In the morning, I called Mrs. Howell and asked her to recommend a lawyer. “I am so sorry to bother you when you are grieving over Peter’s death. And you have done so much for us already, caring for Dorothy when I was sick. But the police were here yesterday. It seems there is a relative who wants to take in Dorothy. We’re frantic to keep him from getting her.”
“Of course you should bother me. Peter is gone. There is nothing we can do for him. But we must save Dorothy. I would have been distressed had you not turned to me. I have already consulted the judge, and he recommends a dear friend to be your attorney. The man may seem decrepit to you, but he is the best there is.”
I telephoned the lawyer, Ted Coombs, and when I told him that Mrs. Howell had said the matter was urgent, he agreed to see me that afternoon. I called Neusteter’s and said I was still too ill to return to work.
Mr. Coombs was elderly, with a craggy face and a shock of hair like old snow, and I wondered about his mental state and how he would react when I explained what Mr. Streeter had done. It wasn’t easy discussing such things with anyone, let alone an old man. But Mrs. Howell was right; age had not dimmed his mind or his zealousness, and while he was incensed when I told him about Dorothy’s father, he was not shocked. He said he had once worked on a case in the mountains in which a wealthy man was accused of fathering his own daughter’s child.
While Dorothy stayed in a reception room with Mr. Coombs’s assistant, a man nearly as old as his employer, I told the lawyer about Gus Vincent.
“Poor kid,” he said. “No mother, a devil of a father, and now a depraved uncle. I know the name. He’s a bootlegger. Those fellows are as vicious as they come. Likely he’ll make Dorothy help with the business, send her out alone, and who knows what could happen to her. Beat her if she refuses. Maybe he already has. As you said, you thought Gus Vincent and Dorothy’s father were in business together. The police have been after Vincent, but he’s tricky. They haven’t got anything on him yet.”
“Maybe he wants Dorothy because he’s afraid she’ll tell the police about him.”
“That could be. Do you think he’s abused her, too?”
“Maybe.” The idea repulsed me. “She’s never said, of course. She’s never told us about her father either. She’d have to testify, wouldn’t she?”
“Yes, and I can’t tell you how hard that would be for a little girl, especially in a courtroom. There’s a good chance she wouldn’t admit it, and even if she did, having to talk about it could destroy her. That girl I told you about in the mountains, I saw her years later. She had married a good man, but there was a sadness about her. She couldn’t hold up her head. She never got over it.” He paused. “Dorothy’s testimony might even work against her, because it would be easy for Mr. Vincent’s attorney to challenge her, and she might recant or fall to pieces. And of course he would deny it, deny he was a bootlegger, too.”
“You mean Mr. Vincent could claim her even though the police think he’s a criminal?”
“Yes, and he might succeed.” Mr. Coombs leaned back in his chair, a swivel chair that was as old and creaky as he was. His office looked as if it had been set up when he started practicing law half a century earlier and never changed. There were law books stacked on shelves and dusty file cabinets, their drawers half-open and overflowing with papers. His desk was piled with legal documents and correspondence and notes. It was one of those desks with a rolltop that could be pulled down to cover the mess, but I doubted that it ever was. I would not have been surprised, however, if Mr. Coombs could have instantly put his hands on anything he wanted in that morass.
“What can we do? Should I take Dorothy and move back to Cedar Rapids, where her uncle couldn’t find us?” I asked.
Mr. Coombs put his elbows on the arms of his chair and made a tent out of his fingers. “No, I wouldn’t advise you do that. You might be charged with kidnapping, and that’s a serious matter.” He suddenly sat up very straight. “What we do is file adoption papers, file them today, before Dorothy’s uncle knows what we’ve done. Perhaps a judge would rule before the uncle applies to adopt her. If we’re too late and he protests and the case goes to court, we can’t officially charge him with anything, because, as I say, we have no proof, and it would be his word against Dorothy’s. But we might bring up his profession in some way.” He paused and stared at his fingers. “Right now, we must proceed with the papers, on the assumption that there is no one else interested in taking in the girl.”
“Will that work?”
Mr. Coombs nodded. “It should if the uncle doesn’t show up before the adoption is final. I doubt a judge would throw a child into an orphanage when there is someone willing to raise her, particularly now, with all the orphans being created by the influenza. The judge would be glad to dispose of one more child. I suppose someone could object to two women adopting Dorothy, but as you say, your sister is to be married, and we can assume that she and her husband will take the child.”
“We haven’t talked about that.”
“We will make that assumption at the hearing.”
I said I understood.
Mr. Coombs rose, and so did I. He held out his hand and said he would prepare the papers immediately and would file them right away. And then he would have his clerk check the records to make sure Gus Vincent’s wife was indeed Dorothy’s aunt. “I’ve never forgotten that young woman in the mountains. I believe that men such as her father are pure evil.” He shook his head at the thought. Then he added, “It would be a good idea if Mrs. Howell were to attend the hearing. She is well known for her work with orphans. I do not believe many judges would have the fortitude to stand up to her.”
