The Source of All Things (16 page)

I doubt Nick and Lori would have liked Mary, who, for reasons I still don't understand, was allowed to hang out in seedy bars in Portland's Burnside district. My aunt and uncle, on the other hand, kept their conservative chains shackled tightly around my ankles. My territory when I lived with them consisted of school, track practice, home, and church. I joined them for service at their Methodist church on Sundays, but while theirs was the god of
affluence and corporate conservatism, my god reigned over the world of music and imagination. Its disciples were my friends at Whitford, who turned me on to David Bowie, the Romantics, and Yaz. After my Shakespeare class read
Romeo and Juliet,
we went on a field trip to the Ashland Shakespeare Festival, where I saw people who'd committed themselves to the arts. For the first time in months, I got out my journals and started writing poetry and short stories again.

From there, things got better. In late April, after weeks of training with the school track team, I broke the school record in the mile with a time of 6:05. I also finished second place in the Portland Trail Blazers creative writing contest. These accomplishments kept Nick and Lori, my parents, and Claudia Vincent happy. But in my room, I dreamed of the day I would go back to Twin Falls.

Mostly I wanted to be with Reed, and on a more permanent basis. When I left for Oregon, he'd promised me he'd write. I dreamed about his red hair and yellow-green eyes—everything that made him different from the world to which I was exiled. I wrote him letters, some inspired by Mary's experiences, which exaggerated the “badness” of my new life. In one letter, I hung out with skate punks in downtown Portland, and in the next I went to see INXS at the Rose Garden. Determined to return to Twin Falls looking hungry and strong, I stopped eating junk food, ran every day, and spent most of my nights in my bedroom doing leg lifts, stomach crunches, and push-ups.

And I became thinner, stronger, and more focused on what I wanted, which was to leave Oregon and return to Idaho a different kid. I missed my parents and the freedom they gave me. In the short time that I'd been reunited with my mom, I'd gotten used
to doing whatever I wanted, wherever and whenever. I knew that when I went home, both parents would feel too guilty to try too hard to control me. Even if they did, some part of me knew how easy it would be to manipulate them. I was the victim, and that carried certain privileges.

It's sad that none of my therapists, or the Health and Welfare Department, or Claudia Vincent ever taught me the language I needed to both express my love for my parents and establish post-abuse boundaries. I can see my own mixed messages in a letter I wrote to my parents on March 24, 1986. I was fifteen years old.

 

Dear Mom & Pop!

So how's life going Sonny & Cher? Er, I mean Romeo & Juliet? No. I mean, um, oh ya, Mom & Dad! There! I got it! Yay! Life here is groovey, but I'm still kind of lonely. I mean, I'm close to Lori but not like you guys. She and Nick don't hug me or play around like a “real” family does. And I want, so badly, to be tucked in. Oh, well. Only 3 more months to go, and besides, what's life w/o sacrifices. And who wants to be a spoiled brat anyway. At least I know that when I come home every hug will be 100% better, longer, sweeter than if we'd not been separated. Now we have a 4 way hug too … I can't wait!

 

The letter's main body is filled with reports about going to Portland and seeing my friend, Erin, all scrolled in loopy g's and j's with curly tails. But by the third page, after complaining because Lori wouldn't let me go to a Romantics concert at the Starry
Night, I reverted to treating them like the parents I so desperately needed.

 

That's cool that you're doing all that stuff (going to Bible study at the Catholic Church; attending individual counseling) Mom. I'm proud of you. You really need this and I'm glad you're finally getting the chance to do it. Keep it up! And what about you dad? Any special activities? … If you even
mention
“the group” (referring to the sex-offenders meetings he had to go to) I'll kill you! I feel so bad that they put you through that shit. But keep going. Let my hugs be an inspiration. [smiley face] Remember your infamous Pee-wee Herman laugh? I can't wait to hear it. You're so good at it. Three cheers for Dad. Yay! Yay! Yay! and Mom, Yay! Yay! Yay!

 

Judging from the closing paragraph of my letter, by the time I'd spent two months at Nick and Lori's house, my feelings for my mom had softened, and I had chosen a deliberate amnesia regarding Dad. When I read this now, I see—it was my invitation to my own downfall.

 

Don't feel fat, Mom. You needed to gain a few. I'll bet you look so vibrant and healthy! You better eat too, Dad. When I get home you better have a B-E-L-L-Y! I love you both and think you're the best parents alive! Seriously!

Slugs and quiches. Yours truly.

Your
only
daughter,

Tracy

Three months after I wrote the letter, Dad called, saying he wanted to talk to Lori. She went into her study and closed the door. I lay low in the guest room, doodling on a pad of construction paper. A little while later, Lori came to the guest room and got me.

“Your dad's on the phone,” she said. “He wants to talk to you. Go into my study. You'll want some privacy.”

Fear stabbed my gut. I looked at my aunt, who smiled. Her face appeared softer than normal and more encouraging. I went into her office, where I sat down in her leather armchair.

My dad was taking long, rattly breaths, which he exhaled into the receiver.

“Hello?” I said.

“Tracy? It's Dad. How're ya doin', sis?”

“Good, Dad. I guess.”

