Chapter 2: Thanksgiving Evening

Sam let me hug him when we were saying goodbye. That was nice. I was in desperate need of hugs. I don’t know why. If everyone gets allocated a certain number of hugs each day then I’d probably gone way past that number today but I still wanted more. Okay, I really do know why. Aunty Penny’s story had disturbed me. And more than that, my reaction to Aunty Penny’s story had terrified me. I figure I know me pretty well. If you asked before today how I would react to Aunty Penny’s story I would probably talk about a lot of crying and hiding in the closet. It never would have occurred to me that I would get so very, very angry.

Of course, I knew why Sam was letting me hug him. That was embarrassing. But I couldn’t think of anything I could do about it so I was trying to be nice to him. And he was willing to hug me so that’s a good thing. I so desperately needed to be hugged. Maybe I was using him because I needed someone to hug me. Does that make me a bad person?

I gave Sam an extra squeeze and stepped back from him.

“See you sometime!” said Sam.

“It’s only four weeks until Christmas. We’ll see each other then.”

“Cool!”

“You’ll see each other before then,” said Aunty Ally. “Louise has offered to have Sam stay with you for a night or two so that Penny and I can have some time together.”

“Cool!” said Sam.

I smiled at him. “Cool!”

I got a brief hug and kiss from Aunty Ally and a longer hug from Aunty Penny and then I was watching their car drive down the road and out of sight.

I turned back towards the house and saw Uncle Stan and Aunty Janice heading down the drive towards their own car. The twins trailed silently after them. I didn’t get hugs from the twins but that’s okay. I’m not sure I wanted any from them. Uncle Stan gave me a nice little hug and a promise to see me again at Christmas. I waved goodbye to them and stepped back. Soon they were gone as well – the twins sitting as far apart in the back seat as they could manage like a pair of bookends at each end of an empty shelf. They were staring out of their windows with matching bored expressions on their faces.

Nana had already gone home so when I came back into the house there was only us left. Dad was in the living room tidying up and straightening all the furniture. Mum was in the kitchen washing pots and other stuff that can’t go through the dishwasher. I picked up a tea towel and started drying. Angie was banging around the kitchen in a very grumpy mood. Mum called for Tara and asked her to get Angie ready for bed. Angie complained but she wasn’t going to win because she was obviously over-tired.

Once we were alone, Mum glanced sideways at me.

“So, what’s news?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Sam has a crush on me. It’s a bit embarrassing.”

“I’d say it’s more than a crush. He worships the ground you walk on.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah! I wish he’d stop. I don’t know what to do.”

Mum raised an eyebrow at me.

“I would have thought you were in a perfect position to know what to do,” she said.

“Huh?”

“Surely you know exactly how he feels. Don’t you feel the same way about someone else?”

“Huh? Oh, Dan!” I did a big sigh. “I guess.”

“Is there anything Dan could say or do that would stop you feeling the way you do about him?”

“No! Well, maybe a couple of things but Dan would never be mean enough to do them.”

“And are you mean enough to do them to Sam?”

I sighed. “I guess not.”

“In that case, honey, I suggest you get used to the idea of Sam having a crush on you.”

“How long for?”

“How long do you think you’ll keep feeling the way you do about Dan?”

I didn’t answer that. I mean, how could anyone possibly answer that?

Oh!

“So what should I do?” I asked.

“What does Dan do?”

“Sometimes he makes a special effort to spend time with me. I like that. It doesn’t matter what we do. I like being with him.”

I thought a bit more.

“I like it when he holds onto me, or lets me hold onto him.”

Mum smiled at me. She didn’t say anything. She just handed me a baking tray to dry.

I sighed. “I guess that’s what I should do with Sam then. But he’s a boy. He’s not so much into touching and stuff.”

“I don’t know about that, honey. He seemed happy enough to hold hands with you for half of the afternoon.”

“Oh!”

“But make sure you don’t offer him anything you aren’t willing to give.”

“Huh?”

She gave me a look that meant I was supposed to know what she was talking about. I thought about it for a moment.

“Are you talking about sex stuff? Eew! That’s gross! He’s, like, nine years old!”

