novel: "Touch" chapter 18
Time dragged, with Trudy trying to guess how much had passed by the angle of the sun on her head when she took breaks to stand and stretch and walk out of the shade of the pines. Finally she heard Amy approach, could feel her sit next to her on the grassy moss, but there was no contact. It was Trudy who reached toward where she thought Amy's shoulder was, fumbled and found it, and then let her fingers descend to the ankle she could see out of the corner of Amy's eye. "So. How was your day?"
Amy reached for a strand of grass and plucked, then another. "Probably better than yours. Just... frustrating. I wanted to write, I don't know why, I just suddenly wanted to put something down on paper, or screen, and..."
"Do you still want to? It's not like I'm doing anything else right now."
"No. Well, yes, but I don't even know what I wanted to write. It was just this swirl of my mom and your mom and hospitals and courtrooms and I thought it would stop moving around in my head when I was here and had words, but it hasn't."
"I hate that."
"So you do it, too?"
"Oh yeah. I probably spend more time trying to organize my brain to write than I do actually writing."
"Oh. I thought it was just because words are still new for me." She paused in her grass-picking. "Well, that sucks; that means it'll never go away." Trudy laughed softly. "Well, hey," said Amy, "at least I've brightened your day."
"There's an old cliché: 'Misery loves company.'"
"Hrm. I like it. So... how was your day?"
"I didn't do anything that got me arrested."
"That's good. I guess. Unless you wanted to. Do something, I mean, not wanted to get arrested."
Trudy shook her head. "I didn't, really. I thought I'd want to punch her, or kick her, or... I mean, I think about it all the time, dream about it, just digging my fingers into her flesh, her arm or cheek or..." Her fingers had curled in as she spoke, and she worked to relax them now. "And then I was there, and I wanted to be angry, but I was just, I don't know, crying like a baby and shaking and stupid and the best I could do was yell, and even that was just whiny, and I wanted to scare her, I wanted her to be afraid, and instead I was just sniveling and pathetic."
Amy brushed her fingertips across the pure moss, fluffing it like a stuffed toy. "Maybe that's worse. For her, I mean. If you made her afraid, then she gets to keep being the, the wronged one. 'Poor me, my daughter is so mean to me.' But instead of that, she has to sit and watch you, I don't know, watch you be afraid. Of her. Watch you hurt."
"That'd be great if I thought she could feel guilty about it."
"Well, maybe she at least feels ashamed. I mean, other people saw. And they didn't see just today, but seeing today was like seeing all of it, really. They see her now, really see her. Inside her. And she knows what they see is ugly and awful and, and twisted."
"She doesn't believe that, though."
"She doesn't have to. She doesn't have to think they see the real her or something. Actually, this is worse! She thinks the whole world has the wrong impression of her, and no matter what she says, or how she tries to make them see the 'truth,' all they are going to see is this revolting, this not even human, this thing. That's all anyone will ever see, ever, when they look at her."
Trudy realized she'd stopped pulling grass, had stopped with a strand still pressed between her thumb and finger. She dropped it and set her hand on her knee. "That's... That makes me feel almost good." She could feel her heart beating: not quick and fluttery, and not hard and painful, but steady and sure. "Yeah. I feel pretty good." She reached out for another strand of grass to pluck. "Do you think your own mom feels the same?"
"I don't know." Amy's gaze moved from the moss up to the crabapple branches across the yard. "I don't know what happened to her."
"Didn't they tell you? Oh! Duh."
Amy's eyes focused on the fence post behind the tree. Trudy searched for words, but her own mind swirled now with the enormity of it: three years old, language gone, home gone, no explanation of why or where you're going or how long. No explanation of anything, ever. No way to even ask.
"Didn't you have other family? Aunts, grandmas, something?"
A sparrow flitted into the crabapple, and Amy's focus shifted again. "I called someone 'Auntie Jill.' She had my father's eyes."
"Wait, your father was around?"
"Yeah."
"Like, really around?"
"He lived with us. Sometimes; not all the time, I think. And he worked a lot."
"Then why the hell are you here? You should be with him, or your aunt, or something."
"Maybe I was..." She abruptly looked down at her hands. "I was broken, now, so why would they still want me?"
