Are You Sitting Down? (11 page)

I just brought all the plastic tubs of food home and poured them into my own pots and pans to keep warm.
It is more of a luxury to not have to cook for five children and four grandchildren.
I still make the desserts they've been accu
s
tomed to for years, but if I could teach the bakery how to make my lemon ice box pie or chocolate almond cookies I certainly wouldn't hesitate to buy those either.

As I step
ped
into the den to plug up the Christmas tree and light some cinnamon scented candles, I hear
d
a car pull up in the driveway.
Travis.
I rush
ed
to the door to greet him and to go help him unload his car.
He
was
the first of the kids to a
r
rive today; he always was punctual.
I ha
d not
seen him in
a few
months
so
hugging his neck now t
ook
all the pain of a distant child away.

I d
id
n't blame him for moving away to the city.
There never would be anything in this small town for him except a factory job and his family, but a young maturing man like himself need
ed
unridiculed love, whatever kind his own heart desire
d
.
Although Justin grew up here too,
he and Travis
might not have ever met for a small Southern town like ours holds much prejudice.
At least in a larger city filled with open minds, they
we
re free to be who they want
ed
to be.
But Travis ha
d
no qualms about coming back home
to this town
to visit us.
Here in Dogwood, we were probably all that mattered to him.
And for that
and his arrival home
, my holiday ha
d
officially started.

Ellen

“So long, see you tomorrow,” Mark said standing at the kitchen door.
He’d already put
his
suitcase in the car.

“Did you kiss Robbie and Rachel good-bye?”
I asked.

“Yes.”

“Did you wish them Merry Christmas?”

“Yes.”

“Did you wish me Merry Christmas?”

He smiled.
His eyes sparkled with a hint of
the
love
I knew he still had for me
somewhere inside him.

“Merry Christmas,” he said with an exhale.

“Mark?” I said before he closed the door and left.

“Yeah?”

I wanted to tell him I loved him, but I was too afraid of his reply.

“Merry Christmas,” I said instead, and went back to fumbling with a garden salad I was making to carry to Mom’s.

He nodded and closed the door.

Mark was spending Christmas Eve with his parents this year.
He’d return to the house early in the morning to put out the kid’s gifts from Santa for when we come home tomorrow.
The kids and I
were spending the night at Mom’s tonight.
For the most part, this would probably be
mine and Mark’s
last Christmas with each other, but we weren’t really spending it together.
I should say it will be the last Christmas Mark and I are married.
The divorce would be settled in late January.
I wanted it to be earlier, just to start the New Year off with a clean slate.
Mark is the one who wanted to prolong it.
He still loves me.

I love him too, but I don’t know how much longer it’s going to take for me to heal from all the pain of these past
few
years.
It all started when Mark was laid off from his job at the plant
four years ago
.
He drew unemployment or worked var
i
ous construction jobs until he found steady work with a funeral home as a maintenance man.
Until he got the funeral home job, the paychecks were barely enough to cover the mortgage.

With the kids in school, I decided to go back to work again to help
Mark with the bills
.
I’d been a corporate secretary b
e
fore Mark and I got married.
My skills might have been a bit rusty now, but I landed a job as a court
secretary
for Judge Railen.
At first, he didn’t want to hire me since I’d been une
m
ployed for seven years to raise a family.
I turned on the waterworks for a bit of sympathy.
I told Judge Railen about the hardships with Mark losing his job, and how I stayed awake at night worrying they’d foreclose on the house because I
refused
to beg Mother for money.
I really needed this job to keep the lights on so my kids could see to do their homework, so my kids could have food to eat.

I dramatized things a bit
, but everything I said was true.
I feared the worst even though
Mark had cashed in his 401K from the eleven years he’d worked in the factory.
It
was plenty of money to keep us and the kids
clothed and fed for at least a year
or so
, but the
crying
worked.
Judge Railen hired me that very day.
Little did I know, my tearful plea
opened the door for Judge Railen to be able to take advantage of my situation.

It all started in his office when he’d dictate notes to me.
He had a habit of taking forever or making lots of changes.
I later figured out he was just prolonging this time we spent together alone.
He liked to lean over my shoulder to review my steno pad.
Sometimes, he’d rest a hand on my shoulder or
my
back while reading my notes.
I thought nothing of it in the beginning.
When he lingered there for too long pretending to read, I realized it was because he liked to look down my
blouse
.
Weeks passed and this routine continued.
When he made me stay a few minutes late once so he could dictate a grocery list to me, things got worse.

