As they drove through Easton, Pennsylvania, Tom felt bold enough to ask Erin a few questions about her past. She had slept most of the hour and a half drive and awoken moments ago. The girl was still a little groggy but in good spirits.
“You warm enough?” he asked.
“Yeah, like toast. It sure is a lot warmer today than it was yesterday.”
“I hope this weather holds out. The turnpike can be rough when it’s snowing.”
Erin chuckled. “Kyle almost totally wiped out at least twice. His car was lousy in the snow-not to mention that he is, or was, a pretty bad driver.”
“How long had you known Kyle,” Tom asked, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.
She thought for a moment then replied, “About two years.”
“Where was he from-Ohio?”
“No, he was from Long Island. I met him in Ohio, though.”Tom could already sense the hesitation in her voice. Time to back off? He’d play it by ear.
“When I lived in the city, I used to go out on Long Island quite a bit. Some really nice beaches out there.”
“I know-we went to Montauk one day, out on the very end of the island. It was so pretty! So much nicer than the city.”
“So you lived in New York, too?” Tom asked, surprised she had never mentioned it before.
Again, the slightest hesitation in her voice. “Yeah, for a while.”
“With your family?”
Silence.
Tom looked over at Erin. Her head was turned and she was staring out the window. He waited a moment and said, “Erin-you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she replied, continuing to stare.
“I hope I didn’t say something wrong.”
Erin turned and faced him, a tear in her eye. “No, you didn’t. I just don’t really know how to answer you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I haven’t really ever had a family, Tom. I was adopted.”
Tom realized he had hit on a very delicate subject. He also wanted to know more about it.
“I’m sorry, Erin. If you’d rather not talk about it, I’ll understand.”
She smiled wanly. “No, it’s fine. There’s really not a whole lot to say other than I was adopted as a baby and that I’ve been in several foster homes throughout my life. That’s about all there is to it.”
“How long have you been on your own?” he asked, recalling that she lived alone in her own apartment.
“Oh, about six months.”
“Do your foster parents live nearby-I mean in Ohio?”
“If you’re referring to my last ones, yes. In Cleveland.”
“You keep in touch with them?”
“Not really. Listen, Tom. I appreciate your interest in my past but I’d prefer not to say anymore about it. No offense, but I really don’t think I can do it. Not now, anyway. Maybe later, I don’t know. Do you understand?”
Tom was angry with himself-he realized that he’d pushed her too hard much too soon. He should have taken more time with her.
“Sure, I understand. I’m sorry, Erin. I won’t pry anymore.”
She held his eyes for a moment and said, “I didn’t think you were prying, Tom. It’s just that, I don’t know, my past has not been the kind that anyone would be proud of. In fact, it has been horrible and disgusting. I don’t want you to think badly of me. I’m afraid that if you knew about my life, you… you wouldn’t like me anymore!”
Tom’s was stunned. She couldn’t be any further from the truth.
“That’s ridiculous, Erin! I don’t care what you’ve done or not done before-it won’t change how I feel about you now. I really like you. A lot. And I care about you a lot. Nothing you could do or say would ever make me think any differently of you.”
She smiled sweetly. “You really mean that?”
“Of course I do.”
“I think that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me,” she said, her eyes welling up again.
“Well, I just want you to know that it’s true,” Tom said, offering his hand to her.
She took his hand in hers and squeezed. She breathed a long sigh of resignation, as if she were about to shed a great weight off her shoulders. “My life has been so, so pathetic! You are not going to like what I’m about to tell you.”
“Try me,” he said encouragingly.
Erin sighed deeply. “Well, I guess I’ll start at the beginning. My first memories of growing up were in Youngstown. My first foster parents were very nice to me and it wasn’t until I was older, seven years old to be exact, that they let me know that they weren’t my natural parents. That crushed me.”
“Why would they tell you that in the first place, especially at that young age?”
“Because they could no longer afford to raise me, that’s why. My foster dad had lost his job and my mother had just been a part time waitress. They tried to make ends meet but simply couldn’t-Youngstown had fallen on some hard economic times. So they had to send me back to the adoption agency.”
Tom was speechless. Surely her foster parents could have tried harder to make it work instead of taking that route. He bit his tongue, though.
“So what happened then?”
“I was adopted by another family. They had a couple of other kids, too, so it was sort of neat. At first, anyway.”
“What do you mean, ‘at first?’”
