Rain Village - Carolyn Turgeon [32]
I might have thought I’d dreamt it or been carried away by all the crazy novels Mary had me read. I might have forgotten that sensation of shame rushing through me like blood. But that night my father appeared in my bedroom doorway, blocking out the light behind him. I stared at him, tried to figure out what he was doing, but I couldn’t make out his eyes in the mass of his body. The whole room was cast into shadows, and my father’s silhouette showed up jagged on my wall, like teeth.
“Father?” I whispered. For a moment I wondered if it was someone else, a stranger who’d broken into our house and come for me. I felt fear slide through my body in a cold rush. He was so large, looming there, much larger than he had appeared in the confines of the rocking chair.
“Who is it?” I breathed, my heart pounding. I looked to the bed across the room, but I could tell from the sounds of Geraldine’s snoring that she was fast asleep.
“Shhhh,” he said. Even with that hushed tone, I knew who it was, yet I had never heard such a soft, gentle sound come from his mouth. A sound that seared over my skin.
“Here, Tessa,” he whispered, reaching out his hand. “Mind your sister. See you don’t wake her.” I could have sworn he was smiling, but even as my eyes adjusted to the light I could not make out his features.
I dared not say no to him. I shook as I pushed back the covers and threw my legs over the bed, toward the floor. The wood was cold under my bare feet as I stepped down, and I stopped and pulled my arms around my shoulders. I could not stop shaking.
“Do as I say, girl,” he said, still reaching his hand toward me.
I walked in slow steps across the floor, my arms wrapped around me. He snatched my wrist in his palm as I approached. I glanced back—the room seemed strange, covered in shadow and dark. Geraldine was spread out on her mattress. Breathing slowly in and out.
I followed him down the creaking stairway, through the front hall, back through the kitchen. He held the screen door open for me and then I was outside, stumbling over grass and crops, dirt crunching under my feet. We did not speak. I barely even breathed as I walked on tiptoes behind him, and my mind raced with all the things I must have done wrong to make him come for me at night like this, without even waking Geraldine.
He grabbed my wrist and pulled me into the cornfield. The corn swished on both sides of us. He pushed me down onto the dirt with the corn swaying, hovering over me. The moon was out that night, I remember. The corn stretched in front of it like claws.
I closed my eyes and braced myself for his hands against my skin. When they came they were gentle, slow. I popped open my eyes, astonished. Wasn’t he going to hit me? Hadn’t I done something wrong?
“Quiet, girl,” he said, and I shuddered at the sound of his voice—so soothing, like he was talking to a cat. He crouched over me then and pulled up my cotton nightgown, yanked it over my head and pressed me down again until the dirt cut into my back, into bare skin. He spread me out under him, and his eyes moved over me, mocking.
“You’re a strange one all right,” he said, laughing, and then slid his hand across my breast. “Barely even a girl.”
I stared at the moon over his shoulder. The corn silhouetted against it.
Tears rushed down my face and I whispered “I’m sorry” again and again. I shivered in the dirt, expecting his hands to beat down any second. I tried to cover my bare skin.
He came down on me then, so heavy I could barely breathe. My skin scraped over dirt. Pain ripped and seared through the center of my body, through places I didn’t even know could feel. I kept my eyes squeezed shut. The smell of earth and growing things was as strong as if I’d been buried in it. I closed down, didn’t even flinch after a while, but my mind raced and flickered and the whole world seemed to be contained inside it. After a moment I imagined I could even see the girl being worked over out