Trudy laughed sharply at the absurdity. Amy's hands were completely still, fingers splayed, and Trudy felt like the air had been sucked out of the entire yard. "Jesus. Jesus Christ, Amy. It doesn't - " The rest of the sentence stuck in her throat. It doesn't work that way with parents. But of course it did. Maybe not most parents. "Was your dad like your mom, then?"
Amy's hand slowly ruffled the moss again. "He was quiet. But he laughed a lot, but even then it was quiet. He used to do that thing I see parents do, put his lips against my arm and make fart sounds. And gnaw on my toes. He was the one who put me to bed most nights, and he read, every night that he put me to bed, three or four books or more."
"What about after?"
"I don't think I saw him after."
"Where did you go after the hospital, then?"
"Back home."
A gear ground slowly in the back on Trudy's head, heavy and reluctant. "With your mom?"
"Yeah."
"For how long?"
"I don't know how to tell."
"What happened that you, that made it so you left?"
"I was at school like always, and the day ended and the rest of the kids went home, and my mom was late, but she was late a lot, and she was so late I took a nap, and then I woke up on a couch in, like a waiting room, with my head in my teacher's lap, and she gave me a granola bar, and I colored while she talked to some other lady, and then I got in the lady's car and went to a house I'd never been to, and another lady I'd never seen put me to bed. I expected my mom to pick me up the next day, but she didn't. Or the next. And at some point I stopped expecting it." Her gaze darted from the fence to the tree, then up to settle on a set of thick, bright clouds balanced on one another like scoops of ice cream. "I don't know that I was relieved, exactly, but it was something like it. I wasn't sad. I didn't miss her. I missed him, but he'd already been gone, so I didn't expect. I dreamed, though. Daydreamed, mostly, but sleep-dreamed, too. But then sometimes in the sleep-dreams he was mad, yelling, and I would think, 'I must have done something awful to make him mad,' and I could almost remember what I'd done, but never quite." She looked back at her hand, fingers now curled into the moss, pressing dents but not quite putting holes in the perfection. She straightened her fingers out. "Even in the dreams, though, he never hit me. Never raised a hand."
"Does that sound like someone who'd just stop wanting you? Who'd abandon you?"
Amy whispered, "No. But..."
"Unless he didn't have a choice."
"I don't understand."
Trudy weighed the thought that the gears in her head had churned out. False hope was a horrible thing to inflict on someone. Amy was used to being an orphan. The wound had closed up. But it hasn't healed. Trudy shook her head; whatever the answer was, Amy needed an answer. Twelve years of not knowing, not being told her own story. She cleared her throat, but her voice still came out hoarse.
"No one ever thinks it's the mother. When a kid's getting abused, they always think it's the father, or boyfriend, or babysitter, or whatever. No one thinks a mother would do that to her darling child. It doesn't make sense that they'd send you back to your mother if they thought she hurt you. But they did. It doesn't make sense that your father would just leave. But he did. They would have put someone in jail. They didn't put your mother in jail."
Amy was silent; It wasn't until she exhaled and quickly sucked in a breath that Trudy realized Amy hadn't even been breathing. "They. They can't have done that. They wouldn't have..." Her eyes locked on Trudy's. "You can't, don't, please don't - God, I have to do, what do I do?"
"Susan would know. I might be wrong, but Susan would know, either way." She took Amy's hand and started to stand. But Amy didn't move, just kept staring so that Trudy saw her own face, lips thin and jaw tight.
"I don't want to know," Amy said, her voice high, child-like. "I can't bear to know, I don't want this, I don't want it in my head. Damn you, fuck you, I don't want this!"
Trudy knelt and held Amy's shoulder with her free hand. "Amy: Watership Down. Remember, dreading what was coming was worse than what actually happened."
"That was a story! It had a writer who made sure it had a happy ending!"
"You're right, I know, you're right, it's a stupid thing to say. But still, it's worse not knowing, it's always worse. Right now you're thinking every bad thing at once. He abandoned you, and he's in jail, and, I don't know, other things you probably can't even tell you think. But just those two, they can't both be true, can they?" Amy's hand might have relaxed slightly; Trudy couldn't be sure. But Trudy stood the rest of the way up and gave the gentlest tug she could manage. Amy shuddered a breath in, then out, and stood with Trudy.