I wondered what this was going to be about. I'd been caught smoking at the freshman prom a week earlier, when Lori came to pick me up. She'd hated my date, a kid I now remember as slightly albino, in a baby blue tuxedo with ruffles down the front. She'd called my parents the next morning, saying I didn't appreciate what people did for me.

“Well, I wanted to talk to you,” said my dad. “You know, before your mother and I come to Oregon.”

Silence.

“Trace? You there?”

“Yeah, Dad. I'm here.”

“Okay,” he said. “No crying, okay?” He was crying. I would not cry.

Another long silence, as long as a minute. I stared at the arrangement of family pictures—Lori and Nick at the beach, Lori and Nick at their wedding, Lori holding the babies—on my aunt's desk, saying nothing. If my dad had something important to tell me, I wanted to give him all the time he needed. When, after several more seconds, he said nothing, I said, “I'm here, Dad. I'm still listening,” even though he didn't ask me.

“Oh, Tracy … Okay. I want you to know, before I … before we, your mother and I, come out there and get you … before we all three come home and live under the same roof … that I did something to you. I did. And I'm sorry for that. So sorry you can't imagine it. I did something and you caught me and you ran away. How could I do something so bad to someone I love so much? How could I have done that?”

When he finished talking, another long silence followed. I sat with it because I wasn't sure what to say. It appeared he was asking me a question, looking to me for answers I couldn't give. I held the phone away from my ear, muffling the sobs that were coming out of the receiver. But something inside me said
Don't hang up. Here is something important.
So I stayed on the line and waited.

But Dad was done talking. He went on snorting and gagging, trying to catch his breath. I sat with my feet tucked under me, like a bird perched on a branch.

“Trace? You there?” Dad asked.

“I am, Dad. I guess I'll see you in a week.”

I wish I could say that the phone call was the end of my troubles. But family traditions die hard. The first place Mom and Dad took
me, even before the trip home, was to the mall. Mom wanted to show me how sorry she was by buying me a few things that would make me feel pretty. Desperate to go home looking as hip as possible, I was happy to concede—and use her charge card. We went to the closest Lerners, and I picked out a few shirts, a white cotton prairie dress, and a pair of white boots with fringe on the back. Mom said I looked so cute now, on account of my running, that I should pick out a new swimsuit. I chose a white nylon one-piece with a deep, V-shaped neckline and a seductive, to-the-belly-button black zipper.

“I don't know, Mom,” I shouted from the dressing room.

“Come on out!” she shouted back.

I peeked through the slats and saw both of my parents standing together. It seemed strangely okay. I hadn't known how I'd feel when we finally reunited, but at least for now, on a shopping spree, their togetherness made me happy.

But not so happy I'd come out of the dressing room in a bathing suit in front of my dad. I cracked the door just wide enough to poke my face out.

“Mom? Come here! I need you!” I shouted.

When she got to me, I lowered my voice so my dad wouldn't hear me. “Are you sure I should come out like this, in my swimsuit, in front of Dad?”

“Of course I'm sure,” she said. “What's he going to do? You look so cute. Let him see you. He's proud of all the hard work you've done too.”

A
ge fifteen, wide-eyed and cardiovascularly inflated from so much long-distance running, I returned to Twin Falls ready to prove that no one could break the girl with the dirty-minded father.

On the trip across Oregon, skirting first the Columbia and then the Snake rivers, I sat in the backseat of my parents' Toyota Camry planning my reintroduction. Once I was home and settled, I'd cruise the mall wearing my belts draped low around my hips. I'd seek out only the most alternative kids, ones I'd heard about through letters from Erin Cecil and Angie Nichols. If my old friends wanted to hang out with the slimmer and more sophisticated me, they'd have to get in line behind Reed, the Antichrists, and the foreign-exchange students.

These things occupied my thoughts as my parents and I pulled into our driveway on June 17, 1986. Already the heat was rising off the sidewalks. My dad had been home through the first yawning
of spring and had mowed the grass into a perfect chlorophyll crewcut. Through obsessive pruning and watering, he'd even coaxed a few leggy tulips out of the sun-cooked earth.

But behind the flowers loomed the windows Dad had kept covered so he could unhook my bra strap. I saw them and felt my heart drop to my flip-flops. Though he'd apologized on the phone at my Aunt Lori's, it had sounded halfhearted. As much as I dreamed of the day when my family would be packing the camper for our next trip into the Sawtooths, I also knew our troubles were far from over.

Now I was climbing the steps to the home ground of my sorrow. It wasn't the birthplace of my abuse—that had been Redfish Lake. Had I known the rules set forth for my father by the Health and Welfare Department, I might have felt a little calmer going home. But no one had taken the time to explain how my dad would keep himself from molesting me now that we'd be living together under the same roof. No one thought to show me the court document that made it illegal for my dad to even talk with me about the abuse while unsupervised.

ORDER

Good cause existing, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the Order dated August 27, 1985, be amended in the following ways:

1. That the no contact order between Donnie Lee and Tracy Ross will be changed to no unsupervised contact. That the order be further amended to allow Mr. Lee to live in the same home as Tracy Ross and her mother, Doris Lee.

2. That Tracy Ross return to the state of Idaho and live with her mother and stepfather, and not leave the state of Idaho without further order of the Court.

3. That until authorized by Mr. Lee's therapist and the Department of Health and Welfare, Mr. and Mrs. Lee will assure that the below listed restrictions are followed: