Return to Innocence Read online

  RETURN TO INNOCENCE

  A Novel

  G. M. Frazier

  Copyright © 2011 by G. M. Frazier. All rights reserved.

  Kindle Edition

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Return to Innocence was originally published in a somewhat different version in 1999 by Namenlosen Press.

  This book is also available in trade paperback at most online booksellers.

  The most deadly of all possible sins is the mutilation of a child’s spirit; for such mutilation undercuts the life principle of trust, without which every human act, may it feel ever so good, and seem ever so right, is prone to perversion by destructive forms of consciousness.

  —Erik Erikson

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: Tommy

  Chapter 2: Eros Defiled

  Chapter 3: The Promise

  Chapter 4: The Accused

  Chapter 5: The End of Innocence

  Chapter 6: Bad Touching

  Chapter 7: Trick or Treat

  Chapter 8: Messing Around

  Chapter 9: Job’s Counsel

  Chapter 10: That’s What Friends Are For

  Chapter 11: Uncle Ben

  Chapter 12: Old Joe

  Chapter 13: Context

  Chapter 14: Reasonable Doubts

  Chapter 15: Back Rubs

  Chapter 16: Alternative Explanations

  Chapter 17: Page 516

  Chapter 18: The Ghost of Christmas Past

  Chapter 19: The Truth

  Chapter 20: Resolution

  Epilogue

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Chapter 1

  Tommy

  He is thirteen years old and has been at New Horizons for three months. As with all residents of the group home, South Carolina now has custody of Tommy Jackson. A ward of the State, Tommy was placed in our care by Children and Youth Services division of DSS back in July when his mother was arrested for prostitution. After Louise Jackson was booked, she informed the desk sergeant that she had to call home and check on her son. The arresting officer was notified. He went to the Jackson home, a dilapidated trailer, and found Tommy there alone. Or so he thought. The boy calmly sat there in his underwear watching TV, smoking a cigarette, and offered the detective a beer. Just then a man came out of the back bedroom minus his pants. The mother’s boyfriend. Or pimp. Tommy was immediately taken into custody.

  All children taken in by the State are given complete medical examinations. The report on Tommy indicated that he had been sexually abused: anal lesions indicating a history of anal penetration, and a bruised sphincter, indicating recent penetration. The “boyfriend” was suspected, but Tommy would not confirm this. He claimed nothing had happened to him. No doubt he had been threatened if he ever told.

  And so at New Horizons the slow process of reversing the damage done to Tommy Jackson has begun. The physical wounds have healed, though he will always have scars. The emotional wounds will heal as well. But scars will remain there, too. In therapy we have learned that Tommy has been the victim of repeated physical, emotional, and sexual abuse from a very young age. The history of physical and sexual abuse has been confirmed medically. The emotional abuse is evident in Tommy’s personality profile.

  Chris Manning, our newest counselor at New Horizons, is largely responsible for how far Tommy has come in his short time with us. Tommy took to Chris as soon as he got to New Horizons, so I assigned Chris to his case. I initially supervised the sessions with Tommy because the boy was borderline psychotic when he came to us. After three sessions, two fires, and one attack on a member of the kitchen staff, my initial recommendation was to refer Tommy back to DSS with an order for treatment at the psychiatric division of Children’s Hospital in Charleston. Chris convinced me that this could potentially do more harm than good. After further reflection, I agreed. And in three months Chris has done a splendid job with Tommy. That emotional and physical wall that abuse victims build around themselves is gradually coming down in Tommy.

  Tommy was supposed to spend this weekend with Chris and his wife for Home Time, what we call our program for getting residents out of the routine of group home living and into a real family environment. But according to Chris, Tommy proved too much of a handful for his pregnant wife. Chris called me Saturday morning and asked me to take Tommy for the remainder of the weekend. I agreed to, reluctantly. It was the closeness between Chris and Tommy that made me hesitant to take the boy for the remainder of the weekend. I was concerned that Tommy might perceive this as a personal rejection by Chris. Children who have been the victims of abuse for years usually have a very low self-esteem and can misinterpret the most benign action as a statement of their worth. I can only trust that Chris explained his actions thoroughly. But I am beginning to wonder, based on the events of this evening between Tommy and our baby-sitter.

  Tonight the staff and board of directors of New Horizons threw a surprise party at the Marriott to celebrate my tenth anniversary as director and chief of staff of the group home and counseling center. But the guest of honor and his wife had to leave early. We were called home because of Tommy.

  In the middle of the party, the cellular phone in Suzanne’s purse rang. It was Peter, my oldest son. I could hear Carla, the baby-sitter, in the background. She was hysterical. Peter said Tommy had tried to rape her. When we got home we found that Carla had overstated the situation. But only slightly.

  According to Carla, before and during supper Tommy seemed fine, even pleasant. After supper he went to play video games with Peter, and Carla decided to watch TV in the den. Halfway through Sixty Minutes Tommy walks into the room with his jeans unzipped, presents an erection, and says, “Let’s fuck.”

