The year my Ellen turned ten, there was an unseasonably hot spring in Howey Bay. Normally the snow stayed on until mid-May; even the lakes remained frozen until after the May long weekend. Then the bugs came out and everyone exposed their skin for biting. From June to August it was hot. Hot enough to swim all day without your teeth chattering; hot enough to nearly forget about the frostbiting winds of January.
This spring, anyway, the snow melted by the end of April. The schoolchildren went mad with energy and the parents started drinking beer earlier in the afternoons. Everyone knew it could end at any time. Cold snaps, even blizzards, were not unheard of, up till Canada Day.
One bright Saturday, Ellen took the opportunity to put on a white strapless tube top. She walked downhill to the yard of Pammy, whose parents were inside recovering from that morning’s hangover. Pammy had started chumming lately with another girl from class, Cammy. Everyone lumped Pammy and Cammy together, which made the two girls’ smiles curl up warm and devious at the corners. This made Ellen uncomfortable, but what could she do besides appear nonchalant and try to stay on the inside of Pammy’s social life? She walked down the block to see her whenever she found the opportunity. Ellen didn’t make friends easily; it just wasn’t possible to let it go.
Pammy and Cammy, sitting on the front stoop, saw Ellen coming. At the sight of her tube top, their blood boiled. Why should she wear such a piece of clothing, they thought darkly, just because she’d already had her period for three months and needed a little bra too? They eyed the tube top jealously, their collective gaze slipping down over the slender shoulders, the willowy arms, and the two bumps that were beginning to make Ellen into a young woman. They felt their boring t-shirts and scuffed jeans clinging to their boyish bodies claustrophobically. Ellen was an alien to them; she had a new walk, a new scent. She did not smell like dirt and juice and pencils, anymore.
“Hi Ellen!” they called. Just behind her, they saw Kevin Beeder coming up. They snickered.
It was only Ellen’s body that was changing; her mind was as callow as ever. Maybe they didn’t like what she was wearing? Maybe they thought she was hoity-toity, or stupid? She tried to hide her embarrassment and to act carefree, but her face wore an expression of anxiety. She became uncomfortably aware that they hated her simply for trying something new, something they wouldn’t have plucked up the courage to do themselves. In a small town like that, you didn’t make your own decisions; or if you did, you paid for it.
“Hi guys,” she said back.
“Hi guys,” sneered Kevin Beeder from just behind her.
Pammy and Cammy laughed. When they were all in class at school, the girls banded together against him because he was immature, pesky, and rude. He didn’t try to be likeable, as did some of the other boys. He just annoyed and teased them until they were sore.
Momentarily, however, Kevin Beeder served Pammy and Cammy’s purpose of bumping Ellen down a notch. Their laughter egged him on.
“What’s this we’re wearing?” said Kevin Beeder, coming up closer to Ellen’s back.
Ellen instinctively clutched onto the top edge of the tube top. Just in time, for the boy gave a tug at the back hem.
“Stop it,” she said, furrowing her brow. Her clear blue eyes darkened with shock and trouble.
Pammy and Cammy looked on.
Kevin Beeder came around to Ellen’s side as she approached Pammy’s walk.
“Aren’t you going somewhere?” Ellen said to the boy, coldly.
“Yeah, I’m coming here, to check out your new shirt!”
“Did you invite him to your place?” Ellen asked Pammy, expecting support.
“I didn’t, but he can come in,” said Pammy easily. She glanced at Cammy, who shrugged.
“Why the heck do you want him here?” Ellen asked in a hard voice, trying to sound cool.
“What is under this top, anyway,” said Kevin Beeder.
“Shut up,” said Ellen, her hands cocooning in opposite armpits, clutching the edge of the top.
“Do you have boobies under there?” smiled Kevin.
“Shut up!”
Pammy and Cammy looked on. I was reminded of what they would grow up to look like as women, the slutty clothes they would wear, the dirty miners they’d shack up with. A cloud came over the sun. One of them shivered.
Kevin sidled in front of Ellen and tugged at her arms.
“Don’t!”
He freed her arms and quickly put his hands over Ellen’s breasts. He squeezed, hard.
“I was right! There are boobies under there!”
Ellen tried to fight him off, but he was stronger and kept peeling off her hands in order to get his own on her chest.
“I felt your boobies! I felt your boobies!” Kevin Beeder laughed insolently, then ran back to the street. He kept howling and hooting as he went on his way.
“Pammy! Cammy!” Ellen burst out, choked. Now her thin arms hung down at her sides.
They sniffed. Their eyes looked sideways.
