For the Children part 10
Roy stood in his son's room, just looking around. Chris was out playing baseball with some friends, and Joanne had taken Jenny shopping for some much needed shoes. He'd been shoe shopping with Jenny before, and it required an esoteric knowledge of style that he'd never possessed, as well as the negotiating skills of a United Nations diplomat. Joanne wasn't surprised when he said he'd stay home and get some chores done instead.
The bedroom was softly suffused with light from the window. It looked like a typical boy's room, with models, books, and a couple of trophies on shelves, his sash with earned merit badges hanging over the back of his chair, a baseball glove on the floor…Roy briefly wondered whose glove Chris was borrowing…Superman and Spiderman comics strewn beside the bed, lumps under his blanket that might be pyjamas or clothes that hadn't made it to the hamper.
Roy bent down when he saw a box sticking out partway from under the bed. It looked like a balsa wood model airplane kit. He was curious, because he knew he hadn't bought it, so he picked it up. The box had been opened, but the pieces weren't put together. He walked over to the desk in the room, and gently poured the pieces out onto the blotter. There was something written on a couple of pieces…he picked one up and read, written in thick black marker pen, "BASTERD".
There was a noise behind him, and he turned in his chair, to see his son standing there, a look of fury and guilt on his face. Roy held up the piece of wood questioningly, but before he opened his mouth, Chris rushed into the room, and said in a voice of suppressed rage that Roy had never heard come out of his son, "GET OUT." Roy rose to his feet, but Chris didn't give him a chance to speak. "GET OUT NOW!"
Roy went and stood in the doorway. "Chris…" he began, but his son was beyond reasoning, and looked at his father with pure hate.
"How dare you, Dad? This is MY room. This is MY stuff. All your talk about respect, it's just lies, isn't it? I can't trust you. I can't trust anyone. I hate you! GO AWAY AND LEAVE ME ALONE." Chris slammed the door in his father's face. Roy was in shock. He raised up his fist to rap on the door, but it just stayed there in mid air. He swallowed the lump in his throat and said tentatively, "Chris? Son?" but there was no response from inside the room, and after a couple of minutes Roy walked away. He went and sat down at the kitchen table and just looked at nothing for the longest time. That's where he was when Joanne and Jenny came home almost an hour later.
"So, what do we do? Do we take him to a doctor or something? I wanted to ask him about Kyle, but I don't feel like I can when he's so angry." Roy rubbed his fingers between his eyebrows, trying to smooth out his incipient headache.
Joanne puttered about the kitchen, straightening boxes and cans on the shelves, her worry giving her nervous energy that needed to be expended. "I don't know, Roy. I have no answers for the questions you're asking. Just questions of my own."
The phone rang. "Hey, Jane, how are you?" Joanne replied when she heard her friend's voice.
"I'm fine, but I was wondering if you and Roy were busy."
Joanne pursed her lips together thoughtfully. Were they busy? They were trying desperately to figure out how to help their son without success. She decided to prevaricate a bit, and just replied, "What's up?"
"Um, something's bothering me a bit, and I was thinking I'd like to discuss it with you, if you didn't mind."
Joanne covered the mouthpiece of the phone with her hand. "She's got something she wants to discuss with me. What should I say?"
Roy shrugged. "We don't seem to be coming up with any solutions to what's going on with Chris, so I don't have a problem with her coming by."
Joanne uncovered the phone again. "Sure, Jane. Just you, or will Johnny be coming over too?"
"He's at home, but he said he would give me a call later. I guess he could come…"
"It's up to you, Jane, whatever you want."
"Okay, maybe it would be good for him to be there too. I'll give you a shout when we're going to head over. Is that all right?"
"Yeah, that's fine. See you soon."
As Joanne hung up the phone, Roy asked, "Any clue to what that's all about?"
Joanne shook her head. "At first I wondered if she was looking for advice about Johnny, but now I'm not so sure." She sat on her husband's lap. "You know I love your partner like a brother, but I'll tell you, I sure couldn't date him. He would drive me right up the wall. I don't know how you do it sometimes. And as for Jane, well, my hat's off to her…"
Roy grinned and hugged his wife.
Joanne made a casserole that would feed their family and Johnny and Jane too if they wanted to stay for supper. She had Jenny set the table for six. She and Roy had decided to leave Chris alone in his room if that was what he wanted. Every time she thought about her son, which was every few minutes or so, she would heave a tremendous sigh. At one point Roy, passing through the kitchen, heard her sigh several times within a minute, so he came by and gave her a one-armed hug. "Hang in there, sweetheart, we will figure this out."
She leaned on his arm. "I know we will. I just want it to be sooner rather than later."
The doorbell rang, and Johnny and Jane came in, with Jenny holding both their hands and swinging herself between them. Joanne reached out and gave Jane a quick hug. "Are you two able to stay for supper? We've got enough food for a…fire station!"
Jane turned to John and said, "See, I told you so." He grinned back at her, and grabbed a celery stick from the dish on the table.
John chewed on his celery, and walked over to Roy. "So, where's Chris?" he asked quietly. Roy just nodded upwards towards his son's room. "Ah," said John, "how is he?" Roy looked grim and again didn't say anything, but that was enough of an answer for John. He turned towards his hostess. "Joanne! How can I help you with this lovely repast?"
Joanne looked up from taking the casserole out of the oven. "Repast? Jane, what are you teaching this lout?"
Everyone was in full bantering swing now. "Lout? I've used the word 'repast' before!" exclaimed Johnny.
"As in 'I repast my test'?" threw in Roy.
"As in, 'milady, dost thou require assistance perchance…' "
"Oh, pu-lease! You're hurting my ears!" Roy covered his ears and then his daughter's ears, who was soaking up the camaraderie with glee. "And in front of this sweet child too!" He winked at Jenny, just to reinforce that the adults were all teasing each other.
John took off in style now, kneeling before Joanne, with his hand over his heart, and saying, "Any deed for thee, fair maiden…"
"Got news for ya, Mr Knight in shining armour, I ain't been a maiden for quite a while!" Joanne said with a drawl as she swung her hips around.
"What!" he rose to his feet and turned on Roy. "YOU! You shall answer for this!" He grabbed a breadstick and took up a fencer's stance, "I challenge you!"
Roy just stood there until Jenny pushed a breadstick into his hand, "C'mon, Daddy!" Roy sighed and put his left arm behind his back, while raising his right hand.
"Ah, ha ha! Captain Blood shall soon spill yours!" He lunged at his friend, who parried his bread easily.
As Joanne passed the two men, carrying the casserole dish, she said to Johnny, "So now you're Errol Flynn?"
"Johnny, you're incorrigible!" exclaimed Jane with a giggle as Johnny landed at her feet in a dramatic fake fall.
"What's that?"he asked as he rose up from the floor.
"Unable to be reformed."
He grinned widely. "Incorrigible. That's a great word! Incorrigible."
"Jane, don't encourage him by giving him big words to use – 'cause he will, and it'll be painful, especially for me," Roy commented. Then he noticed his son standing in the doorway, watching the antics with a tentative smile, but hesitant as if he wasn't sure he belonged in this happy family setting. Roy smiled at him and invited him to sit at the table, ignoring what had passed between them earlier.
After supper, the children went to get ready for bed, and the adults cleaned up the table and the kitchen. Roy said to John in an aside, "Thanks for that, pal."
"For what?"
"For joking around before supper so Chris wanted to see what was going on, and for joking around at supper so he forgot and enjoyed himself."
John patted his best friend on the back. "Any time, Roy, you know that."
Once the dishes were dried and put away and the children tucked into bed, they all sat down at the table and looked at Jane. It took her a moment. "Right. I did invite myself over to talk, didn't I?" She looked at the others, considering her words. "The Fun Day. I met the famous Billy Abel."
Joanne said, "I don't know if I would call him 'famous', would you, Roy? But I remember seeing you talk to him."
"Actually, I didn't talk to him, he talked to me. But…both of you talk about him as if he's a great guy, so…"
"He is a good guy. Always helpful, likes kids," said Roy.
"He's very generous with his time and seems to care a lot. Why, did you know that he made a trip just to pick up an airplane model that Chris liked and then delivered it to him the same day? That's pretty special," added Joanne.
Roy looked at his wife with surprise. "Billy Abel gave him that model?"
"Yes, just the other day. Why?"
"'Cause that kinda feels creepy to me, Joanne," said Johnny, and Jane jumped in.
"Creepy – that's the word! I had this funny feeling when I found Billy in a room alone with two boys from Chris' class during the barbeque…"
"You found what?" asked Roy, as a huge puzzle piece appeared ready to land – on his head.
"I didn't see anything that said those kids were in trouble, but it just felt…creepy. That's what I wanted to talk to you about tonight, Joanne. You seem to know the man well, and I thought that you could, I don't know, set me straight so I wouldn't be feeling this way."
Roy 's eyes got very big, and he put his hands over his mouth and blew out his breath forcefully. Then he rose so quickly from his chair that the legs scraped gratingly against the floor. Johnny looked at his friend with growing understanding and alarm, and rose from his chair too. He stood beside Roy, his face serious. "It's all circumstantial. There's no proof."
"No, but what does your gut tell you? Because mine is screaming at me."
Joanne and Jane also stood and came over, with Joanne struggling to catch up to the realization the other three had made. "What are you saying? Roy, you're really scaring me. What is it about Billy Abel and our son…" Her voice trailed off, as she came to the same place the others were. She staggered, and would have fallen if Roy and John hadn't caught her and put her into a chair. "No," she said softly. Then "No" more firmly, then "NO!" and Roy put his hand over her mouth gently.
"He'll hear you," he said into her ear.
She whispered, "My baby! My little boy! He can't have…he was always so kind…those boys would have done anything for him…" Her words slapped her as she heard what she had just said.
John sat down beside her and took her hand, gently rubbing it as he tried to help her calm down. "We have no proof. None at all. It's all conjecture."
Roy said in a flat voice, "But we know it's true. We just don't know to what extent."
Jane looked at her friends and saw their agony. "I'm so sorry. I guess I should have kept my mouth shut."
Both Roy and Joanne vehemently disagreed, and Roy explained, "We've been trying for a very long time to figure out this mystery. You held the missing clue."
John hit the table with his fist, "But we have nothing! Nothing!"
Roy paced around the room for a moment or two. Then he turned and looked at his partner. "Not nothing, Johnny. Kyle."
Johnny leapt to his feet, and almost ran to the phone, "Call Brackett." He held out the receiver to Roy and started dialing Rampart's number.
Soon a police detective who specialized in the investigation of child mistreatment arrived at Rampart to talk with Kyle Raines. Detective Smith had been assigned to the dossier as part of a new initiative in response to a recent law that had been enacted, itself a response to a medical treatise on abuse entitled "The Battered Child Syndrome". It was new territory for everyone. The information the investigator received from Kyle led him to suggest that Chris Desoto should be brought into the hospital as soon as possible. Dr Brackett, who had been trained in the recognition of child abuse after the publication in the Journal of the American Medical Association of the article that changed people's perceptions, asked if he could be present during the interview. He didn't tell the detective that he was good friends with the family, but he wanted to be there to support Roy if he could. The detective was very grateful for his offer, and asked if he would lead the interview.
The DeSoto family, except for Jenny, was in Dr Brackett's office with Kell and Detective Smith. Chris was no longer the angry young man they had seen earlier. Now he seemed like a little boy – a very vulnerable and hurting little boy. Dr Brackett looked at him earnestly and gently said, "Chris, we know that something has happened to upset you. I want you to know that Kyle Raines has been talking with some people here at the hospital, and we know about Billy Abel and his sleepovers. We need you to tell us if anything happened to you at those sleepovers. Anything at all."
Chris' lower lip trembled. Joanne's eyes filled with tears that did not fall as she looked at her son, longing to take him into her arms and soothe away his distress. His voice was very quiet when he spoke. "There were games," he said.
"What kind of games, Chris?"
"Tickle games. Wrestle games." Roy felt uneasy and the anger that was rising inside him was becoming a flaming monster growling with menace - he mentally imagined containing it in order to listen to Chris.
"Tell us about the games," encouraged Dr Brackett. Chris shot a fearful glance over at the policeman writing in a notebook. "It's fine, Chris. Don't worry about him." Kelly waited patiently for Chris to speak again.
"We…Kyle and I…called them Bum Tickles. And Chicken Wrestling."
Roy reached out and held on tightly to Joanne's hand, squeezing it convulsively as they listened. Joanne was breathing erratically, and he realized it was her way of crying without tears, containing her emotions just as he was confining the fire within himself.
"Why did you call them that, Chris?"
Chris shrugged and said, "Because that's what they were."
"So bum tickles were…?"
"Tickling your bum."
"Through your clothes?"
Chris shook his head 'no'. In a small voice he admitted, "Clothes off."He looked at Dr Brackett, and said in a stronger voice, "But we didn't really wrestle chickens, we just called it that because…"
"Because?"
"That's what it looked like, to us. Chicken before it's cooked."
No one said anything, and when Chris continued, it was very clear from his words that he had seen things and been made to do things that no child should know about.
Roy couldn't bear anymore, and he excused himself from the room. His heart was pounding, his head was reeling. He wanted to run as fast as he could away from this place. He wanted to smash and hit and kick and hurt…hurt so bad…he went into the men's washroom and locked the door. It came, like a tidal wave, the sobs, deep in his gut, tearing out of him, pulling him apart. He clamped his hands tightly over his mouth trying to contain the noise. He couldn't see; his eyes stung so sharply. God oh God oh God oh God…not my boy, not my Chris, no no no no no…
Besides the fiery anger, another monster lived inside him, this one with piercing accusatory eyes and sharp claws that ripped up his mind with, "I should have…" "If only…" "It's my fault that…" "No wonder he said he hates me…" gnawing, tearing, insidious doubts and recriminations that swirled into eddies of guilt…he had to face the fact that he, Chris' father, off saving the world, had left his own child vulnerable to the wolves that lurked in plain sight.
Someone knocked on the washroom door, and he stopped breathing in order to prevent those primal howls from rising and taking over again. Then he heard his son's voice calling for him, tentative and unsure, "Daddy? You there?"
He opened the door, and there stood Chris, looking for him. Chris saw the tears on his father's cheeks, the first ones he had ever seen, and he came to him and held him as tight as he could, saying, "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry Daddy, I love you, I really do, don't cry Daddy, please don't cry, I'm sorry…"
Roy closed the door and relocked it so he could take his boy into his arms without worrying someone would interrupt them. "It's all right. I love you, Chris. I love you." The two of them clung to each other until the rage and hurt subsided. Roy buried his face in his son's hair and kissed his blond head fiercely, while Chris patted his father's back. When Roy regained control he took Chris' face in his hands, looked at him directly in the eyes and said, "Whatever happened, it's not your fault. Remember that. You are a child. He is a grownup. It's not your fault." He mussed up Chris' hair with his hand, and hugged him tightly. Then he looked at Chris directly again. "I am proud of you, son." Chris closed his eyes as his father's words reached into his bruised heart and eased the pain he had been holding for so long.
"Why, Dad?"
"Why am I proud or why did this happen?"
Chris just nodded 'yes' to both questions. Roy replied, "I am proud of you because you did the right thing just now, telling us about what happened. I know it wasn't easy for you. I am proud of you because you have carried a heavy burden on your young shoulders for a long time, wanting to protect your friend and wanting to be loyal to an adult. Even if it wasn't the best choice, in your heart you were trying to do what you thought was right." Chris smiled with relief at his father's words, and Roy was reassured by its spontaneity and naturalness, which he hadn't seen in a long time. He continued, "I don't know why this happened, and I don't know if we'll ever know why Billy Abel did the things he did. But I do know that no matter what he told you, you did not cause him to do this to you or to the others."
"Dad, it didn't happen to me like it happened to Kyle. You were around a lot and I think Billy – Mr Abel – was a bit scared of you."
Roy's jaw worked as he ground his teeth together. That was a small consolation, of a sort. But wasn't there something in the Bible about millstones around the neck and being drowned in the depths of the sea? That was too good for this evil man.
"I wish I had told you, but I didn't know how."
"I am so very sorry, Chris, that I wasn't around those times you needed me."
"No Dad, you've always been great. It's just that, well, when things started, I mean, I don't know, it just happened and I guess I knew something was wrong, but I didn't know what to do about it, and it was, um…"
"Chris, I know you are not to blame. I should have been there protecting you, that's my job."
"But Dad, you couldn't be with me all the time. No one could. I don't blame you, Dad! Please don't think I do!"
"Let's make a pact, okay? We won't blame ourselves or each other. We'll just move on from here – how 'bout that?" Chris nodded in gratitude, and Roy said, "C'mon, we should go find your mother, and let her know we're all right." They washed their faces, and opened the washroom door. Dixie was standing outside in the hallway, and as they left, she pulled off a paper that had been taped to the door that read, "Out of Order". Roy just nodded his thanks to his favourite nurse with a small sad smile of acknowledgment, and walked back to Brackett's office with his arm around Chris' shoulders.
Joanne spoke with Kell privately after the policeman left and while Roy and Chris were gone. "What is this going to do to him, Dr Brackett? Is he going to be gay? Is he going to have problems having relationships when he's older? What can we do to help our son? I feel so guilty that someone was hurting my child under my nose, and I never knew, didn't realize, even when he started being so different in his behaviour. And this will just about kill Roy."
"Joanne, we don't have any specific therapies for children who have been abused, at least not yet. In my experience, the best thing you can do for Chris is encourage him to talk about what happened when he feels the need. If you see him getting irritable again, or not sleeping, or if he makes any comments or does anything that suggests he may be depressed, be insistent, in a gentle way, that he share with you what he's thinking and feeling. Whether it will affect the kind of relationships he'll have when he's older, we don't know. I do know that children who know they are loved, who are cared for and whose parents show they believe in them, do much better than we might expect. So, in other words, continue doing what you're doing."
She nodded and thanked him for his encouraging words. The door opened and Roy and Chris entered with their arms around each other. She rose and drew them both into a big hug. Dr Brackett let them have their moment in private as he quietly closed the door behind him and walked back to into the Emergency ward.