Уильям Макгиверн - Summitt

Shana put her glass of milk on the coffee table. Sitting on the sofa, she wrapped her arms about her knees, locked away in her own private thoughts.

Pulling his chair around to face her, Selby said, “I’d like to say this first, Shana. We’re still a family and that means telling each other the truth and trusting each other. I’m your father and I always will be. I said that before and I know it sounds obvious, but it’s important to emphasize because... well, you still don’t seem to understand what it means. It’s not whether I’m a good or bad father, wise and smart, or dumb and insensitive. But it’s my job to take care of you and help you when you need it. That’s the way I am. I taught you to use a compass, I taught you to swim, I raised hell with you for playing with matches in the hay barn, and I raised hell with those idiot grooms at Harvey Nelson’s farm for putting you up on a green hunter when you were still in pony class.”

“I fell off that hunter, daddy,” she corrected him quickly.

“What difference does that make?”

“Well, that’s what really happened. It was my fault because I kept begging them to let me ride that big chestnut.”

“Shana, please, let’s stick to the point. Whether you fell off or got thrown off isn’t the issue. You could have broken your neck. My job is to protect you from things like that until you can take care of yourself. Like that time when you were playing the jukebox. You insisted that was your own private experience and that I sort of intruded on it but—”

“I didn’t say that, daddy.”

“Let me finish, okay? That jukebox and the scene at Longwood this morning... honey, they belong to me too, because what happens to you happens to me... is my responsibility—”

“But when I found his picture under my door this morning...” Shana drew a trembling breath. “I knew you were going to try to go out there.”

“Well, dammit, aren’t you glad I did?”

“Why are you getting mad?”

“I’m sorry, Shana.”

“You want me to say I’m glad you helped me and Normie and shoved those bullies down — well, sure, I am, daddy. Except that turned it into a family fight—”

“Dammit, Shana, I’ll never stand by and let anybody put a hand on you against your will. Can’t you understand that? ”

“I can see that, honestly, I can, daddy. But you’re my father and that’s the only reason you believe me. Davey believes me because he’s my little brother, and Miss Brett believes me because she’s paid to, but I want it to be different, can’t you see that, daddy?”

“Miss Brett isn’t paid to believe anybody, Shana. Her job is to prosecute the defendants by presenting the facts to a jury.”

“I know that much.” In profile to him, his daughter’s forehead was smooth in the firelight, her blond hair layered in moving shadows. “I took civics and history. I knew how things are supposed to work, but there are two sides now, mine and his.” Her voice had become tense. “But it can’t be just a family thing with everybody feeling they’re right. I want his family and his friends to know the truth. I want to hear him admit it, I want them all to admit it. I don’t want people wondering why I was wearing such tight shorts, or what I was doing down on Fairlee Road when it was almost dark, and what I was looking for or waiting for—”

She swung around to stare at him then, the movement so coiled and tense that it startled Blazer, who raised his head and growled softly.

“Earl Thomson did this to me. Not because of me. Not with me. That’s what I want the judge and jury to tell the whole world .”

Selby said quietly, “All right, let’s settle down, Shana. Let’s see if we can’t try to understand each other. I don’t think you used good judgment going out to Longwood. Not just because you didn’t confide in me, but because it’s foolish to think a man who did what he did to you would admit it simply because you accused him of it.”

Shana slumped back in the sofa. “I guess you’re right, but yesterday it all seemed simple. When Miss Brett and I went back to Vinegar Hill she told me some people have memories that are so painful they’re afraid to remember them, that they can’t until they feel secure and safe enough to. Something like that happened to her in college, she got locked in the gym in Bryn Mawr one night and—”

“Yes, the swimming pool. Davey told me about that.”

“Well, anyway...” Shana leaned forward and moved a finger slowly around the edge of the milk glass. “We drove into the driveway, and stood looking at the garage. Miss Brett and Sergeant Wilger didn’t say anything, but I felt safe. Then I remembered. After it was all over that night...” Her voice became soft, flat. “He couldn’t get the car moving. The motor made that awful whining noise, like screaming. That’s why I was so scared when you were there. I remembered he went into the garage to get something. But” — she frowned — “it wasn’t clear...”

Her finger was still moving in slow circles around the glass. “It was like when I walked up Fairlee Road in the rain. There’s a vacant lot where people dump some old cars. I sat in one of those cars a long time that night but I didn’t remember anything about it till later. Things are still coming back in pieces.”

“Well, as rough as that is,” Selby said, “wouldn’t it be better if you’d come to me whenever something comes back to you?”

She laughed sharply. “God, daddy, how can anything be better? I’ve got to be examined by a psychiatrist during the trial. Not by a doctor like Dr. Kerr but someone who’s going to get into my head because of what he did to me...”

“Did Miss Brett tell you that?”

“Yes, and she said she can’t do anything about it because that’s the law. I’m the crazy loon who has to explain everything. Why don’t they make him talk to a psychiatrist? Make him explain why he wants to run people down with his car and everything? But he’d just lie his way out of it. Maybe in some crazy way he thinks he’s telling the truth... I’m still not sure where I was for three hours that night. I don’t know what’s the truth about that.”

She turned away quickly but he saw a flash of tears in her eyes. “Part of the truth is, I was ashamed to come home, because I didn’t want to see you and tell you about it. You said you taught me how to swim and everything. When I was afraid of the hoot owls when we first moved here, you took me out wrapped up in a blanket one night and there was one hooting in the old apple tree we were sitting under. You turned your flashlight on him. He was only about four inches tall and he had puffy little feathers around his eyes.”

Her voice was rising, beginning to break. “Don’t you think I liked doing things like that with you? Can’t you see why I didn’t want to come home and tell you I’d been raped? That he’d done things to me that I didn’t even know men wanted to do to girls? I just sat in that car listening to the rain and thinking that with mommy gone, I was all you had left. And that I could never be what you wanted me to be.”

“Please don’t say that,” Selby said. “Please don’t even think that, Shana. We’ve talked enough for now.”

She nodded gratefully. “I better put this milk away then,” she said. “I want to shampoo my hair and get my clothes ready. If you’re not going to walk Blazer, I’ll take him up to my room.”

Selby kissed her good night. She hugged him tightly and he drew her into his arms and gently rubbed her thin shoulders.