The Red Hunter(20)
“I have thought about it,” said Raven, sounding far older than her years. “I want to know. Either way, I want to own who I am.”
Raven turned to look out the window, the sun and the green of the grass, and the autumn golds and reds casting her in silhouette. She had Claudia’s button nose. Though her eyes were deep black, Claudia always thought that they were Ayers’s eyes, almost but not quite almond shaped, heavily lashed. Raven was lean with delicate features—long fingers, high cheekbones—like Ayers’s mom Sophie. She had Martha’s rock-solid faith in her own abilities. And yet, she was just Raven, someone unique in all the universe, part of them all and yet all herself.
“But you can do that without the test,” said Claudia. “You are who you are right now. Nothing will change that.”
“Then let me do it,” she said.
Claudia put the truck in gear and started driving. She pulled out of the drive and onto the road. She didn’t have the right answer for this. But she could feel her resolve on this topic weakening for the first time. It was all well and good to make decisions for your children before they had opinions of their own.
“In less than three years, I’ll be eighteen,” said Raven. She tilted her chin up. “You won’t be able to stop me then.”
Was she counting the years until she owned herself? The thought made Claudia unspeakably sad.
“Where are we going, anyway?” Raven asked.
“Hel-lo?” said Claudia. “We’re going to school.”
“I’m not going today. Remember?” she said. “Principal Blake wants me to regroup, start fresh on Monday.”
Again, Claudia brought the truck to a stop. Of course. Claudia was the queen at blocking out the things she didn’t want to remember. Raven was right. She was absentminded, distracted. A flake, Claudia’s own mother would have said. Her mother was also gone, just two years after her father. Claudia was an orphan. A divorced orphan. She almost tripped into the abyss of self-pity and added single mother.
“What’s in your backpack, then?” she asked.
“My clothes,” said Raven. “I told you I wanted to go to Dad’s this weekend. You said I could.”
The prospect of the weekend alone in the house was bleak. On the other hand, there was a lot she could get done without Raven lurking around, complaining. She wouldn’t have to make proper meals, or monitor her daughter’s screen time, or suggest that they go to the gym or make a picnic to keep the kid from vegetating in front of the computer all day, texting with her friends in the city.
“What time is he expecting you?” she said, trying to stay light.
“He’s taking a half day,” Raven said. “Ella’s going to be away. She has a yoga retreat.”
Of course, she does. How nice for her. Don’t be catty, Claudia. It doesn’t become you, Martha would surely say. Then Martha would say something even cattier. Not catty. Biting, scathing, so close to the bone that even Claudia would cringe. If Claudia was a kitten, bearing her little claws now and then, Martha was a lioness. With a single effortless swipe, she could cut your throat.
“So run some errands with me, and we’ll do breakfast,” said Claudia. “Then I’ll take you to the train.”
“Okay,” said Raven. She was looking at her phone, tapping with her thumbs.
Claudia should probably be punishing Raven. Shopping, breakfast out, and then an unscheduled trip to the city to see Ayers (the preferred parent) was not exactly a hard consequence for bad behavior. The guilt was making her soft. Claudia had moved Raven out here against her will, taking her away from her friends and her life in the city, so that Claudia could pursue this idea she had. Not just because of that. The city—it was such a crush, such a drain of energy and finances. Claudia had been struggling. And those friends of Raven’s? Some of them were real trouble. Claudia had found a dime bag of marijuana in Raven’s backpack, a slim package of rolling papers. It sealed her decision. Now Raven had to adjust to a new life while she was struggling with this big question of her identity.
And, really, who was Claudia to keep her daughter from this knowledge?
Claudia was all about the truth, speaking her pain, putting it out there, not just for herself but to help others who needed a voice. Soon after her attack and before Raven was born, Claudia joined an online support group; she shared her story and read the stories of others. Monsters thrive in the dark, she believed; if you dared to shine a light on the ugly things, they often shrank to nothing. Rape victims so often hid from what happened to them, blaming themselves, drowning in shame, suffering depression, PTSD. She didn’t want to hide what happened to her. Admittedly, Claudia never even thought about what it meant to be the child of a rape victim, one who wasn’t certain whether she was the product of that rape or not. Claudia never once, never once, allowed herself to think that Raven didn’t belong to Ayers. It wasn’t even an option. The universe just wasn’t that cruel; that’s what she told herself.
You told these people everything that happened to you? About Raven? Ayers had stammered when he first found out that she had joined an online discussion group. (That was right when things started to go bad between them, when he first got that she wasn’t just going to forget, just get over it.) And that was even before the internet was what it is today, a huge barfing mouth of everybody’s over-sharing. Now there was no more secret shame; it was all out there. But back then, those internet discussion groups still had the illusion of privacy. Typing in the dark, nothing lighting the room but the glow of the screen, sharing with anonymous other victims, baring it all. There she was just LostGirl—she could rage, she could whine, she could worry that she’d never be whole again. It was cathartic. It was the only thing that had helped her step back into the world of the living, knowing that she wasn’t alone. She would look at other women she saw on the street and wonder, What is your secret shame?