Hidden Valley Road - Inside the Mind of an American Family - Robert Kolker Page 0,53

night, refusing him. Even then, she told no one about what Jim had been doing—especially not her little sister, Mary, who in Margaret’s view seemed far too young to be allowed to know. What Margaret hadn’t considered was that Jim would turn to Mary as soon as Margaret thwarted him.

Mary had been about seven, maybe eight, when she had a moment alone with her big sister and asked if she, too, had ever been bothered by Jim. Margaret’s answer was short, definitive—a conversation-stopper. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

It would be years before the sisters would talk about Jim again.

* * *

—

THE GIRLS WERE among the first to see how Jim was every bit as unstable as his brother Donald. Even beyond what he did to them at night, he was drinking too much all the time, and fighting with Kathy more and more. While Jim never hit them, they did see him hit Kathy sometimes, lightning-fast rampages that were so self-contained, it seemed almost as if he became someone else briefly, and then reverted back to Jim after that. Then Jim started having difficulty reverting. Mary remembered having to leave the house more than once with Kathy and Jimmy to get away from him.

In the calculus of their preteen minds, blocking out the nighttime encounters with Jim and his violence toward his wife was the price Margaret and Mary had to pay to gain a few days of liberty from the house on Hidden Valley Road.

It was more than that. Being with Kathy and Jimmy gave them a sense of belonging they couldn’t get at home, not when so much attention was being paid elsewhere. They both so dreaded Donald that in the contest between Donald and Jim, Jim won. That, if nothing else, explained why they both kept coming back.

But there was another reason, too.

It is also true that they were too young to know for sure that what he was doing was not right—because Jim was not the first brother to attempt it with either of them.

One of Mary’s first childhood memories, from about the age of three, was Brian molesting her. Margaret also remembered being touched inappropriately by Brian, more than once. Brian had been so well liked by them all, and he had left the house so quickly after high school, the girls never told anyone about Brian, either.

The truth about the Galvins—what Mimi and Don never saw, and never could have allowed themselves to see—was that by the time Jim advanced on the girls, everyone in the house on Hidden Valley Road seemed to be operating in a world with no consequences.

DON

MIMI

DONALD

JIM

JOHN

BRIAN

MICHAEL

RICHARD

JOE

MARK

MATT

PETER

MARGARET

MARY

CHAPTER 13

If Donald had been the imposing leader of the Galvin boys and Jim the resentful second-born, the third son, John Galvin, did his best to stay out of the fray entirely. The family’s most devoted classical musician, he practiced intently, toed the line in school, and spent most of his time at home avoiding his older brothers. Once he left home in the fall of 1968 on a scholarship to the music program at the University of Colorado in Boulder, John had rarely come back to Hidden Valley Road.

In his junior year, in the fall of 1970, John fell in love, and with some trepidation he brought his new girlfriend, Nancy, also a music student, home to meet his family. From the moment they walked through the door, John felt like the visit had been a terrible idea. Everything was so much worse than it had been when he left. The whole household had turned in on itself. Where everyone once was out in the fields, flying falcons and climbing rocks, now they were hiding Donald from view as best as they could. He saw how his mother had an inventory of stock speeches, designed to counterprogram