For some reason, my brain jumped to Aunty Penny and Dad. Aunty Penny had said when they escaped, they were about the same ages as me and Sam. And they’d been made to do sex with each other. I shuddered at the thought of me being forced to do sex with Sam. The idea made my skin crawl. A new surge of anger raced through me. How dare he force his children to do that? I shoved the tray I was drying back into its place in the cabinet a bit harder than I meant to. The unexpected crash and clatter made me jump.

I stood staring at the pile of pans sitting in their spot in the cabinet and tried to get myself back under control. Mum must have stripped the gloves off her hands and towelled her hands dry without me noticing. The first thing I did notice was when she snaked her hands around me from behind and hugged me to her.

“You aren’t thinking about you and Sam any more, are you?” she asked in a soft and gentle voice.

I swallowed and shook my head.

Mum held me and rocked gently back and forth.

“I hate him,” I whispered. “I hate him so much for what he did to Aunty Penny and Dad. I don’t understand how he could treat his own children like that.”

I heard Mum sigh. I even felt the sigh go through her chest from where I was pressed against it.

“I don’t understand it either, honey. I doubt if many people do.”

“And I hate him for what he’s done to me.”

“What has he done to you? Do you mean coming to America?”

“That too, I guess. But mostly because he stole away my chance of having a dad who can hold me without having a panic attack. He stole that from Tara and Angie too. I really really hate him for that.”

Mum didn’t say anything. She squeezed me against her a bit more tightly.

“I don’t really understand what Dad’s afraid of. It’s something to do with him not wanting to do to us what was done to him and Aunty Penny,” I said.

“That’s about it.”

“But it hasn’t happened. Dad’s never done any stuff like that to us – ever. He’s never even hit us or anything. He’s not going to either. He’s just not like that.”

“I’ve been telling your father that for years but he isn’t ready to believe me.”

I didn’t say anything. I still didn’t understand.

Mum sighed. She turned me around, put a hand on each of my shoulders and looked me in the eye.

“It’s not really that simple. Your father got involved in sex when he was far too young to understand what was going on. Children that age are very vulnerable. I don’t think they did it deliberately but he was effectively brainwashed into thinking that sexual contact with young girls was okay.”

Mum shuddered. “Not only okay but something – exciting. Your father says it’s as if a switch got turned on inside him and he can’t work out how to turn it off. He says he isn’t cured. He doesn’t think he can be cured. He sometimes gets – I’m not sure how to say it – perhaps tempted is the right word. He simply refuses to give in to that temptation. Your father is a stubborn man – very stubborn indeed when he puts his mind to it.”

Mum said that as if it were a bad thing. I think it’s good that Dad is stubborn. I think it’s the only way he could cope with Mum and Nana and Aunty Penny all telling him what to do. Sometimes he does what they tell him. Sometimes he nods and smiles and makes up his own mind. It’s not so good when he’s stubborn about things like not letting me get my ears pierced but I guess that’s small stuff. Compared to what Mum was saying it’s small stuff. Maybe I didn’t listen to Mum closely enough. Maybe Mum really was saying that Dad being stubborn is a good thing – because of the sex thing, I mean.

The importance of what Mum was saying sunk in. If she was right – if Dad was right – then nothing anybody could do would ever fix Dad. It means I will never get to hug my daddy properly – ever.

That made me cry. I leaned forward into Mum’s arms and cried. I sobbed and sobbed. Mum hushed and shooshed and stroked my back. Eventually I stopped. Mum produced some tissues and dried my face.

I kissed Mum’s cheek. “It’s been a long day. I think I might go to bed.”

At that moment, Angie stomped into the room, half wearing her pyjamas. Tara came in after her, looking hassled. Mum scooped up Angie and held her despite Angie’s protests. Mum looked at me and waggled her head towards my room. Then she marched out of the kitchen towards Angie’s room, firmly holding Angie and ushering Tara before her.

