My Lost Daughter (16 page)

“That's it, Momma. You tell her, tell her how fucking good it is. Tell her you want it.” His guttural words were uttered through clenched teeth. He had one knee between Shana's legs, forcing them open, and the other knee between Lily's, touching her genitals. “Unzip me,” he ordered Shana.

Shana's horror-filled eyes again made contact with her mother's. “Do it, Shana,” she said, watching while her child's thin, trembling arm reached out for his crotch, unable to grasp the small end of the zipper. He raised his body up somewhat but the crusty knife remained at Lily's throat.

“Do it for her, Momma.” He shifted the knife to his other hand and positioned the tip on Shana's navel. “Teach her how to take care of a man.”

Lily had to distract him, somehow get him away from Shana, and find a way to get the knife. Quickly unzipping him and removing his penis, she placed it in her mouth, the ragged edges of the zipper scraping her face. She smelled urine and putrid body odor, but he was becoming erect and moaning, throwing his head back, moving the knife away from Shana's body. He grabbed a handful of her hair and jerked her head back, then fell on top of Lily, looking straight into her eyes and relishing the fear he saw reflected there. Something small and cold struck her chest. It was a gold cross with a crucified Christ dangling from his neck.

Suddenly he thrust himself up. “No, I want her, Momma. I don't want a fucking old redheaded whore.” Once again he expertly tossed the knife from one hand to
the other before he placed it again at Lily's throat. “Watch, Momma, watch or I'll gut her.”

With one vicious yank Shana's underpants were torn off and tossed aside. Her body bounced up on the bed and then fell under the weight of him. He forced himself inside her and Shana screamed in pain. Lily had never felt so powerless in her life. There was no God. She knew it now. No reason to pray. She wished that he'd just cut her throat and end it all.

“Oh, Mommy. Oh, Mommy,” Shana gasped.

Lily found her hand beside her and squeezed it tightly, finding it cold and clammy. “Hold on, baby. Close your eyes and make believe you're far away. Hold on.”

A loud siren wailed in the street somewhere. He jumped off Shana and sprang from the bed. “The neighbors heard and called the police,” Lily said, the sound of the siren growing nearer. “They're going to shoot you, kill you.” He was directly under the light emanating from the bathroom, his red sweatshirt and face completely outlined and visible as he frantically tried to zip his jeans. Lily sat up in the bed and screamed, in raw panic and fury, “If they don't shoot you, I'll kill you myself!” The siren was blaring now, only a few blocks away. In seconds, he was gone.

She held her daughter tightly in her arms, stroking her hair and whispering in her ear. “It's over, baby. He's gone. No one is going to hurt you ever again. It's over.” The shrill of the siren was becoming distant, fading from earshot. No one had called the police. Their agony had gone unnoticed.

Time stood still as she rocked her daughter and listened to her pitiful, wracking sobs. A million things were racing through her mind. Two or three times she tried to wrench herself away to call the police. Shana was holding on so desperately that she stopped. He was long gone by now, lost in the night. Every sordid detail replayed itself in her mind. A hard ball of rage was forming in her stomach and spewing bile into her mouth.

“Shana, darling, I'm going to get up now, but I'll be right back. I'm going to get a washcloth for you from the bathroom, and then I'm going to call the police and your father.” Lily inched away and pulled her robe back over her shoulders, tying the sash loosely around her waist. The rage was somehow calming her, moving her around like a machine with a great churning engine.

“No!” Shana yelled in a voice Lily had never heard. “You can't tell Dad what he did to me.” She reached out and grabbed the edge of Lily's robe, causing it to fall open and expose her nakedness. She quickly retied it again. “You can't tell anyone.”

The face and voice was that of a child, but the eyes were a woman's. She would never be a child again, never see the world as a safe place without fear. Lily placed a hand to her mouth, biting her knuckles to stifle a scream welling up inside of her. “We must call the police. We must call Daddy.”

“No!” Shana shouted again. “I think I'm going to be sick.”

