Love Love (42 page)

“I don't want to tell you what I'm about to tell you. I just don't. It's what I'll be working on for the rest of my life, to move beyond this, though really, it isn't possible. Because you can't unsee what you've seen, you can't unhear what you've heard. When Jenny turned twelve, her father, our father, started touching her inappropriately. It was subtle, the way it began—a hand that lingered on her shoulder, then down lower to her back, a hug that felt a little too close. It might be unkind to call our mother an idiot, but that's what she was. A homemaker who only saw goodness in people, she never saw her husband as anything but the most perfect human being. They'd met at some sort of Jesus camp, and they were devout Christians. My father was a salesman for a tool company, and he was extremely good at his job. The few times I've revealed this part of my life to people, they've all asked the same question: How is it that someone like him could qualify to be an adoptive parent? The screening process has become more rigorous since the '70s, but I still think no agency today has a chance against the charms of my father. I never did understand why he ended up with my mother, when he could've talked any woman into marrying him. Maybe it was that she adored him so completely. Or maybe it was because he knew with her, he could get away with anything.

“He started coming into our room at night. Jenny and I shared a large bedroom, but even if it had been the size of a football field, it wouldn't have been big enough for me not to know what was going
on. Neither of them uttered a single word, which amplified all the terrifying sounds of sex: the top bed sheet sliding off, wet kisses my father would plant on my sister's body, the squeaking of the mattress springs as he violated her again and again. I squeezed my eyes shut and pretended to sleep, and I'm positive that my father knew that I was pretending. Not that I had anything to worry about, as he never laid a hand on me, not once, not ever. Not that he didn't want to—as I hit puberty, I could feel him, his hunger. And yet on the nights he sneaked into our room, it was for Jenny and never me. Why was that? Was it because I was adopted, that I wasn't actually his daughter? Shouldn't that have made me an easier target? At some point, I convinced myself that he'd made a deal with himself, that if he could keep away from me, he was saving himself in some small way.

“Is it wrong for me to wish that he did touch me? Because that's the truth. That's the hideous truth that I've kept locked away from myself until I was finally able to face it. Norman says it's a variant of Stockholm syndrome, where the kidnapped eventually comes to love the kidnapper. I wanted my father to fuck me. I wanted him to want me the way he wanted my sister. It's sick, and now it must be clear to you why I ended up in the sex industry. So many girls I've met in this business are damaged, and I'm no different. Why would any woman with a normal upbringing want to lead a life where she gets fucked by strange men, having her cunt filled with foreign cocks, foreign objects, while other men direct cameras and boom mikes to record the close-ups of her penetrations, to capture the sounds of smacking flesh and the ridiculous screams of fake orgasms? Sex is natural, but pornography is not. In order for us to make the sexual fantasy come alive on the screen, we have to be dead inside. There is something deeply wrong with me, and there always will be.

“Life is strong. You can go on, you can forget about the night when it's morning. After a while, things fall into a pattern, and getting raped by your father is just something else that happens. Jenny and I brushed our teeth and took our showers and ate breakfast before we went off to school, until one day, my sister didn't come home.

“There's a walking bridge in our town, one that doesn't rise above a rushing river but rather a cavernous crevasse. It hangs over what used to be a limestone quarry, and it's one of the quietest places I've been. There's one part, not the deepest point but near it, that's pitch black except for two minutes each summer, when the sun is at a certain
height and angle to make it shine like a bed of stars. Jenny and I had been there many times on cloudless days, waiting and watching for that brief moment when there was light in that darkness.

“That's where the police found my sister's mangled body the next morning. She left no note, though it was obvious to me why she'd climbed the six-foot railing and thrown herself into the abyss. A day after the funeral, I packed up a suitcase and hopped on a Greyhound bus to Los Angeles and haven't been back home since. Once a year, I call my parents, though I don't speak to them. I don't know why I do this. Almost always it's my mother who answers, and occasionally it's my father, but in either case, I just listen to their repeated hellos until the eventual hang-up. Once, just once, he'd guessed right. This was a long time ago, just a couple of years after I'd left. He said he was sorry that Jenny died and that I was gone and that he wanted to make things right, but no matter how much he begged and cried into the phone, I said nothing.

“Maybe I'm waiting for the number to be disconnected, or for someone other than my parents to answer. Maybe I want them dead, because then I can move on for good, though it's not like I pay them any mind. Maybe I miss them, and this is the best way for me to deal with what's happened to my life. I don't blame my father entirely for the path I've chosen. There are women who are sexually abused at an early age, who don't turn into strippers or whores or porn actresses—all the jobs I've held to survive in this world. I don't know why I wasn't strong enough to build a regular life for myself. This is my life, and I have to find ways to accept it. To accept what is, because in the end, that's all that we ever have.

“The oven timer's about to ring, and the dish we're about to have is best served hot. I just want to tell you one more thing, not about me but you. Kevin, I know you're very hurt that you just found out about your adoptive past, but I hope you can also see how fortunate you were by not knowing. I see it as a gift from your parents, not a sin they've committed. With me, it wasn't a possibility for me not to know, but your adoptive parents saved you from what every adopted kid feels at one point or another: that they don't belong. No matter how much love they may be showered with by their adoptive family, that core sense of abandonment never leaves. What you sense now is betrayal, which isn't exactly a cakewalk, either, but oh, Kevin, what I would give to feel what you feel instead of the hollowness that has lived inside me since I was a little girl.

“Obviously my view of your situation is biased. It may even be wrong. But it's the way I feel and I wanted you to know. And now, let's eat.”