With a hand on my shoulder while studying the list, he fi
n
gered my bra strap.
I politely pushed his hands away, calling him a dirty old pervert
but only
in my head.
Judge Railen was a bit offended
, almost as if he’d heard my thoughts
.
He sat down behind his desk and asked if my paycheck was helping
my family
.
It definitely was, although Mark had not been happy about me taking a job.
Judge Railen reminded me of how I’d begged for the job that first day and how he didn’t want to hire me.

“Things could be a lot worse for you right now,” he said looking at me with lust in his eyes.

I ripped the list from my notebook and sat it down on his desk, then walked out.
I was going to be late picking up the kids.
I didn’t want to go back to the courthouse the next day.
At home, after fixing dinner, I took a long hot shower to try to wash away his touch.
The water and my tears were not enough, but I went back to work the next day anyway.
After court, Judge Railen had more notes to dictate.
With his hand down the collar of my shirt to cup my breasts, he
dictated
a chocolate chip cookie recipe to me.

Judge Railen was a powerful man in the community, and he constantly reminded me of that when his hands were touching me.
His brother was the District Attorney of the county
, so his family had a stronghol
d on the legal aspects of
Ruby Dregs
.
If I
ever
said anything to anybody, he threatened that neither Mark
nor I
would ever find work around here again.
If we ever d
i
vorced, he’d make sure my kids were taken away from me.

For
a whole year
, I remained quiet and succumbed to his advances.
He gave me a one dollar raise.
I cried in the car on the way home each day.
I tried my best not to let Mark or the kids see me cry, but in the end no tears could cure my hel
p
les
s
ness.
No tears could wash away the pain I felt inside.
No tears could explain why even Mark’s touch at night in bed made me freeze with fear.

Eventually, I spoke up.

I wasn’t the one who went to authorities first.
Appa
r
ently, Judge Railen had his hands on several other female litigants and employees.
Many of them were single mothers who had appeared before
him
during their divorces or
for
child support issues.
The others
were secretaries
, like me,
or clerks in need of the
well-paying courthouse jobs because this ec
o
nomically d
e
pressed town had nothing else to offer
us
.
Facing the community gossip, local and national headlines, and pe
r
sonal embarrassment,
nine
women gave an account
of
their h
umilia
t
ing
experiences before a grand jury.
I was one of them.

The judge was indicted on denying us of our constit
u
tional right to be free of sexual assault in the workplace. Judge Railen was sentenced eight months later to twenty years in prison, but the emotional damage didn’t end there.
During the trial, a rel
a
tive slipped him a cell phone while visiting him in prison.
He called each of us and verbally harassed us over the phone to try to intimidate us the way he did in his chambers.

I’ll never forget the day
our
phone rang.
Mark had
just been hired full time
at the funeral home.
I was home alone fi
n
ishing the breakfast dishes.
I had not been able to stay by myself for very long.
Sleepless nights made the days weaker, but I still couldn’t find rest when Mark and the kids were gone.
I was too afraid to sleep in the house alone.
During the day, I’d
try to
sleep at Mom’s house or she’d come over and do hous
e
work for me while I rest
ed
.
But even the security of someone else in the house didn’t help much.

Eventually, I called Mom one morning and told her not to come over.
I had to fix this.
For mine and Mark’s sanity, I had to get back to the closest thing I could to the life we had before I went to work in the courthouse.
Our lives would definitely never be the same as they were, but I had to grasp for something new and familiar, a sliver of hope, anything we could at least mistaken for that old happiness.
I was doing well for about two weeks, then the phone rang.

“Ellen,” the rusty voice said.

I froze like a statue.
A dish fell in slow motion from my hand and shattered on the floor into a million tingly pieces.
My chest tightened. My heart stopped.
My breath held.
I was like an industrial
but fragile
engine that had come to a shuttering halt.
I tried to drop the phone, but it was as if he were reaching through the receiver and forcing me to hold it to my ear to li
s
ten to what he had to say.
The voice in my ear—the harsh grip of his hand—was all too familiar.
A tear rolled down my face, stinging like a mosquito bite, but I could not
swat
it away.
I let out a wince of air, acknowledging that I was listening.