Abuse: The Complete Trilogy (4 page)

“Friendship is
born at that moment when one person says to another: ‘What! You too? I thought
I was the only one.’

— C.S. Lewis

~~~

I now know what it
means when people talk about pulling the rug out from under you. If I wasn’t
sitting down, I doubt my legs would hold me.

Dammit.

My face is
burning, yet I feel both hot and cold. It’s as if I’m sick and I have a fever.
André asks me that question so casually, as if inquiring what I’d like to eat
for lunch.

A fear I’ve known
since I was a child slams into me, choking me into silence. Despite an outside
temperature in the 90’s, my body beads in an icy, anxious sweat.

Shit, shit,
shit, shit!

My stomach
twists. I feel ill. Desperately, I try to comfort myself with the thought that
it was going to come out anyway. I’d planned to tell him everything eventually,
so what the hell.

Unluckily for me,
I’d rather eat a plate full of barbed wire than talk about this hideously
painful subject.

André waits
patiently for me to speak.

I try to deal
with all of the images and emotions that well up from deep inside, covering me
over like a fast rising tide. I feel as if I’m drowning in childhood memories—a
profoundly shameful past I’ve tried to conceal and forget.

At least he
guessed. I didn’t have to go through the agony of telling him. I don’t know how
I would've ever broached this conversation otherwise. I mean, how the hell
would anyone come out with such a filthy secret?

“How did you
know?” I eventually manage to say, in an unsteady whisper.

He shrugs and his
expression is matter of fact. “You feel perhaps you are the only one who has
experienced this. I am sorry to inform you, this problem is most common,
n'est-ce
pas?
You were shown a man’s penis as a child—you were
made
to look
oh, many, many times. These early memories are still very much with you, I
think.”

“Yes.”

Moments from my
past clamor for attention. So often, complete strangers would tell me, “Your
father is a great man.”

What could I say
to them? No, he’s not?

I wanted him to
be, but every time someone praised my father, I had to subdue a tsunami wave of
shame and guilt. I loved him and I hated him. He was very good to me. He was
very bad to me.

It’s no wonder
I’m all mixed up to hell and gone.

We sit
together—me tense and rigid, while André’s perfectly relaxed. How can he bring
up a subject like this and then sit there with such equanimity?

Calm and
supportive, André waits patiently for me to explain. It’s strange, but somehow,
once I start telling him a little, it’s easier to talk about it.

I go into detail
about how much I idolized my father, how he taught me to shoot and celebrated
my skill and achievements. I explain my dad’s easy manner of winning friends,
his natural charisma and good looks—and how people looked up to him and admired
him.

I was my father’s
favorite
child. Everyone in our family knew it. Now, when I look back to
the “special” place I held, I feel sick.

When I came into
my teens and began to understand that my dad had been abusing me, my world fell
apart. I couldn’t deal with it. I made excuses for him and blamed myself. I
loved my dad and I wanted to believe the myth of his perfection.

André shakes his
head. “If your father was physically grotesque, an ugly man, who beat you,
sexually abused you and was at all times cruel—you would have had an easier
childhood, I think.”

“What? Why?”

“On pardonne tant que l’on aime,”
he tells me. “It means, ‘we
pardon to the extent that we love.’ François de La Rochefoucauld, a very wise
man, said it centuries ago.”

I consider the quote and swallow with a very dry throat. Throughout my
childhood, I wanted to please my dad and I hated his disapproval. As a child,
it’s natural to assume it’s you that screwed up. He was always so perfect. What
he did
couldn't
be wrong. It just
couldn't
