February
Outside my door I hear the smallest creak of a floorboard.
“Elle?” Conrad whispers my name, testing to make sure I am asleep. “Elle, are you awake?”
He opens the door and stands beside my bed in the dark. After a few seconds, he reaches down, pulls my nightgown up past my thighs, unzips his pants, touches himself. A soft, gummy sound. Lie in silence. Swallow. Don’t dare stir. I must pretend to be fast asleep. Conrad thinks I have no idea he comes into my room at night. Looks at me. Masturbates. As far as he knows, I’m dead to the world, completely unaware of what he is doing. I might as well have taken a heavy sleeping pill. And he must never know. As long as he thinks his visits are his secret alone, I can act normal, sit at the family dinner table with him, walk past his room to go to the bathroom. Because as far as I’m concerned, nothing has happened. Maybe if I had not been paralyzed in terror that first night, if I had screamed and yelled. But then it would be out there—the humiliation, the filth. When I woke up that night he had already jerked off on me, all over my panties. I had seen the tip of his penis. That part could never be undone, even with a scream. Everyone in my family would be stuck with that disgusting image in their heads. I would be tainted forever—an object of pity. So, I will carry the weight of this shame rather than tell on him.
I know my silence protects him. But it also protects me: Conrad is terrified of getting caught—exposed to his father, rejected forever. That is the one power I have. Whenever he comes too close to me now, I pretend to wake up, and he slithers out before he gets caught. Back to his rat hole. I am safe. I just can’t ever fall asleep.
March
Leo and Conrad are fighting. “Goddammit,” Leo is yelling. “I can’t take it, I can’t take it . . .” I hear the thud of a wall being punched. “It’s a disgrace,” Leo shouts. “Do you understand? Do you understand?”
“Dad, please.”
“Pick up this room!” More crashes, kicking.
I’ve just gotten home from my babysitting job and I desperately need to pee. I peer down the long hallway. Conrad’s bedroom door is wide open. It will embarrass him if he knows I’ve overheard, but I have to go past his room to get to the bathroom. I put my things down, hang my down vest on a coat hook, and tiptoe down the hall hoping to get by unnoticed.
“Dad, please, I’ve tried. I just don’t get it.”
“Don’t get what?” Leo yells. “That Des Moines is the capital of Iowa? It’s geography, not rocket science. If you fail again, they will kick you out. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“There are no second chances here.”
“I didn’t flunk it on purpose, Dad,” Conrad says, so upset. “I’m just bad at it.”
“There’s no such thing as bad at geography. There’s only lazy.”
“That’s not true,” Conrad says, his voice cracking.
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“No, I—”
Leo spies me as I’m sneaking past. “Ask Eleanor to tutor you. She got straight As this semester. Eleanor, come in here.”
I stop, but don’t come in.
“I don’t need her help,” Conrad says. “I can do better, I promise.”
“Your sister does well because she has gumption. She works hard and respects our expectations.”
“I’m just good at memorizing things.”
“She’s not my sister,” Conrad says. When he looks at me, there is venom in his eyes.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I say.
“Leo?” My mother calls out to him from somewhere in the bowels of the apartment. “Can I make you a drink?”
* * *
—
My eyes are closed, but I can feel Conrad’s damp breath. He leans his face close to mine, looking for signs of life. I keep my breathing even, slow. He leans in closer now and strokes my hair. I stir; pretend to be on the verge of waking. He pulls his hand away and steps back into the shadows, waits to see if I will move again. I turn over onto my side and re-settle. It’s enough to unnerve him. As he is about to go, he says something, so softly I can barely hear him. But I do. “One of these days I’m gonna put it in you for real,” he whispers. “I’m gonna get you pregnant. And then who will they think is the perfect child?”
Vomit rises in my throat, but I keep it down. Don’t move a muscle.
April
The clinic is packed with women. Older women, young pregnant women. Three Puerto Rican girls sit opposite me. “Yo, mamacita,” one of them taunts. “You got a man friend?” and the others laugh. I stare at the orange plastic seat of my chair.