“You shouldn’t have worn that top,” they said.
Marisol was just waking up when Ellen stumbled home. It was early afternoon and still bright. Now that the weather was warmer and the days longer, she spent a bit less time in bed.
During the winter, it had been very different. Ellen would come home from school or gymnastics practice to find the house warm, dark as pitch, and silent. Georgie often worked late at the mine, now that he was a manager. Bonnie was usually in her room, reading against lamplight. Keanan, now burning through his adolescence like a firework, roamed the town of Howey Bay until nine or ten o’clock at night, looking for windows to smash or lawns to tear out. Even Charlie had fallen away from Ellen, now that she no longer allowed physical contact between them. He was always off in his room fantasizing about her, and learning the art of masturbation.
So, Ellen would walk softly through the shadowed house, looking for companionship. There were many family pets: two dogs, small and large; a hissing cat that belonged to Bonnie; Ellen’s own Leander, who chuckled whenever she approached; a red-eared slider turtle; a fish tank; a singing canary. Marisol was a rescuer of runts and outcasts. She made regular visits to the Howey Bay Pet Shop, so she could take off their hands any stray or dying creature that was about to become snake-feed.
Ellen loved all the animals, loved petting them and talking to them. They loved her too, most of the time. She’d wander softly with Leander in the crook of her arms, until the mother called to her from the master bedroom. Then the child would go and perch on the side of Marisol’s bed, where conversations happened. The mother’s breath smelled like tea, sleep, and bitterness.
Marisol had survived the reunion with Georgie very well for the first few months; it seemed as if she’d actually been strengthened by it. She laughed more often, she let him put his burly arms around her without pulling away. But then, they started attending counseling sessions. I was surprised at how quickly she weakened, how easily her dark sadness came back to swallow this novel happiness of being back together with her husband.
You’d think marital counseling would have the effect of straightening out a couple’s differences. For Marisol, it increased the disturbing sensation that some fundamental aspect of love was missing from her marriage. The more she talked about the problems between herself and Georgie, the more awfully she felt the truth of his lack of passion for her. She knew, as a stone knows its own shape, that he did not love her.
For his part, Georgie was simply far too simple to provide the kind of attention needed by a woman like Marisol. Some men look at their woman like an angel, goddess, child, or mother, or some powerful combination of all these; in any case, a being soft and holy and deserving of fierce protection. But Georgie’s sentiments never reached the core of his soul like that. If he saw Marisol at all, it was as an extension of himself, something he would not like to have removed but which he took entirely for granted. Georgie used Marisol. She was not herself in his eyes, not someone – his love.
Rather, she was a constant voice and a reminder of his duties as an adult. He both resented and took advantage of her presence, but never did he adore her. The most he gave her was a rough tickling, basic provisions, and the odd moment of thin conversation. He didn’t understand the intimacy she craved; he would have been perfectly happy with someone who never complained, who smiled no matter what, who accepted herself as his appendage, his house servant and silent companion, nothing more.
And so, Marisol hid. And she complained. She was not a highly courageous woman. Although she could see things, she wasn’t prepared to do what it would take to make herself happy. She would rather wallow and sleep. The bed to her was like my arms, warm, fluffy, safe. She could be blind there; she could rest at length. I would take care of her. (I did take care of her, as much as she’d let me.)
Following the incident on that sunny Saturday, Ellen arrived home hoping to see the mother. There was Marisol, sad but awake, shuffling about the kitchen in a flannel nightgown. She was in the midst of using an eyedropper to feed five naked baby hamsters abandoned by their mother at the pet store. They huddled in a small plexiglass cage under a warm lightbulb. There had been ten babies the day before, but one by one, they were dispatching to hamster heaven. Each time one died, Marisol would go cry in her bed. It was a losing battle, even though both Bonnie and Ellen tried to be helpful by taking shifts at feeding them.
Ellen went in and pressed her face into the mother’s warm tummy, which smelled like bread and soap.
“Kevin Beeder felt up my boobs,” she said dully.
At that moment, I realized my Ellen wasn’t even crying. Her face was hot and dry. It was as if all the wailing child in her had slipped out, evaporating on the floor. She had her arms wrapped around Marisol’s waist, her face turned to the side, the glass eyes wide open.
I crouched down, invisible and helpless as ever. I looked into her eyes, now so far from me. I said, “Cry, Ellen.” I could see a red flame flickering gently from underneath her chin. Why didn’t he do something?
The eyes welled up and flipped out a few slow tears, but it wasn’t the torrential burst of sobs I was waiting for. It was mature, the way she wept now.