D
enise called it “the big pancake,” though if it were up to Kevin, he would've named it a “walled pancake.” The batter had climbed and risen above the rim of the iron skillet, forming a brown buttery crust that was flaky and light. The pancake itself was thin and moist, and after she had squeezed half a lemon and sprinkled powdered sugar over it, it was sweet and sour perfection.

“This is extraordinarily good,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“And I'm so sorry about—about everything. You haven't had an easy life.”

“There are people worse off,” she said, neatly cutting off a small triangle of the pancake. She picked it up like a miniature pizza and nibbled on its pointed end. “But thank you. I'm not one of those people who get angry at pity, so if you feel like pitying me, go right ahead. I can always use all the good wishes I can get.”

“I find it heartening that you've survived and that you keep on surviving,” Kevin said.

“Now if you call me a hero, that—that might piss me off.”

“Then I'll be sure never to call you one.”

It was entirely too delicious, especially when she brought out a jug of maple syrup.

“Now that's just not fair,” Kevin said.

If it took Denise half an hour to make the pancake, it was gone in five minutes.

“I'm glad you enjoyed it,” she said. “There's something deeply satisfying about seeing someone eat your food. I'm fairly certain it's a basic mothering instinct that kicks in.”

“Have you ever thought about having one? A kid?”

Denise used the last bit of her pancake, a strip of crust, to wipe and soak up the remains of the brown syrup. “I'm past my expiration date, so to speak.”

“Not really. Even women in their fifties have kids nowadays.”

“Courageous women. Or rich women. Even if I were younger, no, I don't think so. It still surprises me how so many people do end up
having children. I suppose I should be thankful, because if every woman were like me, we'd die out as a race. What about you?”

Kevin shook his head. “My ex-wife didn't want any, and I was fine with that. Considering what's happened to us, it was the right decision.”

They cleared the table together, and in the kitchen, he washed while she dried.

“I like talking with you,” she said.

“Me too.”

At one point, their arms crossed paths, their skin touching, sliding along in a way that surprised them both, making them whip their limbs back to their sides. They looked at each other and laughed, and then she was in his arms, his back pressed against the warmth of the oven, and then a kiss, a tentative pressing of her lips on his own. This time they literally jumped away from one another, the water in the sink in between them, the drain glugging and burbling like someone quenching their desperate thirst.

They both reached for the faucet, Kevin turning off the hot as Denise shut off the cold. Usually he knew when he liked a girl, knew it right away. That's how it had been with his first, and it was how it had been with his last, Alice. But this was different. Denise had somehow snuck in, gotten under his subconscious, and it disarmed him.

“Well,” she said.

“Well, indeed.”

“That was weird.”

“But not as weird as if you were my sister.”

Then they were laughing again, and this time, they couldn't stop. When was the last time Kevin had felt this kind of unabated, primal rush of humor? Years. Maybe never. He couldn't catch his breath, his diaphragm was in spasms, and he wished it would never end.

“God, it hurts so much,” he said, and they laughed even harder and kept on until they saw Norman standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the back hallway.

“Please, don't stop! I've dreamed of this, and now it's come true. My two children, my two happy children.” Without warning, he crushed Kevin with a hug, squeezed the air out of his lungs. “This is my patented hug that I give to all my clients, and now to my son, too.”

Looking over his shoulder, Kevin looked to Denise, who shrugged sheepishly. So she hadn't told Norman anything. Tomorrow Kevin
would be leaving, and a part of him wanted to tell Norman off, but Kevin had to admit, what Denise had told him did make sense. He probably was lucky that he had discovered his adoption at an age where it didn't make much of a dent in his personality or his psyche, and maybe there were worse grievances than his birth father wanting to please him so much that he fabricated a sister. Kevin could just walk away, the way Norman had walked away from him when he'd been a baby. Logically, the equation balanced out, but emotionally, not so much. Here was a better calculation: Kevin was the one who'd been given away to be adopted, and now it was Norman's turn to be taken in by Kevin.

“I don't want you getting jealous now,” Norman said, and he unclasped himself from Kevin and embraced Denise.

“Let's all go out to dinner tonight, huh?” Norman said. “My treat. We'll go to Betelnut. It's a great Chinese fusion place. They brew their own beer, and the calamari is outrageous.” He offered a hand to each, and Kevin and Denise took them. “I'm so glad you guys are getting along so well.”

“I feel very close to Denise,” Kevin said, and she bit her lip to stop herself from laughing.

“That's just what I'd hoped. I'm not going to lie to you, Kevin. Nothing would make me happier than to see you as much as I can. You can always come out here, and I hope I can come out to see you, too.”

“Of course,” he said, then added, “Dad.”

Norman's eyes filled up.

“I didn't mean to . . .”

“No,” Norman said. “I hope that word will always make me cry.”

Norman reminded Denise it would be her turn to be counseled in fifteen minutes, and then he took his leave.

“So,” Kevin said. “Whatever happened to ‘There are no lies in the Sanctuary'?”

Denise hung the skillet on the hook above the counter. “I suppose you could say it's more of a guideline than a rule.”

He felt his cell phone buzz in his pocket. It was the same number from before, and this time he picked it up.

“Hello, Kevin?”

Kevin recognized the stately voice at once. “Mr. Cooper.”

“Every time, I have to tell you to call me George.”

“It's because every time, I forget.” Which wasn't true at all. Kevin could never make himself call Alice's father by his first name unless he was prompted to do so, because he was a tall, silver-haired man best described as kingly. He always wore a suit, and even when he was relaxing at home, he wore pressed slacks and button-down shirts. He was a man of education, having been a high school principal, then serving as the superintendent of his school district, which was why Kevin always felt that George was disappointed at his daughter's selection of a jock for a husband.