Chapter 4

She took a deep breath, grasped his fingers and spoke, "It all began in the weeks following my father's death. I was only fourteen and Lyle became indispensable to Mother and me. We weren't functioning, Tony. Mother was medicated out of her mind on valium. She was barely conscious, hidden away in some corner of our big, empty house nursing her grief." Angela paused for a moment. The memories were painful-remembering Mona in that fragile, pathetic state was difficult to think about. Robert's sudden death had shocked them both to the core but instead of turning to each other, Mona had turned to doctors and medications. Angela had had no choice but to keep it together and help plan her father's funeral, contact family and friends and go through his personal effects by herself. But some things she hadn't been able to do. She'd been lost when faced with confusing documents, wills, inheritances and the like.

"What happened, Angela?" Tony could see this was difficult for her. He couldn't begin to imagine how overwhelmed the grieving teenager must have felt after losing her father and been unable to turn to her mother. Tony looked at her encouragingly. "It must have been a really tough time for you. What did you do?"

"I did everything, Tony. The planning, the organizing, the cleaning up. Mother let me, or rather, she didn't try to stop me. But some things, I didn't know how to do-the paperwork and what needed to be taken care of from Daddy's office. I was only in the ninth grade, Tony . . . I had no idea what needed to be done", she said almost apologetically.

"Of course you didn't. You were fourteen. Do you think that Samantha would be able to figure any of this stuff out if I died?" He said, trying to reassure her.

"Oh God, Tony. Don't say that! You can't …"

"Die?"

"Tony!"

"Angela, all I'm saying is that you were just a kid."

She nodded at him, grateful for his understanding. "So Tony, here I was-just a kid, overwhelmed with responsibilities that I couldn't handle and Mother was abusing pharmaceuticals. This is where Lyle stepped in to help us", she looked down now, unable to keep the bitterness from creeping into her voice.

"What did Lyle do?" Tony prompted her so that she wouldn't stop now. This needed to come out and he wanted to show her that he was in her corner, no matter what.

"Lyle was Daddy's right-hand man, best friend and all around 'good guy'. He was "Uncle Lyle" to me and his wife was "Aunt Mary". They were like family, Tony. My father had known him since college—they worked together, played together, raised kids . . . damn. Sorry Tony . . . I need a second." Angela was remembering one of the numerous times that both families had gotten together. At the precocious age of six, Angela had declared very determinedly that she would marry Uncle Lyle one day. She hadn't understood why all the grownups had burst out laughing. All but Uncle Lyle—he'd picked her up and swung her around. "Don't mind them, Angela. You and I can absolutely get married one day. We just won't tell Aunt Mary." She'd giggled conspiratorially with him and then scampered off to play with Lyle's older daughters, feeling understood and loved by him.

"Tony, I trusted Lyle. He was part of our lives-we vacationed with his family, had BBQ's, attended birthdays and I was friends with his two daughters. When Daddy died, he helped me so much. He took care of mountains of paperwork and he helped us get the house ready for sale. Mother wanted to move because the memories were too painful and our enormous house had become a burden. It got to the point that we needed Lyle. By himself, he cleaned up years of accumulated junk in our house, contacted a real estate agent and helped Mother get off of her damned pills. I can remember seeing them in the kitchen—he was holding her pill bottle away from her with one hand and hugging her with his other. He was strong and good and he reminded me of my father." And therein lay Angela's Achilles Heel. She had loved Lyle and told him everything. When he'd driven her around in his huge blue Chevrolet, she'd felt like a princess, sitting up front with him. He'd taken her out for hot chocolate and croissants and let her unburden herself. She had even developed a little crush on him; he was a handsome, powerful man. What she couldn't have known was that she was in the company of a predator, one who was grooming her.

"I admired him so much, Tony. He would regularly call me just to find out how my day was and I confided in him about Mother's difficulties. He became my lifeline after Daddy's death. He'd pick me up from school and during the rides home, he began to confide in me about his life—the difficulties in his marriage and …"

"This man told you, a fourteen-year-old girl, about the difficulties in his marriage?" Tony was aghast.

"You don't understand, Tony. It seemed so normal at the time. I was his 'special friend'—his 'other daughter'. He confided in me because he said I was so mature…" Hearing herself say the words out loud made Angela realize how twisted that sounded. "I didn't know it was weird, Tony!" she replied defensively. "I'm trying to explain how the thing with Lyle began because . . . I never expected him to rape me!" Angela gasped at her own words; she hadn't been intending to let that out just yet. She clamped her hands over her mouth, wishing she could take it all back. Tony was staring at her in shock. He blinked hard and drew a deep breath, never taking his eyes off of her.

"He raped you?" Tony was desperately trying to keep his voice under control. Angela was telling him her deepest, darkest secret and he had to listen to her, not explode with rage.

"Oh my god, Tony. I've never, ever said it. Lyle raped me when I was fourteen." Angela tried to calm her breathing; it was coming in too fast and she was beginning to hyperventilate a bit. She was regaining her power in declaring the truth but after twenty odd years of denial, she'd sent herself spiralling into shock, with Tony along for the ride. She began to speak quickly now, the desperate need to unburden herself taking over.

"Lyle invited me to his country home, along with Aunt Mary of course. Mother was more than happy to let me go with them; she trusted him implicitly. We both trusted him. He was a pillar of the community, a respected businessman, friends with important people, a husband and father . . . we had no reason not to trust him!"

"And he violated your trust in the worst possible way", Tony said between clenched teeth. He blinked away tears and hastily brushed them away with his hand. Then he put his hand on her shoulder in a gesture of support. "Tell me the rest, Angela. You need to say it." She nodded at him.

"I was asleep when he came to me. He woke me up, and said that he'd had a fight with Aunt Mary and that he needed to talk. And you know what's crazy about it, Tony? I didn't even think that was strange. I'd grown so accustomed to being his confidante that I actually listened to him. He had listened to me enough times since Daddy's death so I was doing what was expected of me." Angela shook her head at her own naiveté. "I was so stupid!"

"Hey, don't blame yourself, Angela! You were a child—Sam's age. Remember that! This guy was a slime, coming into your room in the middle of the night to talk about his marital problems. If some middle-aged guy tried that with Sam, I'd throw him out the window, on his head!" Tony said menacingly. He wished he'd been there to protect a teenaged Angela.

"The way it happened-I realize now that he planned it that way. He was crying, Tony. What the hell was I supposed to do? I'd never seen a grown man cry before and it scared me a bit. Uncle Lyle was crying on my bed, in the middle of the night so I put my arms around him to comfort him. He told me he loved my long, brown hair. That's when I started feeling uncomfortable!" And, she didn't add, the reason why she'd eventually dyed it blonde. "I told him that he should go back to Aunt Mary-he was stroking my hair-it felt wrong and I wanted him to go. Except he didn't leave. Instead, he reminded me that I'd wanted to marry him when I was six. He reminded me that I was his special friend and told me that sometimes special friends did special things for each other." Angela had to pause again and catch her breath. She observed Tony's hands curling into fists, his eyes narrowed in rage.

"Tony, are you going to be okay hearing this? Maybe I should stop now. You already know what happened next." Reliving the night of her rape wasn't easy and Angela wanted to stop. She'd avoided thinking about it for twenty-one years after all.

"Angela, as hard as it is for me to hear this, I'm sure it's a hell of a lot harder for you to tell it. I can . . . I can handle it", he uttered painfully. "I just want to go kill the guy with my bare hands!"

"He's already dead. Been dead for years", she informed him. Angela felt numb and detached again, the way she usually felt when reminders of Lyle came up. Once the panic and horror subsided, her survival instincts took over, disconnecting her from her pain.

"Just tell me the rest of it", Tony blurted out as he braced himself for her dreadful account.

