All Is Not Forgotten(60)

Jenny had confided these secret meetings to me, and I felt obligated to keep her confidence. Still, Sean was twenty-five. He was married. Jenny was sixteen. It was one of those dilemmas that sits in the back of your mind, like a small crack in the ceiling. You forget about it in the midst of everything else going on. But once in a while, your eye catches it and you think, has it gotten worse? Is it time to fix it? I would not let their relationship become sexual. I would not let the ceiling collapse entirely. But then, we never know when the crack will finally give way, do we? We can’t see behind the plaster.

Sean was feeling love for his son because of his connection with Jenny. Jenny and Sean shared something unique, an understanding, that went beyond the empathy that I and the other people in their lives could provide. And within this understanding came a connection. And that connection gave Jenny a home, a safe place to be. And it gave Sean power.

When Sean called Jenny in the middle of the night, his rage tearing through him, his hand in a fist, she knew what he was feeling. She didn’t have to say anything to him. She just had to listen. Sean did the same for her. Before she recalled that one small memory of her rape, she had told me what it was like to be with him.

I think about it for hours. I close my eyes and I picture us sitting at the diner or walking by the lake. I can see his face and I go through everything I want to tell him. Like I’m rehearsing for a play or something. I can’t think about the homework I have to do for the tutor or my mother’s schedule or anything at all. I imagine that I’m taking all the bad feelings and putting them in a garbage bag, like a giant black plastic bag. One by one, the burning in my stomach, the pounding in my chest, the fear of everything and nothing, that feeling that nothing is what it seems, the disorientation—everything we talk about in here and everything that made me so crazy I tried to kill myself—I start shoving it all into a bag. And then I carry that bag on the back of my bike and then I see his car and he gets out and then right away, in a second, he takes the bag and puts it in his trunk and then it’s just gone the whole time we’re together. It’s really, really gone! And whatever happens, whether we just talk about stupid stuff or I cry the whole time or he goes off on things that made him angry that week—it doesn’t matter at all, because the bag of garbage is locked in his trunk.

“And what happens when you go back to town and he parks his car and you get out and unlock your bike? Does he give you back the garbage bag?” I asked her. I usually know the answers to my questions. This time I did not.

He doesn’t give it back to me. He would never do that. But there’s always more garbage.

“I’m sorry, Jenny. That must be very hard to know it’s not gone forever when he drives away with it.”

But the thing is, I know that in a week or ten days or whatever it is, I can give him the bag and for that small amount of time, I’ll be free of it. So when it comes, I just imagine I’m putting it in the bag. And then more comes, and I put that in the bag. I just fill that bag up and then put it on my bike and carry it to him.

I cannot hold the bag for Jenny. Nor can her parents or her friends or the other members of the group. Only Sean. Can you imagine having that power?

Sean does not give his garbage bag to Jenny. I have not asked him about this, or about Jenny at all, because this decent man does not need one more ounce of guilt. But I know. Sean would not take any pleasure in passing along his burdens. His pleasure, his joy, lies within the power he has to hold hers. He takes her garbage bag and she gives him purpose, a reason to get up every day. A reason to keep fighting. A reason to live.

Yes, Sean loved his son. I did not know yet whether he loved his wife or just felt obligated to her. They had never shared one peaceful day. Regardless, he loved Philip, and his love was set free by what he had with Jenny. She had found a wormhole through his guilt and around the ghosts. They could not touch the power she gave him. And that power was like an invisible force field around his love, protecting it, making it feel safe to come out of hiding.

I feel frustrated. I am mixing so many metaphors. How I struggle to explain things to you.

Can we at least agree that they shared something very special?

The trouble is this: He is a man and she is a woman—young, yes, but still a woman. And when there is a connection this strong, it wants to go to the ends of the earth. And the ends of the earth for a man and woman involves sex. Not sometimes. Not maybe. Always.

I sat down at the table between myself and Sean. I was moving slowly because the phone call came five minutes later than I had requested earlier that morning.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Sean. I have to take this. Do you mind waiting?”

It’s all good, Doc, he said.

I took my cell phone in the small chamber between my office and the bathroom. I closed the door, not all the way.

“Detective Parsons. Thank you for calling back,” I said. I stood very close to the opening in the door. I did not lower my voice.

No problem. You said you had something for me to look into? Has something happened with Jenny? Another memory?

“Something like that. Listen, though. This cannot go further than you and me, do you understand? When I tell you, you will for sure.”

You definitely have my attention, Alan. What is it?

My heart was pounding wildly. I felt corrupted. I had been so filled with goodness that morning with Sean. Hearing about his moment with Philip. Sharing his tears. It felt pure and sacred. And now I was about to continue down my evil path.