A/N- I've had this chapter written for a while. I kept trying to add something before it. Other townspeople, Colorado, Garret and his friends, Detective Blake, Liz. In the end, it seemed right not to draw this out. To just post it. That being said, Danger Will Robinson. I make it fairly obvious early on where this is going, but I know a little of this topic may be too much for some. I did leave it general, second-hand.
Disclaimer- Gilmore Girls and the characters associated with the show are not mine.
Chapter Twelve: Saturday, Three PM- Patty
He left. Jess glared at him, and he two days later, he left. It's a good thing because I think Bart was going to show him how it feels to be beat. Bart's nice. I wonder if he likes me?
Ms. Patty wandered back and forth in front of the house. He'd heard she was cutting down on her smoking, but in the time spent trying to decide whether to come up or not, she'd already had three. Garret was counting as he watched her from the living room window. Sighing, he stood and knocked on the office door again.
"So, Patty is outside pacing. I'm guessing she wants to talk to you," Garret said, hoping Jess would leave the office. Rory was putting some time in at Truncheon 2, and Jess had been hiding since lunch. "Can I go to the square?" Garret asked, wanting to get out of the house himself.
"Sure, take your cell and be back before dinner. Patty?"
"Yeah, Patty. I'll call if I go anywhere besides the square," Garret added.
"Yeah, it's Stars Hollow, but," Jess trailed off. Truthfully, he'd never asked Garret to call before when plans changed in the Hollow. It was a safe place, but today, Jess wanted to know where Garret was at all times. Just like Rory. When she'd left to go to work, he'd made her promise to call if she went anywhere else too. It was irrational, he knew, but it didn't seem to matter. And Rory, like Garret, understood.
"It's okay big brother. We keep tabs on each other. It's what makes this family special. Mom's called me twice today, just to check in, and dad called me once. I wouldn't dare leave without the cell." Jess chuckled.
"Yeah, Lorelai would call out the National Guard if she couldn't reach you. Send Patty inside on your way out," Jess added, as Garret headed out the front door with his sketch pad and a football, obviously hoping to meet up with his friends. Jess nodded to himself. It was good Garret had friends and enjoyed so many different activities. Jess watched Patty approaching the door, holding it open for her.
"Hey Patty, would you like some coffee?" Jess asked as she took off her coat and draped it across a chair.
"If you make it an Irish," Patty replied. As the most prolific gossip in Stars Hollow, she knew she had to visit Jess, she had information he needed, she just wasn't sure she was ready to say any of it. The town had failed, and to talk about it, was to admit it, and her part in it. Which was even worse.
Jess nodded. If she wasn't so serious, he might have smirked, but he had the sense Patty might spook.
"Let's go into the library then. Would you like something to eat? Sookie dropped off some sort of pumpkin dessert earlier," Jess asked, as he started the ridiculously expensive coffee machine Emily had given Rory for her birthday last year, reaching into the little fridge hidden under the small bar for cream. At the time Richard suggested it, Jess thought it was an odd addition for the library, but they used the refrigerator daily. Patty wandered the library, running her fingers across the books, and furniture.
"That sounds wonderful, but the coffee is enough," she said, stopping by a sofa table placed behind the couch. It was cherry wood, the legs lathed in a quirky pattern, but it was the top which was truly spectacular. Different colors and sizes of wood had been fitted together along one side to resemble books on a shelf. Above, there was a quote carved in script, and painted with a gold gilding to make it stand out.
"Few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart. Those first images, the echo of words we think we have left behind, accompany us throughout our lives and sculpt a palace in our memory…C. ."
"Is this one of Dean's pieces?" Patty asked, after reading the quote aloud.
"Yes. It was sort of a thank you gift from Dean for sending him to fix up Shane's house," Jess replied, with only the slightest smirk. Dean had moved in with Shane and they were planning a February wedding. "Here you go," Jess passed Patty her drink, and took a seat on the couch. He watched as Patty finally wandered over to a chair and lowered herself down. He could tell, she was still reluctant to be there.
"I'm glad you came, I would have come to find you."
"I know. I wanted to get here first, but I had a class. We failed her, the town, we didn't know it till it was too late, but that's no excuse is it? We failed her. Not like we failed you, the town failed her and she was only a child. I failed her."
"You're rambling Patty, start at the beginning," Jess said. Patty took a large sip of her drink, staring down at the floor. Jess wondered if she was wishing she could lose herself in the patterns of the hardwood.
