CHAPTER 3: SIBLING RIVALRY
Monday, January 26
10:30 pm
"You didn't tell me about any of that," Deborah said the next night as they lay together in bed. She had snuggled up to him and he held her, feeling slightly tense but also comforted by the warmth of her in his arms.
"Any of what?"
"What you said to Lisa yesterday. I didn't know how close that man came to... I didn't know that he kissed you."
"Yeah, well," he gently let go of her and turned his face away, cheeks burning. "I wouldn't call it a kiss, Deborah. Any more than I'd call rape making love. I don't know what I'd call it."
"Is that why you don't kiss me any more? Because you're afraid you'll be reminded of what happened?"
He turned on his side, facing her. Reached out and took her hand in his, fingers playing together.
"Deborah... I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"For... for what I put you through when you didn't want to have sex and I did."
"You feeling the same way I felt?"
"Yeah, we're even now. I don't want to, I really, really don't," he admitted. "At the prison, they talked about sex all the time and it really killed it for me, you know? It just seems pretty... disgusting. I think I'm... permanently turned off or something, I dunno," he shrugged, a bit embarrassed.
"That won't last forever."
"That's a little hard to believe right now."
"I used to work at a-"
"Rape crisis centre, I know." He sighed and dropped her hand, turning onto his back and looking up at the ceiling. "Hon... that doesn't help much, you saying that. I'm not one of your cases from when you worked there."
"I don't see you as a case."
"It feels like you do."
"I'm sorry."
He shrugged. "Probably has more to do with how I feel than anything you're doing." He stared at the ceiling for a while. "And why I don't want to kiss you... I don't wanna get turned on. I just want - I just wanna not think about it."
She reached out and took his hand, and he started slightly at her touch, calming instantly as he looked down at her hand. He squeezed her fingers lightly.
"Can you please remember to not touch me without a warning?" he asked her quietly. She nodded contritely. She reached out to trace her finger along his cheek, making sure he could see what she was doing, and caressed the roughness of stubble along his jaw.
"You gonna let it grow?" she asked.
"I dunno. Would you mind?"
"No, after it gets past the stubble stage it's nice," she smiled. "How come though? You haven't had a beard since college." He shrugged, not particularly wanting to talk about the crawling discomfort he felt these days putting a sharp blade near his skin. "Can I hold on to you for a while?" she asked, looking down.
He breathed out in frustration. "You don't have to ask permission, just don't startle me."
"OK." She drew closer to him, putting her arms around him and resting her head on his shoulder, sighing in contentment as his arms went around her. "Mmm, I've missed this."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, I just... I feel so safe when you're holding me," she said drowsily. "It's like nothing can go wrong, you know?" He was silent for a moment.
"Still?"
"What do you mean?"
He hesitated. "Still, after what happened to me, you still feel that way?" he asked, his voice low.
"Of course, why wouldn't I?" He shrugged and reached up to caress her hair, playing with it absently. "Rey, what happened doesn't change who you are."
"It does to me," he replied after a moment. "I couldn't keep myself safe... how could I keep you safe?"
"I'm sorry."
"Let's go to sleep, OK?" he asked, not feeling like he could deal with much more of this conversation.
===
Sunday, February 1
1:08 pm
"So... my little brother, the ex-con," Jorge said that weekend at lunch. "Mama woulda been so proud. How long were you in, anyway?"
"Twelve days in all," Rey said quietly. Two hours since Jorge's plane had landed, and Rey was already counting the days until he left.
"I thought it was one week."
"Six days total at Riker's, six days in Sing Sing."
"Six days in Sing Sing. Sounds like a country western song," Jorge chuckled. "So tell me bro, are all those prison horror stories true?"
"Yes," Rey said shortly, and got up to clear the table as the rest of the family looked down at their plates.
"What'd I say?" Jorge looked at Lisa, puzzled and annoyed.
"Jorge, why don't you just go back to Tucson," she snapped at him. Olivia went to the kitchen, bringing Rey dishes to clean, and softly touched his arm, making sure he could see her before doing so.
"He's an asshole," she muttered.
"Watch your language, sweetie," Rey replied in a low voice, not looking at her but patting her arm to take the sting out of his words.
"What's the matter with all of you?" Jorge asked, suddenly noticing that Lisa and Deborah were looking at each other sadly and Isabel had turned her face away from him. "Did something happen to Rey in prison?"
