Deviation, Breaking the Pattern #1

CHAPTER FIVE

  HENRY WAS SITTING IN the kitchen with Frank, visiting and having a lemonade. Bobby was playing happily on the floor. Frank went to the fridge to refill their drinks. They were having a good visit. Frank was loose and relaxed, not uptight like he was some days.

  The doorbell rang, and there were low voices when it was answered. Henry looked down at Bobby to make sure that he was still happy. When he looked back up at Frank, two uniformed police officers came through the kitchen doorway.

  “Frank Wilson?” one of them snapped out.

  Frank turned slowly away from the fridge, toward them.

  “Yes,” he said, sounding defeated.

  “You’re under arrest. Parole violation.”

  Frank allowed himself to be frisked and cuffed. Henry stood there frozen, his mouth hanging open. The first cop took Frank out of the room. The other officer addressed Henry.

  “Are you okay, kid?” he questioned with concern.

  “Yeah, sure,” Henry said blankly.

  “Let’s get you home,” he said. He nodded to Bobby. “Is he with you?”

  “Yes.”

  The cop scooped Bobby up and took Henry firmly by the arm, tugging him.

  “Come on, son,” he encouraged.

  “What’s going on?” Henry questioned, not comprehending. It was happening so fast. He couldn’t get his brain to process it properly

  “Come on. We’ll explain when we get you somewhere safe.”

  Henry looked around the kitchen. It was a safe place. It was a place where he felt safe and comfortable. What did he mean?

  There were several police cars in front of the house. They were putting Frank into the back of one of them. The cop holding onto Henry’s arm walked him over to one of the waiting squad cars. There was a baby seat in it for Bobby, and Henry buckled him in automatically, his fingers moving on their own will, disengaged from his brain.

  “Where do you live?” the cop questioned.

  Henry gave his address.

  “Nice and close,” the man commented.

  He pulled out without a word, and they drove in silence. The cop escorted Henry to the door, Bobby in his arms. Dorry answered the bell.

  “Henry? What’s going on?” she questioned, looking at Henry with wide, worried eyes.

  “Ma’am, I’m Officer Bryant,” the police officer said, his voice a little louder and sterner than necessary. “Can we come in?”

  Dorry shrugged, stepping back.

  “Yeah, sure. Is Henry in trouble? What did he do?”

  They all went into the living room. Dorry made an effort to pick things up, to make it look more presentable.

  “Henry?” she prompted.

  Henry just looked at her blankly, unable to explain.

  “Henry’s not in trouble, ma’am,” Bryant answered, “but he could have been hurt. We picked him up at the home of a convicted pedophile.”

  “What was he doing there?” Dorry’s face flushed dark. She turned to Henry. “Henry? What are you doing hanging around a place like that?”

  Henry opened his mouth to defend himself, and couldn’t get the words out. His brain was whirling. Convicted pedophile? Did Bryant mean that one of the men at Frank’s house was a pedophile? Not Frank himself. Henry knew that Frank wasn’t like that. He was a normal guy. Better than normal, he was a friendly, loving, fatherly figure. He was Frank.

  “The perp was on parole,” Bryant explained, “and we got a tip that he had been seen in the company of children, which of course is a parole violation. So he’s on his way back to jail.” Bryant looked at Henry and kept his voice low and even, like if he spoke gently, Henry wouldn’t hear him. “I don’t know if anything happened between them. I’d like to know whether we should be laying new charges.”

  Dorry looked panic-stricken. Her eyes sought Henry’s wide and scared.

  “Honey? Did he hurt you? Did he touch you?”

  Henry tried to find his voice. He had to explain. Then she would understand, and not look so scared.

  “Ma—Ma, it was Frank. Our Frank.”

  The flushed color drained from Dorry’s cheeks.

  “If he’s done anything else to hurt you, I’ll kill him with my bare hands!” she said vehemently.

  Henry stared at her, floored. Her reaction was totally unexpected. Hurt him? Frank would never hurt him!

  “You know this low-life?” Bryant asked her.

  “I used to live with him,” Dorry sighed, “years ago. And if I’d known he was back in the neighborhood again, I’d’a’ seen him run out of town!” Her voice was bitter, vicious. Henry couldn’t remember ever hearing her talk like that before.

