An Act of Love (26 page)

Also there had been many times when she had sex with Simon even though she did not want it, and did not enjoy it, but took part in it rather than admit the truth. At those times she discovered a wonderful talent in her deepest core, an ability to shut off sensations. She would split away from her body and leave the hapless shell to be manipulated at Simon’s fancy, while the essential Linda, her true soul and self, retreated into her mind, pulling up a kind of bridge and shutting off the physical. Had Simon been aware of this? Certainly he never seemed to notice.

Could Emily have done this? Everyone had that power. But Linda feared that
Emily must have been too new to the situation to protect herself in this way. It was painful, remembering her words, envisioning the act that took place on this bed.

Emily was held down. She struggled, and her stepbrother hit her. He called her a fucking bitch. He stuck his penis inside her. That must have hurt. She would have been dry and tight with fear; it would have been like a rope burn on one’s hands, but more extreme. Like burns on her sensitive, intimate flesh. Emily would have continued to feel the inflammation in her vagina, over the tender skin of her labia, long after Bruce had left her. She would not have known how to soothe herself, with Vaseline or unguents, and when he raped her again the next night, in the barn, it would have been doubly painful, like drawing sandpaper over sunburned skin. So there would have been the physical pain, and there would have been the humiliation and rage of being forced against her will. Of being assaulted. That would have been the worst of it.

No matter how hard Linda worked, she would never be able to make this room clean and pure again. Emily no longer had a refuge here. This room held ugliness.

Linda had always said that she would throw herself under a train or in front of a bus to save Emily’s life. She would give her daughter her kidneys, liver, eyes. She would give Emily her heart. Linda had lived her life considering her child’s safety and happiness. And she had not been able to keep her daughter safe.

But how could Bruce, whom Linda had watched and lived with for seven years, whom she had taken into her heart and loved as if he were her own, how could Bruce have changed so entirely, and have hated so deeply, so furiously? So destructively.

Linda had thought of Emily as her angel, her sunshine, her beauty, her darling, her joy. Linda had wanted Emily to enjoy the anticipation and delight of first kisses, first embraces, the tremendous pleasure of early love with all the newness, the gentle trepidation that is aligned to awe and is not really fear, the discovery of physical pleasure so powerful that you can not believe other mortals have ever felt such a thing, the overwhelming love that borders on a kind of reverence. She had wanted her daughter to be with a boy who thought she was beautiful and precious and splendid, who would call her his angel, his joy, his beauty, his darling, his sunshine, his love.

Chapter Twenty

Friday afternoon they
met in a small conference room: Dr. Travis, Emily, Linda, and Owen. Dr. Travis sat next to Emily on the dark green sofa.

Dr. Travis turned toward Owen. “Mr. McFarland, would you like to begin?”

“Yes.” Owen looked at Emily but did not lean forward, not wanting to seem intimidating. “Emily, I want you to know that I’m terribly concerned about you. I think of you as my own child. I want you to get well, I want you to be healthy and happy, and I’ll do whatever I can to help you. But I’m having a tough time believing … what you’ve said about Bruce.”

He took a deep breath. Emily watched him guardedly.

“A few days ago I searched your room. I found the diary you kept during your first year at Hedden.”

Emily’s face went red. “That is just so gross!” She looked at Linda. “Mo-om!”

Linda dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands. “We have to discuss this, Em.”

Owen continued. “Emily, there are several passages in that diary—”

Emily’s hands clenched and the veins stood out on her neck. “You
pervert
! You sick, disgusting pervert! You’re as gross as your son!”

“Emily, please,” Linda said.

She was dying of shame; it was like bugs burrowing into her skin, into her organs. Her skin was writhing on her bones. “I hate you, Owen! I’ll hate you until I die!”

“Emily,” Linda said again.

“What?” her daughter snarled, snapping her head toward her mother. “What do you want to say to me? What
can
you say? You want to defend
your precious husband
, right?”

“I want you to get control of yourself and deal with this, Emily,” Linda said firmly. “We
have
to talk about this. Hysterics are of no help.”

