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| Part 8 |
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Could she have been misdiagnosed? Did she have chlamydia when Chloe was born? Could the E. coli lie dormant and be passed on to Chloe before or at birth? Did the hospital check Chloe for chlamydia? Denise didn’t know.
Because of that afternoon in July 1983, Denise sought counseling four years later, in 1987, from Ruth Stanton, a therapist. Denise asked Stanton to refer her to a group for rape counseling. Stanton did, but Denise didn’t go to the rape-crisis center until two more years had passed. It was, then, July 1989, six years after she was allegedly raped by her husband.
Wow, there’s a grudge, Bea thought. There’s probably not one married woman whose husband hasn’t entered her when she wasn’t in the mood. The courts would be full if they all yelled rape. Hell, there was no violence here, just naïve love-making.
Denise was not sure what Carol Tracy’s function was at the rape center other than being her group leader. When describing what happened at the Center, Denise waffled. “Wait a minute,” she said. “Wait a minute. I am getting confused here. I need some... some time to—” The changing light in a sky fighting off a storm punctuated the confusion in her face.
Bea let some time pass. Denise still didn’t speak up. While she waited, Bea wondered how Denise would react if and when the storm did hit and the tug began to roll a bit.
Bea finally said, “Go ahead. I am going to sit back and let you tell me.”
“I told Carol Tracy of an incident involving my husband, my daughter, and myself.” Then Denise went silent again. Eventually she said, “My daughter was standing beside my husband, and I was sitting across the room. My daughter used her hands to talk to me. And what her hands said was, ‘I have a secret I am not supposed to tell.’ Then her other hand said, ‘Dad said don’t tell.’
“At that point, Bill jumped up and said, ‘I know what she is talking about.’ He said it was a game they liked to play—the ‘hitting game’—when they got annoyed with each other. They’d scratch each other, he’d push and hold her down and kick her playfully. Then he said he knew it was wrong and that she hated it and he wasn’t going to do it anymore.’”
Bea said, “You were using your hands to show that Chloe was talking with her hands. It resembled signing for the deaf. Is this a particular language that you have developed to communicate?”
Denise answered, “No.”
“Could you clarify that for me, please?”
“From the time Chloe was very little, she used to make her hand talk when she didn’t want to. Her hand was like a puppet or something. I don’t know.”
Bea waited a few moments and then asked gently, “How did you know that Chloe had something to tell you?”
And after another few moments, Denise said, “She was using her hand like a puppet.”
“Right.”
“And she was talking.” I must have misunderstood, Bea thought, but she really didn’t think she had.
“And after you described to the group what happened that day, you brought her to Carol Tracy?”
“Yes.”
“Chloe went alone into the room to speak to Tracy. When Tracy came out, she told me there had to be a sexual-abuse investigation. I don’t remember exactly what she said to me. I was in shock,”
Denise said defensively, her fingers tightening. “At that point, I knew I had to protect Chloe from the possibility of any further sexual abuse until an investigation could be conducted.”
Why was Denise in shock? She had brought the child to a rape center, not to a doctor.
When Denise seemed calmer, Bea continued. “Do you know what Carol Tracy’s credentials are?”
“No. I don’t know anything about her credentials.”
Bea had hoped Denise knew something about this woman who was surely to be the fresh-complaint witness in the criminal case. Tracy had not answered the subpoena served on her for deposition, and a family court judge had refused to enforce it.
“Are you still going to the rape-crisis center now to group meetings?”
“No.”
“How long did you continue going to the group meetings?”
“The group was limited to twelve weeks.”
“Did a group member ask you about Chloe being abused?”
“Yes.”
“What question did she ask?”
“She asked whether I noticed that Chloe was abused.”
“Did you?”
Denise looked away for a long moment, time-traveling back to that day at the rape group.
“Why do you think you didn’t notice that your child was being abused?” one woman asked another.