"Yes," Deborah said shortly. "So how was your flight down, Jorge?"
"Fine. What happened? He get knifed or something?"
"Yes."
"What?! I was joking!" Jorge said incredulously. "Where? Is he OK?"
"His arm." Deborah grimaced impatiently as Jorge stared at her. "No, you can't see it, he's wearing long sleeves. Now let it go," she said brusquely. Jorge glanced at his sister and his nieces, finding only closed expressions. He shrugged and dropped it, somewhat disturbed but knowing that there was no point in digging when the family closed ranks against him.
===
"You want me to help?" Jorge asked later, as Lisa swept Rey's kitchen. Rey had gone to put Deborah to bed for a nap and the older girls had taken Tania outside to play.
"Don't trouble yourself," Lisa muttered. Jorge sighed, taking a swig of his beer, reflecting that if his family got any more uptight they would probably implode. Lisa was probably angry with him for drinking at lunch. Not that he'd had much, but both of his siblings were practically teetotalers. He downed some more beer.
"You know what? I think we gotta talk about Mama's estate," he began. Now was as good a time as any. None of them could get any more pissed off at him than they were already.
"What about it?" Lisa asked tightly. Jorge blew out his breath in frustration.
"For Christ's sake, Lisa, he's the reason she killed herself. Why should he be the only one to inherit?"
There was a long silence before Lisa said very slowly, "Jorge, if you ever say that to him, I will disown you."
"Come off it," he said disgustedly.
"I'm serious."
"Oh come on, Lisa, you've always taken the big sister thing a little too far with him, but this is getting ridiculous, don't you think? I mean, for Christ's sake, he's a grown man, he's not the baby any more. How long are you gonna do the whole 'don't touch my little brother' routine?"
"You - you go to hell."
"What? What the hell's the matter with you?"
"He is not the reason she killed herself!"
"He told me so himself. He said that she didn't think he could handle taking care of her on top of everybody else. What do you call that?"
"She was upset because her mind was going and - and she had her own reasons! It's not his fault!"
"What the hell, of all of us, he's the one who couldn't handle his life! That's why she killed herself!"
"He's the only one of us who was going to take care of her!!" Lisa shot back furiously. "I didn't think I could because of my stupid husband and your career was too important to you and we both just figured he could take it, even though I should have known he couldn't! I could see him, I could see how tired he was, but I just told myself that he was still better equipped to handle her because he didn't have a damned alcoholic asshole in the house who might hurt her! And you," she raged at him, "it didn't even cross your mind to offer!! So both of us just let him step up even though if we'd used our heads we would've seen that there was no way he could handle one more sick person. And we don't have any excuse. We were just selfish. It's not Rey's fault, it's ours!"
"What's not my fault?" Rey asked, entering the kitchen. Lisa gave a guilty start. Jorge looked at him speculatively for a moment.
"You and me need to talk about Mama's will."
"What about it?"
"I'm not real happy with it, you can probably guess that. I don't think it's fair that she cut the two of us out. And I talked to a lawyer friend of mine, he says that since she changed her will after she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, I'd have a pretty good case to get her assets frozen until we can figure out what to do with them fairly."
Lisa gaped at him in shock, and Rey swallowed hard. He thought for a moment, knowing that his brother wasn't a monster and would never actually do what he was threatening, but also knowing that Jorge didn't have a lot of sense when he'd had a bit too much to drink and was feeling belligerent.
"You're right, it's not fair," he said quietly. "And I'd love to tell you to take your third. But I can't afford pride any more." Jorge's eyebrows went up as Rey continued, "We're one step away from eviction, Jorge. If you want me and my family out on the street, freeze the assets."
"Come on. Don't give me that. You're a cop. You're not rolling in it, but it's not like you're penniless. Where does it all go?"
Rey opened the kitchen cupboard that held the spillover medication that didn't fit in the washroom. "Right here."
Jorge's eyebrows went up as he looked at the cabinet. "That's for Deborah?"
"And Tania."
"Look, it's not my problem you decided to have her."
"What was he supposed to do?" Lisa asked, furious. "Kill her? Besides, he's never asked you for money!"
"Except now he's taking something that Mama shoulda left for all of us!!"
"He was gonna take care of Mama! You were off in Tucson!"
"I didn't ask him to take care of her!"
"No, but you didn't offer to do it, either!"
