The Years Between (30 page)

Try again? Her shoulders sloped in defeat.
That’s
what this was? This brutal, tearing of her vaginal walls was supposed to result in a baby? This time, the tears in her eyes burned too much to repress. She swallowed, but gagged on the lump of grief in her throat. She sat there for a long time, way too long, as she tried to breathe in and out. Emptying her mind of everything, she sought comfort in the denial. But… it wasn’t there anymore. It wasn’t happening. She couldn’t conjure up the façade that dictated her life. She could not find the fantasy image of who she was, which obliterated the truth she saw right here: a beaten, sad, depressed, and very weak woman. But
she was
that woman. She was beaten, sad, depressed, weak, and… her husband did rape her. If that wasn’t rape, what was?

I get it, Jessie. I finally know.
The thoughts tumbled into her brain, washing out everything else. She spent years helping her little sister come to terms with and accept the rapes she endured and suffered. First, at the hand of their father’s friends, and later, by the group her own father hired to kidnap her. She watched Jessie disintegrating for a long time before she even knew what was wrong with her. After she found out, it took years before Jessie could handle it. And now… she finally knew. Tears filled her closed eyelids before they slid down her cheeks.

No, she was not like Jessie. Jessie had
unnameable, terrible things done to her. Things that were far worse than the most severe beating she ever endured at the hands of her husband, or the rough sex he forced regularly on her. Yes, that was it! He forced rough sex on her, which made it a degree less than rape. Rape was what happened when a stranger or strangers held you down and forced sex on you. That was what happened to her sister, and not what just happened to her.

Shaking her head, she slowly and carefully rose to her full height. She shucked off her ruined garments, and slid her skirt back into place as she tucked in her crumpled blouse. Her chest hurt. It ached and burned, as well as her lower extremities and left shoulder. She glanced at the decorative mirror hanging over the couch, and gasped at the reflection.
Who was that?
It could not be she. That woman had tangled, ratty, blond hair, undone from her once neat French twist. Her clothes were all wrinkled and in disarray. Her eyes looked haunted, harried, and vacant. She seemed as vacant inside as her reflection.

Once, however, she was beautiful. Everyone thought so. She was Lindsey Bains, General Travis Bains’ beloved, adored, and always perfect daughter. She was everything that Jessie was not, and reveled in being so. She loved monopolizing her father’s complete and utter devotion and approval. She learned to disdain her rebellious, trouble-causing, slutty sister. As Jessie quickly deteriorated year after year from the age of sixteen on, Lindsey did nothing but agree with and support her father about the horrible person and sister Jessie embodied. She understood why her father so desperately tried to do right by Jessie with his discipline of her. He had to correct her, and stop her.

Lindsey refused to acknowledge that her father was ruining her sister. He was habitually using her to repay any debts he owed to a variety of high-powered men with whom her father cultivated long-term relationships. Senators, Army officers, cabinet members, as well as many others were treated to his daughter, teenage Jessie, whom he forced to have sex with them. However, when Lindsey noticed her sister had started acting out, what did she know? Nothing. None of it. She was at college, busily working toward her BA degree and participating in the Army ROTC program. She intended to prolong her military service, and was even set on making it a long-term career, with high hopes of rising through the ranks like her father. Perhaps not as far, but to the highest extent that she could, aiming only to make her father proud. She longed for his shining recognition.

That is, until the day she learned the truth about Jessie. In the space of one afternoon, her entire life, identity and future were altered and damaged. Everything she previously believed to be true was wrong. Jessie wasn’t “bad” or “insane,” but the tragic casualty of so much violence and brutality, that even to this day, Lindsey could hardly grasp what her sister managed to live through. First victimized by her father, Jessie later underwent three days of unending torture and rape before a soldier, Will Hendricks, rescued her.