  My wife tried to convince Carla that she was really in no danger of being raped. Tommy, barely pubescent, is not a particularly big thirteen-year-old. Carla is, let us say, capable of taking care of herself. She is only five six or seven, but she weighs two-hundred and fifty pounds if she weighs an ounce. If she had to, Carla could have just punched Tommy’s lights out. I think Suzanne finally convinced Carla that Tommy was just playing a prank. At least I hope she did. Anyway, Carla left here smiling a little while ago. I hope we haven’t lost the best baby-sitter we’ve ever had. The boys love her.

  But my main concern is Tommy’s behavior. He has regressed to the sort of acting out that marked his first few weeks at New Horizons. Very strange. Something is wrong.

  I am thinking over these things now as I sit here on the edge of the bath tub. I am still in my tux—less the jacket—and I have just finished bathing Benjamin, our youngest son, in the master bath. My little boy loves the “tingly bubbles” of the built-in Jacuzzi.

  Suzanne is down in the kitchen fixing coffee. Peter, our twelve-year-old, should be in bed now. Reading, no doubt. I heard the water running in the bath of the boys’ guestroom, so I guess Tommy is finally getting himself cleaned up as I requested.

  I lift Benjamin from the tub and stoop before him, trying to dry him off. He will not stand still. As I move the towel to dry between his legs he squeals that it tickles. With a giggle he jerks the towel, trying to pull it from my hand. Instead, he pulls me off balance and my right knee—my bad one—crashes to the hard tile fl
oor. I wince in pain.

  The look on Benjamin’s face would indicate that he has mortally wounded me. My five-year-old has a sensitive spirit and his ability to empathize is truly remarkable. I can see that he feels the pain I feel along with the responsibility for it. He starts to cry.

  “I’m sorry, Daddy. I didn’t mean it.” He hugs me and I tell him I’m fine. I pat his little behind, barely the size of my open hand.

  “Come on,” I say, “let’s finish up and get you to bed. It’s late.” I take the towel and go to work on his silky hair. He giggles some more.

  “Have you brushed your teeth?”

  He gives an exaggerated nod.

  “Wanna ride?” I ask. Benjamin nods again as I lift him up and set him on the counter in front of the mirror. “Up or down?” My standard question. Benjamin always gets a ride to his bedroom when I bathe him. Up means he rides on my shoulders. The airplane. Down means I’m on all fours and he rides on my back. The horse.

  “It better be up tonight, Daddy. Your bad knee.” He points to my knee.

  I want to tell him that I would crawl through fire on two broken knees for him, but a five-year-old’s literalistic worldview precludes an adequate appreciation for hyperbole. I would, however, like to think that I am not exaggerating. I thank him for his consideration as I finish combing his still damp hair. And then I sweep him up in my arms, give him a raspberry on the belly, and hoist him up on my shoulders. His little thighs squeeze my neck tightly as I hold him by the ankles and we maneuver down the hall to his room. I am making jet engine noises. Benjamin has his arms outstretched for wings.

  “Goodnight, Pete,” Benjamin says as we pass Peter’s door.

  Peter looks up from his magazine. “Night, Ben.”

  Lately, our sons have taken to calling themselves by the abbreviated forms of their names. Suzanne and I have not yet picked this up. My wife named our first son after her father. But when she intended to give his name the Afrikaans spelling, Pieter, I said, No way. “Can you imagine how everyone back in the States would pronounce that?” I asked her.

  Benjamin was named after my Uncle Ben, who was like a father to me. My uncle was a counselor like myself. He ran a youth hostel for runaways and delinquent boys in Suffolk, Virginia, about an hour away from the Erskine family farm where I grew up. Uncle Ben is the reason I’m a therapist today.

  My two sons. Were it not for the obvious age difference, you would think they are twins. Both blond and with golden-brown eyes, their resemblance is uncanny. They have inherited my wife’s luxuriant hair, but not her blue eyes. I suppose their eyes are my contribution. In my sons’ veins flows the hearty blood of generations of Afrikaner Boers and—centuries back—the highland Scots.

  As we pass Tommy’s room, the door is closed but the light is on. I will check on him later. We zoom into Benjamin’s room, make two wide sweeps, and then with a little boost from me, he ejects and lands with a bounce on the bed. He giggles and rolls off.

  “That was fun, Daddy.”

  I walk over to his dresser and open the underwear drawer. A plethora of cartoon characters is staring up at me. “Who’s it going to be tonight, little man? Power Rangers? Lion King? Batman? Barney?”

  “Barney,” Benjamin says.

  I should have known. My son is a typical preschooler inasmuch as he practically worships that purple dinosaur. His bedroom is done up in Barney. Suzanne even had purple carpet put in for his birthday last month. I pick a pair of Barney briefs from the drawer and toss them over to him. I get him a T-shirt, too. By the time I get over to the bed he has pulled on his shorts and is turning back the Barney comforter. I put his T-shirt on him and get him situated in the bed. I kneel beside him as he folds his hands and closes his eyes for prayer.

  “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. God bless Mommy and Daddy and Peter and me. Amen.”

  I lean over and kiss my son softly on the cheek. “I love you.”