"I guess the beginning is always the best place to start," Patty replied. "Add some more fire to this coffee and I'll tell you everything I know." Jess stood, moved to the wet bar and brought the bottle back to Patty. As he passed her the whiskey, he noticed his hand was shaking. Steeling himself, he watched as she took a large drink out of the bottle with her eyes closed against the burn in her throat. Sitting himself down, he waited for her to begin.
"There was a family in the house next door to the Dane's. A couple and their only child. He was a great kid. Pleasant, happy, smart as a whip. Had a bright future ahead of him. He was the Homecoming King, the Quarterback, an Eagle Scout, and the Valedictorian. He could have petitioned for a college exemption, but he was willing. He was willing to fight for his country, so he enlisted and went to Vietnam as soon as he graduated. He was there for several years before coming home. He'd been wounded, and held captive for a while before escaping. It was toward the end of the war, really, less were going over, and men were coming home every day. We honored him. We threw a welcome home party," Patty scoffed, and standing, wandered around the room. Jess watched her with narrowed eyes, trying to figure out the timeline. His knowledge of Vietnam was scarce.
"So Liz would have been what? Eight?" he asked, feeling sick to his stomach. He had a feeling he knew where this was headed.
"It was '72, so she was six. Six years old. Jesus. Anyway, he came back wrong. No one knew how wrong till much, much later. About six years later. God this is hard. This is so hard, Jess. Admitting my part in this to you. I like you. What you did last winter for Rory, even the stunts you pulled as a teen. I like you, and everything is going to change. After I tell you this, you'll," Patty paused, shaking her head slowly, gathering herself. Jess was tense, but not moving, watching her with those eyes which always saw too much. She knew there would be no forgiveness here, but it had to be said. Thirty some years too late. It still needed to be said, it was time to open the curtains and finish this show. "You see, I didn't believe her. When she came to me, I didn't believe her. I didn't want to believe her. It was easier not to," gripping the back of her chair, knuckles white, Patty let the tears stream down her face. Jess waited. There was nothing else he could do, although he wanted to yell for her to just spit it out, get on with it, he knew she'd run. So he sat, his stomach rolling, and waited.
"When she was ten, I noticed her moving stiffly in dance class, so afterwards, I pulled her aside. I pulled her aside and asked why she was dancing like she had a corncob up her butt," Patty cringed, moved to take another slug out of the bottle, winced, and very slowly, twisted the cap back on. She was staring at the wall of books, but Jess knew she wasn't seeing them. "She said she hurt. I asked why. She said 'sometimes, when she played house with Mike it hurt.' I told her not to be ridiculous, and her lying was going to get her into trouble some day. I told her I, of all people, understood wanting the spotlight, but making something like that up for attention was not the way to do it. I couldn't imagine it. Couldn't fathom it, couldn't believe it. I'm not excusing it, but back then, no one knew the signs, what to look for. No one talked about it. I convinced myself she had fallen on something, out when she wasn't supposed to be or where she wasn't supposed to be, and was trying to stay out of trouble. She never said anything again, and eventually, she quit coming to dance altogether. I did watch though. Something changed in me, the idea of it being a possibility, and I watched Mike. I never ever saw anything to lead me to believe he was spending anytime with her at all. I think that's when I started to really pay attention to the townspeople, although I didn't start gossiping till later. Life went on. Life in Stars Hollow went on, and Liz changed. I, and everyone else, attributed it to her mother's death which happened around the same time. She withdrew into herself. No one saw much of her. She quit hanging out with her friends, stayed in her own back yard," Patty sat down in the chair and wiped her tears off her face.
Gripping the arm of the couch with one hand, and his leg with the other, Jess took in a shuddering breath.
"What happened next?" Jess managed to force the words past his teeth. He had asked, he wanted to know, and he knew there was more. But he was angry, he was so angry at Patty. He wanted to throw her out. A child, a ten year old, disclosed abuse, and was accused of lying, blown off. God, the courage it must have taken to say it to an adult, to reach out, and then to be blown off. Accused of lying. Everything in her must have shut down. Shut down, gone dark. He could imagine she was devastated, floored by the disbelief. She would have felt completely alone in the world. He never had the courage to admit to the physical abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother's boyfriends. Hell, he hadn't admitted to it fully till Rory encouraged him to talk, to write, to open up. "Tell me," he said, instinctively knowing the story wasn't complete.
"What I'm going to tell you now only a few people know. Luke, his father, they never knew. Taylor, myself and the town elders were the only ones aware. And a Doctor in Litchfield," Patty stopped, hung her head, and played with the ends of the scarf she was wearing. Jess thought he'd strangle her with it if she didn't speed this up. He could picture himself pulling the ends of the multicolored scarf tight around her neck. Shutting his eyes against the violent images, he almost missed her whispers.
