Leigh struggled against her tears. If she broke down now, she would never survive telling him everything. She took a deep breath before continuing.
“When I was thirteen, I got a permanent babysitting gig for a five-year-old boy whose mom was in nursing school, so I was at their house every weekday after school until midnight.”
Leigh was talking too fast, her words threatening to trip over each other. She made herself slow down.
“The woman ’s name was Linda Waleski. She had a husband. His name was—well, I honestly don’t know his real name. Everyone called him Buddy.”
Walter rested his arm along the back of the banquette. He was giving her his full attention.
“The first night, Buddy drove me home and—” Leigh stopped again. She had never said this part to herself, let alone aloud. “He pulled the car over to the side of the road, and he pushed my legs apart, and he shoved his finger inside of me.”
She watched Walter’s anger compete with his grief.
“He masturbated himself. And then he drove me home. And he gave me all this money.”
Leigh felt heat rush to her face. The money made it worse, like payment for a service. She looked over Walter’s shoulder. Her eyes blurred the twinkling lights along the neighbor’s driveway.
“I told Phil that all he did was rest his hand on my knee. I didn’t tell her about the rest of it. That when I went to the bathroom, there was blood. That for days, every time I peed it stung where his fingernail cut me.”
The memories brought back the burning sensation between her legs. She had to stop again to swallow.
“Phil just laughed it off. She told me to slap away his hand the next time he tried it. So that’s what I did. I slapped his hand and he never tried anything else.”
Walter’s breathing was slow and steady but, out of the corner of her eye, Leigh watched his fist clench.
“I forgot about it.” She shook her head, because she knew why she had forgotten about it, but she couldn’t think of how to explain the reason to Walter. “I—I forgot about it, because I needed the job, and I knew if I made trouble, if I said anything, then no one would hire me again. Or I would get blamed for doing something wrong, or—I don’t know. I just knew that I was supposed to keep my mouth shut. That no one would believe me. Or that they would believe me, but it wouldn’t matter.”
She looked at her husband. He had let her talk uninterrupted this entire time. He was trying so desperately hard to understand.
“I know that sounds crazy, to forget something like that. But when you’re a girl, especially if you start to develop early, and you get breasts and hips, and you have all these hormones that you don’t know what to do about, grown men will say inappropriate things to you all the time, Walter. All the time.”
He nodded, but his fist was still clenched.
“They wolf-whistle or they touch your breasts or they brush their cocks against your back and then pretend it’s an accident. Or they talk about how sexy you are. Or they say that you’re mature for your age. And it’s gross because they’re so old. And it makes you feel disgusting. And if you call them on it, they laugh or they say you’re uptight or you’re a bitch or you can’t take a joke.” Leigh had to make herself slow down again. “The only way you can get through it, the only way you can breathe, is that you just put it somewhere else so that it doesn’t matter.”
“But it matters.” Walter’s voice was hoarse with sorrow. He was thinking of their beautiful girl. “Of course it matters.”
Leigh watched tears roll down his face, knowing that what she said next would turn him completely against her. “When I was sixteen, I saved enough money to buy a car. I quit babysitting. And I passed the job at the Waleskis’ along to Callie.”
Walter had no time to hide his shock.
“Buddy raped her for two and a half years. And he hid cameras around the house to film himself doing it. He showed the movies to his friends. They had these weekend parties. They drank beer and they watched Buddy rape my sister.” Leigh stared down at her hands. She twisted her wedding ring around her finger. “I didn’t know at the time that it was happening, but then one night Callie called me from the Waleskis’ house. She told me that she had gotten into a fight with Buddy. She had found one of his cameras. He was worried that she would tell Linda and he would get arrested. So he attacked her. He beat her. He nearly choked the life out of her. But somehow, she managed to grab a kitchen knife to defend herself. She told me that she had killed him.”