Kristin Ashe: A Safe Place To Sleep Part 20

Chapter 18.

Several days pa.s.sed before I talked to Destiny again. In those days, my life returned to normal. I concentrated on work when I was at work. I rode my bike all over Denver. I even managed to squeeze in a trip to the mountains. All was peaceful.

When I did have occasion to call, it was because I was honoring my word. On Wednesday night, I went to bed as usual but awoke with a start from the most horrifying dream.

Someone is trying to do s.e.xual things with me. Puts his hands between my legs. Puts his p.e.n.i.s between my legs from behind.

I hear Ann and Gail in the other room talking about him. They don't want to sleep with him anymore.

I somehow hide from him. Run upstairs to tell my mom. Usually she sleeps with him. I am going to tell her I am too old to be sleeping with him.

lam going to tell her he doesn't know what he is doing a" she should talk to him.

Before I can say anything, she looks at me like "What now? I can't handle one more thing."

Slowly, I close her bedroom door.

I hide from the man, hoping he'll go to Ann and Gail's room.

Still shaking from the dream, I sat up and used the sheets to wipe the sweat from my body.

When my breathing returned to normal, I called Destiny.

After what seemed like a hundred rings, she answered.

"Kris, is that you?"

"How'd you know it was me?" I lamely attempted humor.

"Are you okay?"

"No." I answered the question honestly for, perhaps, the first time in my life.

"Did you dream?"

"Yes," I said, my voice shaking, my body still trembling.

"Can you talk to me about it?"

"No," I mumbled.

"Could you try, Kris? It might make it easier," she said in a gentle voice.

"I can't. I'll cry."

"Crying's okay. Remember? You're the one who helped me learn to cry again."

Slowly, haltingly, I told her about the dream. Several times she had to ask me to repeat sentences because my crying made the words indistinguishable.

"It's okay. It's okay," she repeated soothingly as I struggled to regain control.

"What am I going to do?" I asked, the pain clear in the timbre of my voice.

"Do you want me to come over? I could be there in ten minutes, fifteen tops. I'll get dressed while we talk on the phone."

"No, that's not what I meant. I'm okay for now, but what am I going to do tomorrow, Destiny? What am I going to do about the fact that I have a mother who emotionally abused me and a father who..." my voice broke again, "... who s.e.xually abused me?"

"I don't know. I wish there was an answer."

"When, for G.o.d's sake, will it ever stop hurting?" I asked angrily. "When?"

"You know, Kris, it's okay for it to hurt. For years, I blocked out the pain and blocked out a h.e.l.l of a lot of other feelings, too. I tried to protect myself by forgetting everything, but now I see that actually prevented me from healing. Finally, I'm starting to allow myself to feel the loss, thanks to you, and as much as it hurts, and as weird as this sounds, it's great!"

"Then you think this is good that I'm dreaming, as awful as it is, because it's healing?"

"Exactly. It's another sign of how youave not pretending anymore, how you're grieving instead. It's an incredibly big step."

"But it feels so unsettling."

"Of course it does. You've never done it before. You've lived in your mind and closed down your heart and your body. But you're changing. If you think about it, calling me maybe one of the most healing things you've done. When you have these dreams, don't you usually try to ignore them, and hope they'll go away?"

"Yes," I agreed tentatively.

"Even though they hurt like h.e.l.l and scare you to death, don't you usually pretend they don't?"

"Of course I do! I don't want them to have that kind of power over me, that suffocating control."

"Of course you don't, but the fact is, Kris, they do have that power. They do hurt and they do scare you. But tonight, instead of taking away their power by pretending, you called me up and talked to me, right?"

"I guess."

"You see then, you're healing!"

"But didn't it bug you that I woke you up?"

"Not at all!"

"Didn't it disgust you to hear about the things I dreamed?"

"What your father did to you disgusts me. What you dreamed doesn't. I know you feel a lot of shame, but you don't need to. You were a helpless little kid. You no more caused the incest than I caused my parents' death, but I know that's hard for you to believe. To this day, I have trouble believing I was blameless."

"But isn't it horrible that I wanted him to attack Ann and Gail. How could I be so awful to wish that on anyone?"

"You were trying to survive. The best way a child could."

"G.o.d, isn't it frightening?"

"Which part?"

"Parents literally own children. They can treat them any way they please, and it's all perfectly legal. Unless they scald them to death in the bathtub or beat them until they have head injuries or rape them so obviously that no adults can turn their heads, no one notices. Parents completely control what their children are taught and who they become. If they please, they give them food. If not, they don't. If they want, they give them medical care. If not, they die.

