For those next four weeks, it was a constant struggle not to drink. I felt exhausted, I had a permanent knot in my stomach from fear of the unknown and the emotional work ahead of me. Christmas came and went. I stayed home, watched a lot of TV and read a lot of books. But I did not drink. Nobody congratulated me.
My sister called. I could tell by her tone that she was wary. She knew all about me and my errant ways. But she was comforting too. ‘You shouldn’t be hard on yourself, you know. You did nothing wrong, you were a child.’ Poor Erin, the fool.
I went back to Longhurst in January 2006 with those words ringing in my ears. Iwasa child when it happened but did that excuse perpetuating the lie that had sentenced Milo to thirteenyears in prison? I thought it was petty revenge for his rejection. I hadn’t been old enough to think of the consequences for everyone. I could have spoken out at any time leading up to the court case, but I held fast to my lies. And more than six years had passed. Now I was twenty-three years old, and I still hadn’t told the truth. I had to learn to live with the lie and somehow remain sober.
This time in rehab, I listened to all the lectures, took an active part in the group sessions and the AA meetings, got up early and made my bed, and helped with prep for meals like a model prisoner, perhaps like Milo. Amber still treated me like a rape victim. This time I told her about Kenny Carter. She was horrified. She didn’t say it was rape but she said it was an abuse of trust and an abuse of status, and when I told her about the twenty dollars, she asked if she could hug me, and I let her and wept. She said he had taken advantage of my immaturity. And then he’d paid me twenty bucks for my virginity to make me feel like a whore and implied that this was a trick I used to pretend I was a virgin. I’d never really felt clean since then. I’d buried thoughts of him for years. But I had never said no. I had allowed him to teach me. Over the next few sessions, we talked a lot about that encounter. She remarked at one stage that I seemed to be more upset about him than about Milo, and she was right.
I couldn’t come clean about Milo, though I worked some things out for myself. I had never had sober sex, except for that one time with Kenny. I don’t like to think about any of them but particularly him. Some of the men, from what I remembered, were rough and used me like a rag doll. Had I consented to any of that? Had I allowed myself to be raped? Why had I never yelled no? I had gone back to an old man’s house in pursuit of drink one night, and he had removed his belt and whipped my naked body. I never told anybody. In the morning, I thanked him for the vodka and left. This brutality was no more than I deserved.I was a rape victim, but Milo had never raped anyone; he didn’t even try to pressure Erin. I allowed myself to think of him in that prison and what horrors he might be facing on a regular basis, a quiet, good-looking man who, as far as I knew, had never even been in a fight.
I had lost my faith in God, and that was the hardest part for me, trying to visualize this Higher Power to whom I was to hand over all my problems. Amber was quick to point out that this was another control issue. By declaring myself powerless in the face of drugs and alcohol, I had to cede control to something greater than me. ‘You don’t have to believe in God in the traditional sense. I had a client in here last month who decided that his Higher Power was Elvis. And I have no problem with that.’ I could not think what my Higher Power might be.
When I had packed my bags for my second stay in Longhurst, I had, as a matter of course, packed tampons. On my third week in there, I felt a sharp pain in my stomach while brushing my teeth. The tampons caught my eye in the bathroom cabinet. When was my last period? I hadn’t had one since the previous time I had been admitted and that was seven weeks ago, plus the three-week waiting period before they accepted me the first time. Prior to that, there was the suicide attempt and before that there was chaos and blackouts.
For one sleepless night, I tried to convince myself that my periods had stopped because of the booze and my erratic appetite. I had been absolutely exhausted for months. The strange feelings in my stomach were alcohol withdrawal. I had veered between starving myself and binge eating. Right now, I knew I was carrying weight, but when I’d stopped drinking, I’d discovered an appetite. Don’t they say that women are always hungry and tired in the first trimester? I put my hands on my stomach. It was firmer than it used to be and filled out from hipto hip. There was a significant bump. And I’d been throwing up at random times, with nausea a constant companion. I’d thought it was withdrawal, and then nerves about Grandma. I should have lost weight since I’d stopped drinking ten weeks and six days ago, but my jeans, which were low-waisted, were now a squeeze to get into. By dawn, I knew I was pregnant. Exhausted, miserable, terrified, possibly homeless and pregnant.
20
The Incident
I clamped my knees around Milo’s waist. He let my arms go and tried to push me off, but I was annoyed and clung on harder. ‘You want me, I know you do. You called me Daisy Duke.’ Then he dug his thumbs into my inner thighs and pushed with all his might.
‘Stop this, Ruby.’
‘No, no, no.’ I cried and pushed my hand into his crotch, feeling for a hardness but finding none. He was able to sidle forward in such a way that he jumped up. I fell sideways and landed on my back on the floor, hitting my head on the coffee table on the way down. The coffee cups went flying.
‘Holy shit, Ruby, what are you trying to do? Are you okay?’
When I put my hand to my head, I felt a clammy dampness. I was defeated and humiliated and hurt. I slumped on to the floor, saying nothing. He put his hand on my head, and it came away crimson with my blood.
‘You’re bleeding.’ He took the blanket from the back of the couch and put it around my shoulders.
‘Cover yourself. What the hell were you trying to do?’
I started to cry. ‘Don’t you want to?’ I sobbed.
‘With my girlfriend’s baby sister? You got to be fucking kidding me.’
‘I’m not a baby,’ I said as hot tears full of shame poured down my face. He pulled me up from the floor, put me sitting on the couchand knelt down to eye level like he was talking to a toddler. He took my hands in his.
‘Ruby, I’m going to go now, okay? I suggest you put on a different shirt. I’m not going to tell Erin anything, okay? I don’t want to embarrass you. This never happened, right?’
21
Ruby
I had to tell the counsellors in rehab that I needed to see a doctor. I confided my fear of pregnancy to Sheila. Despite my previous behaviour, she acted as if this stay was my first time. She arranged an appointment for me. Dr Mitchell was kind and gentle. She quickly confirmed my pregnancy with a urine test, but then the inevitable question: ‘When was your last period?’ I didn’t know if it was three or four months ago, possibly five.
Before she could ask, I told her, ‘I don’t know who the father is.’
‘Okay,’ she said as she washed her hands at the sink and I pulled up my too-tight trousers, ‘you still have options. Obviously, as you came here from Longhurst, I assume you have been leading a hectic lifestyle, yes?’
What a great euphemism. ‘You could say that.’ I nodded.
‘And how many weeks have you been sober now?’
‘Eleven weeks.’
‘Well done,’ she said, and that was the first time I ever felt like I had achieved something in life. ‘You’ve lived in Ireland long enough to know that terminations are illegal here?’
