The Shocking Truth About Ramsey (2 page)

"That's Jackson, Ramsey.  He's a good boy.  Be nice to him," Maximus said.  It was unfortunate that he'd gained a moment of clarity right then.  Now all efforts at pretense had to be tossed aside.  Ramsey didn't bother to act surprised.  She just stared down at the man in her seat. 

"Get up, Jackson.  You can take the stool over there," she pointed to a very low stool on wheels that sat in the corner of the small room. 

Jackson couldn't remember this side of Ramsey.  She'd flippantly dismissed him and he was feeling a little childish about even sitting in her chair.   The stool was hers too and he didn't relish folding his six feet two inches long self in such an undignified seat anyway.  He would look even more foolish with his knees in his chest twirling around on the stool.  So, he decided to just stand up.  

"You're a friendly doctor.  No wonder they said you were the best geriatric doctor in town," he said sarcastically.  

"Are you here to take up where some high-school nonsense left off or are you here to have your grandfather cared for," she asked tiredly. 

Jackson blinked a couple of times and decided she was getting the best of him, which was not acceptable.  So, he decided to cut deep enough to draw blood. 

"There's nothing worth remembering about high school, Ramsey.  I'm here to take care of granddad.  I've gotten over my surprise at seeing you again.  So, carry on with your examination."

Ramsey's throat burned and her eyes filled with unshed tears.  He'd managed to hurt her deeply once again.  Her hands shook as she pressed the stethoscope against Maximus' chest.  She'd spent a lifetime getting over the trauma of losing her virginity to Jackson and then losing his friendship.  It had been torture looking out her window and waiting for any small sight of him day after day, week after week, enduring the direct cut from his father and mother, and being too afraid to ask any questions for fear of questions being asked of her.   She'd never told a soul what happened between them and now according to Jackson, there was nothing worth telling.  

She felt his presence behind her back like a heavy hand against her shoulder.  He was here in the same room with her after so many years.  The fun-loving, dictatorial, sensitive boy was long gone to be replaced by a cold-hearted and cynical man.   Even so, she felt his pull on her and wondered if she had lost her mind.  She wanted to look at him some more and ask him a thousand questions about what happened; where he'd been; and what he'd been doing.  She mentally shook herself and got on with Maximus' examination.  She swallowed the hurt Jackson had inflicted and once again became the woman she'd trained herself to be; competent, thorough, and educated to a fault.  

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"Mr. Steele is dehydrated and he has a urinary tract infection.  He will need to be placed into the hospital for a course of antibiotics and IV fluids.  You can drive him over to Baptist Desoto Hospital yourself or if you’d like we can have an ambulance come and take him over," Ramsey said to Jackson as civilly as she could. 

Jackson wasn't feeling too good about himself.  He knew he had hurt her feelings and he had watched as she struggled to keep her composure.  He hadn't missed the frown of disapproval from Maximus and he felt confused.  He wasn't supposed to feel sorry about anything.  She owed him an explanation and an apology for ruining his life not the other way around.  But his comment had been rather ruthless. After all he had taken something from her that she could never get back. 

"Listen Ramsey, I didn't mean to sound --," he began, but she cut him off. 

"In the future, Mr. Steele, you may call me Dr. Laughterdale or Ms. Laughterdale.  Whatever happened in the past is over and done with, but I can assure you that you and I will never ever be friends.  So, please spare us both and don't make the effort.  No apology is necessary.  You've done nothing I'd consider atypical anyway," she finished scathingly.  

Jackson felt his jaw clenching and he knew his nostrils flared.  She'd done it again; dismissed him.  He refrained from sputtering by sheer will alone and when she let her eyes slowly roam from his feet, up his body, and back to his face, before letting out a derisive laugh, he could have gone into a howling rage.  Instead, he stood there humiliated and watched her turn her back on him without him ever having answered the question as to whether he'd take Maximus in the car or allow the ambulance to transport him to the hospital.  She was long gone when Maximus, himself, stood up and said, "Well, I guess you'll be driving me over, son, since you let the doctor get away."  

