Chapter 15

A week went by, and then another. I painted during the day, finishing both Serenity and Rage, but other successful attempts to capture emotions on canvas eluded me. I'd come close with Indifference, but in the end, scraped the canvas clean and resized it, using a neutral polyvinyl acetate, rather than gesso. The cute girl at the art store told me gesso was all right for acrylic paints but recommended the PVA sizing for oils.

Jason, the morning person, called me every morning on his way to the hospital until the doctors released Sara, and then he called me from Sara's townhouse. He'd moved in with her. Like me, Sara wasn't a morning person and usually slept in, which gave Jason the privacy he needed to discuss Sara's condition and our problem with me. More often than not, he called me at night, too, for a session of phone sex or just to talk, so in a sense I got up with him in the morning and went to bed with him at night. He loved my sexy, mental meanderings, especially when I told him about Barbie's thoughts and how I reacted to them. I enjoyed sharing my fantasies with him, but I was quickly becoming desperate to have him hold me in his strong arms and feel his long one inside me instead of my fingers.

Unlike my failures to capture emotions on canvas, I was able to resist my inclination to enjoy some girl/girl sex with Barbie. She never pushed the issue, except with her thoughts, but I gotta admit her thoughts tempted me. She could get my panties wet in no time flat. I sensed Jason wouldn't get very upset with me if I slipped and spent a few hours enjoying some recreational sex with my best girlfriend, so the decision was mine. It wasn't a difficult decision. I was fully committed to my college boy.

I also talked with Sara every day. She looked forward to my calls, and because our conversations obviously improved her moods, I started to look forward to them, too. After the first week, she also became a font of information about her ex-husband and daughter. For some reason, she could talk with me about her daughter, which surprised both of us. She stated she couldn't discuss Donna with anyone but Dr. Rourke and me without becoming deeply depressed. With a nervous laugh, she told me she often used me as a trigger to test her growing ability to dampen her tendency to cloud up and rain on herself whenever thoughts of her daughter entered her mind.

Of course, I passed on to Dad everything Sara told me about her marriage, her ex-husband, and her daughter, and he passed the information on to the detective agency.

From what I pieced together, Gary Melville deserved worse than being strung up by the balls. Drawn and quartered came to mind.

Sara didn't have a chance. Melville wined and dined her, impressed her with his money, bought her expensive gifts, and told her he loved her. Sara believed he was in love with her, and she fell in love with him. When he asked her to marry him, she joyfully accepted and believed she'd live happily ever after. Hah!

For starters, Melville was a neat freak. Everything had a place and everything damned well better be in its place, but his neatness phobia went beyond anything Sara dreamed possible.

Later, Sara figured Melville married her because he wanted a trophy wife as a hostess for his lavish dinner and cocktail parties. Declarations to the contrary, he didn't marry her because he loved her. He dumped the responsibility for the parties on Sara and demanded perfection. Sara loved him, so she tried to please him, but no matter how hard she tried, he always found something to belittle her about. Soon he started to set her up so she'd fail, which gave him more excuses to berate her.

His need for control dominated his every waking moment, and he controlled every detail of their lives. He controlled the purse strings and doled out the household expenses like a miser, which resulted in more mistakes on Sara's part, mistakes that were his fault because she wasn't given enough money to satisfy his demands. For example, he expected gourmet meals most evenings at a specified hour, but she couldn't stretch the food budget far enough. He commanded her to dress fashionably but didn't give her enough money to purchase the clothes she needed to look radiant, elegant and beautiful at all times, like he wanted. He detested what he called slutty attire, and railed at Sara when he considered her clothes too revealing. She wasn't allowed to look sexy, and try as she might, Sara couldn't hide her astonishing sex appeal, which of course led to more angry confrontations.

He didn't strike her, not for a long time. He used words to tear her down - stupid, incompetent, worthless, incapable, slob, whore, slut and cunt, to list a few. He also demonstrated a violent temper. When his temper flared, he broke objects around him. If a meal dissatisfied him, he'd sweep his arm across the table, sending the food, china, everything on the table crashing to the floor while cursing her and calling her derogatory names, and then demanding that she clean up the mess because the mess was her fault, not his. Towards the end of their marriage, he started to slap or backhand her whenever his temper flared instead of breaking things.