He walked me to the door, then said, “You will not be taking on an easy task, Miss Hite. Children who’ve been raped—women, too—they learn to live with it, but they never get over it.”
When Helen got home that night, I told her about my visit to Mr. Coombs. The fatigue on her face seemed to lessen, and she smiled. “That’s splendid, Lutie, just splendid.”
“He said Dorothy might never get over what her father did to her, but I know she will.”
Helen shook her head. “He’s right.”
“I don’t know. She hasn’t had a nightmare the last few nights.”
“A week! Oh, Lutie, don’t be naïve.”
“I think if we give her enough love, she’ll be fine.” I sounded defensive.
“I wish you were right. But you’re not.”
“You don’t know everything, Helen.”
“I know about this,” she snapped.
I stared at my sister. I couldn’t remember the last time we had had words.
She stared back at me a moment. “I’m sorry, Lutie. I’m just tired.” We were in the kitchen, where I was preparing supper. I had put ham in the oven and was removing the lettuce and the salad cream from the icebox. Dorothy was at the dining room table, drawing a picture and not paying attention to us. Helen, sitting on one of the wooden chairs that I had painted orange, ran her finger along the edge of the table, along the white line where the oilcloth had been folded over and was worn. Suddenly, she put her face down on the orange flowers of the oilcloth and began to cry.
“It’s all right, dear,” I said. “You’ve been under such an awful strain.” I sat down beside her and stroked her hair.
“She’ll never get over it, Lutie. Never. Her life is ruined. You have to understand that.”
“We’ll do everything we can for her.”
“It won’t be enough. I know. It isn’t enough for me.”
I continued stroking Helen’s hair, removing the hairpins and combing it with my fingers, as the words slowly sank in. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“Dorothy just won’t. That’s all.”
“I mean, you said it wasn’t enough for you.”
“Did I say that? I didn’t mean anything.”
“But you did say it. What is it Helen? Tell me.”
Helen had stopped crying. She sat up and brushed the tears from her face with her fingertips. “It’s nothing.”
I waited.
Suddenly, she threw her arms around me. “Oh, Lute, I never wanted you to know. What would you think of me if I told you? It’s bad enough that Mother blamed me.”
“For what?”
Finally, she said, “I was raped.”
“You?” I was astonished. I let go of Helen and sat back in my chair, trying to understand. Who could have done such a monstrous thing?
“You see, you’re ashamed of me.”
“Helen, I’m not ashamed. I’m horrified. I’m ashamed you felt you couldn’t confide in me.”
“It happened in nursing school.”
“A doctor?”
“The husband of a patient.” Helen sighed deeply, then spread her fingers on the oilcloth.
“Do I know him?”
“Of course. Dr. Harwood.”
I thought back. “Dr. Harwood. You mean our minister?” I put my hand to my mouth.
“You don’t believe me. Mother didn’t either.”
“Of course I believe you. I’m just shocked is all. I thought he was a good man. He used to pat us on the head when we were little. People admired him.”
“Any man can be a rapist—rich, poor, ne’er-do-wells, respected men.” She had curled her lip when she said “respected.” Then she said, “It was when Mrs. Harwood was ill. You remember, she had cancer, and she died.”
I remembered the thin, mousy lady. In fact, when I’d first considered marrying Peter and being a minister’s wife, I’d thought of her, wondering if I’d become just like her. Dr. Harwood, on the other hand, was a handsome man with a booming voice and a friendly manner. After Mrs. Harwood died, people at church gossiped about the widows who suddenly took an interest in religion.
“I was in my first year of nursing school. Dr. Harwood needed someone to sit with his wife at night. I thought I was very lucky when he asked for me. She was dying, and she was in terrible pain. I wanted to give her something, but Dr. Harwood said pain was God’s punishment.”
“For what?” I asked. “She was a sweet lady.”
“Maybe for marrying him,” Helen replied, acid in her voice. “I used to hear him tell her she was a sinner. She slept only about half the night, and while she was asleep, I studied or napped. There was a daybed in an alcove off the bedroom. Dr. Harwood slept in another room.”
Helen took a deep breath and forced herself to go on. “She was really quite dear. She asked me to read Scripture to her. She apologized for being a burden to me. Dr. Harwood never knew that I gave her Aspirin, but it didn’t help the pain much. She bore it well. She didn’t bear him very well, though. She would get tense when he came into the room. I think she was afraid of him. Sometimes when she slept, she would curl up into a ball and cry out, ‘Don’t, oh, please, don’t.’ It wouldn’t have surprised me if he hurt her—on purpose.”
“What a horrid man. I guess you never know,” I said.
