Sadness

* * *

(CADE moves into home setting and sits opposite SARAH.)

SARAH. Mom, I'm having nightmares again ... like I used to years ago, remembering that man holding me down and rubbing his body on mine ... and hurting me.

CADE. (earnestly) Sarah, I'm so sorry. What did I do when you told me?

SARAH. ([slowly and quietly) I didn't tell you.

CADE. (without hesitation) Why didn't I stop it? I'm so sorry I didn't stop it.

SARAH. (a little stronger) I didn't tell you.

CADE. ([shaking her head) I can't imagine why I didn't help you. Please forgive me.

SARAH. (emphatically) Mom, I never told you.

Inklings

* * *

CADE. (turning sadly to face the audience as SARAH exits) I remember going to a therapist four years before Sarah told me, before Dad died. I just knew I needed to talk to someone, and this therapist had worked with my family members in the past. He seemed nice and kind and intelligent, and his father was a bishop who had spent time in our home. Surely seeing him would be wise ... and safe. (She moves into the office setting and sits opposite DR. ADAMS.)

DR. ADAMS. Cade, why are you here?

(When CADE and others speak of their past, their voices change. It sounds as if they are entering a frightening chasm of their souls and then discovering an important jewel of information that helps them become more whole.)

CADE. I'm here because of my guilt.

DR. ADAMS. What do you mean?

CADE. (quickly) Dad's slowly dying of cancer. I just know that once he dies, we'll be okay. (pauses) We'll all be okay. (slowing) I'm so embarrassed about how I feel, but I just know we'll be okay once he dies.

DR. ADAMS. (after a long pause) Perhaps then you'll know the truth. (He pauses.) Oh, and Cade, remember your mother. She's hurting too.

(MOM steps in. DR. ADAMS freezes. It's as if he is gone.)

MOM. What did he say?

CADE. (pacing) Mom, he said perhaps once Dad dies, we'll know the truth.

MOM. (softly and slowly) And what is the truth?

CADE. I don't know (surprised at her own response and shaking her head slowly).

Responsibility

* * *

(CADE moves to office and sits opposite DR. ADAMS as if she's daydreaming.)

DR. ADAMS. You've come to counseling once a week for four months. (softly) What are you really coming here for?

CADE. (jerking slightly as if somewhat surprised at the answer that pops into her head) I'm trying to save her life. Mom's. Dad's got inoperable cancer. He's suicidal and says he's taking her with him so no other man will ever have her.

DR. ADAMS. (very softly) Has she made her decision?

CADE. (quietly and slowly) Yes.

DR. ADAMS. What is that decision?

CADE. (quietly, as if in a trance) To stay with him ... even if it costs her life.

DR. ADAMS. Can you change her mind?

CADE. (sadly but still surprised at her own answer, shaking her head) No, I can't.

Years Later

* * *

(CADE moves to home setting and sits in a very dimly lit room, legs folded under her. SARAH enters cautiously without a change in the light levels.)

SARAH. (quietly) Mom, are you okay?

CADE. (softly and optimistically) Yes, Sarah, I'm good. I'm finally remembering.

SARAH. Why are you sitting in the dark? (pausing) Don't sit in the dark. (pausing) Please.

CADE. I have to. That's the only way I can remember. Sitting still in the dark. I'm remembering. Little by little. I have to remember ... to be able to help you. I have this strange feeling about the past, you know, when I was still a kid.

I remember Sundays. Church. Grandpa's perfect attendance pin, one bar for each year. Long pin. Never missed. He sang in the choir ... with that voice. (laughing) They must have been really hurting for men's voices! Oh, and he slept too ... right up there in that choir loft where everybody could see. (still chuckling) On the days he wasn't in the choir, I sat between Grandma and him. Once the preacher began, Grandpa's slump did too. (chuckling) I'd try to catch his left arm before the right one fell off its rest and all 280 pounds, I'm guessing, jumped off the pew. (a giggle followed by a pause) Noisy and embarrassing, but not the same level of stress and tension as home.

Sometimes I'd sleep, too. With my head on Grandma's shoulder. Deep relief. Deep breaths. Only then. (deep breath) So soft ... so safe (trailing off and then returning).

Lunch at Grandma's. Command performance. No elbows. Linen napkins. Yes, monogrammed. Us kids at the side table. Giggling, but we knew how much was tolerated. Rarely acknowledged. Kicking under the table. And there was lots of it. Keep those patent leather, tight shoes on. (slowing, with a strange recognition) Need them for defense later.

(Turning to address the audience as SARAH freezes.) Sometimes I couldn't sleep. Racing thoughts. Fast pulse. Tossing. Turning. Leg pains. Oh, go on and get up, I'd think. No use lying here.

Pad, pen, write. Words flow. Surprising words. Words of truth, but so foreign I never said it. It just flowed. Brain and hand working together. Just flowed. Night after night. (another pause) What time is it? Doesn't matter. Has to come out. I'm okay. This is something I just have to do.