Angela watched Tony for a moment, noting his determined jaw and the agony in his eyes. "Tony, there isn't much more to tell. He forced himself on me. It's like Lyle disappeared and this monster took over. He didn't listen to me when I told him to stop, when I cried, when it hurt . . . he didn't care. He just wanted what he wanted." Her delivery was monotone, her voice dull and devoid of emotion. "Well he did reassure me of one thing—he told me he'd had a vasectomy. Except, I didn't even know what that was. I was so innocent."

Tony stared at her aghast and confused. He wanted to comfort her but she sat immobile like a block of marble, untouchable. He reached out to give her a hug but she flinched.

"Don't", she warned him. If he touched her, she'd lose it and give into her tumultuous emotions. Right now, they were right where they needed to be-distant and locked away.

"But Angela . . .", he began, needing to comfort her. He needed comfort himself. Just imagining what she must have gone through made him feel ill.

Angela cut him off, "So now you know. And you'll keep Samantha safe; that's why I told you. Mother had no idea that Lyle was dangerous. None of us knew. You have to be vigilant and protect Sam. Because nobody protected me."

"Angela, don't you think you ought to tell Mona about this?" Tony couldn't understand how a fourteen year old girl had kept this to herself, even from her own mother.

"No!" Angela sat up straighter. "No, I'm not telling her Tony. She'll blame herself and I can't do that to her. She wasn't functioning properly—I already told you that. Promise me that you won't tell anybody, Tony." Angela was adamant. She did not want her mother to know; she feared the knowledge would destroy her.

"But . . . but" Tony stammered in protest.

"Promise! Tony, promise me. Please. Don't make me regret telling you this." Angela swallowed hard, a lump forming in her throat at the thought of Tony betraying her confidence.

"Alright. I won't say a word", he grudgingly agreed to her conditions. "But I think that Mona would want to know. If it were Samantha, I'd want to know!"

"Are you sure, Tony? Because if you found out twenty-one years after the fact and learned that you hadn't been able to keep your daughter safe, would you really want to know it?" Angela challenged him.

"I . . . I don't know. But I'd want to commit murder, Angela." He grasped her hand then, needing to acknowledge her ordeal in some way that didn't make her flinch. "Angela, how did you get away from him? I mean, you were stuck at his vacation home with him."

Angela looked away from him and pulled her hand back. "I didn't get away. We were there for several days. I couldn't call Mother to pick me up because she would have been suspicious. And I couldn't tell Aunt Mary because it would have devastated her. I endured it for three days."

No, she couldn't possibly mean. Tony felt sick, truly nauseated. "Angela, are you saying that Lyle did this to you again?" He was silently pleading in his head for her to say no. But she just nodded at him, her face pale and grim.

"Yes, Tony. I locked the door but he had the key. On the third night, I didn't even bother fighting back; I just . . . let him. It was over more quickly that way. He'd come in, do his thing and then leave to go back to his wife. To this day, I wonder if she suspected anything." Angela shook her head in defeat. "Tony, during the day, he was extra nice to me. He knocked me off balance. He knew he had a good victim in me, that I wouldn't say anything. But I threw out all the gifts he bought me—he was treating me like a mistress."

"A mistress? But you were Sam's age. You were a little girl. Angela, you should have told his wife. Told somebody! That creep should have gone to jail!"

"It was 1965 Tony! I had no idea what to do. It's not like there were public service announcements about sexual predators. There was no Oprah Winfrey informing the masses! I thought I was the only one. And I felt guilty, like it was partly my fault!" Angela's emotions were beginning to surface now; their intensity crashing through her tough protective defense mechanisms.

"What? How could you think it was your fault?" Tony was thrown.

