Page 67 of Dirty Looks

“Everett,” Jack said. “Jaye and I saw Emma this morning.”

There was a look of confusion on Everett’s face, and Janet gasped next to him, her hand covering her mouth in surprise.

“My Emma?” he asked. “You’ve found her? Where is she? Is she all right? Oh, my God, she’s not dead is she? I don’t think I can go through this again.”

“She’s not dead,” Jack said quickly. “I’m sorry. She’s doing very well. She’s okay. And she’s safe.”

“Safe?” he asked. “I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t she be safe? She was safe here. This is too much. You don’t know what we went through with her. We gave her everything.”

My attention turned to Janet and I saw she was weeping quietly, tears streaming down her cheeks as her brother went through all the emotions that he’d been dumped with over the last couple of days.

“Janet,” I said gently. And going by instinct I said, “Emma wasn’t safe here, was she?”

She looked at me out of solemn, sad eyes and shook her head. “No, she wasn’t. None of us were.”

Everett’s head snapped to look at her and he said, “What? What are you talking about?”

“Did your father abuse you?” I asked.

Everett popped off the couch and started to prowl like a wild animal, his hands scrubbing over his face. Phin hadn’t moved from his place in the corner. His face was like granite.

“I was twelve,” she said. “Like Emma. Like Evie.”

It was like listening to a ghost, a frail shell of a woman whose voice rang hollow and whose oxygen was slowly being choked off.

“I don’t understand,” Everett said, falling back down on the couch next to Janet. “I don’t understand.”

“We were always taught to present a united front,” Janet said. “That no matter what happened in our lives or what the media reported, that we were supposed to smile and stay quiet. Everything was supposed to stay within the family. It’s how it’s always been, even when my mother was a girl. Decorum was always very important to her. You didn’t air your dirty laundry for the world to see.”

She glanced at Phin apologetically and then looked down at her hands.

“I was twelve,” she repeated. “I loved my father. And I hated him. He made me think what he did to me was normal. Like we were a normal family. So I stayed quiet because that’s what we were taught and because I didn’t think I had a choice.”

“Your mother knew?” I asked.

Janet nodded. “My mother was a strong woman. She wasn’t intimidated by anyone. But she was intimidated by my father. I don’t know how he kept her quiet or what he said to her to keep her subdued, but she knew what he did to me. I could see it in her eyes when she looked at me. But she just told me to keep my shoulders back and my chin up and to make something of myself to uphold the family name. So I did.

“And then when I was sixteen he gave me to one of his friends,” she said, her eyes going blank and empty. “It was at an important dinner for all these heads of state, and even the president was there. Phin and Everett were there. And they let me come too. I felt like a princess and got to wear this beautiful pink gown.”

Everett stared at his sister and then he reached over and took her hand.

“That was the first time he sold me to one of his friends,” she said. “I burned the dress when we got back home, but he bought me a new car. And then he did it again, and I got sent on a European tour that summer, shopping wherever I wanted to shop. And then I went to college and I thought it would be over. That’s the only time I ever yelled at him. I lost it, throwing things and breaking whatever I could get my hands on. I had so much anger in me.

“He told me if I didn’t snap out of it and do what I was told that he’d have me institutionalized,” she said. “And not at one of the resort rehab places some of my friends had gone to. But a place where they’d do shock treatments and experiment with drugs to keep you like a zombie. Part of me thought that would be a relief. But I was so trained to do what I was told that I went back to campus and waited for instructions.

“I would get these phone calls, almost always before my first class of the day. I’d be given a time and a location and I wassupposed to be there with whatever instructions I was given. So I was. Like clockwork. And then money would show up into my account, or expensive gifts delivered to my dorm room—diamonds, trips, or anything I could’ve asked for.”

“Oh, Janet,” Everett said, and then he glanced over at Phin, looking for something—some kind of support or reassurance—but Phin seemed incapable of doing or saying anything.

“Could I have something to drink?” she asked.

Martinez slipped out of the room and then came back in with a bottle of water and handed it to her. Her voice had gone raspy and the tears had never stopped streaming down her cheeks. The dam had broken and there was no way to turn it off now that she’d started. I wondered how many years of tears she’d held in.

“I’d met Carson in one of my classes my last semester of college,” she continued. “He was so sweet and kind, but I rejected him. How could I have a normal relationship? I’d already been accepted to Stanford for law school. I thought if I moved across the country that I could escape. So I moved. And Carson never stopped calling me and trying to be my friend. And I guess moving to California was the right thing to do because I never got another early morning call again. It was over. Just like that. As if I’d imagined the whole thing. Dad never spoke of it. So it was easier to pretend it never happened.

“Carson doesn’t know,” she said, choking on a sob. “How could I ever tell him something so shameful?”

“Carson loves you,” Everett said. “He’s always stood by you. No matter what.”

---