“Let’s just say that my new father was-well, he molested me.”
Jesus! Tom thought. How much worse could this get?
“Oh Erin, I’m so sorry to hear that,” was all he could say.
“It went on for three years. Finally, he got caught. By my foster mother. I was out of that place in a flash.”
“You had never told anyone before?” Tom asked, bewildered.
“No, are you kidding? He told me he would kill me if I told anyone, and I believed him!”
Tom was speechless. All he could think of was this poor orphaned girl who had first been rejected by one family only to be relocated to another one with a parent that was supposed to be raising her molesting her. How in Christ’s name could anyone be that cruel?
Erin said, “I know what you’re probably thinking now: oh poor little Erin. But don’t think that way, Tom. It wasn’t the end of the world and I don’t need your sympathy. I probably deserved what I got
…”
“That is an absurd thing to say, Erin! No child deserves to be abused, period. I can’t believe you would even think like that.”
“You could never understand, Tom. No one can. I felt lucky just having a roof over my head and living a fairly normal life instead of being forced to live in some awful orphanage. I can’t begin to describe what goes on in orphanages but trust me, it’s worse than you could ever imagine.”
“All I know is that I hope they punished the bastard who did that to you. What ever became of him?”
“I don’t know-I never heard any more about it. I had to go back to the orphanage after that, which was in Cleveland, until someone else adopted me again.”
“And how long was that?”
“Too long. I started picking up some pretty bad habits at the orphanage.”
“Like?”
“Stealing. Smoking cigarettes. Lying. Drinking. Should I go on?”
“I’ve got the idea. Go on,” Tom said, feeling sick in the pit of his stomach. He had a feeling of what was coming next.
“By the time my most recent foster parents adopted me, I was a teenager. And they were very good people. The only problem was, I didn’t realize that at the time.”
“How’s that?”
“Oh, I put them through so much hell! I was a horrible kid-I hated school, got into fights, drank and smoked much of the time. I even got into shoplifting just for the thrill of it! And my parents tried so hard to get me under control. But it was useless. I was useless…
“I eventually fell in with a pretty bad bunch of kids, to say the least. We skipped school all the time, went out to the lake and got high instead of going to classes. Basically, I was an incorrigible delinquent. By the time I was a sophomore, my high school career was all but over before it had really begun.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I got suspended twice and almost got expelled altogether. Yeah, I was that bad! But before I could totally screw up at school, Kyle came along to save me.”
Tom noted the sarcasm in her voice. She continued.
“I was partying with some friends one night when I met Kyle. He seemed like this really cool dude because he dressed so weird and was from New York, which we all thought was about as awesome as you could get! We got high together and talked about all kinds of stuff and I just went crazy over him. He really seemed to like me, too.
“He told me all about New York, and how he had his own movie production company in Manhattan. I was impressed and asked him how old he was. He told me he was twenty-three and had graduated from N.Y.U. with a degree in film the year before. Then he told me that I should go back to New York with him-that I could be a model or an actress if I was willing to work hard enough. He said I had a great look and that he had all kinds of connections. He told me that the industry was always looking for cute young girls like me.
“I was of course floored by all of this! I mean, New York City-a model or an actress- me? I basically asked him when we could leave and if now was too soon!”
Tom imagined the scenario Erin had just described: wayward teenage girl, potential school dropout at age fifteen or sixteen and seasoned partier who had zero self esteem being confronted by Mr. Big City Shit, dressed hip and years older, with his own “movie production company” in Manhattan at age twenty-three, ready to make a star out a vulnerable young girl whose life already seemed like a dead-end street
…
Could Erin have fallen for a character like Kyle any easier?
“So that night, literally, I went home, told my folks I was going to bed, then packed up and snuck out my window without them even hearing me. Then I left with Kyle to the city.”
Tom was floored. At the drop of a hat, this young impressionable girl had run away with a virtual stranger who was eight years her senior to New York to pursue an acting or modeling career. The rest of this story could only get worse.
“So how did that go?” he asked.
“Well, at first it was exciting. I mean, it was pretty obvious that Kyle had exaggerated somewhat-his movie production company wasn’t much more than an extra room in his apartment. But I really didn’t care, I was just so thrilled to actually be living in New York City! The people, the buildings, the lights, Broadway, everything!”
“So his apartment was in Manhattan?”