Denise thought that was a difficult question. She hadn’t seen anything that made her think Chloe was being abused. At least she believed she hadn’t.
While the other woman was answering, Denise imperceptibly began recalling her own childhood.
Someone in the group said, “Denise? Denise, are you with us?”
She looked up, startled. “Yes, I’m listening.”
“Denise, why do you think you didn’t notice that your child was being abused?”
“She didn’t say anything to me.”
“If you were abused by your father, would you have said something to your mother?”
Denise hesitated. “No.”
“Why?”
“I wouldn’t want him to beat my mother if he thought she knew.”
“So you really didn’t expect your child to have told you.”
“I... I guess not.”
“So why do you think you didn’t notice that your child was being abused?”
“I didn’t hear any sounds.”
“Anything else?”
“I didn’t see any bruises.”
“So you can’t blame yourself, can you?”
“No, I guess not.”
“Good.”
Another woman spoke up. “I have a question for Denise.”
The group leader said, “Yes, what is your question?”
“Denise said her husband raped her. I want to ask if she was bruised?”
“Denise, do you mind being asked that question?”
“No.”
“So, were you bruised?
“No.”
“Did you make any sounds?”
“I told him no.”
“Do you think he loved you when he raped you?” the woman asked, looking at the leader for approval.
Denise didn’t wait for the leader to ask her if she wanted to answer. She went ahead and answered, “No. I don’t think he loved me when he raped me.”
“Why?”
“Because he wasn’t spending enough time with me. He was busy with everything else, sports and working out.”
“Do you think he loved your child when he raped her?”
“Yes.”
“Why do you think he loved her?”
“She was the apple of his eye.”
Bea was looking for a pattern to Denise’s extended silences. It appeared the woman didn’t want to lie, but then again, she didn’t want to confess either. Then she saw a glint in Denise’s eyes, which she took as a signal to ask another question. “In the meantime, you were still going to Ruth Stanton every other week?”
“Yes.”
“What were you discussing with Ruth Stanton?” Bea asked.
“Any problems or concerns I have about Chloe.”
“And what have those problems and concerns been?”
“Nightmares.”
Atypically, Denise moved suddenly. “Wait a minute. The only thing I’m thinking right now is— Wait. I’m sorry. I’m just going to have to—” For the first time, Denise became agitated, but her face still remained like stone.
Watching her intensely, Bea enjoyed the play of light on Denise’s angular cheekbones from a sudden distant strike of lightning. Like a Wyeth. “Do you want to take a break again for a few minutes?”
“I just want two minutes,” Denise said.
“No problem.”
Bea was sure Denise realized she began discussing what she had told to Ruth Stanton. She was worried about the curtain of confidentiality opening wider. She had already spoken to all the social workers from Rachel Gidseg of DSS, the baseball-bat lady, to Heather Bruce, the visitation supervisor and, of course, to Leavitt. Denise had had a chance to influence each and every one of them before or after the child was seen or interviewed. It wasn’t only Leavitt with whom Mother had planted stories.
The darkening sky didn’t help Denise. She had to consult with Aguilar. He’d been caught off guard and failed to object.
15 - Saint Bea
Bea unhappily agreed to taking a break then. She did so because she wanted to keep her relationship with Denise as nonthreatening as possible. She hoped Aguilar was not teaching the basset hound tricks about nightmares.
It wasn’t only that the chemistry was all wrong between Aguilar and Bea. She was disturbed at how assimilated he’d become with Denise, to the extent that he was jeopardizing the lives of the Abernathys. All three of them.
As she added ice cubes to the water pitcher she’d grabbed off the depo table, she considered that he didn’t intend to harm them, but by accepting the rubber-stamping by the social workers, by not sitting down with Bea and openly sharing the information in the reports and evaluating it together as responsible professionals, he may as well have had the intent.