"Jorge, we can debate this till tomorrow," Rey broke in. "Look. Just - please, don't freeze the assets, OK? We really can't afford it."
"Fine. I wasn't going to really, it just pisses me off that you're not doing the classy thing and splitting the inheritance the way it shoulda been split. You were never this cheap before."
"I was never this broke before," Rey replied bitterly.
===
An hour later, the children were back and the visit wasn't going any better. Jorge didn't have much patience for Tania's babble or Serena's glowering hostility towards him, and he was reacting to the subtle disapproval from the rest of the family as he usually did, by drinking a little too much. Rey put a hand out as Jorge reached for his fourth beer.
"You think maybe you've had enough?"
"No, as a matter of fact, I don't. I still see only one of you."
"Jorge, cut it out. I've got kids here, they don't need to see you get plastered."
"Still the same self-righteous little punk you've always been, huh?" Jorge sneered, sick of his younger brother's sanctimonious ways. "Sorry, hermanito, we're not all saints like you." He chuckled. "You must be the only ex-con in the world who'll get down on somebody just for drinking. What, were you preaching to the other guys on the inside too, didja tell them to Just Say No? That how come you got knifed?"
"Why I got knifed is none of your business. And you're cut off."
"Maybe I don't wanna stop."
"Then maybe you should get outta my house."
"Fine." Jorge put his drink down with a grimace of disgust. He gazed over at Tania, busily stacking blocks over and over, and glanced at Rey. "Lemme ask you something. Did you ever even think of an abortion? When Deborah was pregnant?"
"No."
"Not even once?"
"No."
"What if she got pregnant now?"
"Couldn't happen."
"It can always happen."
"No, it really can't," Rey replied, grimly amused. She didn't want to, he didn't want to, and he was sterile anyway. You really couldn't get any safer than that.
"I don't want you begging for handouts if you and Deborah play Vatican Roulette again."
"Jorge!" Lisa snapped. Jorge ignored her.
"What would you do if she did get pregnant?"
"Look for a star in the East, 'cause it would be a miracle."
"Would she have an abortion?"
"No."
"That would break you financially." Rey nodded. "So what would you do? Just go bankrupt?"
"Honestly?" Rey regarded Jorge for a moment. "We'd put the child up for adoption."
"You're kidding."
"No, I'm not. We talked about it after Tania was born. We knew we couldn't handle another child."
"Why didn't you with Tania?"
"We thought we could handle her."
"You couldn't."
"No, not without a lotta help."
"So why don't you put her in a home or something?"
Rey and Lisa stared at him, appalled. "Jesus, Jorge," Rey managed to say after a moment.
"I'm not saying dump her in the river, for Chrissakes. There's some good homes for kids like that. I mean, I know you love her, but she's never gonna amount to much, bro."
"Drop it. Really, drop it. And don't you ever say anything like that around Deborah," Rey left the room before he said something to his brother that he would really regret. He joined Tania on the living room floor, smiling at her squeal of delight as he sat down.
"BLOCK!!" she shouted happily.
"Yes, blocks," he steadied them as she awkwardly tried to add another to the stack.
"BOOM!!" she knocked them down gleefully and threw her arms around him. He hugged her back. Such a simple thing, making a stack and knocking it down with somebody she loved by her side, and it thrilled her to bits. He stroked her hair gently.
'She's never gonna amount to much.' What a way to dismiss a child. What a way to dismiss a gift from God, wanted or not, brain damaged or not. How could Jorge be so cavalier about children?
Tania let go of him and went back to her blocks, and he looked over at Serena and Isabel, who were staying in the living room and out of Jorge's way. Caught them cutting off a whispered conversation with a guilty look that immediately pinged his parent-radar.
"What?" They looked at each other. He beckoned them closer and they approached slowly. "What were you talking about?" Isabel shook her head quickly, but Serena cleared her throat.
"We... we were just thinking that... that Uncle Jorge's not being real nice," she said reluctantly. Rey waited for her to continue. "And... we just thought that maybe... maybe he deserved to have something not so nice happen to him. Maybe then he'd go away." Rey's eyebrows went up. "Nothing bad, just... you know, like so he won't wanna come back."
"Like what?"
"Uh... well, you know he put his jacket in the closet, and... and, I mean, we could say Tania did it, and..."
"Did what?"
