I didn’t care that I was in my son’s bed, or with Jason’s best friend. For the next two hours, I wasn’t a mother, and I wasn’t a wife. I was with this man who knew me and wanted me and had made me want him, at least for this day. We did everything I wanted, at the pace I set, and when we were finally done, I asked him to leave and to never mention it again.
When he was gone, I ate the food he had brought until I couldn’t take another bite, then went upstairs to my room to reread, once again, the printout that Susanna had given me at the courthouse.
41
I was freshly showered and getting ready to leave a voice mail for Susanna when she picked up. “Oh thank god, I was starting to think you were never going to speak to me again.”
“That would never happen.” I hadn’t talked to her since we were at the courthouse yesterday.
“I was giving myself one more day before I was going to call you.”
“But you did call Colin,” I said.
“He told you?”
“Of course he did. You asked him whether I should get a divorce.”
“Honey, please don’t be mad at me. I am seriously worried about you. What you said to me the other day about Jason—that’s not normal in a marriage. You’ve got me looking at this whole thing in a different light.”
“You think he’s guilty.”
“No, I didn’t say that.” The way she said it made it clear that she didn’t not say it either. “Hear me out. I don’t think it’s for me, or even you, to decide whether he did this or not. He has the courts for that. My main priority is to look out for my best friend and her son.”
I could feel the phone start to shake in my hand. This didn’t feel real.
“Look, when Kerry first came forward, I assumed she’d be some kook and a DNA test would clear the whole thing up. Then when the DNA came back, I thought, well, so he’s an asshole who cheated on my friend, but he’s not a criminal. I was standing right next to you in the bunker, ready to defend him, because he’s our Jason. But I’m stepping back now, Angela. He’s not the good guy here. Whether he’s guilty or not, he’s a liar. And a cheater. He hired a fucking prostitute, for Christ’s sake, and that’s only the one time you know about. And then whatever happened between the two of you—it sounds like he let you think all these years it was somehow your fault. And I don’t think it was. If he was doing something you didn’t want him to do, that is never your fault.”
“You don’t need to tell me what rape is.”
“I’m sorry, but I think that’s exactly what I need to do.”
The article she gave me was supposedly an explanation for why some women don’t realize when they’ve experienced an assault that would legally constitute rape. According to the author, women are taught to fear strangers who lurk in alleys and behind bushes, emerging from the shadows with a gun or a knife to attack us when we least expect it. We’re also taught that victims of the crime are damaged, broken like Humpty Dumpty, never to be put back together again.
In reality, most women are attacked by someone they know—the essay said about 80 percent. Only about 11 percent of cases involve a weapon.
The author suggested that women underreport sexual assault because they aren’t sure it’s a crime when their case doesn’t fit the armed-stranger stereotype. They tell themselves it was a drunken date gone bad, that he must not have heard them say no, that it was somehow their fault. She posited that “cognitive dissonance” was at work: for their own psychological survival, women would rather excuse what happened to them than to label themselves with the ultimate stigma—rape victim. Some went so far as to apologize to their assailants for even momentarily suggesting that the “r-word” might apply.
Susanna was trying to tell me I was one of those women. “You went through something unimaginably horrible as a teenager, Angela. I’m not equating anything that may have happened with Jason to that. But isn’t it possible that you convinced yourself it was normal because at least it wasn’t what you suffered through before?”
“Don’t even compare them.”
“I’m not. Jason is not that Franklin monster. But that doesn’t mean Jason is good, or loving. You obviously experienced something traumatic with him. I know how much you love him. And then you told me that something happened between you, and for three years you’ve been allowing yourself to live in this constructed world, trying to pretend like you’re okay, the way you always have.”
“I really did think we were okay. I don’t understand why this is happening.”
“Please, trust me. I’ve spoken to so many survivors about this, women who spent years feeling alone and self-conscious, and then they tell the story of what happened to them, and it’s like the sky opens up. What happened that night with Jason? I promise, you can tell me.”
I was regretting ever mentioning this to her. I could tell she was never going to leave me alone until I gave her some explanation. “We were—you know. And everything was good. Really good, better than usual. And then I told him that he could tie me up.”
Susanna was silent on the other end of the line. I was glad I was telling her this over the phone. I felt my face burning.
“I had read one of those magazine articles about how to spice things up in the bedroom and got it into my head that I needed to make an effort. He was pretty into it when I was the one to bring it up. He took a belt and he wrapped it around my wrists. When he buckled it to the headboard, it’s like a switch flipped. I freaked out, and had a flashback, but it was too late. I couldn’t move my arms. I was just . . . there. When it was over, he realized I was upset and felt guilty about it. I think it made him afraid to touch me again.”
“What do you mean, it was too late?”
“I mean, I had already told him I wanted to do it.”
“But when you freaked out, what happened?”
I closed my eyes, not wanting to answer her question.
“Angela, what happened?”
“I was trying to pull my arms free and telling him to stop, but he kept going. He didn’t realize until after, when I was crying. And then we never really talked about it. It was this thing we couldn’t get past.”
I could feel Susanna thinking through the phone line. “Okay, this is what we’re doing,” she announced. “You’re packing a bag and coming over here right now. And I’m hiring a separate lawyer for you.”
“I’m fine—”
“Damn it—” I had to hold the phone away from my ear. I could not remember ever hearing her raise her voice, let alone to me. “Stop saying you’re fine. You may think you’re fine, but your situation is not.”
“Nothing’s changed.”
“Of course it has. Angela, don’t you see it? What you described to me? That is rape.”
The word felt like a punch.
“You’re his wife, and you were struggling and crying and saying no, and he—that is a crime. And if he did that to you, he could have done it to Kerry Lynch, too. And that bullshit story he told you about changing his clothes in front of his intern— No. You have to get out of that house before this all comes crashing down. I’m not going to let you stand by his side while he loses everything. You have to leave right now. When I called Colin earlier, he said that Jason’s lawyer already e-mailed him the discovery she got from the DA. You were in court yesterday. She was stalling the criminal case in the hopes of buying that woman off—the prosecutor himself said so. They could settle that case at any second. You have to protect yourself—and Spencer.”
I was still reeling from her initial response. I was replaying that whole night in my head, looking at my bed as if I were an outsider, picturing myself with my wrists above my head, my face turned away from him. That wouldn’t have been a signal to him that something was wrong. I often turned my head. It was my way of dealing with the flashbacks. I’d close my eyes and wait for them to stop. I never told him, so I couldn’t fault him for that. But that night was different. I was struggling—thrashing—trying to get free. I said his name. I said stop and I said no, but he was in some other place, like I wasn’t there, until it was over.