Chapter 7

Eventually Jeanette took me home with her, and once I was under control again, Roland left us. We did not talk as she drove. My mind was still roiling over confronting Ross’ abuse. It made little sense for me to be so emotional over things that happened to someone else, but using Ross’ body must have left me susceptible to his emotions. Jeanette chose to give me space.

Her house was in the country not far outside of town. It was neat, clean, and attractive, just like Jeanette. The furniture was chosen with care and set off each room, giving it an independent personality. Jeanette gave me the fifty-cent tour, which was about all it was worth. “Here is the place, Ross. Sienna says she will be by for you later and take you home for the weekend. She’s not working day and night now that you are out of the hospital and she doesn’t have to spend every waking moment at your bedside, and besides, you’ve caused me bundles of work.”

She smiled and made a joke out of it. “There are so many fine, upstanding citizens to indict for abusing you. I intend to spend my weekend figuring out ways to destroy their lives and that gets to be time consuming.”

“Please don’t make me have to testify against them. I’m not certain that I won’t snap and attack some of them.” I said, and I meant it. She smiled but said nothing, which meant that I would be dragged into court to identify and share every ugly detail of Ross’ abuse with a room full of complete strangers and a press that would rush out to repeat every word I said to audiences full of voyeurs and perverts.

The exhaustion got to me as I convinced Ross’ body to relax and try to act like a normal teenage boy. My eyes kept involuntarily closing, so I took off my shoes and stretched out on the floor in Jeanette’s living room. Sleep was my friend as Ross’ body healed and recovered from malnutrition and years of violence.

It was much later when I felt a hand on my shoulder and jerked to a sitting position. Sienna was kneeling beside me, ready to take me home with her for the weekend. We hadn’t sat down and discussed any of the details of my life, so I determinedly chose to go with the flow and be as cooperative as possible for the people who sacrificed so much of their time for me.

“Welcome back, Stranger. You were sleeping so deeply that I hated to wake you, so I’ve been waiting for you to wake up instead. I’m sorry that I startled you. Please forgive me, but we need to leave so Jeanette can get back to work.”

I hugged Jeanette and thanked her for everything. Her smile was so full of sadness that I knew there was bad news coming. “Ross, I am so sorry, but the lawyers for several of the people that abused you are demanding the right to depose you, which means they want to force you to sit in a room and relive everything that their clients did to you. It’s a tactic they use to see if they can upset you enough that you will be no good when they put you on the stand to testify.

“I’ve been on the phone with the Family Court and the judge says you have to go, but she can set limits and force them to behave, because of your age and medical conditions.” She was far more worried than I was. If those pigs wanted a piece of me, I would make sure they regretted it until the last day of their life sentences.

Jeanette apparently saw the look that came into my eyes and gave me a very pointed look right back. “What are you planning, Mister?”

Caught with no room to retreat, I said, “If they want to upset me and make me lose control, so those ... those ... those ... rats can get away with what they did to me, then I am going to be the perfect witness against them.”

She saw the set of my jaw and believed it. “Ross, you are weak, sick, and very badly hurt on the inside as well as outside. They are all going to demand that we allow them to have doctors they hire examine you just like Doctor Halberstadt did. You don’t get a choice. Once they were charged, they have a right to know what evidence of abuse and rape we are bringing to court.

“Are you going to be able to withstand all that?”

I had a thought that might help make it all easier. “Can you ask Judge Marshall if she can make them all choose one doctor, so I only have to have one person putting their hands on and inside me? It’s so creepy and it hurts like you can’t believe...”

Jeanette thought about my request, and then called someone. “Harriet, this is Jeanette. Please tell the judge that I am going to file a petition to demand that all defendants use one medical expert and that Ross only be forced to accept one doctor violating his body. Ask her if it can wait until Monday, or if I need to personally deliver it tonight. OK? Thanks...” She waited for a long minute and then perked up when she heard a voice on the other end of the call. So that I could hear the result of her request, she hit the speaker button and Judge Marshall’s voice fill her office.

“Jeanette ... You don’t even have to file. I can tell you right now that the court will only accept one physician examining Ross, as their expert medical witness. They will have to gang up on whoever they hire and then he, or she will have to pass our inspection of their character, record, education and standing with the court. Please tell Ross that I have no intention of making him their personal medical dummy...” Jeanette hit the speaker button and they chatted while Sienna and I slipped out.

“We are going to take things easy this weekend, and see if we can build your strength up some.” Sienna had a plan to help me get this beaten, starved, and malnourished body into some kind of physical shape to deal with what was coming up. “You need a new diet, which we are going to work on tonight. Your physical endurance is nonexistent and we need to come up with a workout plan that doesn’t make you sick, or even weaker, but helps you develop lung and heart capacity to give you energy and stamina.

“You’ll see. We’ll work on this together and take it very slowly.”

That sounded remarkably like the last word.

Sienna was a marvelous companion. We talked, laughed, chatted, gossiped, and generally acted like old friends for a couple of hours following a sensible dinner, with lots of vegetables and fruits mixed in with a reasonably small portion of grilled chicken. She had watched how I ate while in her care at the hospital and modified my likes and dislikes with healthy additions.