Free The Good Lie by Robin Brande Page A

fell back
and he pinned me to the floor.
    “Get off me!  Get off!”  I was
white hot with fear, terrified of how far he might go.
    He ran his hands wildly,
maniacally, up and down my body, speeding over breasts and face and groin and
legs and every inch of me while I screamed hysterically for him to stop.
    He was possessed.  His eyes were
huge and the whites showed around the pupils and his hands flew like a concert
pianist’s and he ran his dry raspy hands all over my face and body and I had to
smell them and feel them and see them touching me and I screamed and screamed
until no sound would come out, and then finally for no reason he stopped.
    “Don’t EVER!” he shouted, jabbing
his finger into my chest, “tell me what to do again!  You are MY daughter!” 
His face was crimson, the veins in his neck distended. “You WILL NOT!”  He
grabbed my arm and wrenched it, tearing my flesh with his fingers.  He gaped at
me, spittle glistening in the corners of his mouth.
    His face contorted like I had never
seen and he closed his eyes and cried out,  “How can you do this to me?”
    Then he jolted to his feet and
stormed out of the room and left me shaking in horror on the floor.
    He slammed his own bedroom door. 
Thank God he didn’t go back to Mikey.  I wouldn’t have had the strength to stop
him.
    I disintegrated.  I sobbed and
frantically wiped his fingerprints from my face.  I ran to the bathroom to take
a hot washcloth to my skin.  I scrubbed until my face ached.  It still wasn’t
enough.  I rubbed soap into my skin everywhere he had touched and I left it
there to dry before washing it away.  If I could have taken a blow torch to my
skin I would have.  No one had ever touched me like that.  Ever.  And the fact
that it was my father—
    A timid knock on the bathroom
door.  I froze.
    “Lizzie?”
    It was Mikey.  I flung the door
open.
    “Are you okay?” he whispered.
    I didn’t care if my father heard. 
Screw him.  “No, I’m not okay!  He’s a sick pervert!  Do you understand?  HE
TOUCHED ME!  OH MY GOD HE WOULDN’T STOP TOUCHING ME!”  I screamed—SCREAMED—and
Mikey backed away because he had never seen me this way before, this way that
was finally me and true and honest.  I screamed.  I was possessed.
    I slammed the door.  I stood in
front of the mirror and watched myself scream.  And then I cried, high-pitched,
hysterical, not a cry but a sobbing scream.  I thought I would never stop
screaming.  Never stop crying.  I could still feel his hands everywhere— everywhere —inside
and out, even places they might not have been.
    When I could breathe again I flung
open the door and ran to the phone and dialed:  first 91—then hung up before I
got to the last number.  Then Posie, and hung up.  I laid my head against my
hand and I tried to think what I should do because now my father was crazy and
he would take me there, too.  I could feel the hinges coming loose in my head. 
I didn’t know what I might do.  I might kill him.  I might go crazy.  I might
just cry until I died.
    And so I did nothing.  Because that
is who I am.  That is the shame of who I am.  I called no one, told no one, did
nothing, was nothing.
    “Are you all right?” Mikey asked me
later that night, when all was quiet again.
    “No.”
    He sat on the edge of my bed.  “What
happened?”
    “I told you.  I don’t want to talk
about it—it makes me sick.”
    Mikey picked at a stray thread on
my quilt.  “Do you think . . . should you tell Mom?”
    “No.  She won’t care.”
    “I’ll tell her if you want,” my
little brother offered.  My abused little brother.
    “Oh, my God.  No.”
    I couldn’t put it off any longer.
    I had to tell her myself.

Judges
    [1]
    Before there were kings in Israel
there were judges—leaders chosen by God to save the Israelites from
themselves.  The pattern was simple:  the Israelites sinned and fell into idol
worshipping and debauchery, the