"I was in the dance studio one night, late, practicing a new number I was choreographing for a show in New York. Lifting the needle to restart the record, I heard a cry in the alley. Opening the backdoor, I was surprised to see Liz. She was holding herself around the stomach, crying. I'd noticed that she'd put on some weight, but I thought it was because she wasn't dancing anymore. It wasn't. She was twelve, twelve and pregnant. Giving birth in the alley behind the studio, and she didn't know. She had no clue what was happening to her. She wasn't very big, and the style at the time was loose shirts and pants which, back then, were almost always polyester with elastic waists. There was a lot of stretch. She was naturally concealed in the seventies style. Hell, it took me a half an hour to figure out she was having contractions. She just knew she was in pain and nobody was supposed to know," Patty paused, took deep gulping breaths and continued. "I didn't know what to do, but I knew then, what she told me was true, so I pulled her inside, and called Taylor. His father was an elder, he'd bragged about it one day to me. How he would follow in his families footsteps. They came over, loaded her up into their car and we took her to the Doctor in Litchfield. He delivered the baby boy, it was premature and stillborn. I told them what I knew, and they questioned her," Patty trailed off, finding the courage to look at Jess. He was white as a ghost and by the tightness around his lips and eyes, he was angry. Very angry.
"I was there, in the room, holding her hand, and I heard everything. At first, she said, she didn't understand it was bad, what they'd been doing. She didn't know it was wrong. She had a playhouse, and he'd sneak into it. He brushed her hair, and had tea parties with her. She thought they were playing house. Playing mommy and daddy. Sometimes it hurt, but it was confusing because it also could feel good. She didn't know they were playing house wrong till she played with Carrie and her other friends. That's when she knew, but when she tried to put a stop to it, to make him play right, he told her he'd kill Luke. He was a man, and she knew he'd killed before as a soldier, he talked about it sometimes, and he'd get scary looking. He showed her his gun. So she let him keep touching her. He also said he'd kill Luke and her dad if she told anyone. She didn't tell. She believed him. He told her she would be in just as much trouble as him because she liked it. Besides, she'd already tried to tell me and I accused her of lying, so she knew he was right. No one would believe her anyway. I was sick, vomiting in the garbage can next to the bed as she told her story."
"Then what?" Jess's harsh whisper cut the air. Patty flinched, but continued.
"Then the elders met, and we went to Mike's house. I wasn't as involved in the town back then. I was trying my damndest to get out, make it big in the city. I felt like I was being dragged around from place to place as a witness, but it turned out I had a part to play too. The elders told his parents, and said they needed to leave Stars Hollow. Mike heard the conversation and put his gun in his mouth. He killed himself rather than face his parents or the town. We weren't sorry he did it. I was glad for Liz's sake he was dead, and we didn't allow him to be buried in the cemetery. His parents moved away. But the damage was done. I failed her. I failed your mother, and the town failed her. Someone should have seen something, noticed. I should have believed her. After everything, we tried to go on as normal. The elders convinced her it would be better to never speak of it again. They convinced her to let me claim the child as mine. I'd already acquired something of a reputation, you see, having been divorced, and dating many of the single men in town. The baby is buried in the cemetery under the name Lucas LaCosta. She wanted me to name him after her brother. I leave flowers for him. She agreed to everything the elders wanted."
"She was fucking twelve! She didn't know what she was agreeing to!" Jess yelled, standing and pacing, bumping into the table, knocking the whiskey bottle to the floor. "You can't sweep something like that under a rug! She was fucking twelve! She should have had support, and closure beyond 'Oh look, he's dead, so see ya, pretend it never happened!' Get out of my house! Get the fuck out now!"
"I'm sorry Jess, I'm so sorry," Patty said. Jess calmed himself as he watched Patty stumble from the room. Following her, he caught her trailing scarf, catching her attention.
"Patty, I'll never forget what you did for me, and Rory, but this changes things. You're right, this changes everything, and I don't know if I'll ever be able to look at you the same way. She was a fucking child. They generally don't make shit like that up."
"I know, Jess. I have to live with it every damn day," Patty said, shutting the front door behind her. Jess held the scarf, running the soft material through his fingers, trying to lose himself in the colors, but the red, the deep red, opened the floodgates to his memories. Stumbling into the office, he sat at his computer and began to type.
A/N- An estimated 1 in 6 boys, and 1 in 4 girls in the United States have been sexually abused in some way. Apparently, the number has dropped since the 1990s