Voices Carry Page 14

  For several long minutes, Genna sat on the sofa, trying to make sense out of what had just happened.

  The last person in the world that she’d expected to show up on her doorstep, just had. The pain that initially had been dulled by shock began to spread through her chest, and she clutched the pillow tighter.

  “Crystal. Crystal was here.” Genna said the words aloud as if to convince herself that it had really happened.

  She rose and carefully replaced the pillow on the sofa, then bent to pick up one of the fallen photos, missed, apparently, when Crystal gathered up the others. Genna, her brown hair in tight, neat pigtails, dressed in a hand-me-down dress of ugly green and gray plaid that someone in the church had given them, posing for her school picture. Crystal had worn it the year before. Genna studied the face of the child she had been. This must have been in second or third grade, she recalled. The side of her jaw bore the faintest tinge of purple, where her father’s fist had taken its toll for some infraction the weekend before. Genna searched her memory for what her transgression had been that time. . .

  It occurred to Genna then that her mother must have taken great pains to hide the photographs that Crystal had brought with her. Her father had forbidden them to have their pictures taken.

  Looking at yourself promotes vanity.

  Even in the silence of her apartment, so far from that small house in Kentucky where they’d lived the year the class photo had been taken, Genna could hear his voice. The backwoods church had been without a preacher and when her father had been offered the position, he’d jumped at it. For a while, Genna and Crystal had been almost happy. The house backed up to a woods where they could sneak off and play on those afternoons when their father had been busy counseling members of his congregation. And the busier he was, the less time he had to worry about the many ways in which they were leading themselves into the arms of the devil.

  There in the woods, Genna’s imagination could run wild, unrestricted by constant quotes of Scripture that reminded her that this world was not her home. The two girls would gather sticks and lay the outline of the grand mansion they pretended to live in. A mansion that had lots of windows that were always open to let in those gentle breezes that would push out the stifling air of their father’s dominance that hung over them all.

  It was there, in Kentucky, where her father had first come to the attention of Clarence Homer, a wealthy man from the small town of Lindenwood in the southwesternmost point of Pennsylvania, just over the West Virginia border. Homer had been visiting the Blue Grass members of his family when he’d first heard Reverend Snow’s fiery rhetoric, and his own fundamentalist leanings had been incited. Returning to Lindenwood, which at the time had a church but no resident preacher, he convinced his brother elders that Reverend Snow was just the man they needed to bring around the wayward in their community. Reverend Snow had a definite gift for reminding transgressors of what awaited them in the hereafter.

  The move to Pennsylvania had proven, for a while, to be their salvation. Back in Kentucky, school had been an endless series of religious lectures presented by dour teachers in a small clapboard building over which their father ultimately presided, for the school was run by the church. Mr. Homer, however, had felt Preacher Snow’s time far too valuable to be spent in the classroom, and had effectively removed him from the educational process. The children in Lindenwood attended the local public schools, as had Mr. and Mrs. Homer and each of their six children, and they’d all turned out just fine.

  And so Genna and Crystal had their first exposure to public education, with books to read that told stories that weren’t just from the Bible. It had taken the Snow girls a good two weeks to adjust to the changes—none of which, they agreed, they should discuss with their parents—but before the first month had passed, they’d become acclimated to their new school. Happier than they’d ever been, they knew instinctively to keep that joy under wraps at home, lest their father find a way to take it from them in the guise of saving their souls. It seemed the more they enjoyed their life and their new surroundings, the wider their horizons became, the more their father’s vision narrowed.

  And then came that first summer, and Mr. Homer’s pronouncement that the Snow girls should spend the months of July and August at the camp that was owned by his family and run by his brother, Michael, in the woods upstate. Before their father could object, Genna and Crystal had been shuttled off to the Way of the Shepherd where, besides endless hours memorizing yet more Scripture—much of which they interpreted during arts and crafts—they learned to swim and play soccer and baseball. Rarely, if ever, had Genna seen Brother Michael, who roamed the camp like a wayward monk, his white robes flowing around his ankles, its loosely fashioned hood folded around his head and hiding his face. Genna’s only contact with him had been at morning and evening prayers, and so he had not been a factor in her life. Not until that second summer, anyway. . . and even then, she’d never seen his face.

  Only his dark eyes.

  Genna went to the window that overlooked the parking lot, searching for Crystal in the dim light, but there was no movement to be seen. Perhaps she had parked along the street side. She pushed aside the living room drapes and peered out toward the main road. There, halfway to the corner, a woman walked slowly in the shadow of the street lamps.

  She must have taken the bus, Genna realized. She came all this way on a bus, just to see me. Just to find me.

  I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve thought of her. Wondered where she was. How she was. What her life was like.

  Genna turned from the window, the sight of the lonely woman growing smaller and smaller in the night more than she could bear.

  We shouldn’t have had to wonder about such things. We should have been able to grow up together, Genna thought as her anger began to swell inside her. Anger at her parents. At the fate that had separated her from that one member of her family who hadn’t voluntarily walked away from her.

  Then why such anger toward her, Genna asked herself. Because they cared enough about her to keep her?