Shana ran to the bathroom, vomiting on the floor before she got to the commode. Lily dropped to the floor with her, wiping her face with cold towels. She went to the medicine cabinet and found the bottle of Valium a doctor had recently prescribed for her insomnia. Her hands were shaking as she poured out two pills, one for her and one for Shana. “Take this,” she said, handing her the pill with a paper cup of water. “It will relax you.”

Shana swallowed the pill, watching with wide eyes as her mother tossed one into her own mouth. She let Lily help her back to the bed. Once again, she held her in her arms.

“We're going to call Daddy and then we're going to leave this house and take you home. I won't call the police, but we're going to tell Daddy. We have no choice, Shana.”

Lily knew exactly what she would be subjecting her daughter to if she reported the crime. The police would stay for hours, forcing them to relive the nightmare, making every detail live forever in their minds. Next would be the hospital and the medical-legal exam. They would probe Shana's ravaged body; comb her pubic hairs looking for evidence. They would swab their mouths. If they apprehended him, months of testimony and court appearances would consume their lives. Shana would have to sit on the witness stand and repeat the awful details of this night to a room full of strangers. She would have to rehearse her testimony with the prosecutor like lines in a play. In that room, breathing the same air, he would also sit. Then the ordeal would become known.

The most despicable thought of all, a truth that Lily alone was far too aware of, was the fact that after all they'd suffered, would suffer, while the nightmares were still the sweating, waking, screaming kind, before they could even begin to resume normal life, he would be free. The term for rape was eight years, out in four. He would even receive credit for time served during and prior to the trial so that by the time he was on the bus to freedom, his countdown to freedom could amount to a measly three years. No, she thought, he could receive a consecutive sentence for the oral copulation, amounting to a few more years. It was not enough. It could never be enough. And she felt certain he had committed other vicious crimes. She recalled the taste of dried, old blood on the knife, and
knew he could have murdered someone. This crime was a murder of sorts, the annihilation of innocence.

She also had to consider her career, her life's work, and the reality that although she could prosecute rape cases, she could never try them without bias if she became a superior court judge. Thought by thought, she was getting further away from reporting the crimes to the authorities.

His face kept reappearing before her, and somewhere in the far reaches of her mind, she knew she had seen him before. Her memory of the attack crowded out the past, and she was no longer able to distinguish reality from imagination. But his face . . .

The drug had taken effect and Shana had calmed down somewhat. Moving slowly away, Lily called John on the bedside phone. He was in a deep sleep when she awoke him; he stated a muffled and annoyed “Hello” as if he was expecting a wrong number.

“John, you have to come over here.” She spoke quietly but rapidly. “Something has happened.”

“Jesus, Lily, what time is it? Is Shana sick?”

“We're both okay, just come now. Don't ask any questions until you get here. Shana's sitting right beside me.” Her voice started to crack. She didn't know how much longer she could maintain her composure. “Please come, John. We need you.”

She hung up and looked at the clock—only one in the morning, a mere two hours to destroy their lives and rob her and Shana of the happiness they were finally finding in each other. Her thoughts turned to John and what this would do to him. Shana was his life, his shining star, his pampered and sheltered baby girl. When she was born, John had shoved Lily away and centered all his affections on his daughter: holding her, stroking her, kissing her when he no longer kissed his wife. Starting to tremble, Lily hugged herself. She had to be strong.

It seemed like only minutes had passed before John arrived. Time had been standing still, hanging over them like a dark storm cloud, refusing to move, the unleashed downpour contained and waiting. John appeared in the doorway to the bedroom and immediately began shouting. “What in the hell is going on here? The front door is wide open.” His tone was accusing, demanding, and it was vented at Lily. “Tell me what happened here tonight.”

Shana's muscles had begun to relax in Lily's arms. “Daddy,” she said, hearing his voice and crying out to him. “Oh, Daddy.” He ran to the edge of the bed and Lily released her. As John engulfed her in his arms, she pressed her body to his chest, sobbing.

He looked at Lily, his dark eyes full of fury, but in their depths, fear was rising. “What happened? Tell me why Shana is crying!”

