Judgment Day (18 page)

CHAPTER 34 THE CHILDREN

. . . we have renounced secret and shameful ways,- we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God.

—2 CORINTHIANS
4'.2

R
osa checked the camera, making sure it was ready to record. Next she tested the switch hidden under the arm of her rocker, making sure it triggered the hidden recorder. Then she replaced the special glass that hid it. It was transparent from the camera's side; the children would see flamingos against a mirrored background. Satisfied all was in order she sat in her rocker, meditating to clear her mind. Her face was deeply tanned and wrinkled, making her look older than her forty years. Her straw-colored hair was pulled away from her face and kept in a tight bun. In her long flowered skirt and peasant blouse she looked like a grandmother to the children.

The meditation failed to clear her mind and she thought about the task ahead. The children coming to her were damaged goods now, damaged as she had been by her own father. It was up to her to help them begin to heal, a process that could last a lifetime, as it seemed it would for her. She knew the pain they would go through—she felt it every day. They would be confused at first, unable to remember what had been done to them. She had been that way. Then as she helped them remember, they would continue to deny that it had happened, but if she persisted, they would remember. Then the real pain would begin, as their repressed memories were pulled from the darkness into the light.

She remembered her own pain as her memories came back. At first she had only positive memories of her father—his smiling face, the broad shoulders she rode on, the piggyback rides, and especially his affection for her mother. One by one her friends suffered the breakup of their parents' marriages but her father and mother had bucked the odds and persisted through good and bad times. Growing up, she had often wondered why they kept the vows when so many others couldn't. Perhaps it was because her father was steady and reliable, leaving for work each day at the same time, lunch box in hand, and arriving home each evening to hugs from his two "little jewels." His paycheck came home with him every other Friday and he had no vices, except beer at ball games. With an intact family, and a stay-at-home mom waiting with cookies when she returned from school, she was the envy of her friends. She should have been happy, and she was, until she was thirty. Then she learned the truth.

After her third live-in relationship broke up, she sought treatment for her depression, blaming herself for her problems with men. The first counselor—a man—questioned her choice in lovers, pointing out they had all exhibited addictive behaviors. He had advised her that she try respecting herself more and choosing men who were conventional achievers. For a while she chose men like her father, but found "safe" men unexciting and soon was dating an entrepreneur in the midst of developing a "900" number phone business. When he borrowed her credit cards and ran them up to their limit, she threw him out and went looking for another counselor. She found Liz Timmons. With Liz's help she was able to trace the roots of her problems with men and see behind the veneer of happiness that covered her true childhood. Then, during one of their sessions, she had remembered the horrible truth—her father had molested her.

From that terrible day until now it all made sense to her. Her father had stayed with her mother not because they were a happy couple but because it gave him access to his daughters. Through hypnosis and regression therapy, Liz had helped her recover memories. Bit by bit they reconstructed her childhood, her image of her father slowly changing from childhood hero to monster. With Liz's help Rosa saw that even innocent memories of goodnight hugs and tickling turned out to mask dark secrets.

"Are you sure it was just a hug?" Liz would ask.

"He would lean over and we would hug him," she replied.

"You hugged him? Then where were his hands?"

Confused at first, Rosa slowly realized he had been molesting her then, and on many other occasions. After a year of therapy she developed the courage to confront her father and her mother.

That was the most painful night of her life. He had stonewalled her, while her mother sat dumbfounded. When she criticized her mother for letting it happen, she began to cry. The sight of her mother's tear-stained face hurt, but worst of all was her father's refusal to admit his guilt. Until he did she could never be completely whole. A week later they had met again, this time with her sister present. Still in denial, her father again denied molesting her and accused her therapist of distorting her memories. Then to her horror, her mother had come to his defense, and then her sister did too. Her anger spilled out then, at her father for the abuse, at her mother and sister for not stopping him. All of them were in denial and they would not let her help them.