  But Chrissie couldn’t have prevented what happened, her conscience reminded her. It’s not fair to be angry with her now because of what others did so long ago.

  And regardless of anything else that may have happened, we are still sisters. Strangers, yes, but in the end, we are still sisters. . .

  Grabbing her keys, Genna unlocked the front door and ran down the hallway. Too impatient to wait for the elevator, she raced down the steps and through the lobby. Her long-legged stride carried her quickly to the corner, where she found Crystal seated on the bench, blowing her nose and trying to pretend she wasn’t crying.

  “I’m not used to all the car fumes,” she said without looking at Genna. “I’ve lived in the country all my life, you know.”

  Genna sat down on the hard concrete arm of the bench.

  “Where was the halfway house?” Genna asked as she struggled to catch her breath.

  “Outside of Hazard.”

  “Kentucky?” Genna’s eyebrows raised in the dark.

  “Yes.”

  “Near Gramma’s house?”

  “Actually, closer to Uncle Neil and Aunt Hazel’s.”

  “Hazel from Hazard,” Genna whispered, and in spite of themselves, both women smiled. “Remember when we were little, we always thought that sounded so funny?”

  “And a sweeter woman God never did put on this earth.” Crystal nodded. “She never did come around to Momma after they. . . after you. . .”

  “After the trial?”

  “Yes. When she realized what had happened, she lit into Daddy like no one ever had.” Crystal shook her head, remembering. “Momma turned white as a ghost, I swear it. She just stood there like a statue. Shocked, I guess, that anyone—-least of all her own sister—could stand up to him that way, or talk to him like that. No one had ever defied him, you know.” Her voice dropped and she added, “Except, of course, for you.”

 
; “And I guess Aunt Hazel fared about as well as I did as a result,” Genna said wryly.

  “Momma never spoke to her again.” Crystal searched her pockets for another tissue.

  “Seems she paid an awfully big price for loving him.”

  “Oh, I don’t know that I’d call that love.” Crystal shook her head. “Daddy had an iron grip on her will, Genna. Which he did, as you will recall, enforce with his fists, if nothing else was handy. Suffice it to say that Momma had a lot of problems that really started to surface more and more after you. . . after you were gone.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like being afraid to go outside. She wouldn’t go anywhere after a time, not even to church, no matter how much he yelled at her. Like crying all the time, though I always figured that was because she missed you. I never thought she wanted to leave you, Gen. I just think she wasn’t strong enough to face him down. None of us were. We were always so afraid in that house, remember?”

  “Yes,” Genna said softly. “I remember.”

  They sat in silence, watching the headlights of the Greyhound approach.

  “There’s probably another bus in the morning.” Genna took her hand. “Maybe there’re still things we need to say to one another.”

  The bus pulled up to the curb and stopped.

  “Maybe you won’t want to hear it all,” Crystal told her. “And after you do, you might wish you hadn’t.”

  “Maybe I should hear it anyway.”

  The bus door opened with a whoosh. The driver sat staring impatiently at the two women on the bench.

  Finally, he called out to them.

  “Hey! You two gettin’ on, or are you just passing time?”

  “Just passing time,” Genna told him.

  He slammed the door shut and the bus pulled away in a huff of exhaust.

  “I thought they were supposed to have some emission thing on them to keep all that crap out of the air.”

  “They are.” Genna stood, pulling Crystal with her. “Come on. Let’s go on back to my apartment and we’ll start all over.”

  Crystal shifted her bag onto her shoulder as she rose to her feet.

  “Do I have to stand in the bushes again?” Crystal asked as she fell in step with her sister. “Because if I do, I hope you have a lot of calamine lotion. The mosquitoes are really fierce around here.”

  “Jerseys,” Genna nodded. “We grow ’em big and mean.”

  They were halfway back to the apartment building when Genna asked, “Did you ever miss me, Chrissie?”

  “Oh, my God, Genna, every day. I can’t even begin to tell you what it was like.” Crystal’s voice caught in her throat.

  “Tell me. Tell me what it was like after I left.”

  “You sure you want to know?”

  “Yes.”

  “We weren’t allowed to mention your name. It was like you had never been. Like I was the only child and there had never been anyone else.”

  “Jesus,” Genna growled, her hands unconsciously closing into fists.

  “And Mr. Homer told Daddy right off—right after the trial started—that he thought perhaps it might be better if we left, though I never was sure if it was because he was angry with you for blowing the whistle on his brother, or angry with himself because he knew what his brother was and he hadn’t blown the whistle himself. In any event, the people in the church were really divided over the whole thing. Some people believed you and the other girls were telling the truth, and some others—like Daddy—thought that you were lying and that the social workers and the child psychologists had talked the other girls into lying, too.”

  “Why would he think that I would make up something like that? I’ve never understood it. I know that he did, because he tried to beat it out of me. I just never understood why.”

  “I think it was to hold onto his church. He’d never in his life had a church like that one, and he’d never had a congregation near that big. And you telling on Brother Michael, well, that just brought shame to the entire community. Remember that Michael was the only brother of Daddy’s benefactor. Because of you, Daddy lost it all. His church, his congregation, Mr. Homer’s favor. . . everything. Going back to Kentucky, goin’ from one country church to another again was a big blow to him, Genna. He’d thought he’d never have to see that preachin’ circuit again, and there he was, right back on it.”