Pamela Laughterdale was a self-composed woman whose demanding personality belied her small frame.  She'd raised Talmus her twenty-six-year-old son to be a man and Ramsey, her twenty-nine-year-old daughter to be independent.   They had dared not let her down.  Her standards had always been high for her children and she never ever wanted either of them to find themselves in the vulnerable situation of being dependent on some-one or some-thing.  To that end she had stressed education and the futility of love.  

She had loved once and only once and what had it gotten her?  A broken heart, two babies and an unfinished life.  When her husband of eight years left her high and dry with Ramsey and Talmus to care for, she turned to pure ice.  She had always been militant toward men, but now she despised them.  So, she neither noticed nor cared that Ramsey had not had any male companions or offers of marriage.  Everything was as it should be in her eyes.  Ramsey was all she wanted her to be.   She was a beautiful, strong, educated, woman and the fault was with the men.  They were intimidated by her daughter and that was all to be said about that.  

Talmus, on the other hand, was a womanizer; the very thing she hated in a man.  But she was still secretly proud of him, because what man could really claim manliness if women weren't drawn to him.  It was the girls own mothers fault if they found themselves used and discarded by Talmus.  After all, Ramsey was above such behavior because of Pamela's own diligent efforts to educate her and raise her to be better than the masses of man-hungry girls populating the earth.  She was a good mother and she knew it and was proud of it.  

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Pamela was having breakfast on the back porch of her thirty-one-year-old home in Maple Cove when her cell phone rang.  Her life was such a simple little affair that she knew whom it was before answering.  In truth, she had no friends. 

"Good morning, Ramsey!  How are you this fine morning," she chirped. 

"Momma, guess who was just in the office," Ramsey said.  

Pamela frowned at the emotion in her daughter's voice.  She sounded winded and excited and Ramsey was never ever winded or particularly excited about anything.  In fact she was more composed than Pamela was. 

"Well, don't keep me in suspense.  I hate when people say guess what about something when they know good and well you couldn't guess in a million years," she said irritably.  "It's a waste of breath." 

Ramsey counted to ten.  Her mother could be so exasperating. She didn't know why she was calling her anyway.  She probably wouldn't even remember who Jackson was.  Her nose was always so far up in the air.

"Jackson Steele was here with his grandfather.  You know I shouldn't be telling you this.  It breaks the confidential laws of my profession, but he was here in flesh and blood," she finished. 

"So, what did the little rapist have to say for himself," Pam said hatefully.  She never could stand Jackson and when he made his one fatal mistake it had been her pleasure to banish him from her neighborhood.  Even before then she had started having nightmares about little Jackson-Ramsey babies taking over the cove.  She was desperate to get Ramsey away from that boy and then he had played right into her hands. 

"What did you say," Ramsey said quietly from the other end. 

"Oh, please Ramsey. I know we never discussed it, but I know he raped you," she said. 

  Ramsey stared at the phone in her hand and told herself to breathe.  "Momma, who told you he raped me." 

"Your brother saw the whole terrible thing, which is probably why he's so immoral.  Sleeping with different women every night and carrying on like sex can run out like money or food.  He makes me sick sometimes," she said. 

Ramsey was reeling.  She sat down at her desk, gently placed the phone on the table and held her head for a minute.  She could hear her mother's voice chattering away oblivious of the shock she had just given her.  Ramsey snatched the phone up. 

"Momma, what did you do back then?  He disappeared and you never ever said anything to me about it.  What did you do?" 

"Oh, you better believe I handled that situation.  I called the authorities and pressed charges against his little behind." 

Ramsey was beside herself.  She was absolutely horrified at what was spilling out of her mother's mouth.  "You did what?!"

"Oh, he didn't go to jail.  I made a deal with his folks.  As a matter of fact it was Maximus who saved his little nasty butt.  He promised to take him away to live with him in the country, if I dropped the charges.  Why all the questions honey?  He was no good and that's exactly what comes to no-good-

people….no good.  I bet he's got dreadlocks, gold teeth and a heavy fake gold chain hanging around his neck doesn't he? Tell me everything, mommy's listening baby."  

