Doc: The Rape of the Town of Lovell (11 page)

She stayed tender and thought of consulting her mother about postchildbirth experiences. But she could already hear her mom's answer:
If Dr. Story did it, it was proper. You're danged lucky to have him.

And anyway, the more she thought about it, the more she realized she'd probably overreacted. If he'd used his penis, wouldn't she have heard his zipper? She decided that she'd just been on another flight of fancy—Meg being Meg. Dr. Story was the only person she would trust with her baby's life, and every McArthur felt the same about him.

She reminded herself that she'd been tender long before she'd gone in for the pelvic. She thought, That wasn't Dr. Story's fault, was it? How could he possibly dilate you without hurting you? Of
course
the instrument felt like a penis. Anything that would fill a passageway wide enought for babies would have to be pretty thick. That was the whole point of dilation.

She phoned her sister in Idaho Falls and asked how long a woman should wait to have intercourse after childbirth. It was the first time she'd ever discussed the forbidden subject with any member of her family.

Michele told her, "If you're not healed by four months, you better go in and find out what's wrong."

Meg marked a date on the calendar.

In October, a month before the time was up, she was sealed to her husband and son in the beautiful soaring temple at Idaho Falls. Nothing in her life had prepared her for the majesty of the ceremony or the glow she felt afterward. It was every Saint's dream: the sacred ritual, the music, the flowers, the white-robed Temple attendants gliding in and out of the sealing room, the anointment with oil and the laying on of hands, the bestowal of the secret name. She could hardly breathe for excitement. Six years had passed since her disgrace in Logan; she'd lived through shame and misery to make herself worthy again. She thought, No one can ever take this away from me—now it's Dan and Daniel and Meg Anderson, together for time and all eternity.

She had to face the problem of what to do about wearing the sacred LDS garment on her revisit to Dr. Story. Four months after

Daniel's birth, nothing had improved in the bedroom. The few times Dan had tried, gentle and loving as always, the pain had left her breathless. She was beginning to suspect that something was seriously wrong.

She checked around and found that some Mormon women bathed one leg at a time so their sacred garment remained on, but the decision was personal, not a matter of holy writ. That being the case, she certainly didn't intend to wear her garment in front of a Gentile male.

She returned to the clinic with the idea that she would pay close attention this time and dispel her silly suspicions. How stupid it would be to lose the best doctor in the whole Big Horn Basin over a girlish misapprehension!

She noticed two changes at the outset. He didn't run the water and he kept the nurse in the room after she took the gel and the surgical gloves out of the cabinet. Meg guessed he had no hard and fast rules; maybe the nurse stayed in when she wasn't busy and left when she was needed elsewhere. If he was up to something, wouldn't he keep her out every time? Meg thought, One point for Dr. Story!

The finger probing was uncomfortable, but less so than on the previous visit. He asked if sex still hurt and she said it did. "Maybe I sewed you up too tight," he said.

As he and the nurse were leaving the room, he told her, "Don't get up. I have more to check."

Alone on the table, she looked around the small room to see if she could spot the instrument he would be using in the second half. The water was still turned off. Nothing was in sight except the latex gloves.

When he returned, she watched carefully from her supine position. She wanted to see if his fly was open, but it was concealed beneath his smock. He turned on the water and told her he was going to dilate her with a "tube." She wondered where the tube was and felt apprehensive.

Once again he rearranged her so that her bottom protruded. He moved into position at the foot of the table and slid into the V of her thighs. His hands were out of sight. Something pushed into her vagina, and the same dark feeling came over her. She thought, My land, it can't be.
It can't be . . .

He pressed a finger to her abdomen and kept asking, "Does this hurt? Does
this
hurt? How about here? Does it hurt here?
Here?"

To herself she said, Oh, Dan, what's he doing to me? She tried to keep up with the questions, but the pain was bad. The worse the pain the deeper he pushed inside her. Sweat made her blink.

"Now I have to dilate you," he said, looking straight into her eyes. "If you let me keep working with you, you'll find you can have intercourse with your husband. You'll get rid of the pain."

She wanted to jump up and run, but he stood between her and the door. She counted the ceiling tiles as he asked again, "Does that hurt?" She tried to answer but couldn't catch her breath.

He stepped to the sink and rinsed his hands. When he turned back to the table, she lowered her head so he wouldn't see her watching. She was sure her life was in danger. If he would do this, what
wouldn't
he do?

He slid back into position. Something brushed along her pubic hair. He asked softly, "Would you like to guide it in?"

She was paralyzed. She thought, I can't believe this is happening, and I can't do a danged thing about it. But oh, how it hurts! Please, Lord, please,
make it be over. . . .

The "tube" moved slowly in and out for two or three more minutes while he studied her face and inquired about the pain. The next time he asked if it hurt, she managed to blurt out, "No!" If he was the sadistic monster that she now suspected, that might turn him off.

It worked. He stepped back and said, "Get dressed." As he walked into the hall, she saw that his hands were empty.

She inhaled deeply, then searched for a tube to make absolutely sure she hadn't been mistaken. Clutching the upper and lower sheet to her body, she checked out every inch of the small room. There was no tube. She didn't open the cupboard, but neither had he. A surgical glove lay crumpled in the sink.

She dressed and walked out without acknowledging the receptionist. She hurt so much that she wasn't sure she could make it to her car. Two and a half hours had elapsed. She thought, That's how long it takes him to satisfy himself. I didn't want to believe it, I didn't want to lose my lifelong doctor. What on earth do I do next?

She couldn't bring herself to tell anyone, not even Dan. For days, she went around with her knuckles to her mouth. She asked herself, How could he! After six years of misery I go through the temple and change my whole life, and then a doctor, our family's friend, a man who's supposed to love us, does this . . . this . . . sick, disgusting,
unmentionable
thing.