They walked slowly, and not quite in a straight line. Trudy realized that this must have been what it was like for Adam this morning, walking with her down the hall after - was that just this morning? She wanted to be like Adam had been, but she couldn't figure out what it was he'd done that had been comforting. Not comforting, exactly. Dependable. Steady. She didn't feel very much like either of those, herself.
The last few steps to the living room door, though, Amy took quickly, then stood, swaying slightly, eyes on Susan, who was involved enough in her book that she only half seemed to notice them there. She started to ask, "You two need someth -" before she'd quite looked up, but then her distraction snapped away and she was on her feet, "Jesus, Amy, what?" She didn't move toward them, but her body leaned forward on the balls of her feet.
"Who's in jail?"
Susan frowned. "I'm sorry, I don't understand."
"My father: is he in jail?"
"Of course he is, honey."
The world went dark for Trudy at Amy jerked her hand away. She could tell by the direction of the muffled wails that Amy was on the floor, and she pictured Amy's hands over her face, or her mouth. Trudy reached toward her, but stopped, not sure what she should do, what Amy would want now. But she kept reaching until she found Amy's shoulder, flinching in anticipation of being hit. But Amy didn't seem to notice her, and the wails were still wordless, and Trudy's world was still dark through Amy's tight-shut eyes.
Susan was kneeling, her arms over Amy, over Trudy's hand on Amy's shoulder. "It's okay, whatever it is, it's, can you tell me, one of you tell me, please tell me what's wrong."
Trudy's voice came out ragged, and she realized she was crying, too. "It wasn't him. He didn't do it, it was her mom. Always her mom."
Amy looked up at Susan, her vision wavering through tears. Trudy's heart jerked sideways at the blankness of Susan's face: completely still, her unblinking eyes not quite trained on Amy's. Susan was not there, and Amy was not there, and Trudy was the only person in the house, and a wave of cold took her breath. Then Susan's left eye twitched a tiny bit, not quite a wince. Then her gaze shifted sideways and down for a moment; she nodded slightly; she pulled her lower lip between her teeth and met Amy's eyes.
"Okay." She put her hands on Amy's shoulders, with one hand over Trudy's hand where it still rested. "We can fix this." Amy shook her head, hard. "No, we can. Not the past, and that's - " she shook her own head and took a breath, "that's huge and horrible and God, I can't even... it's big. But we know now, I know, and we can start making this right."
"How?" Trudy and Amy asked as one.
"I'm not sure." Susan smiled, rueful and bitter and soft. "I've not had this particular experience. But the word 'exonerate' exists for a reason, it's been done before, countless times, and it will happen again, now. It starts right now; I'm going to call Adam, and he'll have a better idea what to do next."
Trudy said, "What are you going to tell him?"
Susan frowned. "This. What you just told me."
"And when he asks how you know? Who told you?"
Understanding broke across Susan's face, dark and heavy. She pulled in a slow breath and looked up at the ceiling, or maybe at nothing, and exhaled an "ah, fuck."
Amy spoke, so softly Susan had to ask her to repeat it. "We have to tell him. Show him." She turned to look at Trudy. "We have to do this."
Time had been moving so painfully slowly, and now Trudy just wanted it to stop, for the three of them to stay here, safe and secret. But she nodded. "Call him now. Get it over with."
Amy breathed, "Thank you," cleared her throat, and added, "It'll be okay; we can trust Adam."
Trudy shrugged. "It's not like we have a choice."
***
Trudy and Amy remained on the couch while Susan answered the door to let Adam in. The two girls were a few inches apart, clasping each other's hands when a simple finger on a forearm would have been enough for sight and words. They both turned as Adam appeared in the doorway.
He was older than Trudy had pictured, the light brown hair at his temples peppered with grey, and laugh lines at the corners of his eyes. He had an earring, maybe onyx, maybe obsidian.
