A camera flashes. Pop! Squinting, blinded, I trace the slow motion arc of the spent flashbulb through the air and hear the hollow crackle as it bounces and bounces again off the hard floor and rolls away.
I look up ... see an image ... white pubic hair, head-high, tiny right hand raised, held by a woman’s bony hand, pushing reluctant young fingers into warm, wet vagina. Leaving his thumb out. Strange pungent smell of sweat and ... something else. Jangling fear, excitement, a tiny hard penis pressed against underwear and pants.
Frozen terror. Sweaty grandma. Bad grandma. Bad bad bad. Then it’s over, tension released; she’s through. His tiny wrist is freed from the bony grip. Her deep raspy voice whispers “gooood boy” as painted fingernails stroke his left cheek. She washes the little boy’s hand, bends down, foul smoky breath close by. Yuchhh. She kisses his tiny hard penis through his pants, then takes him by the hand to the kitchen and gives the good little boy two cookies. Mmm, cookies. Her evil finger touches her painted lips. “Sshhh.”
I awoke, startled, drenched in sweat, and shook my head hard. What just happened? White pubic hair? Vagina? Oh, my God. My stomach felt like I’d swallowed a dozen riverbed stones. Horrified, my eyes wide open staring blankly at the ceiling, not wanting to close them even to blink, I steeled myself to open the squeaky faucet in my mind just enough to let the terrifying images trickle in. In a millisecond, the trickle became a torrent and the torrent a raging flood. My face flushed and my body started to convulse. I sprang from the bed and, doubled over, stumbled to the bathroom.
I turned on the shower so no one would hear me, dropped to my knees in front of the toilet, and threw up every meal I’d ever eaten. Exhausted, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and caught a glimpse of my fingers. The horrible images rushed back in an ugly wave. And right behind it another wave of nausea crashed and I retched again, my empty stomach rippling, nothing coming up but a sour liquid, tearing eyes clamped shut to lock out the disgusting view.
Then it was over and I hung limply, half-kneeling, halfslumped in front of the toilet, my face on the lip of the cold porcelain bowl, until I managed to pull myself to my feet, flush the toilet, and climb into the shower. I adjusted the water to almost scalding and, desperately needing to get clean, scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed until all the hot water was gone.
I shut off the faucet and stepped out, ragged and raw, grabbed a towel, and staggered from the steamy bathroom to the bedroom to get dressed. I threw on some clothes and shuffled back into the bathroom to hang up the towel. Some of the steam had dissipated, and as I turned to leave, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror.
Instantly I froze, my eyes locked on the image. Suddenly, the image forced me back, way back, somewhere in my mind, and as I diminished, someone passed me going the other way ... someone small. And then I was on a distant hill, a spectator, without any control over my body.
Rikki and Kyle were up and had already eaten breakfast, and as my body descended the stairs I was vaguely aware of the smell of bacon lingering in the air. Rikki looked up from the soapy dishes and smiled warmly as I ... we ... passed.
“Morning, sweetie,” she said brightly. “Thanks for using up all the hot water. It stopped snowing. There’s school, but Hank hasn’t plowed us out yet. I’m keeping Kylie home. He’s in the playroom.” I couldn’t talk; I just walked mechanically by Rikki and into Kyle’s playroom. He was on the floor building a castle out of Legos.
Kyle looked up from his blocks and said, “Hi, Dad.” I sat mutely on my distant hill. My hand grabbed a Mexican blanket, Kyle’s sketchpad and a box of crayons and markers, and I glided silently into the lighted toy closet and sat down, leaving the door slightly ajar. Kyle went back to building, glad to have me nearby, unconcerned that his daddy was sitting in his closet.
My left hand reached into the box, took out a washable red marker, and as I watched from far away, drew a continuous line around my right hand, across the knuckles. Then the marked hand was held in front of my face and rotated slowly, back and forth, while the small person’s eyes carefully inspected the crimson line. I watched silently, dispassionately.
Then the hand took a pencil and began to draw a crude picture on the sketchpad. The picture was a front view of a naked woman and a back view of a small child, in front of her and slightly to the right. The woman was holding the child’s right hand up to her vagina. No fingers were visible, only the thumb and child’s hand. Next to that was a picture of the child holding his right hand up, the fingers separated from the hand. An open scissors was near the hand as if to show that it had been used to cut the fingers off. The word “No!!!” was written in a cartoonist’s dialogue balloon that came from the boy’s mouth. The word “Sshhh” was drawn the same way at the lady’s mouth.
The small person controlling my body drew another picture, this time in pencil and red crayon—the face of a little boy with enormous eyes and huge tears streaming down his cheeks. He held up his right, fingerless hand, blood-red droplets falling from it. The caption read “Sad Davy.”
What is this?
I felt the fingernails of my left hand dig into the left side of my face high on the cheek. I was vaguely aware of some pain but couldn’t do anything to stop it. And then my body and mind were still. The only sound in the room was Kyle’s running dialogue as he built his castle.
I heard Rikki come into the room and say, “Where’s Dad?”
