In the background, Josh’s laughter and Andrew’s loud commentary, his voice deep and cracking in the background. The camera shaking and then black, a girlish screech from behind, followed by a lot of giggling.
The camera settled on the bed, a girl, half lidded and mouth half open. Her shirt off, a lacy red bra and flat, pale stomach dipping into low-cut jeans. Cascading blond hair. The camera jangled and got closer. White hair. Lucia.
“Heyyyyyy, baby. Wake up, babbbbyyyyyy.” A guy’s voice. Porter’s wide mouth, long bulbous nose cut into the frame. “Yo, dude, she’s out. Maybe? What’d you give her?”
“Me? Nothing. That’s all on her, bro. That’s the jungle juice in her veins. Cause she’s wild like that.”
The camera shuffled and dropped, with a deep fuck in the background. When it was picked back up, Andrew’s face flashed for a moment. The camera angle was even with Lucia’s face, her eyes half open. She mumbled something and waved her hand around, laughing, but she looked asleep.
“Come on, baby, you wanted me up here, now I’m up here.”
A girlish voice in the background. La lalalalalwooooooooooolalalalala.
“Is she up?”
“She will be. She told me to come up here. She ain’t playin’ like this.”
A hand reached out, a thick scar across the top, and jostled her chin with his fingertip, gently like a lover.
Bridget knew the scar. In tenth grade, Andrew had sliced his hand with a meat slicer at his father’s deli. He wrote about it in his journal.
“Say you want it, honey. Say yes.”
Lucia for one second opened her eyes, saw Andrew, and smiled. Her eyes, clear and white-blue, the lightest part of the morning sky. Her teeth white, her lips red stained like Kool-Aid. She laughed, a hysterical hiccup, just once. Her eyes fluttered shut, and she said okay, yes.
The girl in the background again, singing, high and tight, wooooooooooooowooooooolalalalalwoooooooo.
The camera stayed on Lucia’s face. Porter’s voice in the background, she said yes, dog. Followed by laughter. Andrew’s hand on her breast, shook it twice, and Lucia didn’t open her eyes. The broadcast ended.
Bridget felt sick. She looked over at Tripp, white and stricken.
“Jesus Christ,” he said.
“Tripp, oh my God, she was raped.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “By one or both of them.”
“That’s the most messed-up thing I’ve ever seen.” Tripp sat back against the couch, deflated.
“Can I take this to the police? Can I report them?” Bridget’s hands were shaking, her voice squeaked. She felt tears gathering in her eyes. God, she hated teenagers.
“I don’t know. She said yes, but this is clearly not consent. Not in any meaningful way. I have no idea what the law would say about this. I mean, yeah, we should. At least Harper should see it.” He grabbed his phone from the side table. “Play it again, this is a low-tech way, but right now it’s all we got, unless you have a recording app on your phone?” Bridget shook her head. He held his phone above hers. She played the video again, the haunting woooooooollaaaaaalallaaa, the say you want it, honey. Say yes. The deep, cracking laughter, the shaky camera. Andrew’s hand jiggling Lucia’s breast. Bridget couldn’t watch it a second time.
She didn’t even want to know what happened after the camera was turned off.
CHAPTER 28
Alecia, Monday, May 11, 2015
“Gabe, hi Gabe, Gabey, Gabe.” Then, “What’s this?”
Alecia, from the kitchen, could hear Gabe’s therapist, Linda, but not Gabe.
Alecia shoved the remnants of a gooey bagel into her mouth and chased it with cold, stale coffee. She listened to Linda, plastic farm animals lined up in front of Gabe at the wooden table in the living room. They’d had to move the living room around to accommodate; Alecia remembered mainly the fight about the television. Gabe couldn’t be next to a window, he was too distracted. In the kitchen, he’d wander to Alecia’s side. In his bedroom, the shades pulled shut, he’d get sleepy. When she and Linda moved the living room around, relocating furniture, adjusting the cable wires, Alecia had been proud of her prowess. Gabe, surprisingly, cared very little about the new furniture placement. They celebrated Gabe’s flexibility with Skittles.
Nate had whined about the windows being opposite the flat screen because of the glare.
Alecia had initially been furious, but later, pleaded with him. You’ll see so many improvements in him after this, I swear. I know it’s a lot. It’s a miracle cure, they say. He stopped grumbling about the glare on the television after that, and even for a short while got on board. He’d ask her daily about his son’s progress, but quickly it became underwhelming.
When the therapy didn’t prove to make the kind of strides Nate expected, he went back to grumbling about the television. Gabe was still fundamentally Gabe, and to Nate, this implied some kind of suspicious cash diversion. Besides, he’d insisted, Gabe was fine.
Applied behavior analysis, Nate had scoffed. It sounds like the pamphlets the religious nuts bring you on Sunday mornings.
So, research it. It’s not. It’s proven scientifically to work. Some people even say their autistic children have been cured. Alecia had pushed the brochure across the table at him.
Maybe he doesn’t need a cure. Maybe he’s fine the way he is? But all this meant was that Nate didn’t really know his son. That he didn’t really see him the way Alecia did.
It seemed to Alecia at the time like a dream within reach. A cure! For a brief few months, she allowed herself the indulgence. She kept a private Pinterest board that she filled with teachers’ gift ideas, fun rewards systems for good behavior, mom hacks, educational field trips. She visited dozens of websites on how to sneak vegetables into macaroni and cheese and homemade ice cream, how to bake the perfect brownie, 101 Valentine’s ideas for kids, twenty April Fool’s Day jokes. She bought a single plastic sticker: a soccer ball. For the minivan that didn’t exist, and the sport Gabe didn’t play. She tucked it underneath the lacy underwear in her top drawer.
Her dreams were never big, yet still somehow not quite small enough to accomplish.
Failure to advance. Inconsistent improvement. Struggling. These were the words that came after a year of three-to four-hour therapy sessions a day. He needed more, Linda explained. Nate put his foot down, do they just want more money? Why would we do more if what we’re doing isn’t working?
So here they were. Three to four hours every single day, and progress had stalled with Gabe knowing maybe a hundred to two hundred words. Alecia could see improvement in his communication; he now pointed to things or used his words. There seemed to be fewer breakdowns. The improvement was slushy and gray, too nuanced for Nate to see it, and sometimes Alecia wondered if they were actually just standing still.
“Horse!” Gabe yelled, his chair cracking on the hardwood floor as he jumped up excitedly.
Linda laughed, a honking duck noise. “You always get the horse!”
“What’s this?”
Gabe threw is hands in the air now, laughing. “Cow!”
“What’s this?”