Signed, Anonymous
Chapter Two:
Unwanted Attention



Ruthie was in the kitchen when her father came rushing in. Her heart raced when she saw what was sticking out of his pocket. Beads of sweat began to form on her brow line, and she almost felt sick. The look in his eyes when he looked at her just told her that he suspected that she wrote that letter. What made it worse was that she had.

"Annie," Eric called when he had first entered the house. He hadn't seen Ruthie until he was around the corner. Plastering a smile on his face, he attempted to remove the anxious tone in his voice. "Hello, dear. Dinner smells good."

Annie eyed him suspiciously. But she, too, smiled and played along, knowing that something was wrong. She was washing the lettuce for the salad while the roast cooked in the oven, emitting wonderful aromas.

Eric cleared his throat and lowered his voice. "Um, can I talk to you...," he threw another quick glance at Ruthie, hoping Annie would catch it. She did.

"Um, Ruthie, honey, could you do your homework upstairs. I know you asked for my help, but I need to talk to your father for a moment," Annie hesitantly told her daughter, whose face was completely drained of color.

Ruthie closed her text book and gathered her papers. Without a word, she slipped from the room, but she never went all the way upstairs. As she had many times before, she stayed on the landing to listen in.

Eric extracted the folded letter from his pocket and handed it to his wife.

"What's this?" she asked, drying her hands on a nearby dish towel before taking the extended item.

Eric sighed. "It's a letter that was slid under my office door today at the church." Here he lowered his voice. "I think Ruthie wrote it."

Annie quickly scanned the letter, her expression staying consistent throughout the whole of it. She wasn't concerned about her daughter writing this letter for one reason, and one reason only:

"Dear, Ruthie wasn't raped. She couldn't have written this." With that, Annie handed the page back to Eric, turning on her heels to leave the room.

At the top of the stairs, Ruthie let out a quiet sigh of relief and continued the rest of the way to her destination.

That Sunday, the feelings of shame and embarrassment that she had tried for so long to bury resurfaced after her father explained about the letter. Everyone that wasn't her family, zeroed in on her and rumors began to fly. If she had thought people were going to be this cruel, she would have never sent her father that letter. She would have just kept her secret and everything would have been fine. At that thought, she remembered who she was sitting by: Peter Petrowski. She had told him - he knew that she was raped. Knowing Peter, he would have told her family.

A woman that was sitting at least two rows behind Ruthie came out with a particularly rude comment and didn't even care to lower her voice. Ruthie could have easily sworn that the entire congregation heard her:

"It was that Ruthie. She disappeared for a while. I'll bet that she wasn't even raped. Knowing her, she probably brought it on herself. Minister's daughter, you know."

Ruthie's cheeks turned red and she sunk in her seat. Peter grabbed her hand and squeezed it. He had heard, but he was trying to act like he hadn't for her sake.

Going behind Annie's back, Eric decided to have a talk with Ruthie that night. He had to know for sure that it wasn't his own daughter that was raped. With each step that he climbed up to Ruthie's room, he prayed that he was wrong, but there was something in the back of his mind that said otherwise.

He rapped on her door.

"Who is it?" Ruthie called from inside.

"Your father."

The reply was delayed for almost a minute. During that time, Ruthie was debating whether or not she should talk with him. She decided that if she didn't, he would only take that as a bad sign.

"Come in."

Before entering, Eric sighed, preparing himself for this chat that he desperately did not want to have, but needed to.

Ruthie was sitting on her bed reading a book. For school, no doubt, Eric thought as he took a seat on Lucy's old bed.

She set aside the book, dog-earing the page she was on, and faced her father.

"Was there something that you wanted to talk to me about?" she asked, telling by his expression that there was. Not even needing to ask the question, she knew what about.

"Yes, actually, there is something." Eric leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Ruthie, I need to ask you about that letter that I mentioned in church today." He clasped his hands together.

"What about it?" Ruthie asked, trying to play it cool and succeeding very well.

"Well, I -" Eric stammered. "Ruthie, I need to ask you if you wrote it."

Ruthie shrugged. "No, I didn't." That sentence came out more confident than she felt. Yet, no matter how good she was at lying, she immediately felt a pang of guilt.

Eric stared her in the eyes for a minute, trying to read her, trying to render if she was telling him the truth. He smiled and ran a hand through his thinning hair. "Hearing you say that makes me feel so much better."

Ruthie matched her father's grin. "Glad I could help."

Eric stood. He kissed Ruthie's forehead. "I love ya, kid." Just as he was in the door frame, he turned to look back at her, that nagging voice in his mind had returned. "And you're sure?"

Ruthie sighed. "Dad, I'm sure. I know that I can talk to you and Mom about anything. You tell me all the time," she reassured him before he could give her another "trust" lecture.

Eric smiled, and rounded the corner. He leaned up against the wall just outside her room. He was wrong. Thank God, he was wrong. Releasing his breath, he pushed away from the wall and descended the stairs.

Ruthie watched the spot where her father had stood just moments before. Her heart had sunk so low, knowing that she had lied to her father. He was reaching out to her, she was pretty sure, and she turned him away. Her shot at being happy was dashed.

She felt tears welling in her eyes. Brushing them away angrily with her sleeve, she thought, don't be stupid. You're not hurt - or pregnant - so nobody ever needs to know. And they won't.