Kyle pointed toward the closet and said, “In there,” and went back to playing. Rikki opened the door, saw me, and gasped. It startled me. I felt my body shake and suddenly became aware of the small person passing me and disappearing, allowing me to come forward again. I looked up at Rikki’s horrified face. She bent down and took my face in her two hands, turning it to examine where I’d been scratched. My cheek felt raw when she touched it, and I saw blood on her fingers when she pulled her hand away. I looked around. Where am I? I’m in the closet. Oh, shit, I’m in the closet. I looked down at the sketchpad in my lap. Three simple child’s drawings, stick figures, almost. Sad Davy? “What did you do?” Rikki snapped. Then she noticed the pad, picked it up and looked at it, puzzled.
“What ... what did Daddy do?” Kyle said.
“Nothing, honey. It’s nothing,” she reassured Kyle, her eyes still fixed on the crude pictures. That was good enough for him and he resumed his construction.
“I … I don’t know,” I stammered softly, touching my cheek. It felt puffy and hot. Rikki took me by the hand, pulled me to my feet, and walked me to the bathroom. I stood dazed, looking into the mirror at my scratched face while she ran warm water and dabbed at the wound with a damp washcloth. I wasn’t cut badly, but the upper part of my left cheek looked as if I’d slid into home plate face first. Weak and shaky, I sat down on the closed toilet seat.
Rikki noticed the red line around my hand and pointed at it. “What’s that? I didn’t see that.”
“I don’t know, Rik,” I murmured, surprised to hear the sound of my own voice. “I don't know what the hell's going on with me. Something bizarre. Something so bizarre. A dream ... or a flashback ... or a memory or something. I don’t know. White hair. My grandmother. I ... I think that ... maybe ... my grandmother did something bad to Davy.”
Rikki closed the bathroom door part way, knelt down in front of me and whispered, “What are you talking about? Who’s Davy?”
I shuddered. “I’m a good boy.” I shuddered again and tried to say something, but my voice got caught in my throat. I looked at my hands, too embarrassed and ashamed to meet Rikki’s eye.
She took my hands in hers and said, “I’m calling Arly.” I nodded and bit my lip.
Rikki rinsed out the washcloth, hung it up, put some first-aid cream on my face, and went to the piano room to make the call. I walked shakily back to Kyle’s toy room and went into the closet again, this time curling up in a ball under the blanket. Rikki left a message on Arly’s machine, came back to the playroom and sat down nervously, placing herself between Kyle and me. A gust of wind rattled the storm windows and the heater kicked on.
After a while the phone rang, and Rikki jumped up to answer it.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Rikki. It’s Arly Morelli.”
“Oh, thank God you called,” Rikki gushed.
“What’s going on?”
Rikki slumped into the blue-and-white love seat near the piano, tucked her legs under her, and shifted her body so Kyle was in full view in the next room. She cradled the receiver in one hand and half-covered the mouthpiece with the other so he wouldn’t overhear her.
“Things are not good here, Arly,” she said.
“Uh huh.”
“Cam is acting so strangely. He went into Kyle’s playroom closet right after he got up and drew some wild pictures of a woman and a child in a sexual pose. And he drew with a red marker across the knuckles of his right hand.”
“He drew on his knuckles?”
“Yes. And he scratched his face.”
“With what?”
“His nails. Gouged it. His face was bleeding. Not badly, but it was bleeding. He seems totally out of it, totally regressed. He sort of snapped out of it when I found him in there and that’s when he told me about this dream—”
“What dream?”
“He said he’d had a dream that his grandmother did something to someone named Davy.”
“Davy? Who’s Davy?”
“I don’t know. Then he looked funny and said, ‘I’m a good boy,’ in a weird voice.”
Arly was quiet for a few seconds. “Anything else happened since you left the message?”
“No.”
“Where is he now?”
“He’s curled up in a corner of Kyle's playroom closet, just ... out there. He may be sleeping. He’s not talking. I’m really scared.” Rikki sighed and a whimper slipped out. “Arly, do you understand what’s happening here?”
“Yeah. I think I do,” Arly reassured her.
“Have you seen this before?” Rikki said. “I mean I realize you haven’t seen him, but do you know what’s going on? I mean, I don’t know if I can handle this, Arly. I need to know that you know what the hell’s going on here. I can’t handle this alone. He said something about his grandmother, that she had white hair. I think the picture he drew was of his grandmother. Jesus. You should see his face! And the red line around his hand. Jesus.” She combed her fingers nervously through her hair.
Arly said, “On which side?”
“Huh? Which side? Ah, the right side.”
“No,” Arly said, “on what side of the family, his mother’s or his father’s?”
“Oh ... his mother’s.”
“Mmm. What do you know about her?” Arly asked.
“Nothing,” Rikki said, shrugging her shoulders. “I mean, I saw a picture of her. She did have white hair. She died when Cam was pretty young.”
“How young?”
Rikki looked over at Kyle and shrugged again. “Four? Five? I don’t know. He’s never really talked about her. All his mother ever said about her was that she really didn’t pay much attention to her or the family, but was always very well dressed.” Rikki whispered, “Was the dream about him? Could she have sexually abused him?”