  “Frank didn’t do anything,” Henry told her, shaking his head. “We just—”

  “How could you start seeing him behind my back like that?” Dorry demanded, turning on Henry. He found himself taking a quick step back from her, holding his hands up protectively. “How could you do something like that?”

  “I didn’t do anything behind your back,” Henry protested.

  “I thought you had a girlfriend or something, being gone so often. If you weren’t trying to keep it from me, why didn’t you tell me he was living close by?” she challenged.

  “I didn’t think you’d want to know,” Henry said defensively, “because you guys broke up.”

  “And why do you think I broke up with him?”

  “I don’t remember,” Henry said, eyes stinging. He shook his head and shrugged helplessly.

  Dorry looked at him in disbelief.

  “You don’t remember,” she repeated.

  “No.”

  “Good grief, Henry!” her voice was scathing. “How could you not remember? You remember everything!”

  Henry’s eyes burned and there was a hard, hot lump in his throat, but he tried to keep a brave face for the cop.

  “I don’t remember, Mama. All I remember is him going away, and being upset about it.”

  “We broke up because of you. Because I caught him… doing things he shouldn’t.” Her final words were almost a whisper. She flushed again, with shame this time instead of anger.

  “Frank would never hurt me!” Henry’s voice cracked. “Why would you say that?”

  “Because he did,” Dorry said flatly. “I know you think he was the greatest guy in the world, but he wasn’t. He was just really good at pretending. I thought he’d be out of our lives when I kicked him out. Then there was a big to-do in the papers a couple of years later when he was caught doing it again, to another kid, and I testified and helped put him away,” her voice rose until she was nearly shouting. “Then he has the nerve to come back to this neighborhood and mess with you again!”

  “He didn’t do anything!” Henry yelled back, appalled.

  “That’s what you said the first time, too. When I saw with my own eyes! They said I should get you counseling, but I thought it was best to just let you forget and move on. Maybe if I’d got you counseling, you wouldn’t have let it happen again.”

  “Do you want to lay charges?” Bryant questioned gently, reminding them he was still there.

  Henry’s mom rolled her eyes and she let out her breath in a long, angry exhalation.

  “He won’t tell us what happened. I’ll have to take him to the doctor and see what they can tell. Where do I take him for that?”

  “They can do a kit in the emergency room,” Bryant advised, “and they can have someone from the Crisis Center talk to him. If you like, I can take you there now,” he offered. “You don’t want to destroy evidence by waiting.”

  “I can’t believe this is happening again,” Dorry grumbled said. “Yeah, I guess we’d better go.”

  “Ma, I don’t want doctors poking around there,” Henry protested, his face hot, sweat starting under his armpits. “That’s—that’s embarrassing.”

  “Well, you should have worried about that before you got involved with a—with Frank again.”

  “I swear, all we ever did was talk,” he pleaded
.

  She shrugged widely, shaking her head at him.

  “You lied to me about it with a straight face all those years ago. I can’t let him get away with it if he did it again,” she said flatly.

  Bryant drove them to the hospital and talked to the staff for them.

  Henry was exhausted. It must have been the emotional stress, because he hadn’t done anything strenuous. Under protest, he submitted to the physical examination. He was extremely embarrassed, but the doctors were professional and tried to make him as comfortable as possible. They asked whether he wanted his mom to be there or leave the room. One nurse stood by him and engaged him in casual conversation to distract him from the examination. The doctor performing the examination kept Henry informed on what he was doing in a calm, informative monotone that helped to ease the embarrassment.

  Then he talked, for what seemed like hours, to counselors from the Crisis Center. His mouth was so dry, he felt like he could drink a gallon of water. When the doctor came to talk to his mom, he asked her to come out into the hallway. But they were still close enough that Henry could hear the conversation.

  “Well, to start with, there’s no trauma, like there would be if force was used. We can’t tell at this time if there’s been any nonviolent contact. We took forensic evidence, and that may give us a positive, but a negative doesn’t mean there was no interference, just no forensics.”

  “And what about the shrinks? Can’t they tell us anything?” Dorry demanded.

  “A few thoughts, but nothing certain. He was pretty consistent about not remembering what happened to him as a child.”

  “But I know what happened to him back them,” she pointed out.

  “He may have blocked it out, and truly not remember what happened. Kids are good at that.”

  “What about this time?” Dorry pressed.

  “He didn’t admit to anything happening.”