“Well, no. It was actually in Brooklyn. But we were only twenty minutes from midtown,” she added. “Anyway, I decided to call my foster parents to let them know I was okay. They of course wanted to know where I was and begged me to come back. I just told them that I would keep in touch and not to worry about me. I felt bad for them, but I really thought I was doing the right thing at the time.”
“So how did you make ends meet? Did Kyle have a regular job to pay the rent?”
“Not exactly.”
“What do you mean?”
“He, uh, sort of had his own side business,” she replied slowly.
“You mean making movies?”
“Well, he did that, too. But he got most of his money from dealing.”
“Great,” Tom muttered.
“I’m not going to make any excuses for him. He was a drug dealer and it got scary at times. I mean, strange people bopping in at all hours wanting to score some weed or coke. I once begged him to give it up because it was only a matter of time before we got in trouble and he, uh, wasn’t very happy with me.”
“Meaning?”
“He beat the crap out of me-I sure learned not to do anything like that again!”
“Jesus, Erin. Why did you stay with him?”
“I don’t know-I was just young and ignorant. I really believed that I could go somewhere there, model or something. And besides that, I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I was stubborn and did not want to go back to boring Cleveland. So I figured I was better off where I was.
“It wasn’t always as bad as it sounds-at least not for awhile, anyway. Kyle was a really good photographer and shot a modeling portfolio for me. It was really good. I showed my book around and went to a few go-sees. I almost got a couple of jobs, too, but it is really competitive in the modeling industry.
“Kyle started getting pissed off that I wasn’t getting hired anywhere so he thought of another way to bring some money in.” She said this under her breath so softly that Tom could barely hear her.
“What was that?”
“Porn. He started taking shots of me for the internet.”
She saw the expression on Tom’s face and quickly added, “I told you I wasn’t proud of my past! Now you hate me, don’t you?”
“Erin, I do not hate you. And I wish I could say that I’m surprised to be hearing all of this but I’m not. Kyle reminded me of a very shady character who was quite capable of taking advantage of a young impressionable fifteen year old if given half the chance.”
Erin sighed. “Well, it gets worse,” she declared dismally. “At first he shot stills of me and uploaded them to kiddy porn sites. He had me, uh, get naked and pose in all kinds of positions. Then he decided that that wasn’t enough, that he needed to ‘spice things up a bit,’ as he put it.”
Tom braced himself. “How was that?”
“He had a friend, Gino, who started posing with me. He had me-do stuff to him. It was disgusting! I told Kyle I didn’t want to do those things!” she cried.
Tom reached over and placed his hand on her shoulder comfortingly. “Erin, you don’t have to go on with this. It’s only getting you upset.”
She gazed at him in earnest. “No, Tom, I want to tell you this. I need to get this off of my chest and be up front with you about me.”
“Okay, kiddo, it’s your call.”
“Kyle basically didn’t give a damn what I didn’t want to do. You see, by this time he had gotten more and more into drugs-not just selling them but taking them, too. He started doing a lot of crack and his personality changed a lot for the worse. He didn’t really care about me anymore, he just wanted to use me. I realize that now, of course, but I was clueless back then. You see, I was starting to do drugs, too. I was messed up half the time.”
Tom thought: surprise, surprise. As much as he felt bad about Kyle’s violent demise, right now he was glad the son of a bitch was dead.
Erin went on. “Anyway, Kyle made me keep doing the porn shots and apparently made good money off of them on the websites. He was thrilled at how much money was rolling in ‘for such little work,’ as he put it. But it wasn’t enough-he always wanted more and to expand his horizons. So, he started shooting porn movies.”
“Don’t tell me-”
“Yes, I was the star of them, too. There were a few other guys he knew that joined in as time went by. Kyle would create these retarded ‘screenplays’ where I would like, come home from school, wearing my plaid skirt with my hair in pigtails, and start watching television in my bedroom. I’d hear a knock at my window and it would be some older guy staring in at me. I’d let him inside and start undressing while he played with himself. It was so stupid and disgusting!
“There were a couple of other girls he would occasionally use in the videos, too. One of them was only ten or eleven. That was when I finally drew the line. I told him flatly that I was not going to be a part of this sick shit anymore!”
“What did you do?”
“Well, he of course beat the shit out of me. He said that I would do what he wanted me to do or he would throw me out on the street. I told him that was fine, that I was going to leave him anyway. That made him even madder and he beat me some more. He beat me so bad that I was knocked unconscious for hours. When I came to, it was morning and Kyle wasn’t in the apartment. But he had tied me to the bed and locked me in the bedroom.”