I changed into my nice warm flannel pyjamas. For no reason I can explain I stopped in front of my mirror and stared at my reflection. I saw a young teen looking back at me. Her straight brown hair hung loose and dangled several inches below her shoulders. She looked a bit like the painting of me on the wall next to the mirror but she was really totally different. She wasn’t naked for a start. The shapeless pyjamas completely hid her body. I dug around in my brain and found a memory of her standing in the same mirror when she was about eight and wearing a very similar set of pyjamas. She hardly looked any different. A bit taller, maybe, but that wasn’t obvious from the image in my memory. Her hair was longer back then. That’s about it.

I turned slightly and looked into the eyes of the girl leaning against the mirror. She stared back at me with confidence and strength and power. I reached out and stroked her cheek – my fingers running lightly over the paint.

“Put some clothes on,” I told her.

“Why don’t you take yours off?” she asked. “You’ll feel better this way. You’ll look better this way. Look at me. Why wouldn’t you want to look like this?”

I snorted a laugh at her. “I don’t think being nude will solve my problems.”

She didn’t reply to that. She stood there and leaned against the mirror and looked at me. Her face would look exactly like mine if she didn’t have that confident smile frozen in place. I lost the staring match and looked away. Is it pathetic that I can’t even look at a picture of myself?

I stood in the middle of my room and circled slowly. Different versions of myself looked out at me from every wall. They all had something to say. They all had suggestions about how to fix everything. The sporty version of Bec told me to go for a run – exercise always makes me feel better. The version of Bec that was hugging Liz thought I should call my friend and talk to her. Even the rude Bec who never stops touching her boob had a suggestion that would supposedly make me forget about everything for a while. I guess she was right but her idea wouldn’t solve my problems either – it might make them go away for a while but it wouldn’t solve them. All those voices echoed in my head. All those suggestions and not one of them helpful. The Becs all kept talking at me and I started to get pissed at them.

“Get lost,” I growled at the room. “You’re all totally clueless.”

“I’m serious,” said the Bec leaning against the mirror. “You won’t solve anything until you get naked and stand tall.”

I picked up my robe and wrapped it tightly around me. Then I scurried out of the room. How do you like that, Dr K? I just ran away from myself. That will give us something to talk about in our next session. I’m sure it means something important.

Dad was gone from the living room. The kitchen was empty – except for the fridge wheezing away in its corner.

While I was wandering through the kitchen, the phone rang. I picked it up in a hurry. It was really late for a phone call and that meant something was wrong. My heart was thumping in my chest.

“Hello?” I said.

“Hey there! This is Pearl. Is that Tara, or Bec? I can’t tell.”

“It’s Bec.”

I wondered why Pearl was calling. Had something happened to Dan?

“What’s happened? Is Dan okay?”

“He’s fine. Everything’s fine. He went to sleep on our sofa is all. Even if he wakes up I don’t think he should drive so I’ve stolen his keys. He’s way too tired. I thought I should call and tell your folks that he’s going to stay here tonight. Can you tell them for me?”

“Oh! Okay.”

I wasn’t sure what to think about that. I suppose it was good that Dan should be safe but it meant I wouldn’t see him until tomorrow. I was missing him so much. I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote down the phone number and address of where he was staying because The Parents are always big about stuff like that.

Then Pearl said, “Dan told me about what happened last night. Were you scared?”

I shrugged – which was a bit silly because she couldn’t see me.

“At first I was. But then I woke up Dad and we hid in the bathroom. It was scary but I was kind of wired up too. It was weird.”

“I would have been petrified if it were me. I think you’re pretty brave.”

“Oh!”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

“Thanks for looking after Dan. Tell him I’ll see him tomorrow.”

“It’s no problem. Well, I better go. Catch up with you soon, okay?”

“Sure! Bye.”

I put the phone down and carried the paper with the address for Pearl’s family over to the fridge. It gurgled at me. The magnets that usually get used for attaching bits of paper were all missing.

I scowled at the fridge.

“Okay, Mister, where did you hide the magnets?”

It snorted and there was this faint whistling sound.

I looked up on top and they weren’t there. I even opened up the door and looked inside but I couldn’t see any magnets inside. I don’t know why they would be inside but I looked anyway. I glared at the fridge again. It decided to be silent. I poked my tongue out at it and blew a raspberry. I shoved the paper into the pocket of my robe and went looking for Mum or Dad.