Then of herself Bea thought, You’re so quick to judgment. Maybe he accepted Denise’s rape story too readily at face value and never bothered ask the details. He had sat quietly while Bea was pulling the story from Denise. No objections to spousal conversations. What did Denise say? What did Bill say? No objections. Of course! Aguilar never heard the story before either. He was as curious about it as I was. Will he change after today, or will he continue to play hardball?
She wondered what she'd have done if she were representing Denise and if Aguilar's role and hers were reversed, whether she'd be the Devil and he the Saint.
16 - Confrontation
Back at the deposition, Bea asked Denise, “In addition to concerns about Chloe’s nightmares at the time, did you have any other problems and concerns that you told Kristin Uhler or Heather about?”
“Yes. Chloe wouldn’t sleep in her bedroom. She asked me if she was going to have a baby.”
She paused. “Chloe was scared sometimes by things her father had said to her during the supervised visits. I felt Bill was being aggressive with her.”
“In what way?”
“He would take stuffed animals and make them attack Chloe. He’d pick up toy guns and pretend to shoot her. He’d become growling wild animals trying to bite her. She was having trouble getting to sleep at night.”
“Anything else?”
“That’s all I can think of.”
Denise claimed she and Chloe had told these things to the social workers when they came to the house. And the social workers told Denise, “Chloe was playing aggressively with her father and complained she didn’t like it when her father patted her on the head.”
“Anything else?”
“Chloe told her father not to scare her by growling. She pretended to be a cat, and Bill told her he was going to cut her up for cat stew.”
Aguilar would not allow Denise to discuss any information told to her therapist, Ruth Stanton, with the exception of her drinking history. Beer, wine, and occasionally a vodka martini were her preferences.
“My drinking did not interfere with my ability to work or drive a car,” Denise said, “but it became a problem after Chloe was born. I started drinking quite heavily, about a six-pack a night.”
Chloe was on a bottle or formula, not breastfed. After guzzling the six-pack, Denise would wake with a hangover. Sometimes she ate dinner, sometimes not. Because Chloe slept late, Denise did too.
When Chloe woke, so would Denise.
Denise denied Bill’s claim that she never took Chloe outside. “I went out in the good weather. A couple of times I took Chloe out in the backyard... shopping.” This was in 1984 when Chloe was an infant before she was crawling around. In 1985, Denise took her “for a walk around the block.” And in 1986, the walks were longer.
She categorically denied that she never pulled up the blinds.
“Let’s go back to the alcohol. What other problems did it cause besides the waking up with the hangover?”
“Depression.” Bea was surprised by her admission. Aguilar had objected so strenuously when Leavitt had mentioned it. She didn’t say what she did when she felt depressed, but she did say it was a daily thing. It manifested itself, she said, by a lack of energy, feeling sad, and having some difficulty concentrating.
After that Saturday in July when she conceived Chloe, she continued to have intercourse with Bill, but it fell off sharply to only once a month for the next several months. As her pregnancy advanced, she didn’t desire sexual intercourse as she had prior to that date. Around six or seven weeks after Chloe’s birth, she and Bill resumed sexual intercourse, but it was infrequently, not more than two or three times a year until 1986.
“I didn’t feel at all the same way about intercourse with him.”
In 1986, Denise moved out of their bedroom, after which there was “nothing, no sexual intercourse at all. Bill didn’t approach me sexually as often after Chloe was born either,” Denise said, surprising Bea.
“Did you tell him to?”
“Yes. When we did have intercourse, I initiated it.”
“You made the first move?”
“Yes, I made the sexual overtures,” Denise answered quickly. “Other than that—”
“Did he know, though, you didn’t like it as much as you did prior because of that Saturday afternoon?”
“I don’t know, but after July 1983, I often told him I thought about that rape.”
“So when he didn’t initiate intimacy, did you ever consider it was out of fear that you’d say he raped you again?”
“No. But I didn’t do it often... only every couple of months.”
“Now, at the time you were thirty-four, in the prime of womanhood. Was that all your sexual need was? Or did you have sexual needs, but you simply were shy or reticent about asking your own husband for sexual companionship, except once every couple of months?”