Helen was silent for a moment. She kept running her finger back and forth along the edge of the table. “Like I said, sometimes I napped when Mrs. Harwood slept. I woke up one night when Dr. Harwood touched my arm. At first I thought his wife needed me, that she had cried out and I hadn’t heard her, and I was embarrassed. I tried to sit up, but Dr. Harwood’s hands were on my shoulders, pushing me back down. There was a light on near the bed, and I could see he wasn’t wearing his pants. I told him to stop, but he said, ‘Be still. You don’t want to wake her, do you?’”
Helen looked up then, but not at me. Instead, she stared at the kitchen clock, her head slowly making a circle with the second hand. “I told him to get off me. He said, ‘Shut up. I know what you want. You women who won’t stay home and be wives, you’re unnatural, an affront to God.’ He called me a temptress and a whore and accused me of working in a hospital so that I could see naked men. He pushed me back down on the bed and tried to kiss me, and I could feel his drool on my cheek.”
She rubbed her cheek, as if the wetness were still there. “He said God had given me to him to meet his needs, since his wife couldn’t. I told him I wasn’t the Virgin Mary.”
I laughed, I couldn’t help myself, and Helen looked at me for the first time since she’d started her story and smiled a little. “What did he say to that?” I asked.
“He called me a blasphemer and was so angry he slapped me. Then he put his hands on me. They were chapped. I can still feel them sometimes. He ripped my uniform, and when I tried to kick him he cursed me. I said I’d tell, but he asked who would believe me.” Helen paused, remembering, and her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Lute, I couldn’t stop him. He forced himself into me. It hurt, and when he was finished, I was sticky and bloody. I grabbed my cape and ran all the way home in the rain. It was the middle of the night, and I filled the bathtub with water so hot it nearly scalded me, and I scrubbed and scrubbed, but sometimes even now I feel his seed on me.”
I shut my eyes against the horror of what Helen had gone through. “Did you tell on him?”
“I hadn’t planned to, but my supervisor called me in and said the minister had complained he’d had to dismiss me because I’d left his wife in the middle of the night. So I told her what happened.”
“What did she say?”
“That he was a man of the cloth—those were her words, ‘man of the cloth’—and that he had merely been trying to wake me up. I asked, ‘With his pants off?’ She was embarrassed and told me I was mistaken. And even if something had happened, it was my fault for encouraging him. I said, ‘By sleeping?’ She told me that was beside the point.”
“So nothing happened?” I asked, incredulous.
“Of course not. He was right. Nobody believed me. People think ministers don’t do such things. They sent another girl to replace me. A week later, she dropped out of school. I went to her and said it wasn’t her fault, but she claimed she didn’t know what I was talking about.”
I realized I had left the ham in the oven and got up and turned off the gas. The meat was burned, but that wasn’t important. I sat down beside Helen. “Did you tell Mother and Father?”
“Mother. She was embarrassed, too, and said I was young and confused and must have misinterpreted things. She told me not to tell anyone, especially you.”
“I would have believed you.”
Helen turned and looked at me. “I knew you would. That’s why I didn’t tell you. You were so innocent. I didn’t want you to know about such things.”
“Oh, Helen, you’ve had to deal with this all by yourself.” I took her hands. “I would hate ministers, too.”
She squeezed my hands. “I thought I could handle it, and I did. Only sometimes…”
“Does Gil know?”
Helen jerked up her head to look at me. “No, of course not. I wouldn’t dare tell him.”
“Why not?”
“What would he think of me?”
I shook my head. “He loves you. He’d know it wasn’t your fault. Gil’s a wonderful man. He’d never hold it against you.” Then I had a sudden thought. “Is that why you keep putting off getting married, because of … um … going to bed with him? Do you think you’ll hate it?” Maybe Dr. Harwood was the reason Helen and I had never spoken about sex.
She let go of my hands and stood and stared out the window in the back door. “Every time I think of being with Gil like that, I just cringe. I couldn’t bear to have him touch me the way Dr. Harwood did. I can barely stand to kiss him.”
I got up and stood by Helen. She reached over and turned on the back-door light.
“That’s why you sleep with the light on, isn’t it? You and Dorothy.”
Helen didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.
“You haven’t coped with it after all.”
Helen stared out into the night. “That’s what I tried to tell you. Dorothy won’t either. It takes more than love.” She turned around suddenly. “But you know what, Lutie, I feel better now that I’ve told you.”
“And Dorothy knows we know what happened to her and love her anyway. That’s why we can’t let go of her,” I said.
We held each other for a long time, until Dorothy came into the kitchen. I had forgotten she was in the dining room and now realized she might have heard us. But maybe it didn’t matter that she knew Helen, too, had been abused. She might not feel so alone. She held up her picture. It showed the backs of two women, one tall and blonde, the other dark and short, holding hands.