"Because I'd had a crush on him! I'd let him get close to me after Daddy's death. I'd let him into my heart, my confidence. I so desperately missed Daddy that I let Uncle Lyle take his place. That was wrong! I shouldn't have confided in him. I shouldn't have let him hug me so tightly all those times that he did. But I wanted his attention—craved it. He made me feel better and I sought him out!" Years of repressed guilt and shame poured out of Angela. Like a tidal wave of grief, it washed over her and she gasped, suddenly unable to breathe.

"Oh Angela. You think that because you needed a father figure, that it gave Lyle permission to abuse you the way he did? No! No, this was not your fault!" Tony shouted. "Don't you see, Angela . . . if I died and some old guy befriended Samantha and hurt her, it wouldn't be her fault. Can you see that? Can you?!" He had to make her see it.

"I don't know, Tony. I just don't know. But I felt so ashamed. I was shy about my body; I'd only recently hit puberty. For him to see me and touch me …" a small sob escaped her as she remembered how utterly helpless and humiliated she'd felt when Lyle had lifted up her nightgown. She'd desperately tried to push it back down, slapping his hands away, even biting him. But that had only earned her a hard slap. She cringed at the memory-the painful emotions etched on her face.

"Angela, it wasn't your fault. What Lyle did to you was terrible, criminal. And I wish I'd been there. I wish I'd been there to rescue you and to kill him. I'm so sorry this happened to you. Angela, it breaks my heart that you went through this." Tony wasn't one to cry. He'd almost lost it in front of Angela once before when she'd helped him clean out his father's apartment two years ago at Christmas. But he couldn't hold it back now, and he wouldn't—out of respect for her suffering. He was grieving for her innocence lost, the broken trust, the poor fatherless girl who had just wanted to be loved. As a father himself, it made him want to punch through the wall.

"Angela, I'm going to keep repeating it until you believe it—it was not your fault! You were just a kid. He took advantage of the fact that you missed your father! He was a sick son of a bitch." Tony didn't bother wiping the tears that were flowing freely down his cheeks. He wanted Angela to see them—to understand how upset he was by this. "And I want you to know", he continued his voice cracking painfully, "that I don't see you any differently. In fact, I have a whole new admiration for you, Angela. You survived this. Look at you now. You're the strongest woman I know!" Tony slowly and gently stroked her cheek. He didn't want her to flinch again. "You're strong and you did nothing wrong. You were just a kid, Angela. He wronged you. It was all his fault. Doesn't matter if you had a little crush on him or needed him to help you after your father's death. He had no right. He had no right to touch you that way."

"I did bite him, you know? And I fought back, hard. But I couldn't stop him." Angela hid her face in her hands in a symbolic attempt to erase away the brutal recollection. Lyle slapping her had shocked her even more than his kisses. She chewed hard on her lip and looked up again. Tony was crying in solidarity with her. The sad look on his face tore at her heart and she burst into tears herself. She needed him now, as an antidote to the horrible memories.

"Tony …", she gasped, as she reached out for him. She practically threw herself against him needing to feel his arms around her. He hugged her back tightly and protectively. "You didn't do anything wrong, Angela. It wasn't your fault", he repeated to her. They held each other fiercely, arms entwined around each other.

"You're a fighter, Angela. You did get away. You got away from him in the end."

"Yes, Tony. I did. I went to Montague Academy and got fat …", she let out a small tearful chuckle.

"Yeah but look at you now! You're amazing, Angela." Tony let go of her so he could look into her eyes. "Angela, I'm honored that you told me this secret. I will never betray your trust. You are a survivor and I respect you tremendously. That you could survive this and become who you've become! I'm proud to call you my best friend. And you can always count on me to be yours."

"Ooooh Tony", she said with tears in her eyes. "You're such a good man. I couldn't have asked for a better friend than you. Thank you, Tony. Thank you for listening and not judging. And for taking such good care of me during this flu. You're the best man I know." It didn't occur to Angela that her boyfriend Geoffrey would have desired this designation. Geoffrey was the furthest thing from her mind—she had a new best friend and he was the most important man in her life.

Stay tuned for Angela's confrontation with Jim Peterson.