“I had sexual needs. But to me, intercourse with Bill became— It was not pleasurable any more. It was scary to open myself up to him.”
“So when you made overtures to him every couple of months, sexual overtures, did you do it because you wanted him, because you had a sexual need, or because you felt it was your wifely duty?”
“Primarily because I felt if we had no sexual intercourse, then we had no marriage.”
“So you felt it was sort of your wifely duty to him in the old-fashioned Victorian sense?”
“I wanted to try to find some way to try to be close to him.”
“Were you still talking to him about rape, though?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever tell him you loved him?”
“When?”
“At that time when you wanted to be close to him again? Would you say, ‘Bill, Dear, I really still love you, I have a problem, I am depressed, I am drinking, I have hangovers in the morning, we have lost something, we used to have fun together, we used to play together?’”
“I’m sorry. I don’t understand your question.”
“Have you ever had a conversation with him like that?”
“Did I confront him about—”
“No, did you ever talk to him about that?” There’s her problem. She equates talking with confrontation.
“About what? I don’t understand.”
“You just told me you wanted to recapture your marriage?”
“Yes.”
“You wanted to get close to him again. Did you ever have a conversation with him like that? Did you ever say, ‘Bill, I still love you’? Did you ever say, ‘We used to have such a good time together’ or ‘I want to save our marriage’ or ‘We should try to save our marriage’ or ‘I still want to be warm and playful with you’? Did you ever say anything like that to him?”
“I had conversations with him concerning the fact that our marriage was in trouble,” Denise said in a very definitive, matter-of-fact voice. Her body remained stiff, her shoulders never really moving, her hands clasped on the table.
“And you remained in separate bedrooms until you sought a restraining order to get him out of the house, isn’t that true?”
“Yes.”
“Were you originally upset when you found out you were pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“And that was because you were concerned about your career?”
Denise did not respond.
“Is that why?”
“No, because I was raped and impregnated.”
Bea did a double take, trying to understand the logic of what Denise had just said. She didn’t return to work after giving birth because she was raped and impregnated the previous year—even though she had worked six months or so after having become pregnant.
“By the time you had the child, were you accepting of the fact you were pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“So you were pleased when she was born?”
“I had mixed emotions when she was born.”
“And do you feel somewhat similarly now? You have mixed emotions?”
“She has been a great blessing in my life.”
“And when did you go from thinking it was a mixed emotion to when you began considering she was really a blessing? How old was she?”
“I loved her and cared for her from the moment she was born.”
Because Bill was alleging that Denise’s lack of socialization affected Chloe, Bea inquired about Denise’s friendships.
Denise acknowledged she had one close, best friend, a woman whom she had known for a year and had met at one of the groups. “I am not going to give you her name.”
Although Denise was attracted to neither men nor women sexually now, she denied being asexual also.
“You are thirty-eight now. Do you still feel any sexual needs at all?”
“Yes.”
“And how do you sublimate those?”
No response.
“Or do you?”
“Taking care of Chloe and trying to deal with my divorce and all of the stresses involved with having a child who has been sexually abused in an incestuous situation leaves me not a whole lot of time or desire to pursue any sexual needs.”
“So this case and the rape is rather all-encompassing in your life at this moment?”
“Yes.”
Denise’s pronounced loneliness took Bea off guard. After a much-needed cigarette break, she took the time to explore who else was filling what still appeared to be gaping holes in Denise’s life.
It became clear that Denise’s relationships with her biological family members were even more fragile than Bill had recounted. She’d been friendly with her mother and her older sister, Sheila, but over the years her relationship with Sheila had fallen apart. Denise didn’t know why. She’d never been close to her twin brother, nor to her younger sister.
But Bea was not ready for the surprise of Denise’s claim that she’d always been close with her dad and was closer then than she’d been ever before. Had Denise become once again the apple of her daddy’s eye? Is that why Denise didn’t want to get pregnant?
