All Is Not Forgotten(47)

“I think that’s an excellent start. I imagine the difference between a wave and a rapist is that the wave has power whether it tumbles you or carries you to shore. You’ve simply gotten in its way. The rapist has power only when he’s hurting his victim. Rape is not sex. But that was still a good start.”

I know they are different, obviously. But the mechanical part of it is the same. Everyone uses that expression to describe what you just did—about the power and all that. I don’t know. Call it what you want—rape, sex, whatever—there is penetration by one person of another.

“Yes. That is true. Maybe we are just saying the same thing with different words. The important part is that you spoke to your daughter about this.”

It was the first time I’ve felt reconnected to her since the rape. Maybe even long before it. I did, I felt this connection, this bond which I couldn’t share with her, but it was there for me. I know it’s different, what happened with me the first time. But some of it, that moment that she described to you, of being an animal and having someone, like you said, take your will from you in that way. That part, that one part felt very similar.

“So you realize what that means, don’t you?”

I’m not sure.

“Well, you’ve told me that you remember wanting to have sex with your mother’s husband. That can’t be true if you had that feeling, that same feeling Jenny had. Maybe you didn’t physically resist him. And maybe he would have stopped if you’d asked him. But you did not want it to happen. Your will was broken by a need for love that should have been filled by your mother.”

She was silent then. She was not ready to accept this. To let herself off the hook. She had become so accustomed to living her double life. Bad Charlotte was a part of her and bad Charlotte wanted to stay.

“And how was Tom with everything?”

My question was devious, unethical. It may seem benign to you, but I was now also living a double life. The doctor trying to help this family. And the father trying to protect his own.

I don’t really know. I don’t know what he’s feeling anymore. He fell asleep in bed with his computer on his lap. I don’t know why I did this, but I removed the computer, and I took off my clothes and then I pulled down the comforter. Tom woke up. He looked at me almost with shock. We haven’t had sex for almost a year. The one time we tried after the rape, I could tell it felt wrong to him. Like he couldn’t enjoy himself until Jenny was okay and her attacker was behind bars. I didn’t really want to either. I just thought it was time. But last night I didn’t care. I climbed on top of him and we had sex. I don’t know if he enjoyed it. I don’t care about that either. He didn’t seem to like it, but he did nothing to stop me. It’s like everything else in our marriage. He just crumbled. I feel like shit. I don’t know why I did it. Do you think I was trying to do that same thing to him? To take his will?

“No, I don’t.”

Then what?

“I think you wanted to feel the wave take you safely to shore.”

This session came the day after I promised Tom I would try to find a memory of a blue sweatshirt. And the day after my wife found the blue sweatshirt on the floor of my son’s closet.

But I have gotten ahead again. Let’s go back to the afternoon following my meeting with the Kramers, the meeting when I told them about Jenny’s recalled memory.

I was deeply satisfied as I drove home. Jenny and I had recovered the memory, and now I had shared the news with her parents. I was hopeful that more memories would come. More and more until she remembered every detail of that night—the moment when she first felt his hand on her body; the moment when she realized he was going to hurt her; the instinct to fight; screaming for help, still hopeful, still not believing this was happening; then the cool air on her skin as her clothing was ripped off; the memory she recalled—the penetration, the stealing of her innocence and her will and her humanity. What else was in there waiting to be found? Pain; acceptance; the stick scratching her skin, reaching the nerves under the first layer and the nerves of each layer after that which sent more pain signals to her brain. Agony. Despair. Ruin. I have been doing this long enough to know.

It was early afternoon. The Kramers had been my last appointment. I try not to schedule patients after Jenny or her parents in case we need to go longer. I do the same with Sean. Their sessions are unpredictable, as you have seen. On this day, I was looking forward to sharing with my wife the tremendous news about the bleach and the memory recall it had provoked. I had not told her yet, because I had not decided whether it was appropriate. I decided I would do so as I drove home. I simply could not keep this to myself for one more day.

“Julie?” I called out from the kitchen. The lights were on. Her car was in the garage. There was no answer.

“Honey?” I called out again. This time I heard her. She yelled to me from upstairs.

Alan! Alan! her voice sounded surprised and relieved and panicked all at once. She had not been expecting me, but was now in immediate need of my assistance.

Of course, I set down my briefcase and keys and hurried up the stairs.

“Julie? Where are you?”

Here! I’m here!

I followed her voice to our bedroom.

It would be too easy to say, simply, that I saw her sitting on our bed with the blue sweatshirt, her face contorted by fear, and that I knew our son was in trouble. I do not know if you have experienced something like this. Most of us have, to varying degrees. It is not at all dissimilar from what Jenny described, the slow putting together of facts and then the horrific realization of what is happening. You have a moment of mental rebellion, where your brain rejects the information that is coming in. It is too toxic, a virus, and it is going to require the massive realignment of emotions and attachments that give you pleasure or maybe just peace of mind. It is going to wreak havoc.