35. Res
35
Res
O ne moment, I’m standing in front of Jaxson as he shows me photos of my brother sexually abusing me as a child. The next moment, I’m standing in front of my brother, phone with the evidence of his crimes in hand.
“Ready to let bygones be bygones now that I’m making you an aunt?” he asks with an insufferably smug smirk.
How dare he? How dare he look at me like that? How dare he ask me to let bygones be bygones when he knows what he did to me? When he’s known all along why I hate him. While he’s pretended to be innocent, and I’ve been mocked and scolded for wanting as little to do with him as possible. I may not have consciously remembered him hurting me. But my body did. My subconscious did. And they caused my base, primal instincts to raise a red flag of danger, hate, and revulsion any time my brother was near.
“Res?” David asks, frowning when it takes me too long to answer.
The same primal instinct that made me hostile to David all these years take over.
I black out. It could be a few seconds. Could be a few minutes. All I know is that when I come back to myself, I’m on top of my brother while I punch him in the face repeatedly with one hand and hold up the phone in the other as I scream at him.
“I knew it! I knew it! You’re a fucking pedophile! You made me think I was just a crazy bitch! But I wasn’t! It was you!”
And then, suddenly, I deflate. More than anything, I just want to crawl into my bed and cry myself to sleep. I want to cry period, but not in front of my brother. He doesn’t get to see me vulnerable. Never again.
“Lauressa.”
I turn around to see Jaxson standing between me and my family, which explains why no one has grabbed me and pulled me off my brother. Of course, he’d have never allowed that. He would have let me murder my brother before he let anyone put their hands on me.
I don’t answer Jaxson as I stand up, looking down at my brother’s bloodied face as a memory comes to me. When I was nine, out of the blue, my brother left for four months. My parents said it was some internship in DC, back when my brother supposedly had aspirations of becoming a politician. By then, I had consciously decided I hated my brother and never asked him how it was or why he stopped pursuing a career in politics. But looking back, it’s strange. It definitely would have been the topic of conversation at the dinner table when he got back. And no one ever talks about it. Almost as if…
Hellfire burns inside my chest and threatens to consume my heart as it seeks an escape for eruption and finds nowhere because I won’t let it escape. My parents misunderstand me on the best of days and completely disagree with me and grow weary of dealing with me on the worst. But they wouldn’t…
“Did you all know about this and not tell me?” I ask, looking between my mother and father.
“Res. Sweetheart. You’re overreacting. Just…”
“Did you or did you not know that I was raped and sexually abused by my brother as a child, and not only did you not tell me, you also let the fucking child rapist back into the house?” I snap.
“Honey,” my mother begins. She tries to approach me, but Jaxson blocks her way. “Honey, you didn’t remember anything. We asked you, and you didn’t remember. So we thought it was best to—"
“You thought it was best to let my abuser continue to come around me and be a part of this family? You thought it was best to send him away for a while to some hard labor reform camp, and then come back and be around me, be around other children at Loving Eden?”
I pause. Loving Eden. Fuck.
“Did they know?” I ask. “Did the congregation know? Was he forced to stand up in front of that fucking altar and confess that he raped his sister?”
“The Deacon board thought it was best—” my mother begins timidly, only to be interrupted by my father.
“The Deacon board took the best course of action for everyone at the time and decided to keep it quiet.”
“For whose sake?” I ask, completely shrill .
“We couldn’t let your brother’s future be ruined because of one mistake,” my dad says firmly. “He was just a kid. A boy at that. Sometimes these things happen.”
“Just a kid? Just a… Was he just a kid when he was nineteen and ruined my ninth birthday after forcing me to suck off his cock in the bathroom of an arcade?” I snap, stunning everyone in the room, including myself.
Where did that come from? I’ve never remembered that before now. I just always knew my brother ruined my ninth birthday somehow, but I never actually remembered why. Not until now.
