She sighed and licked her lips again. “I saw a girl, a young girl. She must have been a few years older than me. She was on the floor, and she wasn’t wearing any clothes. She looked… vulnerable. Sad, I guess. It might have been drugs or it just might have been the situation. But she was there on the floor. And there were two guys, two older guys—guys in their twenties, like I was talking about. I guess they could have been the guys who lived there, the ones who were supposed to be having the party. But they were on that girl. They were having sex with her. One on the bottom, one on her… top. And I only realized it wasn’t part of the party because I saw what the lights were there for. They were really bright and on stands. And a camera. They were making some kind of porno movie. And I didn’t really think that girl wanted to be there. I don’t think she even knew where she was. But once I saw all of that, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. She looked so helpless, so exposed. She was so alone.”
Beth stopped talking then. She looked at me and tried to smile, but I knew she wasn’t seeing me. She was seeing the face of that girl in that garage. I didn’t know what to say or do. Beth was a stranger to me despite our apparent blood relationship. I wasn’t the most affectionate person in the world, even with people I knew well, and I wasn’t sure if I should reach out and place my hand on hers or lean over and hug her. I stayed in my spot, trying to make the connection between the horrible story she had just told me and the recent events that had brought me to her house.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She nodded. “I don’t think I’ve ever told anybody all of this,” she said. “Not in this much detail.”
“It sounds…” My voice trailed off. Words didn’t seem adequate, but I tried again. “I think it sounds horrifying.”
“It was,” Beth said. “And I put myself in real danger going in there. People like that—people who do things like that—they don’t like it when they get discovered. They might go to great lengths to protect themselves. If it had just been adults, it wouldn’t have been as big a deal. But there was a young girl there, a minor. That could have been big trouble for them, and they knew it.”
“What did they do?”
“They saw me. And there was a guy there. Not a very big guy and not one of the people in the movie. But he looked like a security type. He was just thick necked, you know. And really stupid looking. He came after me. He took about two steps and it felt like he was right on top of me. He took me by the arm and asked who I was. I said I was in the wrong place and to just let me go and I wouldn’t tell anyone what I saw. That was probably a stupid thing to say because then they knew I had seen something. But I was scared. Terrified. This guy had me, and he put his hand over my mouth so I couldn’t breathe. And then another guy came over. I thought I was going to pee in my pants, I was so afraid. I could feel myself giving up, I guess. The thought went through my head, ‘This is how you’re going to die. Right here in this garage, you are going to die.’”
“How did you get away?” I asked. Or did you?
“I heard someone shout. A man’s voice. It said, ‘Leave her alone. I’ll handle it.’ Or something like that. You know, for just a moment, I thought the voice sounded familiar. And then I thought that was crazy. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be… And then the big guy took his hand off my mouth, so I could breathe a little. Because of the lights, I couldn’t see who had said it, but I got the sense he was the guy in charge or something because of the way they all backed off as soon as he spoke. The one guy just held me by the arm so I couldn’t run off, I guess. But he loosened his grip. He wasn’t rough with me anymore. It took a minute, but then the guy who spoke appeared. He came out from the glow of the lights so I could see him.” She swallowed hard. “That was the worst thing of all—seeing him. If I thought I couldn’t believe what I had already seen, then I guess I really couldn’t believe what I was seeing now.”
“Why?” I asked. “Who was it?”
But as soon as I asked the question, I knew. I didn’t need her to answer it, but she did.
“It was Gordon,” she said. “It was my dad.”
Chapter Forty-eight
“He came right over to me,” Beth said. “He seemed to loom over me, even though I was as tall as he was. He didn’t say anything to me, and he didn’t let on that he knew me. He didn’t tell anyone that I was his daughter.” She laughed a little bit, a dry sound from the back of her throat. “Maybe he wanted to protect me from those people. I don’t know. He could get a little violent when I was a kid. He hit me when I was little, and I guess he shook me or shoved me a few times. I felt real fear looking at him. His eyes were vacant in a way that made me afraid of him. It was like there was nothing there. I don’t think he was really seeing me. He didn’t seem to be angry, just calculating. I was a problem he needed to solve. I’m not sure he saw me as anything more significant than a fly he needed to swat away.”
“What did he do to you?” I asked.
“He took me by the arm. He took my arm from the guy who was already holding me, and he pushed me back through the door. As we left, he told the people in the garage to just keep going. ‘We need to get that finished,’ he said. ‘Keep them going.’ I assumed he meant the actors in the movie. Then he said to someone else—someone I couldn’t see—‘I’m going to need your help in a minute.’”
Beth abruptly stood up from the couch. She took a couple of steps to the center of the room and again wrapped her arms around her body as though she was cold. I was worried about her. She seemed upset, and I was bringing it all out. But the story needed to be told.
Beth faced away from me. Then she dropped her arms and said, “This is a hell of an introduction to a long-lost family member, isn’t it? I’ve been thinking about this day for a while now, and I always imagined we’d hug and we’d maybe cry a little. And then we’d tell each other about our lives. I could tell you about my kids and grandkids, and you could tell me all about school and whether you have a boyfriend or not.” She turned around. “Hell, I even hoped we’d share girl talk, you know? I thought you could seek my advice about the world, the way sisters do. Instead, we’re talking about this. I’m surprised you haven’t run away already.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I want to know. I want to know the truth.”
I tried to sound light when I said it. I didn’t really care about having someone I could share girl talk with. And I didn’t bring my relationship problems to anyone. I simply wanted to understand the past so I could understand the present.
Beth sat back down. She looked a little more relaxed, even though I suspected her story wasn’t going to get any easier to hear.
“Dad—Gordon—led me by the arm. He practically dragged me down the driveway and out to the street. His car was parked there in the dark. I hadn’t noticed it when I walked up to the house, but he led me straight to it. It was raining then. Fat drops of rain. I felt them tapping on my head as he hustled me down the driveway. He unlocked a back door and shoved me inside. But he didn’t close the door. He stood with the door open. The rain came into the car, but Gordon didn’t even seem to notice. He leaned against the door frame so I couldn’t get past him. ‘You don’t like me very much, do you?’ he said. ‘You don’t have much respect for your mother or me.’
“I thought it was an odd thing to say to me at a moment like that,” Beth continued. “He was the one I had just caught making a pornographic movie with an underage girl. I would think my lack of respect for him would be obvious. He said, ‘I don’t suppose it would do any good to tell you that you probably don’t really understand what was going on back there. That wasn’t what it looked like. We’re working on a movie project, a real movie project. It’s not something dirty. I’m helping these people out by producing the movie for them.’