CHAPTER THREE

“He tried to kill you?”

Chloe could see in Derek’s eyes that he was genuinely shocked. He really didn’t know. If he didn’t know that, then maybe he was telling the truth, and he wasn’t really involved with Jesse and his father. Maybe it was a horrible, twisted coincidence that she had ended up falling for a man who knew them so well. It was some kind of cosmic joke. She wished that it was funny.

“Yes. I’m sorry,” she said. She was suddenly having a hard time breathing. It was stuffy in the diner, and the smell of grease hung heavy in the air. “Can we go outside?”

“Of course,” he said. He left a twenty on the table, and by the time he stood up, she was halfway to the door. She went through the door and hit the fresh air. She stood there for a few minutes just drinking it in. She needed to walk. She wasn’t going to be able to sit still while she was talking about this. She wasn’t even convinced she’d be able to get through talking about it at all.

“Can we walk and talk?” she said. Derek nodded, and she started walking.

The diner was located on a small frontage road. It was dark, but the moon was almost full, and the stars were out in force, so as they walked along the side of the road, their way was somewhat lit.

“I’m going to start at the very beginning,” she said. “I can explain it all better that way, I think.”

“Sure, whatever is best for you,” he said. God, she wanted so badly for this man to be everything he seemed to be…but she had been so wrong before.

“I was adopted as a baby, I’ve told you that. My adoptive parent’s names are Tom and Marg Ward. They had another daughter, Daphne. She was a year older than me.

Tom worked in the city as a contractor. He had his own business, and we were pretty well off financially I guess. I didn’t reap many benefits of that, but we lived in a nice house and in a nice neighborhood. My first real, clear memory is of the day Daphne started kindergarten. I remember being sad and wanting to go with her. I don’t remember why but I remember being afraid of being alone at the house. My father was a drunk. I didn’t really know that until later either. Some days were good, normal, I guess is the word. I never felt like I fit in, or that any of them even particularly liked me but some days he was sober, and he left me alone.”

They came to the end of the frontage road. It was a dead end and blocked off with a white fence and orange reflectors. There was a dirt road that stretched along behind it. Chloe barely paused before going around it and continuing on her way. Derek followed her. When she hadn’t spoken for a long time, he said, “He left you alone? Was he abusive, Chloe?”

“To say the least,” she said. “I’ve thought a lot about why they even bothered adopting me in the first place, and the only thing I’ve ever been able to come up with is that Marg wouldn’t let him hurt Daphne. I was his whipping girl and then, later on, a lot more disgusting things.”

She looked at Derek’s face. She’d never told another living soul about the sexual abuse. It made her sick and ashamed to think about it. She wondered if it was going to make him sick too. She wondered if it would make him so sick that he’d never want to touch her again. She took another deep breath and told herself there was no going back now and she pushed on.

“The first real beating I remember was when I was about five. It may have happened before that, but I was too young to remember, or I blocked it out. I was always afraid of him, so he was probably hurting me all along. Anyways, the first time I remember…my mother and Daphne had gone to Daphne’s school for an open house or something. My “father” was already drinking, and I was scared to death to be alone with him. I remember begging her to take me with her. I cried and clutched onto her leg. She peeled me off and told me to “be a good girl.” She said “Daddy” had a bad day and I should do whatever he needed me to do to make it better. When they left, I went to my room. I hoped that I could hide in there, but he followed me.” Chloe was suddenly thrust back into the past. Her eyes lost all focus, and she was once again that scared little girl. She was Kelly Ward.

“Come out and watch TV with your daddy,” he said. His face was too close to hers, and the smell of alcohol and cigarettes made her sick to her stomach.

“I’m just going to listen to the radio,” Kelly told him.

He was smiling when he grabbed hold of her long blonde hair. It felt like he was pulling it out by the roots and she screamed as he dragged her out of the room and down the hall. He threw her onto the couch and said, “I’m gonna fix another drink. Stay there.” As soon as he turned his back, she tried to run for the door. She was five, and they lived in the city. She had no idea where she thought she was going to go. He caught her around the waist. She was grateful it wasn’t her hair until he picked her up and tossed her against the wall. She had a vivid memory of sliding down the wall, and before she hit the floor, he was standing over her, taking off his belt. “I told you to stay put. You’re a stupid little girl. You’re as stupid as you are ugly.”

