Chapter 18
Taylor cried for an hour and a half without stopping. Lee sat on the edge of his bed and listened as this pale, fragile boy confessed his deepest secret, detail by detail, sometimes becoming too choked up to go on. She couldn’t believe that no one had been able to figure it out. She also couldn’t believe that up until an hour ago he thought he could handle this on his own; he thought he could recover from his rape without ever saying a word.
“I didn’t want to live after that, so I took the pills and tried to die, and you know the rest.”
“And you never told anyone?”
“Just you…I never planned to tell anyone; I don’t know how in the world I am supposed to recover from it though…”
“When you’re ready Dr. Kennedy will help you. You just have to take it one day at a time, and soon it’s nothing, but a bad dream.”
“I can’t imagine it ever feeling like that,” he said blowing his nose.
“I couldn’t either,” she said giving him a weak smile, “But after awhile, it does.”
Taylor’s blue eyes became washed with sympathy; “You were raped?”
Lee nodded, “More times than I care to remember.”
“My God…Did you know the guys?”
“One guy…my step-father. My mother wasn’t married when I was born, but when I was three she married my stepfather, Donald. At first it was a normal household, I mean maybe he drank a little more than normal, but all in all we were a family,” she began, “By the time I was twelve I had a baby brother and another child was on the way. It was than that Donald started saying things to me that fathers shouldn’t say to their daughters. Not more than six months later he came into my room at night for the first time and raped me. It went on until I was almost fourteen; it might still be going on if my mother hadn’t come into my room that night. She came in and Donald had my night-shirt up over my face and he was raping me.”
“Did he got to jail?”
“Yeah, but I was mess by then. I started cutting myself, and my mother got rid of all the razors and all the knives in the house, but I just bought more, and if I couldn’t cut, I’d burn myself, and if all else failed I’d beat myself. I just needed to get it out so much, and my mother was no help at all. Once Donald was in jail, she wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened, but I couldn’t do that; I started running around at all hours of the night, drinking, and doing drugs. It was not too long after that I realized what was going to happen to me, so I tried to kill myself. When it didn’t work my mother sent me away; she couldn’t deal with me. I recovered and she took me back, and I wasn’t home for a month when I slit my wrists. She sent me away again and moved to Oregon with my two half-brothers and I haven’t been home since.”
“Where do you go after you leave rehab?”
“To a boarding house, but I’m never there for long, and I probably won’t go back; I pretty much need constant care,” she said in a barely audible voice, “I’m sick Taylor…”
“You’re strong Lee, you can get better…”
“I can cope with my illness, but I can not get better. I am a manic-depressive, and if I forget one pill I can have a very impressive mood swing; I will injure myself if given the chance; I have tried to commit suicide eight times; When Donald raped me he destroyed my uterus so I will never have children; I used to drink, do drugs, and sleep with every other guy I met, and do you know what I would do when we were having sex,” she said beginning to cry, “I would cry; I would cry so hard that once I almost choked to death, and the kind of guys I slept with didn’t care. I am a lot better than I was Taylor, but in the end, everyone – the doctors, my mother, and myself – know I will never get better.”
Taylor wrapped his arms around her while she wept; her tears staining his shirt, and he wondered if it was a demon, divinity, or damnation that held Lee’s spirit to this earth through all that suffering. He would say it was a demon, but she was not possessed by pain; he would say it was divinity, but she had not been saved; he would say it was damnation than, but how could something that made her so strong come from the fires of hell?
Eventually, Lee cried herself to sleep. Taylor took a wash cloth from the bathroom and washed the tearstains from her cheeks. He was sorry that he made her cry; that’s why he stayed with her until she fell asleep, even though he became later for his appointments with Dr. Turner and Dr. Kennedy by the minute. He called for a nurse to take Lee back to her room; the nurse looked from Taylor to Lee and back again with disapproval.
“I’ve got to report this you know.”
“Report what?”
“Sexual relationships between patients are not accepted here. I need to report it to your doctor.”
“There is nothing to report; she and I are just friends. We were talking and she started crying and she fell asleep.”
“You can stick by your claim, but I still have to report it,” she said stroking her chin, “Unless…”
“Unless what?” “Unless you give me a reason to stay quiet.”
