Samson and Sunset (22 page)

  “It’s in the glove box of the car,
princess,” Shay interrupted, through tears.

  “I knew we had the four kerosene lamps
in case of a power outage, so I got a lantern, lit it, and walked
to the Straw House. It took all of my strength to open the door—you
know how heavy it is and how loud it squeaks. I took one step
inside and held the lantern in front of me. I saw my jean jacket on
the floor and when I saw that, I began to see and feel the whole
thing all over again; the smell of must, sweat, filth; the sound of
heavy breathing in my ears.

  “I didn’t want to hear any more of it,
so I threw the lantern down and put my hands over my ears. The
lantern landed on my jean jacket, and I saw the oil spill and catch
fire, so I ran fast into the house, took off my boots and ran
upstairs into the bathroom.

  “I ran a bath and got in to soak.
Someone must have called Shay, because he came into the bathroom
and told me the Straw House was on fire. Shay knows everything that
happened after that.”

  I cried like a little child who had
been caught doing something wrong.

  Shay was out of his chair and out the
back door. We could hear his tires screech as he pulled away.
Sterling looked at Delmer and said, “I’m not filing a claim, and ya
know Mac, I gave my daughter-in-law permission to burn down that
old shack. So I think we have everything taken care of here, don’t
you?”

  “Yep,” said Mac.

  Maggie was still sobbing hysterically.
Sterling asked me to call the family doctor to come out and give
Maggie a shot to help settle her down.

  Just then, Hulda came running into the
living room telling everyone Shay had taken the high powered rifle
off the wall when he went out. Mac and Sterling ran out to go find
Joe, who would know where Frank was working. They needed to find
Shay, and fast.

  Shakily, I called the family doctor.
The nurse asked me to hold, and when she returned she said the
doctor would be right out. Lila and I put Maggie on the sofa in the
den and covered her up with a blanket.

  “Child,” Lila said to me. “You’re the
one we should be taking care of, you’re such a strong person,
Kathrine. You’re so good for this family. Please sit down and rest,
honey. I want that doctor to see you when he gets here, too.”

  Lila didn’t have to ask twice, I
needed a doctor. I was crying, shaking and numb. I remember saying,
“God, if I’ve ever needed you in my life, it’s now. Please keep
Shay safe. I’ll give him up, but keep him safe, please.”

  How could Shay love me after this? My
life was just over. It was over.

  ***

The Westover family doctor arrived about an
hour later and we still hadn’t heard from the guys. I was sick all
over again, just feeling as bad as the day it all happened. Doc, as
the family called him, went right to work giving Maggie a shot. I
could tell this wasn’t the first time he’d had to calm her
down.

  I was really starting to see Maggie
through different eyes. There was a tenderness about her, a
fragility you didn’t see at first. She had come through for me in
my time of need. Finally, the doctor came out of the den and said
it would take about twenty minutes for the shot to take affect. He
saw my tears and asked if I needed to talk. Lila spoke right up and
told him I not only needed to talk to him, but I needed to be
examined, then Lila went in to sit with Maggie. By this time all
was out, so when the doctor asked if I wanted to talk about it, I
just poured it all out to him.

  “Kathrine, you’ve been through a lot
the last couple of days, but the first thing I want to do is give
you a shot of penicillin just as a precaution. If you and Shay have
been intimate, I need to give him one also. You will need a pelvic
exam, Kathrine. You can have your doctor do it, or I will be happy
to do it for you.” His voice was kind and understanding.

  After the shot, I just reclined in a
chair and waited for some word about Shay. Lila came out and sat
with me. She said the doctor wanted to talk to Maggie in private
for a while.

  Another agonizing hour passed before
Sterling, Mac and Shay came back. The minute Shay entered the house
he picked me up and carried me into the master suite—that beautiful
place where he introduced me to real love and gentleness. The very
first thing Shay did was unbutton my blouse and open my bra. He
couldn’t believe what he saw. My breasts were all bruised and
beginning to scab where some of the teeth marks had broken the
skin. Shay kissed my breasts gently as if to try to heal a wound,
like a parent when a child skins a knee.

