A Deep Dark Secret (5 page)

Over the next few minutes, Jillian continued reading until she’d read the last word and then fought back loads of tears. She’d been well aware of all that had been happening to her since second grade, but it hadn’t been until this evening that it had become so much more of a wretched reality. She was only twelve years old, for God’s sake, so what was her father thinking? What was it that had drawn him to her in the first place? What in the world was
making him want to do such sinful and shameful things? To a child who was only in seventh grade?

Jillian closed her notebook, the one she would now have to find a good hiding spot for, wiped her face with both hands, and asked God to please deliver her from this craziness. She begged Him to fix whatever was wrong with her father so that from this moment on, he would no longer come into her room when her mother wasn’t home, making her do things she didn’t want to do. She prayed that from this day forth, she would finally be able to live a happy and very normal life—the kind of life she could be proud of and extremely thankful for.

I
T WAS SHORTLY AFTER FIVE A.M., BUT
J
LLLIAN WAS ALREADY
up, writing another paper for her English class. She’d found a very safe place for the one she’d written last night, so that later this evening she could transfer every word of it into her journal, and now she was writing the new one on the dangers of smoking. She had originally planned to write one on child abuse, but after writing about her own problems, it now seemed much too similar, and she was still very emotional about it. She hadn’t thought what her father was doing to her was a form of physical abuse, but now she wasn’t so sure.

“Good morning, sweetie,” her mom said, knocking and walking into her room.

“Good morning, Mom.”

“I thought I heard some moving around in here. What are you doing up so early?”

“Doing homework. I did it last night, but I decided I wanted to turn in something different.”

“Oh, okay. Actually, the reason I’m up, too, is because I need to get to work a little earlier so I can have a meeting with my staff.”

Jillian’s mom was a customer service manager who supervised both lobby and drive-thru tellers, and she also supervised the people who opened new accounts.

“Is Layla up?”

“No, your dad is going to drop her off on his way to work, so he’ll be leaving a little early as well.”

Jillian was so relieved because this meant he and Layla would be leaving before she did, and she wouldn’t have to worry about him bothering her.

“So, how do you like all of your teachers this year?”

“I like them a lot.”

“What about little Miss Nikki?”

“She likes all of hers, too, but mostly Nikki is concerned about this boy named Marcus.”

Her mother laughed. “Nikki’s been liking boys since I can remember, so I’m sure it’s just another one of her little crushes.”

“Yeah, Mom, but this is different because a lot of kids keep saying that Marcus only likes girls who have sex.”

“Well, I’m sure Nikki isn’t thinking about doing anything like that. And I certainly hope you’re not thinking about anything like that either, are you?”

“No.”

“Good, because peer pressure is hard, and I know twelve-year-old girls start becoming pretty curious about things like that.
But trust me, Jill, having sex at a very young age just isn’t worth it. It’s the worst thing you can do, and it’s so much better for a young lady to hold on to her innocence for as long as possible. It’s better to wait until you meet a nice young man and get married to him. I know as you get older, you’ll have a lot of questions and concerns, though, so I want you to know that you can come to me about anything, sweetie. Anything at all. Good or bad. And I want you to always remember that, okay?”

“Yes, Mom,” Jillian said, and then wondered if she still had the kind of innocence her mother was talking about. Especially since she still hadn’t had actual intercourse. She had so many questions and what she wanted, at this very moment, was to tell her mother everything. She wanted to tell her, but what if her father was right?
Your mother will blame you for everything, and she’ll kick you out of the house for good. Our entire family will be ruined, it’ll be all your fault, and everyone will hate you from now on.

What if her mother would never speak to her again? What if she really would hate her from then on? But then again, she was her mother, and mothers loved their daughters.

Her mom continued. “And then if you feel like you can’t come to me, you always have your grandparents and also your father. Byron loves you as if you were his own, and I think I’m more happy and proud about that than I am about anything else. It’s not every day a single mother can find a man who will love her and a child she already has. Byron is such a huge blessing to you and me and your little sister, and I can’t even imagine how life would be without him. Actually, at this point in my life, I don’t think I
could
live without him.”

