An Act of Love (13 page)

“No,” Linda said. “I haven’t been aware of anything like that.”

“Sometimes the person feeling inappropriate love and desire is ashamed, and masks these feelings with a pretense of hatred for the other person. Has Emily, in the past, irrationally lashed out in anger at Bruce over seemingly insignificant matters?”

“Not any more than he has toward her,” Owen admitted fairly.

“Has she behaved violently toward him? Conversely, have you ever seen her acting in a seductive way toward him?”

“No.”

Dr. Travis opened a folder and looked through it. “We’ve collected a family history from you. Think carefully. Is there anything you’ve left out? Has, for example, Emily ever had a period of mental instability? Has she ever hallucinated? Blacked out? Has she ever accused another man of raping her? Accused anyone of anything that wasn’t true, or done anything similar to call attention to herself?”

“No.” Owen was growing impatient. “But still … Bruce hasn’t done anything like that, either. He’s a good boy. He’s always been a good boy. I don’t understand why you believe Emily.”

Very calmly, Dr. Travis said, “I don’t understand why you don’t.”

“It’s not that,” Linda hastily interceded. “It’s just that it’s so confusing. Surely
you must see that.”

Dr. Travis leaned back in her chair. “I’ll admit that I’m not one hundred percent without doubts. In a situation like this, of course, there is no one but God who knows the full truth. But let me tell you why I believe Emily. First of all, we have given her a battery of diagnostic tests. We’ve found nothing to indicate psychosis, dementia, any kind of physiological or biochemical dysfunction. Her family situation has been not optimal, but certainly, without a doubt, good. She has always been well cared for. Loved. She has grown up in a healthy environment. She was performing well at school. She had friends. Good grades. Nothing to indicate any underlying chronic psychiatric problem. Now. Emily came to us because of a suicide attempt, which indicates a serious emotional trauma. She has evidenced feelings of shame, self-hatred, depression, a sense of hopelessness. She told Dr. Brinton that she was carrying the seeds of destruction for your family within herself. I would say this announcement fairly well fits that bill, wouldn’t you? I might also add that a great deal of research has been done on rape victims, and Emily’s response fits the patterns found in that research. She displays certain identifiable signs of a rape victim. For one, she is angry at her mother for not protecting her.”

“But how could I—”

“Emotions are not rational. This is how she
feels
. Also, she displays obsessive behaviors. In the short time she’s been with us, she’s made her bed probably fifty times. She can’t get it smooth enough, she says, can’t get the wrinkles out. Can’t get it to look right. You’ve remarked on her overeating. Her recent weight gain. She’s been medicating herself with food. And the self-mutilation. Her face. Her hands. Those also are common signals. She hates herself. Punishes herself.”

Owen interrupted, “But if she really was raped, why does she punish
herself
?”

“Again, I need to stress that emotions are not rational. This is what studies show is the common behavior of victims of rape.”

Owen could keep silent no longer. “I don’t think it’s fair to discuss this when Bruce isn’t here to defend himself. Who is protecting his interests here?”

“Well,” Dr. Travis coolly responded, “I am, for one. I need for both of you to know that I am bound by federal law to notify the police about any report of rape.”

“Good God!” Owen exploded. “You can’t do that! How can you even think of doing that? You have no proof! You haven’t even talked to Bruce. You haven’t even set eyes on him!”

“If I may finish. I’m going to take a risk here and not report the accusation of rape for two reasons. First of all, for the reason you mentioned. We have no proof. We need to hear from Bruce. This is an extremely personal and volatile situation for the entire family. More important, I think that bringing in the police would not be the best thing to do therapeutically at this moment in time for my patient. I’m making a clinical judgment call here and I want you to know that I’m doing it.”

“Thank you,” Linda said, thinking that Owen should have said it.

Owen was thinking furiously. “Look,” he said. “These two have always tattled on each other. Why didn’t she tell us when we got back from the writers’ conference? When we could perhaps have found proof, one way or the other, taken her to the doctor, that sort of thing.”

“Keeping her silence is not unusual. She thought she could bury it. Hide it. Make it go away, as if it never happened. She was humiliated, angered, confused. She knew that disclosure of it would be a divisive element in your family. She hated herself because it happened to her. She blamed herself for it. It is common, it is
textbook
, for a rape victim to feel guilty. Emily tried to hide it, to bury the fact of it, and the pain and anger worked inside her like an acid, eating away at her, until she no longer could contain it. She tried to protect you from the pain of knowing, but that was an impossible task. Her only recourse was a suicide attempt.” After a moment’s silence, she said, “Now Emily can move on. Now she can own her anger. Deal with her grief. Work it through. Begin to heal.”

“How can we help her?” Linda asked.

“For now, just give her time. Don’t be surprised or angry at her anger with you. With both of you. That also is common. Right now Emily is a very intensely distressed young woman.”

“So there’s nothing I can do until Monday?”

“You could call her. She might not talk to you.” Dr. Travis rose. “I’m sorry. I have an appointment now.”

It was when she was opening her office door that Owen said, “I’m not sure exactly how to say this but … I would hate it if any talk about this got out. Especially to Hedden. For Bruce’s sake. Emily’s too.”

Dr. Travis drew herself up. “Mr. McFarland, we do not divulge our patient’s private concerns to anyone.” She shut the office door firmly behind them. “I’ll see you on
Monday.” She walked down the hall and around the corner.

“Yes, all right.” Linda said into the emptiness.

Together they left the hospital, walking slowly, as if the rules of gravity had been suspended and the halls were turned into mazes, as if they had suddenly become old and frail and strangers in the world.

Chapter Eleven

They found their
old Volvo in the garage and got in.

Owen looked over at Linda. “You okay?”