(turning toward SARAH) Sarah, I remember. I know what he did to me. (closing her eyes, crossing her arms, and bending at the waist as if to keep the pain in her gut from erupting).

Confrontation

(CADE knocks insistently on Mom's door. MOM goes to the door to let her in. She has to unbolt several locks, and she looks surprised to see CADE.)

CADE. (hurriedly) I need your help. Mom, I need your help.

MOM. (sensing this isn't an ordinary request) What do you need?

CADE. I need lots of stuff. Whatever you can think of. I need the belt ... his belt. And pictures, all of them, and just anything you can think of that might help. I need it all. (CADE frantically begins to search the closet.)

(She pauses to address the audience.) He was obsessed with taking pictures of his property ... to show they belong to him, the family at Christmas, the dogs.

MOM. (strongly) There are no photos. There are none.

(CADE pulls out stacks of loose photos and puts them in plastic bags on the floor.)

MOM. (in a whisper) You'll need the nightgown.

CADE. (surprised) What nightgown?

MOM. The yellow shortie one. You'll need it

CADE. I don't remember it.

MOM. (staring at the floor) You will. And you'll need it.

CADE. (approaching the closet and beginning to move clothes aside as if looking for something) Where's the belt? (The closet has two men's shirts with two pockets each and a belt hanger. The rest of the clothes belong to MOM. CADE pulls out a two-pocket shirt and then drops it as if it's hot.)

MOM. (not missing a beat) The belt's not there. Not the one you need. (slowly) I think I threw it away. (She examines the floor as if she is about to sink into it.)

CADE. (CADE carefully takes a hand-tooled cowboy belt off a hanger, sniffs it, jerks back, and stuffs it into a plastic bag she finds on the closet shelf. She grabs her stomach as if she feels nauseous. Then she recovers and presses on.) Do you have the nightgown? Where is it?

MOM. (quietly, determinedly) I don't have it. You do.

(CADE looks up in surprise. MOM is stone-faced.)

CADE. Sarah is in trouble. An acquaintance of hers called to tell me she's having hallucinations. Sarah says there is a man calling to her to have sex with him, but he's dead. She knows if she goes to him, she'll die too.

Mom, the friend described the man-the shirt he wore, the two pockets, the pocket protector he used, and what was in it. It's Dad, Mom. (almost frantic) It's Dead.

MOM. (in a quiet, resolved stare) We'll have to tell your brother's daughters. They'll never be able to marry, and they won't know why.

Brothers and Others

* * *

CADE. And then I decided I had to tell my brother.

(BROTHER enters. His voice pulls her back into the scene.)

BROTHER. (emphatically) He never did that, Sis. I know he didn't. I knew that man. I lived in that house too. I worked beside him. He never did that.

CADE. I was only twelve, the same age as your daughter Beth. Think about Beth and the options she might have had in my place, and how in the world could she have expected her six-year-old brother to understand any of it?

What else could I have done? What else could I have said in that house at that age to get anyone to believe? How much could you have possibly grasped? What could you possibly have done?

BROTHER. I do remember the worst day of my life, the maddest he ever got at me. It was a Sunday afternoon. I was about six, so you must have been about twelve. I was watching TV ... football. It was important to me. Mom was screaming. He was in a real hurry to leave the house. He wanted me to go with him. She did too. To the lake. And I didn't want to. I wanted to watch the game. He was the maddest ever. Forced me to go. Mad a long time. Really mad. Finally, finally calmed down hours after we left the house.

CADE. (addressing audience and moving her head right to left as if flexing a sore, stiff neck) Oh yes, it was a Sunday all right (shifting).

BROTHER. Cade, what do you think Dad did to you? What do you think you remember?

CADE. (looking surprised, quietly) He abused me.

BROTHER. (boldly) Well, okay, I have seen him mad. He hit you, right? But no sexual abuse. (a short pause) Right?

CADE. Yes, sexual too.

BROTHER. (boldly) No, I don't believe that. I'll never believe that.

CADE. (matter-of-factly) When he was drinking. He had a drinking problem.

BROTHER. (looking up, surprised, and saying boldly) No, he didn't. I knew him. He didn't drink any more than lots of men in his group. Why, he rarely drank. I only saw him really drunk once, and that was after one of the dance club parties. Just that once. (pausing) I don't believe it. I just don't.

CADE. (a deep breath followed by a long pause) It doesn't matter if you believe me. (She smiles ever-so-slightly, and shrugs like a huge weight has just been lifted from her shoulders.)

(BROTHER leaves, frustrated.)

CADE. (addressing the audience and placing her hand to her temple and grimacing as if she has a headache) One night when he was drunk and they'd just left a dance, they picked me up at Grandma's. I smelled the liquor when he grabbed me from my bed. I yelled and screamed, begging Grandma to let me stay at her house instead of letting him carry me to the car. (Then she speaks very quietly and slowly. It's as if she's moving in and out of present, moving in and out of the original scene. She puffs out her cheeks and exhales loudly.) She told me, "It'll be okay," and she said that I should just go with him. He'd be calmer and not wake Grandpa if I'd just go, she'd said. (very slowly, quoting her Grandma) "It's okay. Just this once. It'll be okay."