The verdict was in. Telling her mother about her father was
a very bad idea, and all she could do now was keep praying for things to get better. What she had to do was pray harder than ever before that her father would lose interest in their “special times” together. That he would have his “special times” only with his wife.

Her mother walked over to where she was sitting. “Okay?”

“Yes.”

Then she kissed Jillian on her forehead. “Now, I’d better get ready, and you have a good day at school. Oh, and I almost forgot to tell you. The bank has me attending a workshop in Chicago next month, so I’ll be gone on a Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.”

“So, you’re going to have to drive back and forth all three days?”

“Well, I was going to, but your dad convinced me to go ahead and stay at the hotel with everyone else. I didn’t want to leave him with so much responsibility, but he said he was glad to take care of you and Layla by himself and that I deserved a break, anyway. Which I sort of do, sweetie, so I’m kind of looking forward to it.”

Jillian felt like she was going to pass out and more than anything, she wanted to get down on her knees and beg her mother not to go.

But she didn’t.

“I know you’ll miss me, but it’ll only be for three days. I’ll drive in with everyone else on Monday morning, and then I’ll be back on Wednesday evening.”

Jillian smiled as authentically as she could, and her mom left the room.

It was one thing for her father to wait until her mother wasn’t
home, but having her gone for three straight days was another. He’d be able to do whatever he wanted before Layla woke up in the mornings and after she went to sleep in the evenings. This had always been one of Jillian’s worst fears, being left alone with him for days at a time, and she was horrified. But like so many other things in her life, there was nothing she could do about it—nothing except what she’d already been doing earlier: praying for the best.

As soon as Jillian heard her father and Layla leaving out of the driveway, she jumped into the shower. She only had an hour before she needed to be at her bus stop, so she really had to get a move on. She could tell it was a little chilly this morning just by the temperature in her bedroom, so the warm water felt good.

She stood there for a minute or so, then lathered her entire body and finally rinsed all the suds away.

“Hey, princess,” her father said, coming into the bathroom.

Jillian quickly backed all the way against the far wall, and her father eased open the glass door.

“Don’t you look gorgeous this morning, and now I’m so glad I forgot some of my work documents and had to run back inside the house to get them.”

Jillian knew he was lying and that he’d only come back in because he wanted to mess with her. Now she could kick herself for not locking the bathroom door, even though she hadn’t thought she needed to. “Where’s Layla?”

“She’s in the car,” he said, pulling a digital camera from behind his back. “Wow, princess. You are such a beautiful girl.”

Jillian hurried and turned the front of her body away from him. “Daddy, please leave me alone.”

But the camera clicked and flashed anyway.

“Turn around so Daddy can take one more picture, and then I’ll leave.”

“No!”

“Well, if you don’t, then I guess I’ll have to have Layla come back inside, and then I’ll have to miss work, and you’ll have to miss school. Which is fine for me because all I have to do is call in sick, but you’ll have to explain to your mom why you played hooky today.”

Jillian was so ashamed. Even more so today, because strangely enough, he had never seen her completely naked. But she knew he meant what he said and saw no choice except turning around and facing him. She covered her breasts as much as she could, and her father snapped two photos.

“Now. That wasn’t bad at all, was it? And what this means is that now Daddy can see his little princess any time he wants, even when I’m at work.”

Jillian looked away from him, crying a river of tears. Her father leaned into the shower, kissed her on the cheek, and told her, “I love you, princess.”

When he left, Jillian stepped out of the shower, wrapped a bath towel around her body, and gazed into the mirror. She stared into it for a few minutes and then came to a major realization. There was only one sure way out of this. Only one way to finally be free. Only one way to finally be at peace.

Death.

A
S PLANNED,
J
ILLIAN’S MOM HAD LEFT FOR HER WORKSHOP
in Chicago yesterday morning, and as expected, last night, right after Jillian had spent a couple of hours watching Nickelodeon with Layla, and Layla had dropped off to sleep, her father had wasted no time coming into her room. It had simply been the worst, because he’d seemed so relaxed and so not in a hurry. She guessed because he didn’t have to be.