Something tells me that’s not the last thing I’m going to suddenly remember tonight. I have to… I have to get out of here. I have to… I need to…
“Fuck you. Fuck all of you,” I snap.
“Res,” my father calls. “This is why we didn’t tell you. We knew you’d overreact. It’s in the past. It was handled.”
“Pictures that he took of me naked and of him with his fingers up my cunt aren’t in the past,” I snap.
“How did you even—”
“It doesn’t matter how the fuck I got them. They exist, and I got them!”
“He’s moved on. It’s done, Res.”
“He doesn’t get to decide that,” I roar.
The tears I’ve been holding back all this time begin to fall, and I let out a pathetic sob. But I’m beyond caring. No one in this room gets to judge me .
“He doesn’t get to move on when until today, I didn’t even remember what he did, and he never faced one meaningful consequence besides having his head shaved and doing some hard labor at a faith-based reform camp for four months,” I say quietly, disgust permeating my tone.
My dad sighs impatiently. But I know that sigh. He thinks I’m being dramatic. Emotional. Not using logic. And that when I calm down, I’ll get over myself and see it wasn’t a big deal. Arguing with him, with my mother… It’s like arguing with Nala when she gets in her mind that the best place to take a nap is under the sink in the kitchen. An exercise in futility.
So I say nothing else. I just walk out of the house and get in the car. Jaxson gets in the driver seat not even a second later and drives off without saying anything.
His silence doesn’t surprise me. He doesn’t like pointless gestures and exercises. Everything has to have a reason. A logical outcome. Otherwise, there’s no point? And what would be the point of asking me if I’m okay when I’m clearly not? When I’m not sure I ever will be for a long time.
One moment, I was sitting in Jaxson’s car as he drives me home, the next, it’s a few days later, and I’m in my bed, under the cover with Nala curled in my arms.
Is this what I did when I five and six years old and didn’t know how to reconcile the fact that my brother, who was supposed to love and protect me, was hurting me instead? Did I even understand that he was hurting me? Or did I just know that I didn’t like what he was doing and that he wouldn’t stop when I asked? Did I disassociate and become some shell of a person, going through the motions until it was safe for me to be present again? And if I did, how did no one notice what was going on? Why did no one clock my spotty memory of my childhood, even important milestones, as something more sinister? Or maybe they did? Maybe my parents did notice and chose not to say or do anything. That’s probably the answer.
I get up to find my apartment empty. I was sure I would find Jaxson lurking nearby, but either he had better things to do or figured I needed my space. Regardless, I’m relieved he’s not here. I can’t deal with him right now. But at least I can feel safe knowing that he’s undoubtedly been watching me through the cameras he has set up and that I’ve been unable to find.
I take out a carton of cookie dough ice cream from the freezer that I know wasn’t there before Christmas. Did I go to the store or order groceries in the time I’m missing? Did Jaxson do it for me when he brought Nala back to comfort me?
I decide not to think about it as I sit on the couch and watch television while mindlessly checking my phone. I’ve got missed calls from my parents. My brother. Bishop Mavis. Deacon Lashonda. A few voicemails.
I delete them all and am about to toss my phone away from me when a call from an unknown number comes through. It’s not spam, so it could very well be my family trying to call me from someone else’s phone.
I take a chance and answer it. If it’s one of them, I can just hang up.
“Res,” comes the quiet voice of my sister-in-law.
“Abigail?” I say surprised. In the whole time she’s been married to my brother, we’ve probably said less than five words to each other. She’s certainly never called.
“Do you mind if I come by? I… I left your brother. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
I hesitate. This could be a trick my brother has put her up to in order to get my address and confront me. But also, it might not be. I’d rather take the risk that my brother is trying to get to me than potentially turn away someone who needs somewhere to go.
“What about your parents?” I ask.
“They won’t turn David away,” she answers quietly.
I sigh, not at all surprised.
I look out the window to confirm the presence of a non-descript black car with Jaxson’s men in it. If it is my brother trying to corner me, Jaxson’s men will see it and interfere.