Despite the unexplained distances between them, Denise had told her sisters and brother about the divorce, the MSPCC involvement, and the allegations about abuse. But she didn’t know whether her siblings still liked Bill, although they had when she and he were together. Upon “suggestion” of her counsel, ultimately Denise refused to say anything more than her family believed the abuse had occurred.
There was also very little, if any, interaction between Mother and child: Denise shared descriptions of Chloe’s activities, but nowhere did they include any shared activities. Chloe’s activities included watching television cartoons, children’s videos, and game shows. Chloe also had all kinds of books, including fairy tales, and ABC Books. Some she picked out at the library; some Denise bought her.
“Recently she’s liked stories about Clifford the Big Red Dog. She just got a book, Dirty Harry. That’s a children’s series.”
“Any particular stories she likes where she learns how chickens hatch from an egg for instance?”
Perhaps Denise had heard about Leavitt’s deposition, for she assiduously avoided answering the question.
Bea tried again. “And again, in the ABC series, does that show the chickens and eggs?”
No response.
“Have you described it to her or anything like that?”
“Described what.”
“How little chickens come from eggs?”
No response.
“She drew a picture once of a chicken laying an egg, and I was just curious where she learned that,” Bea said.
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“Does she have any little animals, a pet, a hamster, for instance?”
“We have two kittens.”
Denise thought Chloe, who loved drawing and coloring with paints and magic markers and crayons, was artistic, but she didn’t know whether Chloe could be an artist.
Bea probed this area in case Aguilar was going to try to elicit Leavitt’s opinion at trial that Chloe was exhibiting regressive behavior.
At the end of the line of inquiry, it was clear that Denise bought toys for Chloe that encouraged solitary, sedentary activities: coloring books, Crayons, modeling clay, stuffed animals, a toy piano. Bill bought her toys that encouraged social and physical activities: a kitty costume, a toy gun, a table Ping-Pong game, a doll house, a train set, punching bag with boxing gloves, soccer ball.
Around one o’clock, the usual disagreement between Bea and Aguilar occupied all-too-many precious minutes over whether he would bring Denise back for a second day of deposition.
17 - Time Away
Messages about Bea’s other cases had piled up. She grabbed an antipasto and got on the phone.
“Hi, Jacqui. What’s up?”
“Y’know, my son saw Nick’s truck out in front of his work. I’m sure he’s being paid under the table. That no-good blankety-blank. I told you the minute we’d get a court date, he’d pretend he was laid off.”
“Yeah, so it all came true.”
Nick had been working for the same company for twenty-five years. His boss had laid him off so that he could get a decrease in the amount of temporary alimony he had to pay. As soon as the court made its decision on the alimony, Nick’s boss would put him back on the payroll.
“What are we going to do?”
“Jacqui, I told you. You have to hire someone to follow him and be prepared to testify in court that they’ve seen him on the job.”
“I can’t afford it.”
“Well, ask your daughter. She can. And she will. You know that.”
“I don’t want to ask her.”
“Look, I’m busy today. Talk it over with her. Please. I’ll speak to you in a few days. Stay calm. I may be able to show a pattern.” Jacqui had bigger problems than her husband which made her a nervous wreck.
“Hi, David. You called?”
“Bea, I have to change that mediation date.”
“Until when? Not too far ahead, I hope.” While David suggested half-a-dozen dates, which Bea wrote down, she chewed on a piece of salami and feta cheese. “I want to move this case,” she mumbled with her mouth full. “Give me $75,000 and we’re through with it.”
David laughed and they compared schedules.
“Luis Correia, please.” While she was waiting, Bea thought of the mess Luis was in. He had sole custody of his son, was disabled, and was using his disability as an excuse to keep a permanent buzz on. Portuguese wine, he said, was a necessity with Portuguese food. How could Bea keep him out of his car, alive, and out of jail at the same time? That adorable child would be better off—and safer—in Portugal with relatives than here in his father’s car.