First, he’d made her take off every stitch of clothing and lie flat on her back, and then he’d shot one photo after another. He’d even made her pose in different positions, the same way the photographers did on
America’s Next Top Model,
except Jillian hadn’t had anything on. Then, when he’d finished with that, he’d touched every body part she’d been born with and made her give him oral sex. Which was beyond nauseating, because for the first time, he’d made her swallow this white, strong-tasting fluid, which she now knew was semen. She’d always wondered why,
over the past month, after he made all those strange noises, he quickly pulled away from her, continued making strange noises, and wrapped himself inside a huge towel. But now that this nasty stuff was in her system, she’d been scared crazy about the possibility of being pregnant, because last year, her sex education teacher had explained the whole process. She’d told them that the way a man got a woman pregnant was when his sperm attached to one or more of her eggs. Jillian had been frightened beyond sanity until she’d searched the Internet this morning and learned that pregnancy wasn’t possible by mouth.

Now it was Tuesday, and Jillian wondered why God wasn’t hearing her. She wondered why He wasn’t answering her prayers, why He wouldn’t free her from all the pain she was enduring. Especially since with every week, she’d become more and more depressed. So much so that she’d changed her mind about spending the weekend with her grandparents. The plan had been that she and Nikki both would, but Jillian hadn’t wanted them asking her any questions. She hadn’t wanted them seeing that something was very wrong with her.

As far as school was concerned, she no longer enjoyed it, didn’t talk much to any of her friends, not even Nikki, and she hadn’t done homework or studied for a test in almost a month. Her grades were falling at an alarming rate and just this afternoon, she’d seen two letters from her school, addressed to her mother. She knew, without reading them, that they were outlining her new and very unusual lack of interest in her education.

She felt so completely defeated and had sat for days on end contemplating various ways to end her life. She had heard of people mixing different medications and then overdosing, people
shooting themselves, people hanging themselves, and a number of other ways to do it, so what she had to do was figure out which would be the easiest and fastest way to go—that is, if she could get over the fact that deep down, she really didn’t want to die. Well, actually, there was a tiny part of her that really did want to, sort of, so for the most part, she was extremely confused.

The phone rang and her father yelled for her to pick it up.

It was her mother.

“Hi, sweetie.”

“Hi, Mom.”

“How are you?”

“Okay.”

“Honey, what’s wrong? Because you don’t sound like you’re okay.”

“Nothing.”

“Jill, remember what I told you a few weeks ago? That you can tell me anything?”

Jillian burst into tears, weeping uncontrollably.

“Sweetie, what is it? Please tell me what’s going on. You’ve really got me worried.”

Jillian wept loudly and then saw her father enter her room, glaring at her in a disapproving way.

He walked over and took the phone from her.

“Baby, everything is fine. It’s nothing serious. Jillian is just upset because a couple of letters came from the school today. They were addressed to you, but since you were gone and we never receive letters from school about Jillian, I figured I’d better open them. But even after I read them, I didn’t want to bother you with this until you got back.”

Jillian couldn’t hear what her mom was saying, but then she heard her father say, “Her grades are falling, and she’s skipped some of her classes more than once over the last four weeks. But I’ll have a talk with her, and there’s nothing for you to worry about. Everything will be fine. Jillian probably thought you were going to be angry with her, and I’ll let her know that you’re not.”

He paused again while her mother was speaking and then said, “Yeah, she’s still right here.”

Her father gave her the phone back.

“Jill, why are your grades dropping?”

“I don’t know. My classes are a lot harder this year, and I can’t keep up.” She hated lying to her mother, but she had to tell her something.

“But you’ve been a straight-A student since first grade.”

Jillian didn’t comment.

“We’ll talk about this more when I get home tomorrow, and if we need to, we’ll even hire a tutor for the subjects you need help with. But is that all this is about or is there something else? Because if it is something else, I want you to tell me. Remember, I told you, bad or good. I’m your mother, and it’s my job to make sure you’re okay. Make sure you’re happy.”

It took her a few seconds, but Jillian finally said, “No. There’s nothing else wrong.”

“Well, you be good, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I love you, Mom.”

“I love you, too.”

When she hung up the phone, her father sat down in her desk chair.