“I’ll send you the address,” I finally answer and hang up the phone.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I send Abigail my address. Fifteen minutes later, I’m letting her into my apartment, her husband nowhere in sight.
No sooner than I close the door and turn to her does she launch herself at me .
As she hugs me, she cries, “I’m so sorry. I swear I didn’t know what he did to you. If I had known, I would have never married him. I promise. I—”
“You have nothing to apologize for,” I say to her. Though I can’t lie. It makes me feel better that she didn’t know. It makes me feel better to know that if she had known, she never would have married my brother. But Abigail didn’t know. And now… Now here we both are.
I guide her over to the couch and offer her the half full carton of ice cream I was eating.
She takes it, smells it, and then takes a spoonful and stuffs it into her mouth.
“Huh,” she says when she’s done with it. “The baby likes ice cream still.”
The baby. In all this, I forgot all about her and my brother’s announcement.
“I’m sorry,” I say for lack of anything better.
She gives me a determined look as she exclaims, “You have nothing to be sorry about!”
“I do. This is supposed to be a happy time for you. And I ruined it. I could have—”
“The only one who ruined anything is your brother when he raped you as a child,” she says firmly. “If anything, I’m glad you revealed your brother’s a child rapist.” She places a hand on her lower belly, blooming with life though not evident yet. “If you hadn’t… I would have had this baby and he might have hurt them one day.”
“So you’re leaving him?” I ask .
“What other choice do I have?”
“The same one a lot of woman in your position have made. Stand by him.”
“That’s not an option for me,” Abigail says.
I consider her for a moment. My sister-in-law isn’t what I expected.
“Huh,” I finally say.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Just... Didn’t expect you to be so adamant.”
Abigail scowls. “I know you don’t think much of me. Even ignoring the way David spoke about you sometimes, that much was clear. But I was my parents’ only girl. Their only child. They raised me to be tough and to stand up for myself, even while raising me in Loving Eden. Even words contradicted that sometimes. Even though they think I should hear out David’s side of the story now. They didn’t raise me to be some little docile trad wife who doesn’t have her own mind outside of what her husband says.”
“That’s not what I assumed.”
“You did. Don’t lie.”
“Fair. I did,” I admit.
Abigail sighs. “I can’t blame you for thinking that. Besides, I am terrified. Who know what I’ll decide to do when it really hits me that I have no money and no job history. I finished school, but what good is that?”
“Not to be callous. But all that might be easier to figure out without a baby. If you need help, I have some connections,” I say vaguely.
“I want my baby,” Abigail says adamantly. “I just don’t want my husband.”
“Well, I’ve got some connections for getting rid of the husband too,” I mutter. “And feel free to stay here as long as you want. My bed is huge. It’ll fit the both of us.”
“Thanks,” Abigail says looking down at the ice cream. “Look at you, helping me, when you’re the one that was hurt the most by this.”
I shrug. “Helping others with their own problems helps me to process my own. Or gives me a break from thinking about it.”
“Have you figured out what you’re going to do?”
“What is there to do?”
“You have images. You could go to the cops. I’ve watched enough Law and Order: SVU to know that’s probably an open and shut case.”
I laugh without mirth and reply, “I’ve also watched enough of it to know the things they put victims through, and I’m not sure I want to go through with that. But it’s like you said. I have the pictures. They aren’t going anywhere.”
Just the reminder of those pictures make me feel sick. Make my skin crawl. Make me remember things and feel phantom touches I didn’t remember or feel before. Or maybe I did. Maybe I felt it and remembered it and just didn’t make the connection what it was.
Suddenly, I feel exhausted, even though I’ve only been awake an hour and have done little more than sit.
“I’m going back to bed. Feel free to make yourself at home. Wake me if you need anything,” I say .
Abigail nods. I go back to my room, get under my covers, and sob myself back to sleep again.