“How much do you want?”
“I don’t want money,” she said with a smile and a wink.
Taylor drew back in horror, terror, and disgust, “Get out.”
“Do you really want me to report you? I can make the story really nice and dirty, convince all the doctors that you’re sexually deviant,” she said walking toward him, “It means more doctors and more tests, and sometimes even more medication. And you’ll never see your little friend again.”
“Get out.”
“Fine; I’ll get out. And I’ll go tell Dr. Kennedy I heard struggling in here, so I came in to see what the fuss was and I found this,” she said taking a small bottle from her pocket and spilling the contents on the wet rag from the bed, “Do you know what that is? It’s a rag drenched with chloroform; and do you know what you were doing with it? You were holding it over her face so she would pass out, that way she wouldn’t remember you raping her.”
The room spun around Taylor. He was defenseless, weak, and terrified. He felt his knees buckling underneath him and he grabbed the dresser for support.
“Think about it,” she said, “Do you really want to go to jail for raping a poor, defenseless, girl? All those inmates would know what you did, and they might want to teach you a lesson. Now, maybe you want to reconsider your answer.”
Suddenly Taylor felt a jolt; he knew he was at a turning point, he was going to be the victim all his life unless he stood up. “No,” he said firmly, “You are getting out of here right now unless you want to go to jail. I will be the one going to Dr. Kennedy and telling him how you came in here and tried to force me to have sex with you. If you leave right now, you’ll only lose your job, but if your ass isn’t out of here in one second, I am calling the police and you can go to jail for attempted rape.”
“One problem baby, I didn’t lay a hand on you.”
“No, but you attempted to use threatening tactics to obtain sex. That’s attempted rape baby.”
“And it would be my word against yours, and who do you think the police will believe; a registered nurse with a terrific record or a psychotic teenager in a rehab clinic?”
“Oh you forget though,” Lee said sitting up on the bed, “There’s a witness.”
Exhausted, both emotionally and physically, Taylor finally made it to see Dr. Turner. He had spent the last half-hour with Dr. Kennedy and Lee, recounting the disgusting details of the incident with the nurse. She was fired and a complaint was sworn with the Medical Ethics Committee, but Taylor would not press charges.
“Are you sure you are alright Taylor?” Dr. Kennedy asked for the fifth time.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Alright. I’m sorry I’ve got to cancel our appointment, but I’ve got huge meetings and appointments on the other side of town, and there’s no getting out of them, but you’ll be in my office at nine Thursday right?”
“You bet,” Taylor said trying his hardest to smile.
With that Taylor was released from the watchful gaze of his psychiatrist and captured in the penetrating gaze of his specialist. Taylor wished Dr. Turner was on the other side of town in a meeting; Taylor liked him and all, but how much could you enjoy taking off all your clothes so you could be poked, prodded, and inspected? Taylor laughed to himself; glad no one was around to answer that.
Taylor again recounted all the evening’s actions, this time for Dr. Turner, who sat stunned, bewildered, and betrayed by the actions of a colleague.
“Well, you’re definitely forgiven for your extreme lateness, but since you were late, let’s get moving.”
Taylor swallowed hard, “Before we do that Dr. Turner, I want to talk to you.”
“What about?”
“Well…everything I say here is protected right?”
“Right.”
“You won’t tell my parents, or Dr. Kennedy, or anyone else?”
Dr. Turner felt his palms start to sweat; he was not used to dealing with the emotional side of patients, “No, I won’t.”
“Dr. Kennedy thinks that something triggered my suicide; that it was not my problems festering that drove me over the edge, but that something happened to me, to shove me off. And he’s right. I just can’t bring myself to tell him what it was…but I want to tell you.”
Dr. Turner sat down next to him, “Okay Taylor; I’m listening.”
“I used to drink a lot; I knew a bar that served alcohol without an ID, and I would go there almost every night,” he said recoiling at the memory, “On a night I was especially drunk, I went into the bathroom, where a…a man held a gun to my head, forced me into his car, drove me out to the middle of nowhere, and raped me.”
“And you never told anyone?”
“I told a friend, but only very recently,” he running his hand through his hair, “She made me realize that not all secrets are made for the grave, and that some secrets will be your grave if they stay secrets.”