Cut off from her family, she had turned to Liz, who mentored her into a new life. Rosa went back to school, training in psychology first and then social work. After earning her MSW, she practiced with Liz, then set up her own office specializing in recovered memories. When the mother of a little boy enrolled at the Tiny Tots Daycare Center brought her son to Rosa, her career had taken off.

The Tiny Tots case drew national attention to the problem of child sexual abuse. It began with the little boy, Scotty. He had watched his mother using a rectal thermometer to take the temperature of his little sister and commented, "That's the way the teacher takes our temperature." Scotty's mother had been suspicious of the comment, coming to see Rosa with her concern. Rosa had assured Scotty's mother that she was right to be concerned.

Rosa met regularly with three-year-old Scotty after that, pulling memory after memory from his unconscious mind, uncovering an amazing story of sexual abuse involving twenty children. Rosa had worked with most of the children Scotty named, facilitating their memories, until one by one they remembered the perversions they had been forced to endure. Another therapist had similar success with some of the Tiny Tots children and only those children whose parents refused to let the therapists work with them failed to recover their memories.

Rosa was proud of her work in the Tiny Tots case. Four years after Scotty's comment to his mother, Rosa was still seeing six of the children. Seven others continued in therapy with other therapists. Three of the daycare workers were in jail, still in denial, still appealing their convictions. Their appeals were based on recordings she had made of her therapy sessions with the children. Their lawyers claimed Rosa could be heard "leading" the children in therapy, creating false memories. The lawyers were ignorant and didn't understand regression therapy, nor did the experts they called in to testify against Rosa. People in pain won't poke around in the dark corners of their minds willingly, they needed to be led. "Guiding" was an important part of the process and she wouldn't give it up, for the sake of her patients. But she had learned from her experiences with the Tiny Tots case, and knew what the lawyers were looking for. She always recorded her sessions with the children to review her technique, to refine it, but the lawyers didn't need to see everything.

The police arrived, setting up their own camera, preparing for the sessions with the children. She took the remote control from the officer so she could start and stop the police camera from her rocker. Ten minutes after the police left the first child arrived in the company of a social worker. He wore tennis shoes, jeans, and a red plaid short-sleeved shirt with two breast pockets. His brown hair was cut short and a sprinkling of freckles covered his cheeks and nose. He had intelligent blue eyes and looked like he was about to cry. She triggered the police recorder and then her secret camera.

Rosa knew the social worker well, she was another of Liz's circle.

"This is Daniel," the social worker said, introducing the boy.

The sullen little boy stared at his shoes, holding the social worker's hand.

"Hello, Daniel," Rosa said. "How old are you?"

"He's five," his social worker answered.

Liz frowned at her. Speaking for children was a common mistake of adults. It devalued them, told them they could not think for themselves. The social worker looked embarrassed, then excused herself and left. When she let go of Daniel's hand he put two fingers in his mouth and began to suck. Rosa had seen the symptom before and knew what it meant.

"Come over here, Daniel," Rosa said gently. "Not too near my rocker, though, I don't want to rock on you."

The little boy stayed where he was, sucking on his fingers. Rosa waited patiently, letting him warm up at his own pace. After some minutes his fingers came out and he spoke.

"I want to
go
home."

Reinserting the fingers, he sobbed briefly.

"Let's talk about that," she offered.

The fingers remained in his mouth and he stayed where he was. She waited patiently, and as expected, a few minutes later the fingers came out.

"If I talk to you can I go home?" Daniel asked.

"Let's talk about home," she said noncommittally.

Sucking on his fingers furiously now, he tilted his head slightly so that his eyes could watch Rosa. She sat patiently, waiting. After a few minutes he stepped toward her, then paused, eyes on his shoes again. Another minute passed, then he walked slowly toward her, head down, furtively watching her. When he reached the rug at her feet he plopped down cross-legged, his fingers poised in front of his mouth.

"I want to go home," he said.

"My job is to help you go home," Rosa said.