As I left the kitchen, Mr Fridge broke his silence and gurgled at me again. I ignored him. Mum and Tara were propped up on Angie’s bed with Angie between them. Mum was reading the Dr Seuss book about cats and hats. Mum sounded tired and Tara’s eyes were drooping but Angie looked ready to bounce out of bed and face another entire day.

Mum looked up at me.

“Who was that on the phone, sweetie?”

“It was Pearl. Dan went to sleep on their sofa, so she’s making him stay the night. I got the address.”

“That’s fine, honey.”

“All the fridge magnets have disappeared.”

“Oh, really? Well I expect they’ve gone for a walk. They’ll come back when they get hungry.”

I scowled at Mum. “Yes, Mother.”

I wasn’t in the mood for Mum making silly comments and I wasn’t in the mood for Dr Seuss, so I turned around and walked away. Maybe Dad would be more sensible.

The bathroom was empty and Dan wasn’t home so I trailed all the way back to The Parents’ room. The door was closed so I knocked quietly on it. I heard Dad’s voice but it was muffled and I couldn’t understand what he said so I knocked again.

“Dad, can I talk to you?”

There was another muffled comment, but this time I could make out that Dad was asking me to wait a moment. I waited.

The door opened and Dad was standing there in his long pyjamas and robe. He was tying his robe together as he spoke so I guess he was getting changed when I knocked.

“What is it, honey?”

“Can I talk to you? Can I come in and talk to you?”

Dad looked down and made sure his robe was securely wrapped around him and tied firmly.

“Sure, honey.”

He stepped back and walked further into the room. I followed him in, closing the door as I came. Dad sat on the chair at Mum’s dresser and pointed at the bed. I sat on the edge of the bed with my knees tightly together and my feet on the floor. Carefully, I straightened up my robe and then rubbed my hands on my knees. I looked at Dad as he sat there watching me.

“What did you want to talk about, honey?” asked Dad.

I looked in my brain for the answer and the inside of my brain was blank. I didn’t actually have anything to say. Maybe my wanting to talk to Dad was code for wanting to spend some time with him. I looked at Dad as he sat there watching me. He looked tired. He looked, I don’t know, older? Were they little flecks of silver in his hair? But he still looked as solid as he always has. It was reassuring, somehow, to see him sitting there and watching me. You know how you wake up in the morning and open your eyes and you see that you’re still in the same room as you went to sleep in? You know how that’s always comforting? It gives you confidence that the world makes sense. That’s what it felt like seeing Dad sitting there. It helped me know that the world makes sense.

“Okay,” said Dad. “While you think about what you want to talk about, I’ll say something. Dan told me more about how you helped that girl at the YMCA this morning.”

I nodded.

“Then later on, Tara told me all about it as well. It takes something special to impress your sister like that. I’m so very proud of you for what you did.”

I nodded and smiled at him. But then I had a new thought and I felt my smile fade away. I shrugged.

“What is it?” asked Dad.

“It’s just that, it was nice to help Alyssa – that’s her name by the way. But there were, like, heaps of people in that room with problems as bad as hers. I only helped one person. I kind of wish we could have helped everyone. I feel bad about that.”

Dad nodded. “I understand, honey, but you did help everyone. They all got a hot shower, clean clothes, a warm dry place to spend the day and a good meal. As a bonus, according to Dan, one man got a job offer as a mechanic, two others got some temporary laboring work and your girl got to go home to her family.”

“I didn’t know about those others. I guess that’s good for them but that’s still only four people. What about all the rest?”

“Honey! Not everyone wants to be helped. Sometimes all they want is a shower and a meal.”

“But why?”

Dad thought for a moment. “There are probably a lot of reasons. I suppose the bottom line is they aren’t ready to get help. You can’t force people to change their situation. Well, sometimes people try, but it never works. The important thing is that they know help is available when they’re ready.”

“Thanks to people like Mr Davidson.”

“Thanks to people like George Davidson and people like Rebecca Freeman.”

I smiled at Dad.

“Aunty Penny told me I was named after her, as well as Mum. That made me feel good. She’s an awesome person to be named after. Thanks Daddy – for my name, I mean.”

Dad smiled warmly but then his smile wavered and slipped away.