"We got some finger paint, see, and-" Serena saw the look of alarm on his face and backtracked immediately, "Oh, we didn't do nothing yet, Daddy, we were just gonna sorta... smear it on his jacket, you know, like Tania did it..." she trailed off at the indecipherable expression on Rey's face.
Rey suddenly discovered a pressing need to look down and fake a coughing fit or risk having his daughters think he approved. The disciplinarian in him was horrified. The part of him that was pissed off at Jorge was rather disappointed that he'd caught his daughters before they did anything, and the part of him that was still the younger brother got a vivid image of what his older brother's face would look like if his ridiculously expensive jacket was ruined with finger paint and found it absolutely hilarious.
"Dad? You OK?"
"Uh, yeah, yeah," he continued to look down until he could wipe the smile off his face. He cleared his throat. "Girls, that would be a very, very bad idea."
"Well, he wouldn't wanna come back, would he?"
"No, he wouldn't," Rey had to cough again and compose himself before continuing. "But... Brook's Brothers? That's like a $600 jacket," he trailed off, covering his mouth again. Serena and Isabel stared at him seriously, and he did his best to keep his expression stern, but knew he wasn't doing a very good job when Serena started to smile.
"Can you picture his face if-"
"Yeah, I can," he cut her off. "And I mean it, I do not want you to do anything like that. We'd have to pay for it. No, that wouldn't be funny, would it?" he said ruefully at her look of dismay.
"OK... we won't."
"Promise?"
"Promise." They both nodded earnestly. He glanced back at the kitchen, where his older siblings were speaking in quiet tones, and suddenly wished he were ten years old again and could throw caution to the wind to get back at his older brother for being a jerk.
"How come he's gotta be here?" Isabel asked rebelliously.
"Sweetheart... we don't always get along with family, but we gotta try. And he's not so bad." Serena gave a derisive snort and he grinned at her, aware that he wasn't sounding very convincing to himself either.
"Did you ever get along with him?"
"Oh yeah, when we were growing up we were good buddies."
"How come he's such an ass- such a dummy now?" Serena asked.
"People change, sweetie," Rey sighed.
===
Monday, February 2
10:49 pm
"Did you call Jorge at the hotel today?" Deborah asked the next night as they got ready to go to sleep.
"No, he's catching up with some old buddies of his. Says he'll probably come by for dinner tomorrow," Rey replied, thinking that if his brother didn't drop by the next day he'd be perfectly happy. He drew close to Deborah, noticing that things were a little less tense between them since they'd talked a few days ago. They held each other in comfortable silence for a few minutes.
"Jamie called me at work today."
"Yeah?"
"She wants me to get together with her and Jack tomorrow at lunch, talk about... about making a statement."
"That might be a good idea," Deborah said neutrally. Rey sighed. "You don't agree."
"No, not really."
"Could you do something for me?" He nodded. "Could - could you give them a chance to talk to you?" They gazed at each other for a moment until he nodded reluctantly. She smiled at him, caressing his cheek tenderly. Then slowly, giving him time to move away, she drew closer.
He drew in his breath as she touched her lips to his. He responded, feeling warmth and comfort in the kiss, but tensing a bit, hoping to not flashback. Then he was just feeling Deborah's nearness and he started to relax, realizing that this was far too different from what happened in prison to set off any unpleasant reaction or memory. This was gentle, loving, this was his wife, whose scent and taste and feel he knew intimately. He kissed her back, hesitantly parting his lips and feeling her part her own, shyly exploring her lips with his, her tongue with his.
This was so different from his nightmares. He caressed her face, her neck, kissing her, feeling knife-edged tension dissolving slowly, until it was almost gone. What a relief. He still felt nervous, a low-grade anxiety that didn't seem to go away these days no matter what, but not as sharply. She reached up carefully to touch his face, and he guided her hand, steadying her inevitable tremors. She slowly drew closer, motioning him closer as well, until their bodies were touching.
All of her, all of her body against his, her hands slowly starting to caress him. Up his arms, on his chest, he was breathing more easily now. He slid his hands over her shoulders, feeling her soft skin. They kissed and caressed for a few minutes, and he was starting to feel a lot more comfortable with all of it, almost normal, until she nibbled her way to his ear and he felt a rush of desire. Suddenly he was pushing her back, thrusting himself away from her, hearing her soft cry of protest. He covered his face with his hands for a second, keeping the panic at bay, then caught her hand, keeping his eyes closed, unable to look at her.