  “Oh, Callie, I’m sick, just sick that
someone hurt you like that and I wasn’t there to save you. Oh, my
baby doll. I’ll always take care of you, Callie,” Shay said with
tears running down his face. “You never have to worry about Frank
again.”

  I told Shay I would pack as soon as we
got home and go to Mom’s.

  “Woman, you’re not going anywhere. I
love you so much. Do you think I love you less because that animal
wanted you? Callie, there is something about you that is so
innocent, and yet you carry this overwhelming sexual allure. I see
it when you walk, when you peel a potato, when you make a bed. You
know, Callie, some women have it, and some women don’t. You just
have it, woman. You have genuine sex appeal, and men just want you,
and you aren’t even aware of it. You see yourself as someone who’s
not as good as other women, all because of Dane Dalton. But Callie
Westover, you’re so damn sexy.”

  Shay cradled me in his arms. “Maybe
you should stop dressing so alluringly, babe; at least around the
farm. They’re men. They can’t help but look at you. I look at you
every chance I get. You turn me on so much. I love you, princess,
and you’re not going anywhere. We are going home together,
woman.”

  I told Shay he had to wait for the
doctor to come out of the den to get a shot, so he said we’d stay
awhile. It was about another hour when old Doc came out. In the
meantime, Shay had made me warm tea and was holding me like a
baby.

  Doc gave Shay a shot and said, “I’d
like to talk to you all as a family. I think we’ve learned a lot of
things here today. I know there have been some eye-openers for me,
but Sterling, if you’d rather, I’ll talk to you in private.”

  Sterling amazed me again. “You know,
Doc,” he said, “if Kathrine can tell us all the personal things she
told us today, I think you can talk to all of us. We’re all family
here.”

  Listening to Doc talk the next hour
was hard for all of us, especially Sterling, and I’m sure for Shay
as well. Doc said Maggie had completely fallen apart, but she was
holding on to a newfound strength. He told us something that
neither I, nor Shay, had ever heard:

  Maggie had been institutionalized in
Watertown with a severe emotional breakdown when she was pregnant
with Shay. From October through December, she had completely fallen
apart. Shay was born the end of January. So all these years Maggie
had her medication to help her feel stable, but she still had a
weak emotional system.

  “Sterling, I’m going to tell you
something I learned today that’s going to open this whole condition
of Maggie’s up for us. It’s a newfound realm, where we can now
treat her properly. Sterling,” Doc put his hand on Sterling’s
shoulder, “Maggie was raped in the Straw House by one of your hands
when she was five months pregnant with Shay. She had nowhere to
turn, and as you remember, we couldn’t get her to stop crying for
over a month straight. Well,” he said sadly. “Now we know why.”

  We all stared at Doc, wide-eyed and
stunned.

  “Sterling,” he continued, “that was
Maggie’s emotional system keeping her alive. Remember when they
wanted to do electroshock treatments? I told you then, if they did,
Shay would probably be stillborn. Well, it’s a damn good thing we
didn’t allow that, because today Maggie saw how strong Kathrine
was, and she told me everything. I asked if she would mind if I
told you, and she said that after what Kathrine told us, it was
okay. I know Maggie’s going to get well. She hated the Straw House,
Sterling, and she couldn’t tell anyone why. All these years, poor
Maggie just avoided it.”

  Talk about a sad family. We even saw
Sterling cry. Sterling, can you imagine that? I think Shay was
seeing his mother through new eyes. I know I was. Sterling got up
and went into the den to be with Maggie. Shay picked me up off the
sofa and put me in the car and we went home. We dismissed Yonnie
and went to bed. Shay just held me all night. The next day he
didn’t go to work, just held me in bed all day.

  Sexual Healing

  Well, we made it through the rape. I
don’t think a man ever showered his wife with more love. If Shay
had been faking his love, his touch, his lovemaking, I would have
known. If anything, he seemed to just love me more. Sometimes I
wondered if Shay was even turned on by someone else wanting and
having me. It really didn’t matter, because he showered me with so
much love and great passionate lovemaking.