“I would have preferred that Penny hadn’t told you as much as she did. I kept telling you that you didn’t need to know.”

“No, Dad. Every time you said that, it was just code for you not wanting to talk about it. I didn’t get that before but I get it now. I understand you not wanting to talk about it. I really do. But I did need to know. I do need to know.”

“Why? Why is it so important for you to know all about that. It happened so long ago and so far away. It’s over.”

I looked at Dad for a moment.

“Aunty Penny told me how you got her out of there. You didn’t wait for someone like Mr Davidson to help you. You rescued yourself and your sister. That kind of makes you my hero because you did that. But you’re wrong. It isn’t over.”

“What?”

I didn’t know what to say so I stood up and walked away from him. I walked to the end of the bed and looked up at the print of one of Mum’s paintings that hangs there. I’m sure I’ve described it before. It’s the one Mum painted when I was five or something. The painting shows Dad with his shirt off holding a nude version of the five year old Bec. The contrast between my baby-soft skin and Dad’s darker muscley chest is truly beautiful.

“Why is this painting here?”

Dad shook his head as he tried to follow the change in topic. “You know why. You complained so much we had to take it out of the living room.”

“I complained because I didn’t want every single person who visited our house to be staring at my naked butt. So sue me. But that’s not the point. Why is it here? You could have put this away in storage or hung it in Mum’s studio or whatever. It isn’t even the original. The original got sold back in England. That’s a print.”

While I was saying that, Dad had stood up and walked closer so that he could look at the painting better.

“That painting is too good to put in storage – print or no print.”

“Maybe! But out of all the places it could be, you and Mum put it right here in your bedroom where you have to look at it every day.”

I looked at Dad but he didn’t notice. He was looking at the painting.

“What do you see when you look at the picture, Dad?”

He hesitated for a moment.

“I see you and me holding each other. I see your mother’s painting. I think it’s one of the best paintings your mother has done.”

“It never actually happened, did it? You never actually held me like that?”

Dad didn’t say anything but I could see the answer in his face.

“I didn’t think so. But sometimes you look at it and wish that you did. You wish that you could have held me like that, even if it was only once.”

Dad was still not saying anything but his face was telling me that I was right.

“But there’s more to it than that. I think you put this in here as a test. Mum told me some things. She said because of what happened to you, you worry about doing the same thing to us.”

I watched as Dad clenched his jaw and then gave the smallest of nods.

“I get that – kind of. Dr K told me that a lot of people who do bad things to kids were abused when they were young. He called it the circle of abuse, or something. But he said a lot of kids who were abused manage to break out of the circle. You’re one of those. You’ve never done anything wrong to us. You’ve never hit us. There’s never been any bad touching.”

I did air quotes around “bad touching.” That made Dad smile a bit. I figured that was some achievement because mostly he was scowling.

“You’ve never even made us feel creepy like some girls’ fathers do. Dad! You broke the circle. If it hasn’t happened by now, it isn’t going to happen. You don’t have to worry any longer. You aren’t one of the monsters.”

I stepped up to Dad and wrapped my arms around him, hugging him tightly. Then I let him go and stepped back before he could get nervous.

It was a waste because he was nervous anyway.

“It isn’t as simple as that,” said Dad and then he stopped.

I waited but he obviously wasn’t going to say any more. I guess that meant I had to.

“Yeah! Mum said. She was kind of talking in code and trying to make it sound like she was answering my question without actually saying anything. I didn’t really understand but then I figured out the code and now it makes perfect sense. What Mum wasn’t saying is that you started out doing sex things with young girls – I mean really young girls – girls my age and younger. And because of that, a part of you sometimes wants to do it again. Is that it?”

Dad was looking really uncomfortable.

“Does it make your thing go all – you know?”

I stopped and bit my lip. If I wanted Dad to take me seriously and listen to what I was saying then I was going to have to use the proper words and not talk in code. I tried again.

“Even if you don’t want to, do you sometimes get an erection from thinking about a young girl? Is that what the problem is?”

“I do not want to be having this conversation with my twelve year old daughter. I don’t think you could possibly understand...”