“Jillian, I have to tell you that Daddy isn’t very happy about
your grades or about the way you’ve been missing classes. I’m also not happy about the way you cried on the phone to your mother, making her think something bad had happened to you. I know you don’t quite understand why, but no matter what, you can never tell your mother or anyone else about our secret. I know you don’t always agree, but you and I are not doing anything wrong. What we do together is very normal and you can bet all your little girlfriends are doing the same kinds of things with their fathers, but they just don’t talk about it. They just know how to keep a secret, and that’s the most important thing of all.”

Jillian wondered how many more times he was going to try to convince her that what they were doing was “normal,” but mostly she just wished he’d leave her room and never come back.

“You can also bet that other girls are enjoying every minute of the special times they have with their fathers, and I want you to start enjoying it, too. It will make me so much happier if you could be just as excited about it as I am.”

Jillian wasn’t sure how much more she could take of this, but she felt a little relieved when her father stood up and seemed to be heading toward her door. She frowned, however, when she saw him pull open one side of her closet and pull out a hot-pink, two-piece nightie that looked like the kind she’d seen in her mom’s Victoria’s Secret catalog. She’d gone in her closet herself, right after school, but she hadn’t even noticed it.

“Here. I bought this for you earlier today, and I want you to put it on.”

“No! I’m not doing that, and if you don’t get out of my room, I’m calling Grandma and Grandpa.”

“Have you forgotten that your grandparents are out of town?
Have you forgotten that you asked your mom if you could stay with them while she was gone, and that’s why you couldn’t? I’ll tell you something else, too. Carter told me a long time ago that he and your grandmother were going away this week, so when your mom told me about her workshop, I knew this would be a very special two or three days for you and me.”

“Then, I’ll call them on their cell phones. Because I don’t care what happens to me anymore, and I’m also telling Mom everything you’ve been making me do as soon as she gets home tomorrow.”

“They’ll all blame you. And you’ll be out of this family for good. You’ll be out on the street in no time.”

“I don’t care about that either. I’m still telling.”

Jillian didn’t know if she really could or not, but even if all her threats turned out to be nothing more than a bluff, she could tell she’d gotten his attention. She could see a bit of fear in his eyes, and she was somewhat relieved.

But sadly, he left her room and returned with his digital camera.

“Look,” he said, shoving it in front of her. “Do you see these pictures?”

He flipped proudly through those disgusting photos he’d taken last night.

“Look at that huge smile on your face. Look how happy you look. So, do you think your mother or your grandparents are going to believe that you did this against your will?”

“But you made me smile, and that’s the only reason I did. You told me that if I pretended like I was happy in a couple of the photos, you wouldn’t take any more of them.”

“But if you force me, I’ll have to deny all of that. I’ll have to tell your mother that you made me take those photos and that the
reason I had no choice was because you said if I didn’t take them, you’d tell her I tried to rape you. I’ll tell her that I was so afraid she might believe you that I did what you demanded.”

“What?! But I never said anything like that. You’re the one who made
me
do everything. You’ve been making me do all kinds of nasty stuff ever since I was seven years old, Daddy. Ever since the day Layla was born.”

“But that’s always been our little secret, hasn’t it? And the first thing your mother and your grandparents are going to want to know is why it took you five whole years to come to them. They’re going to want to know why you let it go on this long, and then they’ll realize that the reason you didn’t say anything was because none of what you’re claiming is true. They’ll never believe one little thing ever happened between us.”

Jillian picked up the pink nightie and threw it at him. She wasn’t sure where she’d gotten the courage to do it, but she was glad she had. “Please, get out.”

To her surprise, he left and didn’t come back.

After a couple of hours had passed, Jillian thought about going into Layla’s room to kiss her good night, but she was kind of afraid to leave her own. She certainly didn’t want to run into her father, so she decided it was best to try to sleep instead.

“God, please just help me make it through the night and all of tomorrow without him bothering me again.”

Jillian lay across her bed, closed her eyes, and couldn’t wait for her mother to get home.

She was finally going to tell her everything.

She would tell, her mother would throw her father out, and she, her mother, and little Layla would be fine.