondness for bathing us and our inexplicable inability to swim, and about telling Destiny a few hours ago.

In the darkness of my apartment, my own words sounded feeble, even as I spoke them. I might not have believed them myself, except for the unmistakable proof: my rising nausea.

I excused myself from the phone, bolted to the bathroom, and barely made it to the toilet in time to throw up. It took me awhile to find a clean washcloth. When I did, I wetted it, clamped it to my forehead, and picked up the phone again. My hands were shaking.

”Are you okay?” Ann asked.

”I think so. I just threw up.”

”You never throw up.”

”I know,” I said weakly. ”Maybe it was something I ate.”

”It wasn't something you ate.”

”I know,” I said quietly.

”Do you want me to come over there? I could be there in a few minutes a”just give me time to dress.”

I looked around my living room. It was messier than normal: clothes, shoes, and remnants of meals long since forgotten dotted the plush carpet.

”Oh, G.o.d, no!” I exclaimed. I couldn't stand a housekeeping lecture from Ann, and I knew she'd give me one. I just knew it.

'You know I love the view, Kris. It wouldn't be any problem.”

I looked out the window then, at Denver's skyline twinkling against a backdrop of blackness.

”Thanks anyway, Ann. Maybe we could just talk some more.”

And talk we did. To her credit, although Ann wasn't sure my father had ever touched us inappropriately, she listened to my accusations. I listed all the logical clues that pointed to evidence of incest, though I never spoke the word out loud.

My father and mother had slept in separate bedrooms. Hers was upstairs, next to my little brother's and little sister's. His was downstairs, next to mine, across from Ann and Gail's. He had always walked around the house in his underwear. Jockey shorts, not boxer shorts. No robe. Everything quite visible.

As adults, Ann and I had watched his interactions with my sister Jill after he and my mother divorced. There had been an inordinate amount of affection between them. When Jill was sixteen, she had lain on the couch with her head in my father's lap, as my dad stroked her hair.

Ann and I talked until two o'clock that morning, a morning I'll never forget a” the last day of winter.

When we hung up, I was so agitated, I knew I'd never sleep. Almost as if possessed, I put on my coat and went out.

One by one, I visited each of my family members' houses, sometimes sobbing so hard I could barely see to drive. First my mother's, the house I grew up in, the house where the abuse occurred. When I got there, my tears dried and my insides froze up. I sat there the longest, at the house that was no longer my home, the house that probably never had been.

I saw the bas.e.m.e.nt window that looked into my father's old workroom. I remembered using one of his tools once, not to build, but to destroy. I had repeatedly hit my left thumb with his hammer. I did it slowly and carefully so that it didn't hurt too much. But I made sure that my thumb was bruised and swollen. I'm not sure why I bothered a” no one in my family noticed the injury anyway.

I turned on the interior car light to look at my left thumb. It looked a little crooked. I tried to remember how old I was when I damaged it. I couldn't have been more than five years old then. Another memory from the first years of my life. No wonder I'd blocked them so well.