“I’m thirteen, Dad. I’m not a kid anymore. And I’m the perfect person to understand. My body does things all the time that my brain doesn’t want to happen. More than most people, I think. So I understand totally if your body gets an erection even if your brain doesn’t want it to. That makes total sense to me. And you have to have this conversation with me. It’s incredibly important that you have this conversation with me.”

“Why?”

“Because of Angie.”

He blinked at me a couple of times.

“I’m having trouble following you, honey. What’s Angie got to do with this?”

“Everything, Dad. This is all about Angie.”

I stopped and shook my head.

“I’m sorry if I’m being confusing. I didn’t plan all this out. But I was talking about erections. Is that why you don’t like hugging me? Because you don’t want to get one? Or because you don’t want me to know you got one? Because if that’s the reason, then that’s silly.”

Dad was looking lost and helpless. It felt weird to see him like that. I started to feel sorry for him but I couldn’t stop now.

“I know all about erections, Dad. They don’t scare me. I won’t freak out if you get an erection when you’re hugging me. I promise.”

“How can you possibly...”

“Dan gets them all the time. Not from hugging me or anything but, like, when I sleep in his bed he gets one nearly every morning because he has to go pee. And sometimes when he has a sexy dream or whatever. He used to go all weird about it and try to push me out of bed so I wouldn’t notice. But I made him stop doing that. I hated being pushed away for such a dumb reason. It was silly. I promised him I wouldn’t freak out if he got an erection and I kept that promise. Now I’m used to it. That’s how I know I can promise you the same thing. I guarantee I won’t freak out.”

Dad was still looking lost. I don’t think he knew what to do. I don’t think he believed me – not really. He might have thought he did but the important part of his brain didn’t believe me.

“Look! I’ll prove it to you. Do you have an erection now?”

Dad glanced down and gripped the front edges of his robe – pulling it even more tightly closed. I didn’t know whether that was a yes or a no. I guessed it was a no.

“What? Even from looking at the picture of my naked butt? That’s what the test is, isn’t it? You look at the painting every day and see what happens. Sometimes you see the two of us hugging and wish it could have happened like that and sometimes you see a nude girl and you get – tempted.”

I looked at Dad and I was even more sure that the answer to that other question was no. That proved to me that I was right about what I was saying. I looked at the painting.

“That isn’t really me any more. That was ages ago. I don’t look much like that any longer.”

I slipped off my robe and dropped it on the end of the bed. I stood there in my pyjamas and looked up at Dad.

“What about now? Does looking at me right now make you get an erection?”

I suddenly realized that I didn’t know what answer I was hoping for. If he said yes then that would mean he thought I looked sexy and maybe that would make me feel good but it would probably make Dad feel bad about himself. But if he said no then that would probably be the right thing for Dad but it would make me feel bad knowing that Dad didn’t think I looked sexy.

“Don’t answer that,” I said.

I figured I’d be able to tell the answer from his face anyway. I spun around on the spot and looked back at Dad. He had no expression at all so that wasn’t helpful. Dad doesn’t do stone face very often so I kind of forget that he can do it when he wants to. I stepped over to Dad and hugged him. His body was all tense and rigid. Well, almost all of his body was tense and rigid. Apparently the answer was no.

I stepped back and looked down at my loose and baggy pyjamas. They covered me completely from my neck to my ankles. I guess it wasn’t really surprising. I doubted if anybody would think I was sexy dressed like this. I knew what I had to do. I felt a shiver race through me. Little versions of Bec stood up inside my brain and started arguing with each other. This was a totally insane idea. It could never possibly work. I wouldn’t be able to go through with it. They wanted me to run away and hide for even thinking about it. But I had to do something. Doing nothing and leaving things the way they were was unacceptable. Inside my brain, B snapped her fingers. She screamed at all of them to shut up. All those little Becs went silent. She ranted and raved and swore about the man who’d created all of this. Then she pointed an angry little finger at me and told me to get on with it.

I looked back up at Dad.

“You know that I love you, don’t you, Dad? I love you completely and totally. And I trust you completely and totally. That’s why I’m going to do this.”

I looked back down and started undoing the buttons on my pyjama top.

It took Dad a moment or two to realize what was happening.