Sara wasn't allowed to have friends of either gender. I think that's why she accepted my offer of friendship so readily. Melville had to know where she was and what she was doing at all times. He belittled her family, and she stopped inviting them to visit. He forbade her to visit them. Over time, he isolated her, subjugated her to his will, and then destroyed her.

I was surprised she wasn't completely bonkers. I also wanted to ask her why she stayed with him, why he divorced her, not the other way around. I didn't ask, but she offered a few clues. When she married him, she loved him. She wanted to please him, and believed she could if she only tried hard enough, and for a year, she succeeded more than she failed. Also, his complete domination over her took place slowly over about two years. One moment, he would be a loving husband, treating her almost as well as he did when he courted her, but then he'd change, sometimes in a second, and the asshole within him would emerge. Back and forth. Loving husband. Asshole. Loving husband. Asshole. She never knew what to expect.

Sara was overjoyed when she became pregnant. With a child to share their life, she believed her loving husband would be loving all the time. Melville was pleased, too, and early in the pregnancy, he treated her like a porcelain doll. The pregnancy was rough on Sara, and Melville's patience quickly grew thin. He also hated what the baby was doing to her body. Finally, he told her he couldn't stand the sight of her anymore, and they started to sleep in separate bedrooms. Sara didn't mind, even preferred the arrangement. In the privacy of her own room, she didn't need to listen to his constant harassing comments.

By this time, Sara had experienced a few panic attacks and was under a psychiatrist's care, a psychiatrist Melville selected and paid. Like Jason, I was convinced Sara's husband and her doctor conspired to drive her mad.

Sara told me her postpartum depression developed primarily because she feared the life her daughter would face living under the thumb of a tyrant. She said, even as depressed as she was, she'd resolved to somehow escape Melville's control and take her daughter with her.

One day when the nurse Melville hired to take care of Donna refused to allow Sara to see her baby, Sara found a remnant of a backbone and confronted her husband. He laughed at her, called her derogatory names, and told her she was the girl's mother genetically; that's it; that's all, and that he'd never allow her to be a real mother to his daughter.

Sara fell apart. Her psychiatrist prescribed sleeping pills to help her sleep. Then he prescribed pills to help her get going in the morning. Her panic attacks required more pills, and still more pills were needed to counter her depression, and soon she found herself addicted to the prescription drugs - the main reason I believed the Destroyer and the psychiatrist were in cahoots. The psychiatrist had to be either grossly incompetent or the Destroyer was pulling his strings like he was a marionette.

Suddenly without warning, Melville demanded and filed for a divorce, which prompted Sara's first suicide attempt.

With the testimony of her psychiatrist, Melville divorced Sara and gained custody of their child.

Donna was three years old when the divorce was final, but the judge granted Sara visitation rights, which infuriated Melville. Dependant on drugs, subject to frequent panic attacks, and seriously depressed, Sara still made every attempt to see Donna. Melville went back to the courts, won, and effectively eliminated all of Sara's rights as a mother. Sara ignored the court order. She'd hang out in the park where the nurse took the little girl to play, or other locations where she could interact with her. She did everything she could think of just to see and say hello to the only person in the world that was important to her besides her own family.

To fill in one of the blanks we needed answered, I asked Sara if Donna was happy to see her.

"Always!" Sara exclaimed. "When she'd see me, she'd run to me, squealing with happiness to give me all kinds of hugs and kisses. She loves me, Katy, like I love her. She'd cry when the nurse or nanny watching her took her away. I couldn't believe it when Gary used our little girl's tears against me. Donna gave the last nanny a bad time when she tried to take her away from me. My little girl threw a fit, kicking and hitting and crying. The same nanny testified against me at the hearing for the restraining order. She told the judge I was upsetting the little girl. I tried to explain that keeping Donna away from me upset her, not my presence, but the judge believed Gary and his army of bought-and-paid-for expert and other witnesses."

When the courts granted Melville's request to restrain Sara from going anywhere near her child, he removed Sara's only reason for living, so she tried to kill herself again. Melville brainwashed her, crushed her will, destroyed her sense of self, and took her daughter away from him.

I wanted to give the fucker some of his own medicine, and I was becoming impatient to get started.

One night after dinner, Dad produced an inch-thick, bound report - the detective's findings. Dad had already read the report, so I avidly consumed its contents as if it were a gourmet meal. Before I finished reading the report, it turned my stomach upside down. Bile rose up in my throat and filled my mouth with its pungent taste.