Will saw it all. He was the only one who finally believed Jessie, and helped her by saving her from the monster that their father had become. It was Will, and not she, who finally saved Jessie. What a joke! After all those years when she, Lindsey Bains, was considered the “good sister.” Lindsey wasn’t good at all. She was shit. She was a total and complete chicken shit. She never stuck up for or defended her sister when their father bullied and berated her. Although she did not know then of the physical abuse, she was well aware of his interminable verbal assaults on Jessie. Still… Lindsey was too afraid her father would turn on her if she tried to do anything for Jessie.

The thing was, she really didn’t know. Not any of it. It was a startling, shocking discovery, and the longer it went on, as she learned more about her father, the more her life was torn apart. Her father had truly become a monster.

But he never was like that to her.

Lindsey never knew what to do with that awful knowledge. Why didn’t her father abuse her like he did Jessie? Why was he so gallant, and noble towards her, yet so willing to pimp out Jessie? How could she fail to see what was occurring right under her nose? Eventually, it surfaced that Jessie was not really the general’s daughter, but that did not explain how or why he could raise Lindsey with decency and Jessie with horror. It was impossible for Lindsey to reconcile the two generals she now knew about.

Denial.
That was how to manage it. Perhaps that was why she married Elliot, although she never once witnessed his controlling, rage-fueled, domineering and violent side. That did not emerge until she was married to him. It began the very night he took her virginity in the honeymoon suite of the hotel they were married in. That was her first inkling about who she married.

Meeting Elliot Johanson when she was just barely twenty-four-years old, she was instantly swept away. He was so much like her father: the way he spoke, carried himself, and interacted with her. He made her feel like she recaptured something valuable that she lost with her father’s estrangement. Elliot replaced the dominating, demanding force in her life that her father established until she learned what he did to Jessie.

She once thought she found and married the perfect man.

Elliot didn’t want her to be in the military. He said it wasn’t lady-like and not something he foresaw his wife doing. Having her father disgraced at the same time her term of service was up, she chose to no longer continue as an active duty soldier.

She glared at her face in the mirror.
Some fucking soldier
. Look at her: a beaten, fragile, sad-eyed woman who couldn’t even raise a hand in her own defense to prevent her husband from raping her in middle of the afternoon on their living room floor.

No doubt, Elliot spontaneously dismissed the entire staff, while probably acting as if he wanted to surprise his wife with a romantic, afternoon interlude. They probably all left the house, smiling in their hands at how sweet Elliot was, and how lucky Lindsey was to have him. Elliot never dared to touch her if anyone else was home.

She turned away from her pathetic image to upright the table. Picking up the broken lamp, she threw it out, and replaced it with a flower arrangement to fill the hole it created. She slowly made her way around the room, dusting and vacuuming, straightening up the scene of her latest humiliation.

She quickly showered all of it off her too: her soiled makeup and the semen that streamed down her legs, Elliot’s loving attempts to create life. After five years of marriage, did he really think she would ever allow an innocent under his care?

The phone rang while she was making herself presentable for tonight’s dinner. It was a fundraising charity event at Georgetown University and Elliot was the guest of honor. Therefore, she had to be at her absolute best.

“Lindsey?”

“Jessie! Oh my God! It’s so good to hear your voice!” She collapsed on the floor, being careful not to disturb the covers on their king-sized bed. Tears pricked her eyes again, and she pushed her lids shut. Her heart filled with lead. She wanted to tell her sister. So badly. She wanted to say, simply,
he beat me, Jessie. He might have dislocated my shoulder. And it hurts so much. I hurt so much
.

But she didn’t. She couldn’t. She never said a word.
Denial.
It was what she learned best under the reign of her father. She could keep quiet about anything.

“Hey, sis, are you okay? You sound kinda weird.”

Jessie was casual, honest, open, funny and direct. She was everything Lindsey wasn’t. Quiet, obedient, reticent, and willing to accept the unacceptable, that was good, little Lindsey Bains.