“What happened when he returned?” Tom asked.
She smiled. “I don’t know-I wasn’t there when he got back!”
“You managed to escape?”
“Yeah! What Kyle didn’t know was that there was a pair of scissors in the nightstand. I managed to get close enough to work them out of the drawer and cut off the rope. Then, I figured a way out of the bedroom. There was a fire escape outside the window but Kyle either forgot about it or figured that even if I did manage to untie myself, I would never have the nerve to climb out onto the rickety thing. That’s where he misjudged me,” she added.
“So I packed up a few things, took some money I had stashed under the rug and left by way of the window. When I stepped out onto the fire escape, it shook and squeaked like it was going to collapse with me on it. But I was determined to get out of that place one way or another, so I walked over to the edge, tossed my bag onto the sidewalk and hang-dropped twelve feet onto the concrete. I sprained my ankle, but at least I made it!”
“Good for you. Where did you go?”
“I didn’t waste any time-I took the subway to the Greyhound station on Eighth Avenue and bought a one-way ticket to Cleveland. It took every cent I had.”
“So you went back to your parents?”
“No. I knew that Kyle would come looking for me so I stayed with my best friend, Courtney for awhile to figure out what I was going to do next.”
“But what about your foster parents? Why didn’t you simply go back to them and let them take care of Kyle in case he ever tried to track you down?”
“You know what he’s capable of! The man was a raging druggie by then and would have done anything to force me to go back to New York with him. The last thing I wanted to do was put my parents in the same dangerous position you had been in.”
Tom realized that she had indeed been very wise keeping her parents out of the picture. “So what did you do?”
“I needed money so I called my foster parents just to see if they would loan me some. That was the stupidest thing I could’ve done, obviously. They begged me to come home, but I told them I couldn’t, that I needed to live my own life. After I realized that they weren’t going to give me any money, I told mom goodbye and that I loved her. That’s when she broke down and cried, then told me that someone had been looking for me earlier that day.”
“Kyle,” Tom said.
“Yeah. He’d actually had the nerve to call the house and ask for me! I couldn’t believe it!”
“So what happened next?”
“Courtney had a friend she knew who offered to drive me to Columbus if I wanted to go. I didn’t have much choice since Kyle was in town and hot on my tracks so I said yes. Courtney gave me all the money she had-seventy-five dollars-and Matt picked me up later that afternoon. And that’s how I ended up in Columbus. I stayed with a friend of Matt’s who went to Ohio State until I could find a job and get on my feet. I eventually earned enough to get my own apartment in Worthington and the rest as they say is history.”
“So why did Kyle try to find you again after all of this time, you suppose?” Tom asked.
Erin shook her head. “The guy was sick, that’s all I can tell you. He got so strung out on drugs that he just suddenly lost it and decided that he had to get me back-apparently to start exploiting me again, judging by our conversation on the way to New York. All I know for sure is that there was no way he was ever going to let me leave him again. He would’ve definitely killed me first.”
Well, at least you don’t have to worry about that now, Tom thought with more than a little satisfaction.
They lapsed into silence. Tom thought about Erin and wondered how she had managed to remain so together after all of the baggage she had been carrying most of her young life. He thought back to the way Kyle had spoken to her-his condescending and demeaning attitude toward her and total lack of respect. How could someone put up with someone like him as long as she had? And how could someone have the gall to imply that she was a slut when in fact Erin had done nothing but what she been forced to do at his hand?
But perhaps the most troubling aspect about Erin Myers was that she literally had no family now, and never really had. Her foster families had been either unwilling to make any sacrifices to keep her or dysfunctional and abusive. What would it be like to never know who your biological parents were? Or if you had any siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents somewhere out there?
It all seemed inconceivable to Tom. He tried to imagine going through life being tossed into random homes with random people who were expected to pretend to love and care about you as if you were their own but in reality lacked the real, rock-solid commitment that true blood parents possessed. Granted, it was better than nothing he supposed, but there were no guarantees and plenty of risks, considering what Erin’s second adoptive “father” had done to her.
Tom’s thoughts shifted to his own family and he wondered where they were now. He stared out at the dark highway, void of any traffic just as it had been the entire return trip, and realized that most likely nothing had changed since leaving Columbus the day before. Peg and the kids would still be gone. The rest of the world would still be gone…
And all that would be left in the world would be he and Erin.