“Shana, Daddy and I are going to the other room and talk,” Lily said softly. “You'll hear us and know we're there. We'll only be a few feet away.” She got up and motioned for John to follow.

The Valium had calmed her somewhat and she told John what had transpired. It was an unemotional recitation of facts. If she allowed one tear to fall, the floodgates would open. He leaned over and touched the small cuts at the side of her mouth, but it was not a gesture of concern. It was more like a reflex, confirmation that the things she was telling him were real. His eyes clearly said she was responsible, regardless of what reason predicated. She should have found the strength to stop him. That's how he saw her—invincible. Then he sobbed, his masculine body wracked with pain, that unfamiliar and pitiful sound that signified a grown man crying like a child. He was quite simply heartbroken. His sorrow left no room for rage.

“Well, do you want to call the police? You're her father and I can't make that decision without you. It's not irreversible. We can always file a report later if we change our minds.” As she spoke, her eyes darted to the kitchen, wondering about evidence.

“No, I agree with you,” John told her. “It would only make things worse for her.” Tears were streaming down his face and he wiped them away with the back of his hand. “Would they catch the bastard if we reported it?”

“How the hell do I know, John? No one knows. We don't even have a vehicle description.” Lily cursed herself for not running after him, for staying with Shana. “Maybe we're doing the wrong thing by not bringing in the authorities. God, I just don't know.” Lily's mind was muddled and crazed. Something inside her was diving, sinking, twisting. She had to stop it, had to somehow rewind the tape and erase it. John's voice sounded distant.

“I want to take Shana home, take her away from this place.” His voice was a choked whisper. “I just want to take care of my child.”

“I know,” she said. “And she's our child, not yours. Don't you think I want to take care of her? I don't want her to suffer. I couldn't stop this. I tried, but I can stop it now. I gave her a sedative. Let's bundle her up and take her home. I'll pack a bag and follow you.”

After they wrapped Shana in a blanket, John led her to the door. Shana turned back and her eyes found her mother's. “You go home and go to sleep. Daddy will sleep
on the floor next to you.” Lily embraced her. “I'll be there in the morning when you wake up.”

“Will he come back?”

“No, Shana, he'll never come back. I'll move out of this house tomorrow. We'll never come back here again. In time, we'll both forget this night ever happened.”

Once they had gone, Lily hurriedly started throwing things in a small duffel bag. The house was dead quiet again, that ominous stillness like before. The memory of the attacker's face in the last few minutes before he'd left kept flashing in her mind, and each time she dropped what she was doing and stood there, frozen in thought, trying to put her finger on what it was that she associated with his face. Suddenly the face appeared, but not as she remembered it. It appeared in a mug shot.

She ran to the living room, tripping and falling on the edge of her robe, soggy and reeking from Shana's vomit. From her position on the floor, she saw her briefcase and crawled toward it. Her fingers trembled as she dialed the combination lock. On the third try, it clicked open. She threw all the files on the floor and searched for the one she knew contained the photo. Papers went flying across the carpet.

The mug shot was in her hands. He was the same man who'd attempted to rape the prostitute; Silverstein's case that she had dismissed today. Photographed with that smug smile. They must have released him at the time she left the building, giving him back his original clothes with the rest of his property. He was wearing the same red sweatshirt and a gold crucifix. He must have followed her from the complex. She rapidly sorted through the pages in the file until she found the police report.

There was no doubt in her mind as she studied the hated image in her hands. No doubt at all. It was him.

Her breath was coming fast now, catching and rattling in her throat. Whatever effects the Valium had were gone. Adrenaline was pumping through her veins. She rapidly sorted through the pages of the file to the police report. There it was—his address. His home was listed as 254 S. Third Street, in Oxnard. His name was Bobby Hernandez and although he was Hispanic, he had listed his place of birth as Fresno. Lily tore the sheet with his address on it and placed it in the pocket of her robe. She went to the bedroom and threw on a pair of jeans and a sweater, transferring the address to the jeans. Next she dug in the back of her closet and found her fur-lined winter hiking boots and a blue knit ski cap. She placed it on her head and stuffed her hair inside it.