Lindsey licked her lips as she forced a fake smile and tried to make her voice come out even. “No, not weird. Just getting ready for a dinner tonight.”

“A dinner? What is the latest dinner celebrating Elliot as the golden boy? I swear, you two are royalty. Here, there and everywhere, aren’t you?”

She bit her lip to repress the cry of anguish. Jessie was teasing her. There was no teasing when it came to what Elliot did to her. “Yes. You know how badly he wants this. So, we do it.”

Jessie laughed. “Oh, don’t I know it! President Elliot Johanson of the United States of America. I can’t believe I’ll be related.”

Despite everything against them, their entire fucked-up history, and the serious consequences their childhood caused to both of them, Jessie never lost her sense of humor, her zest, or her spark for life. She could always, even now, make Lindsey smile. How Jessie managed to guess that was exactly what Elliot planned for the long term, Lindsey didn’t know. She never told Jessie. She told no one because Elliot ordered her not to. For the time being, he was, merely running for state governor. But he had many more far-reaching goals than just that. This was only the beginning. “Not there yet.”

“Oh, you’ll get there. Elliot doesn’t take no, now, does he? So, you’ll be first lady of the United States. And you’re made for that, Lindsey. No doubt in my mind.”

“You… think he doesn’t take no for an answer?” Lindsey’s voice faltered. Jessie actually noticed Elliot was controlling?

“Well, no offense, Linds, but Elliot gets his way no matter what. He even tries it with Will.”

She pressed her tongue on the roof of her mouth to keep from confirming Jessie’s description. “So, what’s up. Any reason you’re calling?”

“I want you to come over here. It’s been a really long time. And I may need to go on bed rest soon, but I want nothing more than to hang out with you.”

“Bed rest? Is there anything wrong?” Jessie was seven months pregnant, and said from the very beginning how she wanted Lindsey to stay with her for a few weeks after the baby was born. Will, her soldier/rescuer-turned-loving-husband, thought it was a good idea. For obvious reasons regarding Jessie’s history, Will secretly worried how she’d deal with their baby. She had to give her first baby up for adoption, since it was the result of rape when she was kidnapped.

“No, but I have gestational diabetes, and was told to slow things down. I don’t really know; I just have a feeling.”

“You know I’d love to, but there is so much going on here. And isn’t it a little early yet for me to come?”
And my husband won’t let me.

“I know. But the election isn’t for a year and you said Elliot has all that traveling to do before he really starts campaigning. I thought we could hang out before it all gets crazy. For both of us. And won’t it look good to the public if you’re off to help the hero’s baby? After all, isn’t Will Hendricks being his brother-in-law part of Elliot’s appeal?”

Jessie was sharp. She saw that too, huh? She realized Elliot liked the national hero that Will Hendricks became after he saved, then married Jessie. Will finally took down her father that so publicly destroyed Jessie. Elliot, however, did not like Will personally, mostly because Will was quiet, honorable, courageous, brave, kind, gentle and… well, everything that Elliot lacked in character. Will used his strengths like a super hero, and would never think to leverage his position to do whatever he wanted, as Elliot did.

But… maybe, just maybe, Elliot would let her go if she presented it properly. He had traveling to do on business before he started really campaigning.

“I’ll discuss it with him and let you know.”

“You mean ask him?” Jessie’s tone was light, as if she were kidding. But she sensed there was something Jessie wasn’t saying.

“I mean, I’ll let you know.”

There was a pause over the line before Jessie sighed. “Okay, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have sounded so bitchy. I’m full of rocketing hormones. I just hope you’ll come. Even if it’s for only a week. Whatever time you can get. That’s enough.”

She shut her eyes and gulped down her sob. She wanted to come right away too.

“I’ll try,” she whispered.

“Sis, you know, there’s nothing we wouldn’t do for you.”

We, being Will and Jessie. She knew. She did. But they couldn’t help her. Or save her. They’d have to know everything first.