“Hello?”
“Luis? Bea Archibald here, returning your call.”
“Miz Archibald, I have to go to Portugal for 3 months.”
“Three months. Luis, I don’t know how many times the court will continue this case for you. I might be able to pull it off for you one more time, but I’m sure after that, they’ll default you. Why don’t you stay in Portugal? Then you don’t have to worry about it anymore!”
“Miz Archibald, this one more time.”
Bea sat back and appreciated her antipasto. Delicious, but no time to finish it now. Later, when Denise’s deposition is over. I might even have a glass of wine with it.
18 - The Kittens
Chloe was back in school. What were Denise’s current intentions regarding going back to work? This was, of course, a question asked for alimony purposes. The court would determine whether Denise would receive alimony, and if so, how much. How much would come from her and how much from him?
Bea didn’t want to argue that Denise was bonkers because then the court would excuse her from working and Bill would have to support her ad infinitum, if he didn’t end up in prison. So she had to be sure Denise wasn’t going to rely on some kind of disability as an excuse to avoid having to go back to work. She wanted Denise just unfit enough not to be the custodial parent. A tightrope!
Denise’s response was evasive: she avoided saying what she “intended” to do. She said, instead, that she didn’t have any definite arrangements. Bea pressed and got her to admit that if she did work, she could expect to earn five hundred and sixty dollars a week gross for a forty-hour week.
“So you are not disabled for any reason now? That is, you don’t have any disability because of the depression or anything else like that?”
“No.”
Denise then denied that she was still depressed and that she ever had a traumatic event like a nervous breakdown next to the Coke machine in front of friends at college.
“How do you spend your day now?”
“Chloe just started school. I walk her to school in the morning. I do my food shopping or I go to group meetings.”
Bea had Denise run through her meetings: A group meeting once a week with mothers of sexually abused children. A meeting every other week with her therapist, Ruth Stanton. Food shopping once a week. AA meetings two or three times a week. Since Bill didn’t arrive for visitation until two o’clock on Saturdays, Denise took Chloe with her to the Saturday AA meetings.
“So what do you do with the other four mornings?”
“I pick up the house, watch TV, read a book, pat the kittens.”
She pats the kittens! “What books do you read?”
“A lot of different books.
She was reading Catch 22 and a book of short mystery stories. True crime books interested her, but romance novels didn’t usually. She never watched soap operas, but watched the occasional talk show.
“I don’t usually have the TV on in the mornings.”
Bea covered the financial questions fairly quickly. They were meaningless if Bill were convicted on the charge of rape of child. Bea then resumed with a substance abuse question, hoping to catch Denise off guard. Denise didn’t abuse any substance other than alcohol, and the last time she’d had a drink was almost three years ago.
When Bea, still looking for a handle, began probing Denise’s childhood, Aguilar yelled, “I object.
What is going on here?” His shouts reverberated off the walls of the enclosed deck. The glass shook.
Bea glared at him. “You absolutely scared me. Why? Oh, my goodness! You made me jump!”
“What relevance does it have what the teacher gave her a star for? This is a deposition in a divorce, not what she did as an elementary student.”
“There are a lot of psychological issues in this. Let me worry about it.”
“I object.” He looked at Denise. “Don’t answer the question. It is totally irrelevant.”
“It is not.”
“Convince a judge otherwise,” Aguilar said.
“Okay,” Bea said in defiance.
“Okay. Then you can have the answer. Other than that, no.”
“Now that I have been scared half to death and my pulse is going, I have to say for the record I don’t believe your behavior was in any way necessary. I will now suspend the deposition until further notice. I am in particular waiting for the determination of the judge about Ruth Stanton.”
She turned to Denise. “After the depositions of the other social workers, I will then give you a call to ask you further questions. Thank you very much for your patience this morning, Mrs. Abernathy.”
Look for Part 9 to Post Over the Weekend