"Think of it, Destiny, it's frightening. They control whether we live or die. And if they are kind enough to let us live, they control our quality of life. Worse, they set the standards. Until we're well into our adult years, we don't even realize that not everyone's family was like ours. That maybe we were deprived. That maybe they were depraved.

"And all the while, as children, we are like some kind of live receptacles for guilt and shame. We store it in our little bodies, we guard it with our lives, as if we were waiting for someone to retrieve it, but they never do. And then, when we become adults, we have so much trouble emptying it because we've learned to guard it so well."

We were both quiet for a moment, then Destiny spoke.

"Let's make a pact. Let's keep working together to empty it. I'll support you and you can support me, okay?"

"Sounds like friendship to me," I joked because I was taken aback by the intimacy of her proposal.

"It is. Does that scare you?"

"Yes," was all I could say. I didn't want to start crying again.

"But you could easily support me, right? You've been doing a great job of supporting me since we met."

"Oh, yeah, no problem. I don't mind supporting you at all."

"But it's hard for you to let me support you, right?"

"A little," I understated the obvious.

"It's hard for you to receive, isn't it? You know how to give, but you can't receive."

"Yes," I whispered "Funny you should say that. Gallagher said almost that exact same thing to me, right before she left." I cleared my throat. "One night we were making love and I started to make love to her, but she stopped me. She said, 'Let me make love to you, Kris. Just this once, please receive. It's been so long.' And it had been. I never was very good at receiving." I started to cry softly.

"You must miss Gallagher a lot."

"I do," I wailed.

"Mich.e.l.le told me you two were quite a couple."

"We were." I cried even harder.

"She also told me you never talked about the break-up, that you acted like it was no big deal."

"It was a huge deal," I said defensively. "But Mich.e.l.le never would have understood. What was the point in talking to her?"

"Did you talk to anyone?"

"Ann. A little. Not much."

"What happened? Can you talk about it now?"

"She loved me too much, Destiny, and it scared me. I couldn't take it anymore. I could never let her see how much I loved her. Late at night, so many nights, after she'd fallen asleep, I'd light a candle and watch her sleep. I'd touch her hair softly and I'd tell her how much I loved her. Only then could I really love her with all my heart. That was the only time I felt completely safe expressing my love a" when no one else could see it, not even her."

"You were afraid to love her," Destiny said, her voice barely above a whisper.

"I was afraid of everything. I still am."

"No wonder you had trouble making love."

"No kidding! Most of the time when we made love, my body was there, but I couldn't quiet my brain. These horrible, incomplete thoughts would race in and out as I struggled to concentrate on the s.e.x. And then, on the rare occasions when we made love and I wasn't scared, by the time we really connected, the closeness terrified me. Invariably, the day after we made love, we'd get into this huge fight. I never could be close to her for very long. I tried and tried, but I couldn't do it."

Destiny didn't say anything.

"I miss her the most in the middle of the night. She adored me. No one had ever adored me before. She'd laugh at all my jokes, even if they were dumb, and I'd laugh at hers. Sometimes, we'd stay awake for hours, laughing at the silliest things. It was like the slumber parties I used to go to when I was a kid, except better, because we were both naked, and it was just the two of us. My G.o.d, she was my best friend." I couldn't seem to stop talking.

"She sounds wonderful."

"Not a day goes by that I don't wonder what happened to us. I really thought she was my life partner. Do you believe in life partners, Destiny?"

"I'm not sure. I don't think I've met mine yet. Well, maybe I did. Maybe Janine, my first love, was a candidate, but you'd know more about that than I would," she kidded.

"Very funny. You told me you couldn't even remember her."

"I can't, but I'll bet I trusted her, don't you think?"

"I'm sure you did."

"It's too bad I had to lose Janine, too. And my grandma."

"It is," I agreed.

"I think I'd like to see my grandma again. Do you think she'll agree to see me, even though I'm not her real granddaughter?"

"Of course, she will! She'd be thrilled to see you again! She wants to have us over for dinner. Do you want me to call her and set something up?"

"No, thanks for offering, but I think I can do it this time. Will you come with me again?"

"You bet!"

"Even if I invite Lydia Barton?"

"Sure, but are you ready for all that?"

"I think so, Kris. I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, preparing myself really. Speaking of which, if it wouldn't be too much, I'd like to keep looking for the rest of my family. Will you help me find my mother a" and father, if possible?"

"Of course I'll help you."

"Everybody thinks I'm crazy, that I should stop, but I'm not done yet. My father called to lecture me about what all this has done to my mother. For G.o.d's sake, you'd think they were still married, the way he acts. Then my mother called to ask me what my problem was, weren't she and my father good enough?"