  Silly man, he bought me a huge pair of
Oshkosh overalls that went over my riding clothes, with a zip-up
front. He wanted me to wear them whenever I was out around the
grounds or the stables, then when I was ready to ride I could take
them off with just a flip of the zip. It was a sweet thought, but
what really helped me was remembering back to my childhood.

  When I was nine or ten, this creepy
old man came to our neighborhood on the East side of the tracks. He
had a saddled up pony with him. All the kids had been swimming, and
we got out of the pool to get pony rides. We all lined up, about
five or six of us. I had on slacks that had a button on the side
and under the button there was an open slit. When it was my turn,
the evil old creep got his hand inside the open slit and was
fondling me while giving me a ride up and down the street. He
wouldn’t let me off the pony. He had a firm hold on me and I
couldn’t get loose.

  I finally got away from him and ran
directly home to tell my daddy what he’d done. My daddy got my
godfather, uncle Jacob, and we all went in the car and found the
old creep. My daddy beat the hell out of that man; then he and
uncle Jacob threw him in the car, tied the pony to a tree, and took
the old creep to the police station.

  My daddy was so cool. He told me how
proud he was of me to have come to him immediately, that I had done
absolutely nothing wrong; the man was sick. My daddy made me feel
good about myself, so it really never bothered me. Guess that’s
part of what helped me through the aftermath of the rape. I had
Daddy there to tell me what a good person I was, how sick Frank
was, how I was in no way at fault.

  I never asked what happened to Frank
and Shay never told me. I think it was better that way.

  ***

The rest of September was a wonderful month.
We boated, barbequed and had a lot of friends over. But what we
most enjoyed was our children. Kelly was getting used to riding
with us on Samson and Sunset. On those occasions, the horseback
ride was just that, a horseback ride. No rolling in the grass by
the lake. I was surprised to see how much Kelly took to horses. We
realized we had a little horsewoman on our hands.

  I got up every morning looking forward
to the coming night when I would be back in Shay’s arms. I loved
having Shay inside of my life. I remember one night around the end
of September, Shay was already in bed and, thinking he was asleep,
I lifted the covers to get in very quietly. Before I could even
pull the sheet up, he tackled me and pinned me on my back, tickling
my ribcage and underarms like crazy. I was just going bananas.

  Finally, I said, “I give up, I give
up, you win! Ravish my form with yours!”

  After the lovemaking, Shay looked down
into my eyes with those big brown eyes of his, and said, grinning:
“Guess whose body was all warm and twingey inside? Miss Callie, I
just got you pregnant.”

  “I think the timing is off by a week
big boy,” I said. Then it crossed my mind that if there was one
thing I didn’t want this month, it was to be pregnant. Not because
I didn’t want Shay’s baby, but because of what Frank had done to
me.

  ***

One night when we were out for supper with
some friends, Jenny and Troy, Jenny told us they were trying to get
pregnant.

  “Sex is so different without a
condom!” she said.

  Well, here I was with two babies and I
had never had sex with a condom. That night when we got home I
asked Shay if we could make love using a condom. I think he thought
I’d lost my mind.

  “I don’t have any Callie, so we
can’t.”

  “Are you sure you don’t have one
somewhere?” I asked.

Shay raised up on his arm and looked at me,
like, ‘Do you think I’m nuts, woman?
We
don’t use them, so
if I
did
have one, do you think I’d tell
you?
’ 

“Well, then Shay, can you get one tomorrow,
and we’ll use it tomorrow night?”

  “I can get one,” he said, “but I hate
them and you’re not going to like it, Callie. I’ll feel like I’m
not inside of your life, and you’ll feel the same way.”

  Sure enough, the next day when Shay
came in, he walked up to me, opened my hand and placed a small foil
package in my palm.

  “There’s your condom, Callie. Now put
it on,” he said with a straight face.

  “Am I supposed to wear it?” I
asked.

  By now Shay was laughing. “If you had
to wear it, Callie, where would you put it?”

  I was so excited for our big condom
night. I couldn’t wait to get the kids down for the night.

  Finally, the kids were in bed, asleep,
and it was time! Yippee!

  First we both showered together—that
was always so arousing. Then we got out, towel dried, lotioned up,
and got into bed naked together.