Hazel slips in the door while I am hand-washing dishes in the sink, so quietly that I almost miss her. I feel the door close in its frame and then the air pressure changes. When I turn she has locked the door and is heading down the hall, her shoulders hunched and her head bowed. It is far too early for her to be home.
"Hazel?" Something is wrong. Something is always wrong. I turn off the water, dry my hands and follow her into her bedroom. She lies on the bed, facing the wall, holding her pillow in a fierce hug that whitens her knuckles. I sit down next to her. I am still holding the towel. "What happened to your date?"
She mumbles something into the pillow. I know how much she hates to be touched but she looks like she needs it, so I brush my hand over her arm. She flinches.
"Hazel,
he didn't try to hurt you, did he?" I wonder if I'll have to do
something about it. What do you do when a teenage boy mistreats your
daughter?
A deep sigh. "No."
"Are you going to make me guess?" I say gently.
Of course the answer is yes. When Hazel is like this the words don't come easily; it's up to me to piece the story together from the bits she feeds me. The boy, Oliver, has done nothing. As far as Hazel is concerned it is all her fault; she's weak and stupid and she can't handle a little violence. "So it was something in the movie?" I say, and embarrassed, sitting up now and hugging the pillow to her chest, Hazel nods and looks away.
"There was this scene. There was one near the beginning and I thought it was going to be okay. But I kept thinking about it."
"What scene?"
"These...
people. There's this man and woman and they just go up and shoot the
man and the
woman, she can't even defend herself...." And Hazel
looks at me pointedly. The woman was raped, I think, except Hazel
can't say that word, so she dances around it with implications and
knowing looks. I don't know how to deal with this. What do I say to
that? This is not a situation I can easily imagine myself in, and
probably nothing I will ever have to worry about. "I couldn't get
it out of my head. And then it happened with this other character
and I thought I was going to die right there in the theater. I just
had to get out of there." She laughs humorlessly, like, isn't
that ridiculous? And I wonder
if this is how a rape victim is supposed to react.
"So you left."
She shrugs and nods.
"What did Oliver think about that?"
"He just... stayed in there."
Maybe I do have a reason to talk to him. "How did you get home?"
"I took the bus."
"You could have called me," I say. "I'd have picked you up."
"Thanks," she says. She curls up on the bed like a comma, facing me. It is an invitation to comfort her but I know I'll make it worse the moment I try. But I try anyway. I reach out and brush her hair behind her face, and she closes her eyes hard but doesn't move.
And I feel, suddenly, like a giant asshole. Like I am putting this child through whatever she goes through just so I can make our relationship conform to what I think it should be, and Hazel lies there in the throes of a memory, enduring it - because she doesn't want to be evicted, because she feels she owes me something, because she thinks she has to. It is possible that she doesn't know what she wants, just that she wants something.
I withdraw my hand and stand up, and just to have something to say I ask her if she's eaten. And when she shakes her head, I leave her there and go out to the kitchen, in search of something to give her.