The report filled in many of the blanks, but it also terrified me. Dad had been correct. According to the report, the Destroyer was in the process of tearing down his daughter like he'd crushed Sara.

"It's time to bring Jason in on our effort," Dad said with determination when I handed him the report after reading it.

"It's also time I went to Denver," I added.

"Uh-uh. I know what you have in mind, and I won't allow it. Melville's dangerous, cupcake."

"And just what do you think I have in mind?"

"You want to put yourself next to him, read his thoughts and experience his emotions, to gain an edge in our upcoming battle with him."

"Damned straight, and I'm going to do it, too."

"Over my dead body."

"Then start measuring yourself for a casket. I'm going, and you can't stop me."

"Sure I can. I won't give you the money for a plane ticket, and when I finish advising Jason, he won't either."

I stood and stamped my foot like a two-year-old. I was pissed! "You're being unreasonable!"

"Uh-uh, I'm merely wearing my daddy hat."

"Fly to Denver with me then."

He gazed off into the distance, seeing only images in his mind, I assumed, because I couldn't hear any thoughts. He smiled and turned to me. "Okay."

I squealed. He knew what was coming and warded off my wet kisses, but didn't stop an enthusiastic hug.

"What about your classes and research?" I asked.

"One of my grad students can take over my classes, and I can direct a couple of others by phone or over the Internet to move my research projects forward. They're both capable and already completely involved. I won't be missed for a few weeks."

"When can we leave?"

"Let's speak with Jason first."

With a nod, I called Jason on our house phone in my bedroom. Dad picked up the phone in the kitchen.

"Good evening, Dr. Owen. It's good to talk with you again," Jason said.

"You probably won't think so after our conversation. Do you have some time? This will take a while, ten or fifteen minutes."

"Yes. Sara and I finished our evening meal and were just settling in to watch a movie she rented."

"It would be best if she didn't overhear our conversation. It's about Gary Melville and your sister's daughter."

"All right. Just a minute."

I heard murmuring. Jason was probably excusing himself. I heard the words, "pause" and "no", and a few seconds later he said, "All right. I'm in my room with the door closed."

"To preface my comments, we need to back up a couple of weeks, Jason. When Katy returned from Denver and told me how Sara's ex-husband had treated her, I became quite concerned about Sara's daughter. Being a single parent makes me painfully aware how easily a father can manipulate a little girl."

I came close to speaking out. I did the manipulating in our family, not him, but he was on a roll, and this was his show, so I kept my mouth shut like a dutiful daughter.

Dad went on to tell Jason about hiring a private detective agency to check on Donna's well being, and then outlined our efforts to fill in the blanks, to make the unknowns known.

"To shorten a long story, Jason, I received the detective agency's report in the mail today. From all indications, little Donna is in serious jeopardy."

Silence. Was Jason stunned or angry?

"I'll kill the cruel son of a bitch if he harms one hair on that little girl's head," Jason said quietly, but with determination and menace in his voice.

"I suggest we use another approach, Jason, one not quite as drastic that will achieve positive results. With your permission, Katy and I will fly to Denver the day after tomorrow to develop a plan of action, and then implement the plan we devise."

"To what end?" Jason asked.

"To remove little Donna from Melville's sphere of influence," Dad stated.

"What is Melville doing to Donna?"

"We don't know specifics, but the agency uncovered one source that told them the girl has been acting very jumpy, even frightened, recently. Another source reported that she was lackadaisical or depressed, and a nanny Melville fired stated nothing the little girl could do pleased her father, that he was constantly haranguing her about something. When the nanny criticized Melville for being too hard on Donna, he fired her. From all indications, he's treating the little girl like he treated Sara. I've known men like Melville. He can't handle intimacy, so he destroys those close to him."

"Dad calls him the Destroyer," I added.

"Then we'll need to destroy the destroyer," Jason stated with conviction.

"Precisely," Dad said.

"Somehow, someway," I added, "I'll put myself next to Melville so I can read his mind. We'll need firsthand information to give us the edge we'll need. With my gifts, I can make our edge razor sharp."

"Uh-uh," Jason said. "I don't want you anywhere near that evil man."

"Thank you, Jason," Dad said. "Katy, I'll cancel the trip if you don't promise to stay away from Melville."