Crash Into Me_ A Survivor's Search for Justice - Liz Seccuro [28]
In Canevari’s office, my parents were looking anxious and deeply concerned. I wondered what their biggest fear was at that moment. Maybe that I was being kicked out of school.
“Now, Liz, why don’t you tell your parents what’s been happening?”
I could not. Could not. Would not.
I turned to face them. “I was at a fraternity party and I saw one of the members doing drugs. He’s been threatening me …” I trailed off. It was a weak lie.
“You need to tell them what you’ve told me,” Dean Canevari barked at me.
The story he still did not believe.
“Mom, Dad, I was raped at a party by a boy I’d never met. It was awful, but I am fine now and I don’t want you to worry. Dean Todd and Dean Canevari are helping me out.”
I will never forget the look on my father’s face. He began to cry. His only child, his daughter, had been violated under this school’s watch and I knew he blamed himself for letting me come here. I was not crying. I knew I had to be strong for them. I kept repeating that I was fine. Once my dad recovered, he had questions.
“Have the police been called?”
“Well, as I explained to Liz,” Dean Canevari said, “the fraternity house in question is not under Charlottesville police jurisdiction, but it can be investigated by the university police. We’re working on that now. We’ve spoken to the young man and he denies it, but he has left the university for other reasons.” In front of my parents, the dean was no longer in cowboy mode. He was projecting pure, rational authority, trying to assure them that he was on the case and in control.
My mom, silent until this point, turned to me with sadness in her eyes.
“What were you wearing?” she asked me quietly.
“What do you mean?”
“What did you have on when it happened?”
I lost my calm. “Mom, I was wearing a sweater and a skirt. What does that have to do with it?” I was screaming.
My father shut her down. My mother was merely a product of her generation, one in which this question was expected.
Of course, my mother would support me fully in the weeks and years to come, but in her Irish Catholic world, polite people did not discuss such things. Her very understandable coping mechanism was to bury it away and act like nothing had happened. I respect that it helped her get through it, but it left me feeling disconnected and isolated during that time.
After my outburst, Canevari seemed uncomfortable. He tried to connect man-to-man with my dad, saying things like “Boys will be boys” and “We see a lot of this sort of thing. It’s called ‘date rape’ and there’s not much we can do about it.” My dad just looked at him, slack-jawed, having none of it.
Finally, Canevari took another approach. “Look, I think Liz should take the semester off, get her act together. Or, if she’d like to transfer, I can make that happen very quickly. Perhaps she’d be happier at Clemson, Duke, or another good school … I have contacts.”
My dad looked at me. “Honey, do you want to start over? It’s okay if you do. The dean here can take care of this and you can go somewhere else. I don’t think you should stay here. It’s not safe.”
Canevari interjected, “Oh, no, it’s a very safe school. That’s not what I’m saying. I am thinking that Liz is troubled and maybe a change of scenery, whether home or another school, might do her some good.”
I glared at all three of them. No way. I was staying put. I had earned this.
“I didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t understand why I should be punished for the actions of another person, a criminal. I’m staying here.”
“Well, that’s up to you, Liz,” said Canevari. “But if you change your mind, your parents will have my phone number and my support.”
At that point, I got up and left. I told my parents I’d see them at dinner, that I had some work to do. I needed to get out of that stuffy room and shake off the conversation.
My dad went to speak with a university chaplain, seeking his counsel. A deeply religious man, my dad believed in the goodness of people, and thought this man of the cloth might care enough to spur someone into action. Ultimately, though, that