(picking up the pace) I grabbed the bedroom door to try to keep him from carrying me out. He hit my arms and legs to break their bond. Too strong, always too strong for me. (There's a pause as she stares at the wall for a second.) My older cousin hid my sister Vicky in the other bed to protect her. (It's as if she's experiencing it all again.) She'll be safe ... for tonight. She'll be safe. (as if returning) His focus was on me. (glancing up as if back at the scene) That'll ensure her safety. For tonight. And Mom's too. For tonight.

(When she looks back at the audience, she resumes.) He threw me in the back seat of the car. She drove. He molested me then ... on the way home.

(jerking her head) He couldn't have. Such a short distance. No time to have done that, but he did. I know it. (very slowly) He always did it so quickly. No one saw ... ever. (long pause and then nodding slowly) The yellow shortie nightgown. That's it. That's the one Mom said I would need. I had it on that night. (another pause and soft tears)

My brother doesn't have to believe. No one does. It's okay. (emphatically) I know. (a pause, then resolutely but sadly) God and I know. (This scene ends with a long pause.)

Mantras

* * *

(CADE is obviously very shaken as she moves into the office area, where Dr. Adams is seated, and she sits opposite him.)

DR. ADAMS. Cade, what would you like to work on today?

CADE. (rapidly) On the drive up here for counseling, there's a theme, a sound, several beats that I think of over and over. I can't get them out of my mind. And on the way up here with the rain and those windshield wipers, I'd turn the radio up to drown them out, but when I stopped at a stoplight, the sound would get so loud. (more nervously) I'd have to turn them off at those red lights. Couldn't stand it. Just made me want to run ... or scream. (more slowly) Well, not really a sound. A pulse maybe. It really freaks me out. It just won't leave. I can't get away from it. It's like it takes over my brain, and I can think of nothing else. Like a beat. Not a word. A beat. Like road signs I read or just thoughts that pop into my head. But they all have the same beat. Like today on the way up. Not every road sign, but some. Same number of letters. No. Same number of syllables? No, not really. I adjust the syllables to keep the beat the same.

DR. ADAMS. How many syllables?

CADE. Five. No, seven. No, I'm not sure. I change them in my head. Like on the way up to see you today. Massachusetts, except it's Ma-a-sa-a-chu-se-etts. (She holds up fingers one at a time as she says each syllable.)

DR. ADAMS. Seven syllables?

CADE. Yeah. Five, seven, something like that.

DR. ADAMS. What does it remind you of? A word? A number?

CADE. A phone number maybe. DR. ADAMS. Whose?

CADE. Grandma's. Probably hers. To call for help. I would say it over and over in my head so I could call if I needed help. Seven-digit phone number. (pausing) No, that can't be it. Back then her number would only have been four digits, not seven.

DR. ADAMS. Well, just try to write it down when it comes to you. (very quietly) Relax. Take a deep breath. It'll come. (He turns to his file as if to jot down a few notes.)

CADE. (She closes her eyes, takes a few slow, deep breaths, taps her fingers together in a rhythmic pattern, and then opens her eyes excitedly.) I've got it. It's not a number. It's words. "Run, Vickie run. Go get Mom." That's it. It won't leave my mind. (slowing with each word) Except I change all my thoughts and words into seven syllables, seven beats. "Run, Vickie run. Go get Mom." (sadly) It won't go away. (slowly and quietly) The last thought and words before I blacked out from the beating. Age twelve. His belt.

(There's a long pause as CADE looks like she's in shock, and DR. ADAMS recovers.)

CADE. (She addresses the audience while DR. ADAMS exits.) I'd been plagued by that same beat for a while, and just knowing that I was in the presence of someone who believed me ... and believed in my ability to help myself ... and gave me a safe place and plenty of time to just be with my thoughts. It just came so quickly once those things were in place.

(Then she puts her hand to her chest as if she's having chest pains.) And those Sunday afternoons —

Good ones. Stay to pick up pecans or nap on Grandma's bed. So peaceful.

Many of them. Mom said, "You know how hard he works all week. Daylight to dark. Sunday afternoons are our time to spend alone. Bedroom door locked. No one enters."

One Sunday afternoon (emphatically). What can I do? I'm still reeling from last night. In the car. On the way home. Grandma'd said it'd be okay. It wasn't.

Parents' voices. Through the door. Arguing loudly. Things hitting the wall. Don't hurt her. Don't. Nevermore. Or me ... or Vicky. Don't. I'd finally started yelling, "I hate you. I hate you, I hate you." Screaming louder and louder. I knew he heard me. Force him out. Save her ... again.

But why's he bringing his belt? (There's a lengthy pause.) (Then she looks down as if she's retrieving facts from some place in the floor and perhaps even sinking into it. It's like she's slipping back into that very moment in time.) She's touching me. Mom's stroking my arm. "Here, let me clean that that," she said.