She wondered what it was about her that drew the sickos. They seemed to sense her vulnerability. What made Story choose her from hundreds of patients? She'd been Uncle Bob's first victim, too. When she thought about the ramifications, she felt as though she were going in and out of shock—rapid heartbeat, fluttery pulse, chills and fever. She thought, I've got a little sister Mia, and he's her doctor. And he's Minda's doctor, and Mom's. If he's turned rank, what might he do to them!

She thought back on his touchy-feely high school exams, and the time when he'd interrupted her pelvic and claimed that he couldn't get it in far enough. Couldn't get
what
in far enough? She realized that he'd been doing it to her for years. She could just die of shame.

She visited with Minda—the two young families now shared a house at 1115 Road 111/2—and Meg confided, "This is gonna sound crazy, Minda, but I had a funny feeling at the clinic the other day. It felt like Dr. Story was dilating me with his, uh— penis."

Minda frowned, then laughed and said, "I've seen his penis, too. Four years ago."

Meg said, "Oh, my goodness, no!" She wondered if Minda was kidding. She often deflected touchy subjects with jokes.

Minda giggled and said, "I think he forgets to zip up after he goes potty."

They exchanged nervous laughter and a few more absurdities, and Meg was relieved when the conversation ended. She realized that she'd been looking for approval when she brought the subject up; she needed someone to tell her that Dr. Story was to blame and she hadn't led him on, intentionally or otherwise. But maybe

MEG ANDERSON

Minda wasn't the right person to grant absolution. Neither sister had ever been able to talk comfortably about sex, and certainly not about this crime of—what? Was it rape? Invasion of privacy? She had no idea what the law would call it. Of course the law would never find out. She could never tell a soul about such a shameful thing.

8

MINDA BRINKERHOFF

The commonality among pornography, gynecology, and sex crime is further underscored by the shared icon of the
spread-eagled,
i.e. the punished, debased, and defeated female body.

—Jane Caputi,

The Age of Sex Crime

After she finished talking to Meg, the middle child wondered why Dr. Story didn't get it together. Can't he examine people without making them suspicious? Does he have to be so
rough
? He's even got poor Meg upset.

She was glad the conversation was short. She'd stopped worrying about the family doctor and didn't want to revive her fears. How could she explain to Meg that she'd gone over the whole thing a thousand times in her mind and it added up to a big fat nothing?

Now that they were back in Lovell sharing a home with Meg and Dan, the young Brinkerhoffs' finances were improving. With Scott's skills, it wasn't long before he was running his own carpentry crew in the oil fields and bringing home a good paycheck. Minda was making the Lovell Cleaners pay off for her co-owners, Arden and Dean. The $1200 monthly mortgage payment left no money for wages, but the equity was building. Minda knew all about working for nothing. At heart she was a Mormon farmer, an end product of LDS history. Once the prophet Brigham Young had beckoned his wagon train to a halt, looked out on an alkali waste and a Ashless lake, and announced, "This is the place!" Other Saints had worked the same miracle in Lovell.

Minda felt she was creating her own version in the family's steaming, scorching cleaning shop. Every day she would tag the clothes, go through the pockets, spray solvent on armpit and crotch, stuff the clothes into the cleaning machine, pull them out and peel them apart, press them in the clamp-down press, then hang them on hangers for Mrs. Kelly, the old lady who ran the front and did the books and had been around for years.

Summer turned the dry cleaners into a hissing blast furnace. Minda loved the discomfort. She'd had arthritis from childhood; the heat wanned her bones and gave her a measure of relief. Not even Dr. Story had been able to do as well. They figured her arthritis was congenital; her mom suffered from it, too.

Scott added a moonlighting job to his work in the oil fields and Minda adjusted her schedule accordingly. She put the four children to bed at seven and dry-cleaned other people's clothes till midnight. The old bills weren't getting paid off fast enough to suit her, so she hired her sister Meg to baby-sit the kids and took a daytime job at the Queen Bee Gardens east of town. From 8
a.m.
on, she worked the hives, helped to make honey candy, and built up her immunity by getting stung. At 5
p.m.
she sped home to make supper for the kids, put them to bed, and worked till midnight at the cleaners.

The symptoms hit five months later. Her tongue and throat became irritated from the dry solvent in the prespotter. The arthritis in her hips forced a steady diet of Motrin. She had a semipermanent cold and a permanent headache.

Her mother insisted that she see Dr. Story. "Oh, Mom," Minda said, "he always gives me pelvics, and I hate 'em."

"If he gives you a pelvic, there's a reason," Arden said. Minda thought, Gol, Mom, you sound like a broken record.

When her throat was so swollen that she couldn't eat solid food, she made an appointment, canceled it, made another a week later and canceled again, then phoned in to cancel a third. The receptionist, a family friend and Mormon sister named Diana Harrison, said, "Minda, you've really got to get in here and see Doctor."

That was his regular name around the clinic: "Doctor," as though it were a proper name.

"Well, Diana," Minda said, "I—"

"Come up right now, Minda, and we'll work you in. It's for your own good."

In Examining Room No. 2, Dr. Story squeezed her breasts. "Your children are healthy and beautiful, I'm sure," he said in his soft voice. "Just like their mother. How's Amber Dawn?"

"Fine," Minda answered. She sat on the table and thought, He won't hurt me. He cares too much for me and the children.

She described her symptoms while he studied his clipboard. "It's been eight months since you were in," he said.

"I know," Minda said. She didn't want to admit that she'd deliberately stayed away. It wasn't his fault she was chicken. "My hips hurt," she said quickly. "I think it's from working on those concrete floors. When I get upset, my stomach has fits. Turns don't even touch it."