. It’s so much easier
to blame yourself.

I loved my father, and I
loved
my father.

Monster! Pervert!

The man I adored more than anyone else in the whole world, deceived and
betrayed me. It’s impossible to reconcile what happened with how I felt. Now I
can’t trust my emotions because one thing is certain—I have no idea what love
is.

Perceptive as always, André sees my confusion.

Arching one dark eyebrow, his gaze is filled with understanding. “A
father who is always cruel, he is much easier to deal with, no? The child’s
conclusions and resolutions are obvious: ‘He is a bad person,’ or, ‘I will not
be like him,’ and, ‘I will escape him.’

When I frown doubtfully, André adds, “
Mais oui!
Perhaps this child
witnesses his father hurting his mother. Right then, while still in his diapers,
the infant decides, ‘When I am old enough, I will kill him.’”

The picture of a baby plotting his father’s death surprises a burst of
laughter out of me. Not from humor—because it isn’t funny. Probably more from
shock.

“No! Really?” I ask. “That young? Do children still in diapers think like
that?”

“
Oui, oui!
But of course! Such resolutions come oh, very early in
life. A person does not always act on such a thought, yet sides have been
chosen. From then on, in the child’s eyes,
everything
the father says or
does is wrong.

“In your case, all was uncertain… for your father was not wicked,
all
of the time.
Your confusion was the result of two opposing forces with no
clear resolution. In this case, ‘Father is good’
and
‘Father is bad.’

His words are spot on.

I find I’m nodding in unconscious agreement.

André pauses and his face softens. His compelling dark eyes meet mine. “Such
a child must then live a lonely life of bitter uncertainty, constantly moving
back and forth, between joy and despair.”

Wow.

This is such a simple way to sum up my childhood—yet to hear it stated so
succinctly is an inexplicable relief.

For me, despair was a result of suppressing my rage. When I couldn’t
focus my confusion and anger outwards, it often boiled inward, to the misery of
self-loathing and guilt.

With André’s
careful direction, general memories of my father and my unnatural relationship
begin to fall from my lips.

I can’t tell him
specifics.

Whenever my words
trail off, he prompts me with attentive nods and sounds such as, “Oh?” or “Mm?”

His calm demeanor
doesn’t change—respectful interest is what registers in his expression. Not
embarrassment, not shame, not sympathy. Not shock, horror, disgust or pity—the
four of which I fear most.

He’s not angry
for the lost innocence of my childhood, nor is there any other emotion except mild
curiosity.

He’s focused on
me. He’s right with me, as I bare my soul.

The man is easy
to confide in, yet there’s so much buried here. I’ve barely touched on the
subject. I’ve given him no particulars.

I tell André of
the ‘games’ my father and I used to play. My dad interfered with me starting, I
think, from about age nine. I explain that I was the oldest of three children,
and my father’s ‘favorite.’ As a child, this favoritism seemed normal.

Looking back now,
it’s so obvious what was going on.

It’s a wonder no
one else saw it.

With respectful
and exact questioning, André pulls the truth from the dark well of my
subconscious, stuff I’ve never spoken of to
anyone
. Specifics I’ve tried
to keep buried deep within myself.

The devil is in
the details.

These are the
toughest to speak of, so I skirt around them as much as possible.

It doesn’t matter
what I say or do, André knows what’s going on. He’s patient and understanding—yet
I’m aware of a no-nonsense element of steel within this mild-mannered
Frenchman.

He intends to
make me tell him everything.

That’s what I’m
afraid of.

“Abuse? Ah.
Such problems, even with time, do not go away on their own. They must be
addressed.”

— André
Chevalier