  “He’d rather have seen his daughters raped than lose his church?”

  “Yes. Apparently, he would. But it wasn’t just the church. It was the position. The power. The feeling of importance.”

  “And after it was done, he pushed me out of his mind as if I’d never been born.”

  “I’m sorry. But you asked. And it hurt me, too. You were gone out of my life in a blink, but I wasn’t ever allowed to grieve.”

  “Is that what put you in therapy?”

  “Part of it. And partly it was because it just got too hard to be perfect. And because of what I. . .” her voice trailed away.

  They stopped in front of the apartment building.

  “It isn’t too late, Genna. We can stop now, and I can go back to the bus stop. Maybe it would be better if I did.”

  “Better for who?”

  “For both of us. Maybe in the long run, there are things you’d be better off not knowing.”

  “Not at this stage of the game.” Genna put an arm around Crystal’s shoulder. “After all these years, I don’t think I can let you walk away just yet. So, come on, we’ll go upstairs and. . .”

  “You may not want me in your house after you hear what else I have to say.” Crystal took a tentative step backward.

  “Then say it now and get it over with,” Genna told her.

  “When they came back without you, at first, I didn’t think a whole lot of it. I mean, you’d stayed up north there for a while before the trial. . .”

  “The district attorney had to get a court order to keep me there. He was afraid that if they took me out of the county, that they wouldn’t bring me back for the trial and the case would fall apart.” Genna swallowed hard and asked, “What did they tell you? What reason did they give you, when they came back without me?”

  “A few days after they got back, Daddy announced, ‘Genevieve is lost to the devil. We will not speak of her again.’ And we never did.” Crystal crossed her arms over her chest as if to hug herself. “But then I started to wonder, if I did something that really angered him, wouldn’t they send me away, too? There’d never been much margin for error in that house. But if I was very good, then they’d keep me. So I tried and tried to be good as I could be. But as time went on, it became harder and harder. I could never falter, never make a mistake. I was so afraid of him. I was afraid all the time. But I never talked back. I never showed anger. I always did everything I was told to do. I was the good daughter. The one good enough to keep.”

  Crystal paused, then added, “And then one day I started adding up what it had cost me, and I realized that it hadn’t been anywhere near worth it. I’d paid far too much for the privilege. And ending it seemed to be the only way out.”

  “You tried to kill yourself?”

  “Jumped off a bridge. Most people don’t survive a jump in excess of one hundred and thirty-five feet into the water, did you know that? The death rate is just about one hundred percent from that height.” Crystal nodded her head slowly. “Well, I survived it. Some damned do-gooder fishing off the damned bridge radioed for help on his cell phone, then jumped into the water after me.”

  “Chrissie, why didn’t you come sooner?” Genna whispered. “Why did you wait so long to look for me?”

  “Because after all that happened, I couldn’t face you. I just felt so damned guilty.”

  “You were twelve years old that summer. What do you think you could have done that would have made a difference?”

  “I could have told the truth.” Crystal swallowed the lump in her throat and forced herself to say the words. “I could have told them.”


  “Told them. . . ?” Genna’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

  “About Brother Michael. I knew that you were telling the truth, Gen. I knew exactly what he had done to the others, what he’d tried to do to you.” Crystal raised her face to look directly into her sister’s eyes. “I knew, because for all that summer and the summer before, he’d been doin’ it to me.”

  12

  Genna sat down on the front steps to the apartment building, her legs having gone so weak she’d been afraid they’d collapse beneath her. Unable to speak, she sat numbly for a long time.

  Finally, Crystal said, “And that’s why I didn’t come to find you sooner.”

  “My God, Chris, why didn’t you tell them?” The words ripped from Genna’s throat.

  “I just didn’t have the nerve. I almost did, back there at the very beginning, but I was so ashamed. I’d let it go on so long without telling. I had no idea he’d been doing it to so many other girls. How many came forward in the end, fourteen? Fifteen? I’d had no idea. I thought I was the only one, and I felt so dirty and helpless. . .” She shook her head. “And then, later on, I felt like such a worthless coward. Here I’d endured being raped over and over again, never telling, just letting it happen because I was too afraid of him. Of what he’d do if I told. Of what people would think if they knew. And there was my little sister, who not only fought back and got away from him, but who brought it all to an end. I wasn’t as brave as you, Gen. I never was as strong. And when Daddy started saying how the devil had gotten into you and made you tell those lies and ‘Praise the blessed Lord, we have one child whose tongue is unsullied by lies. . .’”

  Crystal blew out the breath she’d been holding for too long. “I wanted to tell the truth, Gen, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I tried so many times, but I could never make the words come out.”

  “You let me go through all that alone. You watched them turn against me. Shove me out of their lives. . .”

  “Yes,” Crystal said simply, tears flowing down her face.

  “Do you know how many times over the years I called home, just to hear Mom’s voice? To hear yours?”