the change in her friends and a fairly drastic decline in her grades, but they were “giving her some slack.”
It is unfortunate—no, unforgivable—that the professionals who advocated this treatment for Jenny—or anyone, for that matter—failed to consider the following: that regardless of whether or not factual events are filed in our memories, and even if, at the time of filing to long-term memory, the emotions have been muted by morphine, the physical reaction that is experienced is programmed into our brains. The Benzatral does not erase it. I can explain it as simply as this: If you were to touch a hot stove and burn your hand, but later were made to forget how you got the burn, your body would still have the fear of being burned. Only it would not be activated only by heat, or a red-hot burner on a stove. It would come and go at its leisure, and you would have no idea how to stop it. This is why traditional PTSD therapy involves a process of pulling memories from storage and reliving them in a calm emotional state. Over time, the emotional connection to the factual memory begins to change, to lessen, so that remembering the trauma becomes less emotionally painful—and the emotional pain itself can be reduced But, of course, this is hard work. How much easier to just erase the facts? Like those vibrating belts from the 1950s that claimed to burn off fat without exercise or diet. Trauma cannot be cured by a pill.
Jenny had no memory of her rape, but the terror lived in her body. The physical memory, the emotional response that was now programmed into her, had nothing to attach to—no set of facts to place it in context. And so it roamed freely within her. The only tangible thing that was left from the rape was the scar from the carving.
It is easy to say that she should have sought help. But she is a teenager. And to her teenage brain, eight months was “too long.”
She went to her bathroom, opened the drawer beneath her sink. She took out a razor, a pink disposable. Using the tools from her nail kit, she pried it open until the blades popped out. She set them on the sink counter, then returned to her bed, where she sat. Waiting.
I feel I’ve gotten ahead of myself. Let me go back just a bit.
Tom Kramer was in his own kind of hell. The feeling that he had failed to protect his daughter haunted him day and night.
It was completely irrational. We can’t watch our children every second of every day, and bad things happen. That’s reality. As a society, we have gone through various trends of protective parenting. It seems to me that it was the proliferation of information over the Internet that resulted in the last wave. Any abduction, any molestation, any sexual misconduct, pool drowning, sledding accident, bike crash, or choking incident was instantly known by every parent from Maine to New Mexico. It felt as though these incidents were on the rise. There were campaigns and infomercials, new safety products and warning labels. Babies could no longer sleep on their tummies. Kids could no longer walk to school or wait alone at the bus stop. It makes me laugh to think of my mother ever driving me down the street and parking behind other cars to wait with me for the bus. She wasn’t even out of bed when I left for school as a child. But that’s what people do now, isn’t it?
There has been some backlash, the “free range” movement, admonition of “helicopter” parenting. The conversation is starting to shift from the danger to children from negligent parenting to the damage done to those who are overprotected.
It’s all just noise. If someone really wants to hurt your child, he’s going to find a way to do it.
The summer after the rape, Tom became obsessed with finding the rapist. With his family gone to Block Island, he spent his time looking. He did not see friends. He did not go to the gym. He stopped watching television. From eight to six, he worked his job, but the obsession only followed him. Being in car sales exposed Tom to new faces every day. Cranston is a modest city, but it has over eighty thousand residents. Add to that the fact that his employer, Sullivan Luxury Cars, had the only BMW and Jaguar showrooms in a sixty-mile radius, and you can understand that every day brought a new face in front of Tom Kramer, and every new face, to Tom’s mind, could be the face of his daughter’s rapist.
The police had done all they could, within reason. Every kid who had been at that party was interviewed. The boys, in particular, were questioned formally and at the police station. Many were accompanied by an attorney. Tom had wanted all of them examined. He’d wanted DNA and skin samples. He’d wanted their cars and rooms searched for the black mask and gloves. He’d wanted them inspected to see if any of them had shaved themselves. Of course, none of that was ever going to happen.
The neighbors were questioned as well, families who had all been at home, or out together, or out with others. Every person had an alibi. Every alibi checked out. One of the neighbors, a twelve-year-old boy named Teddy Duncan, had gone outside at eight forty-five. His dog, a curious beagle named Messi (after the soccer player), had found a hole in the fence and escaped because that’s what beagles do. They dig and hunt and chase things. It is likely he was in the woods just before Jenny was raped. But he would have been on the far right side, not deep in the back, given where his house was positioned. He’d popped back out onto Juniper Road to continue his search down the street. He said he remembered seeing a parked car that looked out of place. What that meant was that it was not high end, or a massive SUV with sports magnets on the back. With some help from Parsons and Google images, Teddy was able to conclude that the car was a Honda Civic.
For most of the summer, this navy blue Honda Civic became the focus of the hunt for the Fairview rapist. Records from the DMV were cross-checked with sex offender registries and other criminal records. There were thousands of blue Civics in the state of New York. And Teddy Duncan only “thought” the plates were New York white and blue. Incidentally, before your mind starts to go off in the wrong direction, Teddy found the dog at a neighbor’s house and was back inside his own house by nine fifteen. And he is twelve.
Detective Parsons did an adequate job, given his skill level. He was not lacking enthusiasm in the beginning, and indeed seemed “civilian” in the way the facts of the rape piqued his interest. But his focus was always turned outside Fairview. He reached out to police stations across the region, inquiring about similar rapes—teenage girl, ski mask, no physical evidence left at the scene, blue Civic. And, of course, the carving on her back. Dozens of other rapes matched some of the fact pattern. None of them matched all of it. His colleagues in other departments promised to keep an eye out. The trouble was that the rapists who had been caught were all in prison. And the ones who were not caught could not be traced. It’s hard to know how many women are raped, because it is the most underreported violent crime in the United States. But experts estimate that only 25 percent of reported rapes actually get solved. Things were not looking good for Jenny’s case, and by Christmas, Tom was the sole driving force in his tireless quest for justice.
Tom’s parents came for Christmas every year, and the family decided that this year should be no different. They arrived midweek, just as school was letting out. Tom’s mother, Millie, was an intelligent woman with an exceptional sense of perception. This was disconcerting to Charlotte, who found it difficult to hide her secrets (we will get to that) when Millie was in town. Tom’s father, Arthur, lived more in his head than in his heart. He was a retired professor from Connecticut College. He was a stoic and, in this regard, got along very well with his daughter-in-law.
Tom recalled the visit like this:
I felt like a child again, like I wanted to run into my mother’s arms for a long cry and then sit on my father’s lap watching a hockey game. I wanted them to tell me everything was going to be all right—my mother with some complex analysis of the situation, and my father with a look that would make me get my shit together, no matter how bad