"You know, it's not often that my families ask for a home visit." His voice was as carefully mild as his face. "Mind if I sit?" Susan made an "after you" motion with one arm, and he settled into the overstuffed rocker. He did not lean back, but put his elbows on his knees and hunched slightly forward. After a long minute of silence, he asked, "Is there a conflict I need to know about?" Trudy and Amy both shook their heads, but he didn't notice Amy responding to a spoken question. He nodded slightly, looked at Trudy, looked at her hand holding Amy's, looked back to her face. "Is there something I need to know about?" Trudy nodded alone. "Something about your mom?" Trudy shook her head; beside her, Amy choked back a sob. He glanced at her and away again. "Well, everyone always says just start at the beginning, but I tend to find it's hard to figure out what the beginning actually is. So perhaps someone could start in the middle."
Amy cleared her throat. "It should probably be me."
"Okay, just go with -" He had seemed still and calm before, but now he was without motion entirely. His eyes were fixed on the art book on the coffee table between him and the girls on the couch. He looked like someone trying to remember if he turned off his headlights. Or perhaps something less urgent, like whether he lowered the thermostat before leaving the house that morning. His eyebrows knit the tiniest bit closer, his head tilted, and he glanced again at Amy before taking in a breath. "This is new..."
Amy made a noise, either a laugh or another sob or maybe both. Adam smiled, just with his eyes. Amy said, "Not so new, actually."
His forehead was still creased, confused, but his eyes had gone from merely smiling to cloaked joy. He looked like a child was supposed to look on Christmas morning. Like a child would look on Christmas if he'd forgotten what day it was when he woke up and had just padded into the living room, and he didn't quite understand yet, or quite believe today was really the day. Adam just said, offhanded, "Really? How not-new is it?" Were his eyes watering?
"Since Trudy came here."
That seemed to throw him. "That's... abrupt."
"What do you mean?"
"Usually this kind of recovery - well, usually there isn't this kind of recovery, but when there is - it takes months. Years."
"It's not a 'recovery,' it's..." she raised her hand, raising Trudy's along with it. "My brain isn't fixed; I'm just, I think, borrowing hers. When we touch."
Adam stared at their hands. "That's…not...that's not a thing. Not possible. How is that possible? You're saying, what, psychic something?" Trudy and Amy nodded. "But that doesn't happen, not in, not in reality. It doesn't - " he shook his head, turned questioningly to Susan, who just shrugged sympathetically. He looked back to Amy, squinted, almost a wince, and rubbed his temples with a thumb on one side and two fingers on the other, still peering under his hand at Amy. "This can't be true, and yet it's obviously true, and, wow, I can actually feel my brain short-circuiting." He put his hand down and leaned back in the rocker for the first time, pushing his hands against the armrests and shoving his shoulder blades against the back. "Well. Okay. Enough of that, I've had my moment. Amy, pleasure to meet you."
Trudy was glad not to have his attention on her, but he needed to know everything, so she said, "You look older than I expected. But I like the earring."
Adam glanced at her, pulled in a corner of his lip, and nodded. Swallowed. "I guess I'm be having another moment. No, no, I like this. Symbiosis." Amy murmured the new-to-her word approvingly. "You both give something, you both get something."
"Yeah," said Trudy, "It's like a Sesame Street cooperation skit on drugs."
He smiled. "Yeah, well, if more adults took Sesame Street to heart, well, I'd be out of a job." Then he frowned again in puzzlement. "You aren't exactly looking at me, though."
Trudy closed her eyes. "How many fingers are you holding up?" He put out a hand with the index and middle fingers up. She said, "Figures you'd make a peace sign."
He looked Amy in the eye, but Trudy was pretty sure it was her own gaze he was meeting. "I could curl in the index finger now, but there are certain professional standards. Ah, Amy, I can tell by the smile that you've been gaining a lot of cultural knowledge you've missed over the years." Then his expression slowly changed, still smiling but now thoughtful, distracted. "So this has been going on for weeks, and yet you didn't call me over until tonight. Which means that this - " he extended and arm and swept it from one side to the other - "is not even the real bombshell. And Amy, at least, has been crying." He leaned forward in the rocker again. "So..."
Amy took in a breath with only a slight shiver. "I need to tell you what really happened to me, so you can help me help my father."
Originally posted at http://violetcheetah.dreamwidth.org/74251.html. Feel free to comment there
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