She nodded. “I guess so. You?”

“I feel like I’ve been hit in the stomach with a bat.”

“Me, too.”

“What should we do now?”

“I don’t know.”

“I guess we’ll just go back to the farm.”

“I guess.” The brochures Dr. Travis had given them were lying in her lap, staring up at her like a curse.

What if Emily were telling the truth?

Dear God, what if she were lying?

“Owen,” she said, “hold me.”

They shifted across the seats, the leather creaking as they moved, and wrapped their arms around each other.

“It’s a nightmare,” Linda said.

“We’ll get through this,” Owen said. “Somehow.”

For a moment Linda took solace in the familiar bulk of her husband’s body, the reliable pounding of his heart, the comforting rumble of his voice in his chest as he spoke. In the way their car curved around them, enclosing them in a safe and familiar world.

Then they heard the brisk click-clack of someone’s high heels. Next to them a figure moved, opening a car door. They broke apart, fastened their seat belts. Linda brushed back her hair with her hands. Owen put the key in the ignition and started the engine and steered the car from the garage.

During the hour-long
drive back to Ebradour, they fell into a brooding silence broken by fits of conversation as new thoughts struck them.

Owen mused aloud, “I can’t see it. I can’t believe that Bruce is a rapist.”

“I know. But it’s just as hard to believe that Emily would make this up.”

“True. But Emily’s romantic. Dramatic.”

“But she’s never been a liar. And she’s not crazy.”

“I’m not saying she’s crazy. But she is in a psychiatric ward.”

“She’s
in
a psychiatric ward because she was
raped
. She’s in a psychiatric ward because she wanted to spare us, but keeping it secret was killing her.”

“But I just can’t see Bruce
raping
anyone.”

“Me, either. Still, Bruce’s a young man. A lot of hormonal changes are going on inside him …”

Owen was quiet for a while, considering, and after a few moments, he said, “I know. There was something different in the air this summer. When the boys were visiting.”

The boys, Terry and Doug and Pebe, had come to stay for a month, as they had for the two previous years, but this year they’d not been as boisterous. They spent more time secluded in the attic or the woods and no time at all with the horses or in the pond. As always, the guys had taken over the attic for a makeshift clubhouse and guest room, playing poker late into the night, sleeping past noon, and this year Owen and Linda had assumed, from the choked laughter they heard, that they were discussing women. Owen suspected they were sneaking off to smoke cigarettes; he’d reminded them every time he saw them that if he caught them smoking near the barn or if he came across an uncrushed butt anywhere he’d send them back home on the moment. He’d worried all summer about the possibility of fire. He’d been alert, kept pretty good watch. He suspected they’d smoked some pot down by the pond, but he hadn’t told Linda; she would have freaked out. It was also possible that they’d sneaked some alcohol into the attic. But adolescent boys acted bizarrely enough when sober; Owen and Linda hadn’t been able to guess by their behavior whether or not they’d been drinking.

Mostly Owen had been aware that this year the boys were bored by the farm. The pond, the woods, the hills, the horses, all had lost their charms. Day after day Bruce and Doug and Terry and Pebe had risen after noon to straggle down the stairs bleary-eyed and sit with cups of coffee on the side porch, staring out at nothing. After a while they’d
strolled in to collapse on the various sofas in the den where they’d watch television with the glazed eyes of lobotomy patients. When the coolness of evening fell, they might rouse themselves for a long walk in the woods, and then sometimes they had grown lively again. They’d returned laughing and shoving each other and muttering behind their hands. Owen didn’t know how their time had passed; they’d been so inactive. He remembered his own adolescence, how his parents had yelled at him for being absentminded and forgetful. He remembered his first sessions with liquor, how violently ill he’d been. When the boys were out in the woods, Owen had made surreptitious inspections of the attic, looking for bottles of booze or signs of drugs; he’d never found anything suspicious.

Owen came out of his reverie. “I asked Terry why they’d all gotten so quiet. One morning when he came down before the others woke up.”

“He was always the easiest one to talk to. What did he say?”

“Just that they were getting older, heading into their last year of high school. They were all worried about applying to colleges and waiting for the results. They were facing the most difficult semester of their lives. Everything hung on the grades they would make.”

“Well, we know Bruce is anxious.”

“Terry said the college advisor told them that it’s harder now for prep school students to get into colleges. Universities are trying to redress the balance of earlier years when prep school kids sailed into any school they wanted, but parents still expect the same accomplishments their parents had expected of them.”

“Did you ask about girls?”

“Yup. Terry said people didn’t date anymore. They went out in groups, or else they met as really serious couples in the woods surrounding the school. He also told me the girls at the school liked the jocks, or else the radical grungy guys. Although Pebe had a girlfriend.”

Linda smiled. “Pebe would.” He was drop-dead handsome as well as brilliant. “Did he mention Alison?”

“Not that I recall.”

“She likes Bruce, it’s obvious. And he likes her. There’s a real sweetness between them.”

“They must have been involved before the summer. Bruce never particularly
cared about which college he got into before this summer, and suddenly he was adamant about getting into Westhurst.”

“Where Alison wants to go. Right.”

“It just doesn’t seem to fit that Bruce would be so … smitten … with Alison and yet—” Linda paused. It was hard to say the word. “—and yet rape Emily.”

“I know. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“But then I can’t believe Emily would lie.” Linda rubbed her temples. “I’m getting a headache.”

“Want to stop for a cup of coffee?”

“No. I’ll be all right. We’re almost home.”

They finished the ride in silence, and when they turned down the long gravel drive to their house, Linda realized with a jolt that this beautiful farm, their sanctuary, their home, looked different to her now. The bare branches of trees darkened the ground and the buildings with tangles of shadows. Was this the house where her child was harmed?