  “But he didn’t before, either.”

  “Little kids don’t know the difference between appropriate and inappropriate contact. Kisses, hugs, affectionate touching—how does a four or five year old know which are good and which are bad? And if he told you he was never touched, then he was told or threatened not to tell.”

  “And now?”

  “Adolescence is a tough time too,” the doctor waffled. “Hormones are on full-steam. An advance is made by a trusted adult, and the kid can’t shut off his own physical reaction, so he thinks it was consensual. He’s confused and embarrassed. He doesn’t want anyone to know that he had those kinds of feelings, so he won’t tell.”

  “You think that about Henry?”

  “He’s confused. We know that much. Someone he loves has been accused of hurting him. He may not know whether anything inappropriate occurred. He hasn’t been hurt physically. Maybe he hasn’t been interfered with either; they can’t tell for sure. He should have ongoing counseling to help him sort things out.”

  “You don’t know any more now than I did when I brought him in,” Dorry’s voice rose plaintively.

  “Sorry. There are so many shades of gray. Your best bet is to spend some time with him, talking.”

  She snorted.

  “Henry and I don’t talk that much.”

  “Teens can be hard to talk to,” the doctor agreed sympathetically.

  When Henry thought back to his early memories of Frank, he had no recollection of anything bad. The idea that Frank could have done anything to him, that he could be a pedophile, was ridiculous. It made no sense whatsoever.

  What Henry did remember were trips to the zoo, walks to the park, doing things at home like making Popsicles, doing crafts, or watching TV before bed. Henry didn’t remember much about his mother during that time. She had been younger, less care worn. He vaguely remembered that she used to cook meals, wake him up in the morning to get him off to school, hang his school art projects on the fridge. She used to walk to the school to pick him up, when he was really little.

  Henry pressed on, digging into the memories. Had Frank ever hurt him? Frank hadn’t done anything. His mother was wrong. She had seen and heard what she wanted to, something that her brain had twisted into something dirty or sick. It wouldn’t be the first time that she read too much into a situation. Henry was just little. Maybe Frank had been helping him in the bathtub or on the toilet. Maybe Henry had been sick and Frank had been helping him off with his clothes. Dorry had just been confused, that was all.

  She had taken an innocent, loving relationship, and made it out to be something sick and depraved. What kind of person did that? When Henry met Frank again, he hadn’t felt bad or ashamed. He felt like he had come home. He felt love and acceptance. Now she had taken that away and put something ugly in its place. She was so jealous of Frank’s place of father figure that she had taken him away from Henry.

  Henry went back to school with relief, glad to get away from the house and his mother’s reproachful gaze. He wanted to just get back to the routine and not think about Frank. Not have to think of anything serious or upsetting.

  He was sitting in the cafeteria staring at his books as if he was studying, although he wasn’t really looking at them. He was watching for one of the guys that he sometimes hung around with, just wanting some undemanding company, but no one was around.

  “Hey Henry,” someone shouted.

  Henry looked up. It was Trent, and Henry wasn’t excited about getting attention from him. Trent was one of those who got popular by stepping all over the unpopular. His long blond hair had probably taken him hours to blow dry and arrange. He was always in the latest clothes. Henry looked down at his books, ignoring Trent.

  “Henry,” Trent’s voice insinuated, “I hear you’re looking for a new boyfriend.”

  Henry’s heart sank to his stomach. Everybody was turning around to look at him. Trent’s voice carried over the general buzz of the cafeteria, and everybody quieted to listen.

  “‘Cause I hear your last one got thrown in the clink,” Trent went on.

  Henry had no idea how he had found out about Frank. Who had seen what happened? Who had known what Frank was on parole for? It wasn’t in the papers, but somebody obviously knew what had happened, and was spreading it around.

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” Henry said, but his voice was too quiet, too weak. “He’s not my boyfriend, he’s my dad.”

  Trent looked momentarily taken aback, but his surprise didn’t last long.

  “You got a pervert for a dad?” he demanded loudly.

  Henry sank deeper into his seat. He stared at his books, wishing he could sink right down into the print.

  “He didn’t do anything,” Henry protested. “He didn’t do any of that stuff that they said.”

  But it just added fuel to Trent’s fire. People like Trent didn’t back off because their target was squirming. The more you protested, the more they enjoyed it, and the harder they pushed.