All Is Not Forgotten by Wendy Walker

I did all of that. I went through all of that and it still didn’t work.
    â€œAre you angry?” I asked her.
    She nodded, the tears flooding her eyes and running down her face.
    â€œWith whom?”
    She took a while to answer. And when she did, she avoided saying the name but rather alluded to the target of her rage. What was she doing there? Of all the places she could have been. The pool wasn’t even open yet. There was still some snow on the ground. After everything! I mean, come on! Why did she have to be there?
    Jenny said none of this when she opened her eyes and saw her father. She kept her feelings to herself. But Tom Kramer had enough feelings to fill the entire hospital. He folded himself over her bed.
    Thank God! I kept saying that over and over again. I tried to hold her, but she was so fragile, her delicate arms with layers and layers of bandages, tied to the bed rails. I pressed my cheek against hers, smelled her hair and her skin. It wasn’t enough just to see her awake. I needed to feel her and smell her.… Christ, her face was so pale. It was different from the night of the attack. That night she looked lifeless. On this early morning, she looked dead. I never knew there could be a difference. But there is. There really is. Her eyes were open and she was looking at me and at the ceiling. But she wasn’t there. My beautiful daughter wasn’t there anymore. Dr. Baird came in with Dr. Markovitz. It was surreal, being back in the hospital with those two doctors again. I guess I had started to believe what my wife had been saying, that Jenny was better. That she would keep getting better, and that this dark moment in our lives was finally passing. I must have believed that. Thinking about it now, I must have started to take all my doubts and put them on myself. Like I was the one in the family who couldn’t get past it. Like maybe I was projecting my despair onto my daughter and that she really was okay. I was the one who couldn’t accept that this monster would never be found. And, God I can’t believe I’m going to say this out loud. I think I was mad at her, at Jenny, for not remembering. For not being able to help the police find him and punish him for what he’d done. Is that crazy? To be so obsessed with vengeance?
    â€œNo,” I assured him. “You are her father. It’s instinct.” I meant those words. And I fully intended to alleviate his guilt. I did so at the risk of encouraging his search for Jenny’s rapist, and for this, I have some regret that I did not direct him away from embracing his instincts without reservation. An instinct may explain a reaction. But that does not mean the reaction is the best course to pursue. In any event, Tom was relieved.
    That sounds right! Like I couldn’t help myself! I found myself watching the news all day and every evening. I flipped between CNN, CNBC, Fox, waiting to hear about another attack. I had “rape” on a Google alert. Can you believe that? Part of me actually wanted this monster to strike again so there would be a chance to catch him. I’m a horrible person. I don’t even give a shit anymore, you know? It feels good to admit it to someone, let it do whatever it’s gonna do. Send me straight to hell. Send me to jail. Whatever. Being back in the hospital with those same doctors and my daughter again in the fucking ICU! Fuck it. Fuck me. I should have known she wasn’t okay. I’m her father, for Christ’s sake. But I know now from the shock I felt in that hospital that I had let myself believe it.
    *   *   *
    What Tom didn’t say on that day, but what he did finally admit to me weeks later, was that he also vowed to stop deferring to his wife. The first fault line had given way. The fracturing of their marriage, their family, had begun. And so it was, on that morning after Jenny cut herself open, that Charlotte became the new