Emily swallowed. She looked at Dr. Travis. “I’m supposed to sit here and take this shit?”

“Your mother’s right, Emily. We have to deal with this.”

Emily crossed her arms over her chest and glared hatefully at Owen and Linda. “Fine.
Fine
. Do it.”

Owen began again. “There are some entries in your diary in which you seem, well, infatuated with Bruce.”

“Well, I was! But that’s back when I was a freshman. I’m certainly not infatuated with him now!”

“The point is, several of your paragraphs describe romantic encounters between you and Bruce …”

“Oh, God,” Emily moaned, “I was such a dork. Don’t you understand? They were just daydreams. Didn’t you ever daydream? I know it’s pathetic. I was just a retard. But I got over it. I got over it a long time ago.” She was clutching her arms, digging her fingers into the soft fat flesh.

Dr. Travis leaned forward. “If I could interrupt here for a moment, I’d like to point out that sexual and romantic feelings between stepsiblings are not all that unusual. There is nothing inherently wrong with feeling romantic or sexual love for a stepsibling. Some people manage to hide it, some talk to counselors about it. The important thing is to accept it as something normal, not harmful, as long as it is not acted upon.” She looked at Emily. “Emily, you’ve done nothing wrong by feeling in love with Bruce.”

“Perhaps not.” Owen cleared his throat. “Still, it seems to me to be some kind of proof that Emily wanted to have sex with Bruce, that she led him on, or, on the other hand, that she only daydreamed this business of the rape.”

Emily nearly rose from her chair. “I
didn’t daydream
the rape! And I didn’t want to have sex with Bruce!”

“Your diary—” Owen began.

“Take a deep breath, Emily,” Dr. Travis said.

Emily took a deep breath. Her skin was mottled red. But finally, in a reasonable voice, she said, “All right, maybe I did want to ‘have sex’ when I was a freshman, but it wasn’t sex, really. I just wanted, oh, something dreamy, like music, kissing, and gooey stuff. Not what Bruce did to me. Bruce held me down. He hurt me.”

“Perhaps your actions—”

Emily interrupted her stepfather. Now her face was scarlet. “I know what you’re going to say. That I
tempted
Bruce. Gave him signs that I wanted him to rape me. Right?
Right?” Her glance flew to her mother. “Mom, how can you let him talk this way to me?”

“Emily,” Linda entreated, “honey, we’re trying so hard to sort through this.”

Emily looked at her mother. “I screamed, Mommy! I fought! Bruce just laughed! He knocked me in the chest. He hit me. He choked me with his arm. It was nothing like love! Nothing tender! Nothing romantic. He was mean. He was
hideous
.” Spittle was forming in the corners of her mouth as she turned back to Owen. “I just wish someone would rape
you
.”

For a moment there was silence, and then Emily cried, “I knew Owen would do this. I knew he’d take Bruce’s side. Bruce has always told me that nothing is mine, not the farm, not anything. I don’t even have a home! I can’t go back to the farm, not when Bruce’s there, not with Owen hating me!”

“I don’t hate you,” Owen protested.

“Bruce
told
me!” Emily shot back. “He told me if I told he’d make my life hell. And he was right!” Sobbing overtook her.

“Emily, please, darling,” Linda began, but Emily interrupted her.

“Don’t call me ‘darling.’ Don’t call me fucking anything! Not as long as you’re married to this—this
shit
.”

“Emily—”

“I don’t want to talk to you anymore. I never want to talk to you again in my life! Not while you’re on Owen’s side.”

“There are no sides—”

“Oh, give me a fucking break! I don’t care anymore, I don’t care what you do, search my room, read my private diaries, take everything from me! I’ll make my own life, and the hell with you all!”

“Emily.” Rising, Linda moved to embrace her daughter, but Emily shrank back as if repulsed.

“
Don’t touch me
. Don’t touch me ever again while you’re married to him.”