  “I love YOU,” he says with extra emphasis on the pronoun. There is a twinkle in his eyes and a smile on his lips. He reaches up and plays with my untied bow tie, which is dangling over him. “I’m sorry I hurt your knee, Daddy.”

  I tell him not to worry about it, but I know he will. “I’ll leave your light on. Mommy will be up in a minute to tell you goodnight.” I kiss him again and he hugs me tightly.

  I walk down the hall and stick my head in Peter’s room. He is still reading. A computer magazine. My oldest son is a whiz with computers. I am competent with the word processor on my old IBM XT and that’s about it. Peter wants a Pentium equipped multi-media machine for Christmas. He told me last week that he has outgrown his 486 machine.

  “Lights out, Peter,” I say and sit on the edge of his bed. He looks up from the magazine and closes it. He yawns and I rub my hand over his hair. Peter smiles and slides under the covers and I tuck them under his chin.

  “Dad?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Did Tommy really try to rape Carla?”

  “I think Carla may have overreacted. But Tommy shouldn’t have done what he did. You didn’t see what happened, did you?”

  “No, I was playing on my computer. I didn’t know where Tommy was. I heard Carla screaming downstairs. I went to see what was wrong and I met Tommy coming up the stairs...with his pants undone. He pushed me out of the way and went to his room. Carla was crying and everything...she said Tommy tried to rape her. And that’s when I called you and Mom.”

  “Where was Benjamin?”

  “In his room watching TV. He didn’t see anything.”

  I lean down and kiss Peter and he returns my kiss and gives me a hug. There is no lack of affection in our family. “Well, you’ve got school tomorrow so get a good night’s sleep. Did you finish your homework?”

  “Not all of it. But I can finish the pre-algebra in study period before class.”

  I get up to leave.

  “Hey, Dad?”

  “Yes?”

  “Will you have to work late tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know, why?”

  “My game.”

  I had forgotten about Peter’s game. The first one of the season. He is on one of the basketball teams in the church league. “What time is it?” I ask him.

  “Seven. Mom and Ben are coming.”

  “I’ll be there,” I tell him. “Say your prayers.”

  “I will. Goodnight, Dad. I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  Peter turns the light out beside his bed and tells me I can leave the door cracked a little. Just as I’m in the hall, Suzanne comes out of Benjamin’s room.

  “Coffee’s ready,” she whispers, “Benjamin’s asleep. What about Peter?” She nods toward the partially open door.

  “Praying,” I say.

  We are both silent. We can faintly hear the sound of Peter’s heaven bound supplications. He doesn’t like for us to listen in on his prayers anymore.

  A child of the Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk in South Africa, Suzanne is a devout Christian. My father is a retired Presbyterian minister, but I never embraced his belief system—not so much because of his theology, but because it was his theology.

  My family have been members of the Episcopal church since moving to Mount Pleasant from North Charleston three years ago. I feel like an ecclesiastical first-grader next to my wife since my own spiritual pilgrimage has come slowly and with much angst over the course of my life. My mind is still clouded with doubts, though I am happy that my two sons have taken to the faith with the ardor of true believers.

  Faith like a child’s I do not have.

  We finally hear Peter’s amen and Suzanne goes in to tell her firstborn goodnight. She comes out and tells me that she thought she heard Tommy crying when she went by his room. I am not surprised. I tell her to go on down to the den. I will check on Tommy and be down shortly.

  Just as I’m about to knock on the guestroom door, the li
ght inside goes out. It’s just as well, I think. Tommy has probably seen enough of me for one evening. I can talk with him about this tomorrow at New Horizons when he gets home from school.

  The chill of fall has finally come to the South Carolina Lowcountry. It’s the end of October and I have built the first fire of the season in our fireplace. My wife and I are both staring into the flames, sipping coffee. I’m wearing only my Brooks Brothers boxer shorts and a T-shirt. Suzanne has on the plum colored teddy from Victoria’s Secret I got her for her birthday. We are cuddled together under the big Erskine tartan blanket that my mother gave us for Christmas last year.

  I look at my wife’s visage in the shimmering glow of the burning embers. I am forty-three and reasonably good looking. But my wife, who just turned thirty-six, has an uncommon beauty that turns the heads of men and women alike. Shallow as it may sound, I fell in love with her the first time I saw her. I met Suzanne in South Africa when I was working on my doctorate at Stellenbosch University. I thought she was the most beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes one. Still do.

  “How is Tommy?” she asks. I smile inside at the sound of her accent. A strange mixture, it’s like hard German tamed by the Queen’s English.

  I take a sip of coffee. “Asleep, I hope. I’m sorry about tonight, honey. I trusted Chris’ judgment on this and he was just wrong. Tommy is not ready for Home Time.”

  “Glen, I have always supported you with whatever you were doing at New Horizons. But do you think it is wise to have some of these boys staying with counselors who have young children? Suppose it hadn’t been Carla tonight. Suppose it had been Peter. Or Benjamin?”

  “You’re right, honey. This will not happen again,” I tell her. “I promise. I won’t bring any of the boys from New Horizons into our home ever again.”