"You messed up, momma.  You made a really, really big mistake.  He did not rape me.  That was his first time too.  He didn't even know what he was doing!  Jackson was not a bad person.  I let him do that to me.  If I had said no at any point he would have stopped. You --"

"Stop right there, Ramsey Laughterdale.  I don't want to hear anymore about what happened.  You were raped.  It’s a well-known fact that rape victims suffer from guilt and often feel they were to blame.  The mistake I made was not getting you some professional help.  You stay away from that man.  Do you hear me?" 

For the first time in her life Ramsey did a very, very disrespectful thing to her mother.  She hung up on her.  She pressed the red button so hard it jammed in its recess and would not come out.  She threw the phone across the room.  Rage swelled in her chest and splintered into sorrow for the sixteen-year-old boy who'd made a mistake.  She cried and cried until her associates came in and told her to go home. They were more than willing to cover her patients for her.  

To be honest no one knew what to think about Ramsey's fit.  She was not an emotional female and to see her sobbing scared the wits out of them all.  They wondered who had died.  All watched sorrowfully as she left the office and wondered when she'd be composed enough to tell them which family member she had lost.  

There was only one person in the world that Ramsey would dare discuss Jackson with.  That was her father.  Herby Laughterdale was a kind and unassuming man.  He'd had the same job for thirty years and was neither educated nor wealthy.   He was simple and often saw things in black and white, as is the case with most simple-minded people.   He was easy to talk to and had a wisdom that's only gifted to those who don't give a darn about what other people think.  

When Ramsey had called him out of the blue on her eighteenth birthday and asked why he left them, he'd said, "If you think you're grown enough to know the answer to that question, then prove it and tell Pam you're coming to see me."  

Well, needless to say, Ramsey never got the answer to that question, because she would have sooner gouged her own eyes out than tell her militant mother that she was going to see her daddy.   So, she opted for the easy way out and began spending time with Herby behind Pam's back.  That was eleven years ago and Pam still had no idea that Ramsey and Herby had a healthy father-daughter relationship.  

"Dad, can you talk," Ramsey sobbed into the phone.

"Girl, what's wrong with you," he asked anxiously. 

"I need to tell you about something that happened when I was sixteen.  It’s a long story.  Do you have time?" she asked again. 

Herby backed up to his old ratted recliner and settled into it.  He waited as Ramsey tried to compose herself enough to make sense.  He was concerned, but he sensed and wisely so, that the less he said the better things would go.  

He listened to her for about thirty minutes as she told of how she had lost her virginity to a boy named Jackson Steele and how she'd kept it to herself all these years thinking it was her secret.  When she got to Pamela's involvement in the incident, Herby clenched his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut.  That woman was a menace.  He must have been out of his mind to let her have his children.  He'd pacified himself over the years with the thought that even though she was a controlling maniac and verbally abusive wife, she'd been a good mother.  His kids, after all, were college educated and had everything they needed and more.  

"I…I haven't been with anyone since then, because the act was just too intimate and when I see men, I think about where it all leads and I just haven't wanted that.  Does that make me crazy?" 

Herby came out of his own ruminations with a start.  Did he just hear her correctly?  Did his beautiful and well-educated daughter just say she hadn't had sex since the boy took her virginity?  Herby's mind scrambled numbers and came up with twenty-nine. She was twenty-nine years old and she hadn't had sex since her virginity was taken at age sixteen.  He could have understood if it was for religious reasons and for the sake of chastity, but this was something else and he knew something was very wrong. 

"Ramsey." He knew his voice sounded strangled.  He cleared his throat. "The first time is always bad for girls, but you're a doctor.  You know why the first time hurts a female." 

"It's not that.  It's just that none of it was precisely good.  I have feelings like normal women, I guess.  I feel arousal like anyone else, but Momma said that it’s a trick God played on women.  She said that the good feeling ends where the act begins. So, I just don't waste my time on that.  But I do feel bad that Jackson's family thinks he raped me.  What should I do?"

Herby was angrier now than he'd been in probably a lifetime.  Pamela had warped his daughter's mind.  He couldn't believe she'd filled Ramsey's head with nonsense. The good feeling ends where the act begins?  He wanted to wrap his hands around her neck and choke the life out of her or better yet beat her.  Pam had enjoyed sex.  He could still remember her nails clawing into his back during her orgasms.  She'd had no inhibitions.  So, what was this bull crap she was telling Ramsey and why?