"I'm sorry. No, no, you didn't, you didn't do anything wrong, I'm just - I just..." he was tongue-tied. How to even explain this? None of it made any sense. There was no way she was any kind of threat to him, he didn't feel any kind of danger from her, it was more like... like he didn't want to feel anything within himself.
"I - I can't... let's, let's just stop, OK? Let's just go to sleep."
She slowly put her hand out, making sure he could see what she was doing, and touched his face gently, nodding. He finally met her eyes and sighed, and after a moment he took back into his arms.
===
Wednesday, February 4
12:36 pm
"It wouldn't even go to trial, Rey," Jamie said the next day at lunch. "With the statements we got from these three other inmates, the case against Gonzalez would just get pled out. He'd have no reason to fight it. You wouldn't have to do much, just give a statement." Rey's expression remained closed. "One of them gave us some information you could use to press charges against the head guard too."
"What information?"
"She said that-"
"She? Dawn?" Rey guessed.
"Martin Chang. She's a transsexual, she was in the same block as you."
Rey nodded. "That's probably Dawn."
"Anyway, she said that Gonzalez paid the head guard, Phil Johnson, $20 to look the other way for twenty minutes."
Rey looked away, feeling sick.
"You were sold for $20, Rey." Rey had made it quite clear to Jamie and Jack that he was willing to hear them out, but that he would probably not press charges. So far nothing they had said had changed his mind, and as Jamie got more and more frustrated, she was becoming less and less tactful.
"Hey, that's not so bad," he said hollowly, trying to distance himself from her words. "I mean, that's a buck a minute, right? Just like one of those long-distance plans, a buck a minute."
"Or another way to look at it is that with four men, you were sold for $5 each," she countered bluntly.
"Jamie," Jack said chidingly.
"Why tell me this? What difference does it make what price I went for?"
"Does that seem right to you?" Jamie asked.
"So... what, you're hoping for what? Nothing is gonna change what happens in there. You aren't gonna stop this by telling a bunch of violent men with no access to women to just play nice."
"But it doesn't have to be like this. At least we can stop the deliberate brutalization of inmates for the profit of guards." He still seemed unmoved. "Look, you know I have an agenda. I've been involved in human rights work for a while now. My firm is part of a group of firms willing to go after the prison system for human rights violations, to stop abuses of power and to compensate inmates who've been victimized by the system. We want to make a class action civil suit against the Correctional system."
"That's very nice for you. What does that have to do with me?"
"We'd like you to be the first plaintiff named."
"Why? Why me? Can't you find somebody else to do this? Why put my name on your damn lawsuit?"
"Because you were innocent. And you're a cop. With somebody who's actually guilty as the first plaintiff, juries will look the other way. With you, they'd at least have to think about it. They'd have to see you as a person."
Rey looked unconvinced.
"What goes on in there isn't right. You know that," she said persuasively, "And nothing will change unless the system is hit with a financial setback. We want to try a class action civil suit, but it's hard when there have been no criminal convictions. Jack says that with three witnesses, there's enough here for a winnable criminal case. If it goes well, maybe other inmates will press criminal charges too, then take part in the class action. This could be the break my group's been looking for." She stopped, realizing she was making no headway. "Look, if nothing else, there could be financial compensation for pain and suffering. It could be a great deal of money. Similar suits have gone into the hundreds of thousands-"
"You think I wanna be paid for services rendered?" he asked quietly. "Think it'll make it all better if I can tell myself that I was actually worth a hundred thousand dollars instead of twenty?"
An uncomfortable silence reigned until Jamie cleared her throat. "Would you at least talk to the inmates who gave the statements? See what they think?"
"Talk to them?" Rey stared at her as if she'd grown two heads.
"Yes. I could set up a meeting-"
"You - you mean - a meeting - you, you want me to go back to that place and, and-" Rey stopped, putting his fork down, losing his appetite completely. "Are - are you nuts?" Jamie's eyebrows went up. Rey took a sip of water, willing himself into calm.
"Look, I owe you a lot. I know without your firm Jack never woulda been able to defend me... and I don't mean to be ungrateful, but... you don't understand what you're asking." He abruptly realized he had to get out of the restaurant immediately, and stood up to go. "I... I'll think about what you said. But I'm not - I'm not walking back in there. Ever. You're asking too much."