My Name Is Venus Black(95)

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THAT DAY, IT was actually Leo who found the hole. He was lying on my bed, naming planets, when he stopped at Saturn. He got up and went over to the wall near my dresser and stood on his tiptoes, reaching for something. The sunlight was slanting through the window just so—and I saw what Leo was after. I put my pinky in the perfectly round hole at the center of a knot in the knotty-pine paneling—and it went all the way through.

Through to what? The more I looked at the hole, the stranger it seemed. I could see nothing through it, but I knew where it led. I told Leo in a stern voice to go upstairs, right then. Fortunately, it didn’t spark a trantrum.

I stuck a pencil into the hole, then went out to the garage, telling myself it was probably just a natural flaw in the knotty pine. The garage was unfinished—Raymond used portable heaters in winter to work on cars. His hot-rod calendar on the far wall was jutting out a little bit. When I lifted the calendar, I saw the pointy end of my pencil.

I froze in shock and disbelief as the truth pounded through my brain. Raymond had been spying on me for God knew how long through that hole—watching me dress, watching me walk in naked from the shower, watching my friends undress….



Oh my God. Everything buzzed. My body felt like it burst into flames of shame. It was the worst possible thing I could imagine happening to me.

It was the end of my world.

Panicked and gasping for breath, I shoved the pencil back through the hole and let the hot-rod calendar fall to cover it again. I stumbled to my room and sat on my bed, shaking with rage and terror. I wailed over and over, “Oh my God! Oh my God!”

Raymond was out, helping a friend at his shop. But Inez should get home from work any minute. And when she did, she would see the truth. She would finally throw the bastard out.

The second I heard her walk in upstairs, I ran up and started yelling. “You have to come see this!” While she tried to ask questions, I dragged her down to my room and confronted her with the hole. “He’s been watching me!” I shouted. “For God knows how long!”

To prove it, I had her follow me to the garage and lifted the calendar. Inez looked sick, like she’d been slapped. I expected outrage, but instead she began to explain it away. “Maybe the previous owners…” she said.

“Are you kidding me?” I screeched.

But she continued to defend him. “I know my own husband, Venus. Ray would never…How could you even think such a thing?” Like I was the dirty one.

“You’re my mother!” I gasped. “You have to fix this. You have to get rid of him! You have to do something! You can’t let him back in this house!”

She promised to fix the hole, and then she said she had to make dinner. I sat on my bed, immobilized. I kept thinking back, putting together the pieces. Surely this was why I had been so revolted by Raymond my entire childhood. Without knowing why, I had always known without knowing, which was the most horrifying part of all.



I don’t remember how long I sat there, my rage boiling until it turned into something like a plan. I calmly went upstairs and passed Inez in the kitchen. In their bedroom closet, I stood on tiptoe and caught the edge of a shoe box—the one where Raymond kept his handgun buried under a bunch of Inez’s scarves. The silver weapon looked cold and mean against the silky fabrics. I took it out and put the box away.

That’s when I realized that Leo had followed me into the bedroom and that he saw what I had in my hand. Quickly I tucked the gun under my shirt.

I hid the gun in my room, in the top drawer of my dresser.

When Raymond pulled into the carport, I rushed upstairs to listen at the door. Despite her denials that Raymond would ever do such a thing, I still believed she’d interrogate him. See through his lies. Kick him out. Instead, she greeted him as if nothing were wrong. Asked about his day. Told him dinner would be ready soon. Surely we wouldn’t all sit down at the table like it was a normal night.

Stunned by her words, I went back down the stairs to my room and took the gun out of the drawer and held it. Raymond always taught us never to leave a gun loaded, so I guessed it wasn’t something he would do, either.

I was tempted to check the chamber for bullets—but I stopped myself. Because what if it was loaded? What if it wasn’t?

When Inez called down that it was time for dinner, I almost didn’t go up. I didn’t know if I could see Raymond without trying to claw his eyes out. I didn’t want to give away what I knew, what Inez knew. I don’t remember what Inez served, only that I silently fumed through the meal, careful not to look at Raymond’s face. I saw his arms, though. And the thick blond hair on them gagged me so much I couldn’t eat.

“I’m not hungry,” I finally said, getting up. Surely, now that it was obvious that I was angry and deeply upset about something, Inez would talk to Raymond. After dinner, she would busy Leo with something and then she’d confront Raymond about the hole. Raymond would probably deny it, but she’d be able to tell he was lying and she’d finally stick up for me, demand that he leave.



But that’s not what happened. After dinner, Inez sat at the kitchen table, doing bills, and Raymond watched TV, drinking beer. I hung around, feeling more and more enraged. At one point, I sat at the table and whispered loudly to Inez, “So you’re not going to say anything? Do anything?”