“I’m sorry, daddy. I’m sorry! I won’t do it again, I’m sorry!” Kelly screamed and cried and begged and apologized all the way down the hall. All of it only seemed to feed his need to hurt her. She was thrown onto the bed on her face, and he pulled up her shirt and whipped her with the belt…over and over again. When he finally ran out of steam, he left her there. She was bleeding, and she couldn’t move. She was sure she was going to die. She was also sure that when her mom got home that she was going to be so angry. She was right. Her mother was angry with her.

“I told you to be good. You never listen!”

“I wasn’t bad…”

“Shut-up, Kelly! He’s asleep. You’re going to wake him up. Do you want that? Are you so stupid that you want to get beat again? Jesus, now I’m going to have to spend half the night cleaning you up. Go get in the bathtub!” Little Kelly dragged her battered body up off the bed and started limping towards the bathroom. She heard her mother’s voice behind her say, “Shit! The comforter is ruined. Damn her! Daphne, take this off and put it in the washer and get a clean blanket from the linen closet.”

In what Chloe would come to remember as Daphne’s signature whine, the six year old had said, “Why do I have to do it? Kelly messed it up!”

“Oh my God,” the sound of Derek’s voice brought her back. He was looking at her with tears in his eyes. He looked like he wanted to throw up. “Oh Chloe, baby…God, I’m so sorry. I don’t even know what to say. I want to kill him.”

She tried to form a smile. It was probably more of a grimace in the end. “Me too,” she said. “I learned how to go somewhere else in my head when the beatings were happening. The older I got, the more frequent they became. When I was in those other places, I would see that little girl and I would feel bad for her and want to help her…but I didn’t know how. Then when I was ten, the game changed.”

She saw Derek shudder. He knew what was coming and she considered not saying it out loud. The details of what took place for the next eight years were sick and twisted, and she was sure that Derek could fill in the blanks himself if she left it at that. But she had opened the gate and the feelings and the memories…no matter how bad they were, no matter how painful and disgusting, they wanted out all of a sudden.

“I got pretty good at avoiding him. He drank so much that I think if I was out of his sight, he would almost forget I existed altogether. I loved school, and I threw myself into it. I volunteered to be a tutor my fifth grade year. I would stay after school until six every day, and then I would sneak into the house and go straight to my room. Sometimes my so-called mother would remember I existed— usually only when Daphne complained that she had to sit down at the dinner table every night and I didn’t. When that happened, she’d make me come out and then after dinner while she and Daphne made crafts in her sewing room or whatever. I was told to do the dishes, and that would leave me passing through the living room when I was finished— where I always knew he would be. One night I was cleaning up, and I kept checking to see if he was passed out yet. It was taking him a really long time, but I was determined to stay put until he did. I finally looked out and saw him with his head back on the couch and his mouth open. His eyes were closed and breathing a sigh of relief; I started through the room. I was right in front of him when he opened his eyes and smiled. It was a game to him. He knew I was waiting.”

“Where are you going, Kelly?”

“To my room,” she’d said, “I have some homework to do.”

“Okay baby, but before you go, come here and give daddy a kiss.”

“He never called me baby, and he never kissed me. I was more terrified than I had ever been and the last thing I was going to do was offer myself to him. I was too little to know what he had in mind, but I knew whatever it was, would be bad. I ran for the door, but as soon as I did, he got up. I reached the door and even had it flung open before he caught me…but he did catch me. He slammed the door closed and with me kicking and screaming, he carried me downstairs to the basement. What he did to me there was a hundred times worse than the beatings.” She paused and took a breath while wiping away her tears.

“When he finished, he told me that if I ever told anyone, he would kill me. He said that I was a “slut” and what he’d done to me was what I’d been made for. He finished by telling me that as ugly as I was, I should feel thankful that he wanted me because no one else ever would. It happened at least once a week from then on for the next eight years. It got weirder and sicker every time, and sometimes he would be rough and beat me and other times he would act like I was his lover. I hated those times the worst. I’d rather be beaten than have him believe that I enjoyed any part of being with him. I hated him with a passion, and I hated my mother and my sister even more for not saving me.”

Chloe was shaking even harder now, and Derek looked like he couldn’t stand it any longer. Tears were rolling down his face, and he took a chance and put an arm around her shoulders. It seemed to surprise him when she didn’t pull away— she surprised herself. She didn’t want to pull away. She wanted him to wrap her up and hold her and never let go. She let her head rest on his chest, and he pulled her into them, and they cried together. They cried for Kelly…the little girl that nobody saved.