“I don’t know. No point in jumping to conclusions. It happens. Children get sexually abused.” Arly paused and then said, “Cam’s acting like this for a reason.”
“It’s like it’s not even Cam,” Rikki said. “He’s gone and someone else is there. I mean the drawing looks like something Kyle would do.”
“Has Kyle drawn pictures like that?”
“No, of course not!” Rikki snapped, then quickly caught herself. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean that. I just meant that the drawings are very childlike.” She looked in at Kyle playing in the other room. “Arly,” she whispered again. “Cam never told me anything about this before. Nothing. Could this be a memory of something that happened to him that he’s forgotten about for all these years?”
“I don’t know if this is something that actually happened, Rikki. It’s possible. Memory isn’t exact. It’s really a series of impressions.” They were quiet for a few seconds. Then Arly continued, “I’m guessing that, whether or not this specific incident happened, something happened that impressed him very deeply ... so deeply that he wasn’t able to deal with it at the time ... that he had to disassociate himself from it—hence the word ‘dissociation.’”
“You mean—”
“That he dissociated in order to protect himself from being overwhelmed at the time. Sorry for interrupting.”
“It’s all right.”
Arly continued. “Some children have an innate ability to dissociate—high hypnotizability.”
“And he could forget all about it for all these years?”
“It’s possible,” Arly said. “Picture this. You have a photograph of some horrible accident—an accident you witnessed or were actually in, one so awful that you couldn’t bear to be reminded of it. You keep the photograph, but you bury it under huge piles of other things ... bury it so well that you are able to forget about it for years and years. At some point though, when you are cleaning out your closets, or moving, or if your house burned and you were sifting through the rubble before you rebuilt, you might come across it. And be as horrified as you were the day the accident happened.”
They were both quiet while Arly let that sink in.
Then Rikki said, “Rebuilding ... Cam was really sick for a long time—”
“I know.”
“And he’s been getting better. Maybe Cam’s getting better is like rebuilding after the fire ... maybe he’s cleaning out the rubble in his mind so he can rebuild.”
“Maybe,” Arly said.
“What about the red marker?” Rikki said.
“Sounds to me like a very creative way to keep from harming the body,” Arly said. “A simulation ... a mock amputation.”
“Oh my God,” Rikki gasped. “I used to work with abused kids. I saw them act out all kinds of things that happened to them. Very bad things.” Rikki shook her head. “I think you may be right.”
“It’s conceivable that something happened to Cam when he was young,” Arly said. “Something he’s never dealt with. Whatever it was—we don’t really know and may never know—we have to deal with its effect on him now. He needs your support now, Rikki.”
Rikki looked into the toy room again at Kyle happily playing. She took a deep breath and let it out gradually. “Arly,” she said softly. “Will you help him? Will you help me?”
“Of course,” Arly said. “Can you bring him over tomorrow morning at ten? I think I can free up that time.”
“Of course. Kyle will be at school.”
“Okay, good,” Arly said. “See you then. Stick with him. Let him know you’re there and keep him safe. Call me if you need me, and I’ll try to get back to you within an hour. Chin up.”
“Okay.” Rikki paused for a few seconds and then said, “Arly?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” And they hung up.
Rikki came back into the playroom and gathered the large throw pillows that were scattered around the room. She arranged them against the wall in the closet next to me and, grabbing a handful of children’s books from the bookcase, managed a cheerful sound in her voice and said, “Hey guys, how ’bout a bookfest? Let’s cozy up!”
“Yay!” Kyle chirped, thrusting a tiny fist in the air. “Read What Do People Do All Day.”
“Sure,” Rikki said, nestling into the pillows next to me and pulling Kyle to her. Holding the book in his lap, she found my hand with her free one and held it gently as she began, with a sad and worried heart, to read us a story.
Nothing bad happened for the rest of the day. My mind remained under a dark canopy in a deep woods. Later that night, from our bedroom, I listened to Rikki read a short story to Kyle and then tuck him in and go off to the bathroom to wash up.
Then I heard Kyle say the familiar words, “Fluff my pillow down, Daddy.” The sound of his little voice cut through the dense forest and my mind temporarily cleared. I got up and walked heavily into his room, fluffed his pillow, and hugged and kissed him goodnight.
On the way back to our bedroom, I noticed the bathroom door was open a crack, spilling a wedge of yellow light into the hallway. I pushed the door open to see if Rikki had gone off to bed and left the light on by mistake. She hadn’t. She was sitting on the floor in the far corner, hunched over, rocking back and forth, sobbing silently into a towel in the yellow light. I froze.
Oh my God, what have I done to my best friend ... to my wife?
I desperately wanted to go to her and hold her in my arms and cry with her and tell her everything would be all right. But I couldn’t. I would have shattered like a lightbulb. So I just backed away quietly and climbed into bed.
After a few minutes I heard the water start and stop in the bathroom and the sound of Rikki’s footsteps in the hallway. As she slipped under the covers I caught the scent of perfumed soap. I faced away from her, my light off, pretending to be asleep. Rikki shut off her light, turned her back to mine, and lay silently in the dark, alone in the deep recesses of her own private cavern of pain.