My little Ellen.
Marisol gasped, put down the squirming hamster and the eyedropper. She pulled the child away and then to her and then away again.
“What happened? What happened?” she demanded, making Ellen tell the whole story. Forced to use words to describe what had transpired, Ellen relived the trauma over again. She felt utterly ashamed of saying it aloud; she was still reeling at the new ugliness of this feeling.
Marisol picked up the phone and dialled the Beeders’ number.
“Mom, don’t.”
“What do you mean, don’t! This is sexual assault, is what it is. A 10-year-old boy, groping my daughter!”
Ellen began to feel slightly satisfied at the mother’s reaction. She’d always been extremely tortured by the secrets she kept about herself and Charlie; now, all that lonely guilt could be expended in this one instance.
But what would her friends say? All the kids at school would hear about it from Kevin Beeder, and from Pammy and Cammy. Those two. How could they sit there watching with their smug little faces while she was violated by that disgusting boy? How could Pammy even call herself a best friend? Ellen made up her mind to find a new friend in the morning; maybe Trisha or Jen, who were still not taken.
As a backdrop to her thoughts, Ellen heard Marisol murmuring on the phone. The mother’s voice became louder and more strident. “No, she did not! She did not! She’s a little girl, for God sakes.”
Ellen went to her room and removed the white tube top, stuffing it in the garbage can. The action made me cringe; it appeared as if she was peeling off her innocence. She looked down at her breasts, nothing but little buds. For months she had been showing them off regularly to Marisol, who would nod and make reassuring comments that all was well. Until this day, Ellen had been proud of her funny, sore little bumps. Now she felt their sinister potential. She pulled out a plain t-shirt.
After hanging up the phone, Marisol took two Advils from the medicine cabinet. With a glass of water in one hand, she came to Ellen’s room. Through the window, the waning sun cast long blue shadows inside. The room was still layered in Strawberry Shortcake fabric. Ellen’s dolls sat in a happy row upon her bed. Her colouring books, pens, and crayons were piled high on the desk Georgie had made her. The pictures Ellen drew were always of princesses – twin princesses with twin princes riding on twin horses. Sometimes these twin couples would bear quadruplet children who would be tagging along behind the horses, wearing bows in their hair.
“I’m sorry that happened to you at Pammy’s,” said Marisol, standing in the doorway.
“Pammy is not a good friend,” fumed Ellen, tears filling her eyes. She was dressed now in the t-shirt, fiddling with her Barbie dolls on the yellow carpet. She leaned over to her bedside table and clicked on the lamp.
“None of it is good,” muttered Marisol. “I talked to Kevin Beeder’s mother and she is going to have him spanked as soon as he gets home.”
“I hope he really gets hurt.”
“Now, Ellen.”
Marisol sighed, popped the two pills into her mouth and downed the glass of water. She watched her daughter for a moment, the shiny brown head bending toward the dolls, the little girl’s shadow deep and black beside her.
“I think I’ll go for a nap,” the mother said. “Let me know when Daddy gets home, will you?”
“Sure. I’ll feed the hamsters again,” said Ellen softly.
“Thank you, honey, the poor things.”
Ellen glided through the dark, hushed house toward the hamster cage. She looked at the babies underneath the light; they were pink and blind. The eyes were just little black balls behind the sealed lids. They squirmed and rooted and suckled on one another’s paws and noses.
Ellen got the eyedropper and the milk. She picked up one of the baby hamsters and put the tip of the eyedropper in its mouth. It clutched onto the dropper and began licking frantically, greedily. You have a little mawmouth too, she thought. Even for its hunger and its desire to feed, Ellen knew it would probably not live through the night. She pulled away the eyedropper. The hamster made faint snuffly noises of protest.
Ellen wondered what would happen if she pressed, gently, into the abdomen, firmly – there. The tongue popped out, that was all. There was no shudder, no fight.
It was quicker with the other four. Each time, Ellen picked up the baby hamster, let it suckle for a moment on the eyedropper, then pushed confidently into its stomach with her thumb. Each time, the tongue popped out and the creature immediately went still.
When they were all lying in a heap, Ellen turned off the little warming light. They wouldn’t be needing that anymore.
Then she went to Marisol’s room to tell her they were all gone now.
Ellen felt she’d done a great favour; it would be a great relief. Her mom could get all her tears out at once, instead of one-by-one.
But when she walked in and sat hesitantly on the edge of the bed, there was the mother curled up on one side, fists balled up into her wet eyes.
She was already crying.