"Huh?"

"That's what I do. I talk with children and when we're all done talking most of them get to go home."

"Today?" he asked happily.

"No, not today," Rosa said.

He looked glum and put his fingers back in his mouth.

"I hate that place," Daniel said.

"You won't be there long. Soon they'll find a nice family for you to stay with."

"I want to go home," Daniel insisted.

"You can't go home today, Daniel, because of what happened."

"What happened?" Daniel said.

"You know," Rosa said.

"I do? What?"

Daniel looked genuinely perplexed, completely innocent. Many of the children Rosa had worked with started that way, their memories deeply buried. She had been that innocent once herself, but it couldn't last and the sooner she brought the darkness to light, the sooner Daniel would face the realities of life. But she had to be careful, the police camera was running.

"Daniel, I have some dolls, would you like to play with them?"

"Boys don't play with dolls," he said.

Bristling inside, Rosa sighed audibly. Daniel's early sex role rigidity was a powerful indicator of the patriarchical environment he came from. There was much work to be done here.

"Lots of boys play with dolls, Daniel. Besides, you can play with them any way you want. You don't have to play with them like a girl."

Rosa opened a chest next to her rocker and pulled out two adult dolls

and a little boy and girl doll, matching the makeup of Daniel's family.

"See, this is a mommy doll, this is the daddy doll, this is the little boy doll and this is the little girl doll."

Daniel kept his head down but was looking at the dolls. There were no clothes on the anatomically correct dolls and for most of the children she worked with it was the first time the children had seen dolls with genitals. As she expected Daniel picked the daddy doll up first. It was a crude indicator, but many in her specialty felt the fact the boy doll was overlooked meant the boy was ashamed of his own body and that shame came from its being misused.

Rosa let Daniel explore the dolls. When he was comfortable with them he danced them around in front of him. Then he bent the father over and put the little boy doll on his back. To the uninitiated it might look like a harmless horsey ride but Rosa suspected Daniel was re-creating a sexual act he was forced to perform but this time forcing the father into the subservient role. Soon Daniel spied a car in her toy pile and the game devolved into driving the dolls around, the father usually behind the wheel. It was enough for a first session but she needed to prepare him for the next session.

"You can come and play again, Daniel, but right now it's time to leave."

"Can I go home?" he asked, eyes bright.

"Not today," Rosa said.

"But I talked to you."

"You did very well, but we need to talk some more."

The shine went out of his eyes.

"I don't want to go back there," Daniel said.

"It won't be much longer, I promise. We'll get you a family to stay with."

"I want to go home."

"Would you like a cookie to take with you?" she asked, standing to get her tin. As she passed the police camera she turned it off, then retrieved the tin of Oreos. Holding out the tin she said, "You can take two if you want." He took one in each hand.

"Daniel, I know you want to go home, and there is a way you can,"

Rosa said.

"How?" Daniel said hopefully.

"You've got to remember the bad things," Rosa said.

"What bad things?" Daniel asked.

"The bad things your daddy did to you."

Daniel dropped a cookie and his fingers went into his mouth.

"I know they're hard to remember, Daniel, but if you want to go home you have to. You have to remember the bad things your father did to you."

"He spanked me."

"Good, Daniel. But even badder things."

"Like what?"

"Like touching your private places."

"My privacy?"

"Yes, touching your privacy. He touched you there, didn't he?"

Daniel shrugged. "He helps me zip my pants when I go to the bathroom."

"He touches your penis too, doesn't he?"

Daniel shrugged again.

"Try to remember him touching you, Daniel, and next time when I ask you about it, you tell me and then maybe you can go home."

Daniel looked like he was going to cry now, so she picked up his dropped cookie and put it in his shirt pocket, then took him by the arm to the door. Just before she opened it she knelt and said, "When you remember your father touching you, then you can go home. Do you understand?" When he nodded she smiled and hugged him. "Good boy, Daniel."