Linda entreated, “Emily, please don’t be this way. I love you, darling. I—”

Emily stuck her fingers in her ears and shut her eyes tight and began to sing nonsense syllables, just as she had when she was a little child and wanted to ignore her mother’s words. Now it made her look truly maniacal. It chilled Linda’s blood. Helplessly she looked at Dr. Travis.

“I think we should probably end this discussion,” Dr. Travis said.

“But I can’t,” Linda protested. “I can’t leave her with things like this!”

“Emily needs time,” Dr. Travis said. “Give her some time.”

“But Emily—” Linda felt torn in half. “Emily, I’ll call you tonight.”

Emily kept her eyes shut, her fingers in her ears. She continued to babble.

“I wouldn’t call her tonight, Mrs. McFarland. She probably won’t be ready to talk to you. I’d wait a few days.”

“But this is intolerable.”

“Not intolerable. Just very hard.” Dr. Travis rose and opened the door to the corridor, then stood back to let them pass through.

Owen took Linda’s arm and together they left the room.

In the car
on the way back to Ebradour, Linda and Owen did not speak. Did not dare to speak. Their thoughts rode with them, a bomb, a Pandora’s box between them. At the farm they hurried off their separate ways.

At the end of the day they sat down in the kitchen to eat the vegetable-filled omelets Linda threw together.

“Wine?” Linda asked.

“Please.”

They ate in silence. For dessert Linda brought out a loaf of bread she’d made the day before and her homemade wild grape jelly. They ate steadily, impassively, hungrily; they’d both forgotten to eat lunch.

“We have to talk,” Linda said finally.

“All right,” Owen agreed.

Then they sat in silence until suddenly Linda burst into a kind of gentle hysteria that made her cry and laugh all at once. “What can I say? I’m overwhelmed! I don’t know what to do! It’s too much!”

“I know, kid,” Owen said, reaching over to rub her shoulders.

“God, that feels good.” Linda shoved her plate aside and lay her head on her arms on the table.

“Remember when we decided to get married?” Owen asked, musing aloud. “How
we promised ourselves that our lives were not about our children? That we’d fight, work hard, to keep the business of parenting and stepparenting from eating up our relationship?”

“Of course I remember.”

“I thought we did a good job.”

“I thought so, too.”

“It was tough at first. When we were first married.”

“You thought I was too lenient on the kids and I thought you were too tough.”

“You used to let Emily get in bed with us.”

“She had nightmares. She was eight years old, in a strange house.” Linda was beginning to tense up again, and then Owen said, “You made us into a real family. Made us all sit at the table every night, eating and pretending to talk.”

Linda smiled into her arms. “And pretty soon we were actually talking.”

“Remember the rule we made, that they’d have to settle their arguments
by themselves
by the end of the day, or no TV for either one.”

“That was clever of us,” Linda said, adding sadly, “I don’t think that’s going to work this time.”

“I know.” After a moment’s silence, Owen continued: “You taught us how to celebrate. We never had good birthday parties before you came. Or Halloween parties. Or Fourth of July. I was always obsessed with my work.”

“And you helped me make Emily more independent. I used to get so anxious when she went off to the pond with Bruce. Afraid she’d drown. Or up into the woods. Afraid she’d get eaten by a bear. Or fall out of a tree and break an arm.”

Owen stroked her arm, her back, then ran his hands up her neck and caressed her head. It was wonderful to be comforted.

“We’ll work this out.”

“I have to tell you I’m pretty discouraged.”

In reply, he pushed back his chair. “Let’s take a walk.”

“Good idea.” Rising, she grabbed her jacket from its hook and followed her husband outside.

Linda had always loved the vast mysterious silence of the night air, broken only by a limb cracking, a bird singing out, the wind feathering the leaves of the ivy that twisted and fluttered along one side of the house. The porch lights illuminated the
pumpkins she had put on the steps of the front porch. They were beginning to cave in on themselves. It was time to add them to the compost heap. She pulled her coat closed at the neck against the brisk wind. In any other year she would be thinking about decorating the house, inside and out, for Christmas.