~~~

My mother was
always away at some fund-raising event or with her friends when these
activities occurred. After a couple years, my father began to interfere with my
younger brother, too.

When he started
on my little brother, it was wrong on so many levels. I should’ve protected
Alex, but how could I stop my dad? This confession is difficult, as it’s a
great source of guilt.

I’m ashamed to
say that at the time, I was relieved to have a break from my father’s more
depraved attentions.

“You have never
spoken of this to your brother?”

I frown and shake
my head. “No. Never.”

My brother Alex
was there at the time. So was I. Why the hell would we talk about it? By then,
the moratorium on speech had been put in place and our silence concerning ‘games’
with our father was too well ingrained. We wanted to forget it—not get further
into it by hashing it over. Discussing our abuse wasn't an option.

My brother’s
married and he appears to be whatever passes in society as ‘normal,’ but I know
he has a substance abuse problem. Like many wealthy Americans, cocaine is his
drug of choice. I have no idea how he holds down his position in the family
business, but he does.

Alex and I
learned how to pretend everything was fine.

If you do this
long enough, after a while, you even begin to believe it.

“And so, this
too, is most common, my friend,” André assures me. “It becomes a difficult
conversation to have, no? The father, he would have warned you, in oh-so many
ways, never to speak of what you did together. Even now, when he is in the
grave, his commands from the past hold you mute. Like a gag, they have made you
keep silent… until now. An adult, particularly a parent, often has godlike
power over a child.”

I’m quiet for a
moment. Body and soul, I feel burdened by memories; buried by a mountain of
dark mental pictures of my past.

“These games your
father and you played together… did
you
sometimes initiate them?”

Shit.

André’s question
is right on target.

I’m on the
receiving end of a perfect head shot. The man is as fucking accurate as a
professional sniper. I’m utterly astonished. How does he hit the mark with such
precision?

I feel faint, as
if my blood has drained right out of my veins. André’s words echo in my head:
These
games, did
you
sometimes initiate them?

“For the love of
God, how could you
know
that?” I whisper.

His watchful eyes
soften with understanding. “Oh, this too is most common, you understand. You
are not alone in these experiences. To make the victim, not only an active
participant, but to make them
want
to play and even
initiate
such
games? Ah, it is very clever, no? In this manner, your abuser manipulates you
into believing
that
you
are to blame. The guilt, the shame… it is
yours.”

“I should have
stopped it… but instead…” I can’t say anymore. I close my mouth, shocked by
what I almost said.

I often
started it.

Our eyes meet and
I swear André sees right through me. He nods. “I assure you,
mon ami
,
you would have needed assistance from another adult to end such a crime, and
even then? Who can say? Your father was a hero in your community. A child
cannot fight such influence.”

“I—I don’t know
why I’ve never told anyone or asked for help. I never tried to stop it.”

“He made sure you
didn’t.”

I take a little
time to think this over, to try to remember. I don’t recall exactly what he
said to me when this whole thing started, except that I was ‘special’ and what
happened was ‘our game’ and ‘our little secret.’

At some level
deep down, even as I child, I must’ve known it was wrong. But I wanted his approval
so badly. I felt honored to be chosen—to be special enough for him to want me.

I say nothing
more.

I can’t.

“Grant,” André
says quietly, and his expression is bright with understanding. “You felt as
he
intended you to feel. It is the natural curiosity, trust, unconditional love
and innocence of a child that he used against you. He made these games between
you fun?”

Bullseye.
Another fucking head shot, raw and brutal.

I can barely hold
it together—I feel like I’m bleeding out. This shrewd Frenchman knows
everything. The ‘fun’ we had together makes my stomach churn. The phrase ‘
good,
clean fun’
goes through my mind and I feel like throwing up. It wasn’t good
or clean. It was dirty. Wrong. Repulsive.
Sickening.

“Yes,” I murmur,
choking on the bitter taste of this poisonous truth.

“But of course,”
he acknowledges his direct hit lightly.

Right now, I
can’t take anything lightly.

And yet, André’s tranquil
composure in the face of all this shit, is oddly soothing. He’s a counselor and
it’s quite obvious that he’s heard this sort of thing before. He wasn’t
shocked, horrified or offended. My story is nothing new to him—which is
disturbing in itself.

The serene manner
in which he listens to my secrets makes me feel that maybe, just maybe, it’s
safe to talk freely. Now that I’ve begun, I want to tell him more. Maybe I’ll
be able to speak of the specifics of the terrible,
terrible
things I’ve
done
.

Monster!
Pervert!

My stomach twists
into a tight, painful knot with some of these memories. I close my mouth tightly
so I don’t throw up. Hopefully, I’ll be able to talk about it—once my lips are
able to form words.

I don’t know if I
can do this—it’s right up there with my greatest fear. If I’m brave enough to
tell him, will I be able to look André in the face again? Or will I see disgust
and contempt in those watchful dark eyes?

If I can, I hope
to have the courage to tell him everything.