Hidden Valley Road - Inside the Mind of an American Family - Robert Kolker Page 0,88

other costs, like transportation. After three years of looking for a way out, Mary had earned her ticket.

* * *

—

THIS NIGHT WOULD be different. Mary knew it had to be.

She was thirteen years old. Jim was thirty-one, still married to Kathy, and still running the Manitou Incline. Behind the funicular station at the top of the hill was a musty cottage with a couple of old mattresses and sleeping bags. As the manager of the incline, Jim had unfettered use of this cottage. Sometimes, instead of hosting his younger brothers and sisters at home, he invited them there, at the top of the incline, where they could be alone.

This time, on a cool evening in the spring of 1979, Mary was there with Matt. Jim had invited them both to camp out and smoke pot and drink beer. When it got late, she fell asleep in one room of the cottage, the guys in the other. Matt was passed out, but the light was still on, so Mary pretended that she was asleep, just as she always did when she knew Jim would come to her—disassociating by pretending it wasn’t happening, at least not to her.

But she could not go through with it that night. Mary had gotten her period. She was more terrified of getting pregnant than she was of Jim’s fury at being refused.

For the first time, when Jim came over to her, she lost control, saying things she hadn’t expected to say. Leave me alone. Get away from me. I hate you.

Jim attacked her anyway. He entered her, something he’d never accomplished with Mary’s sister. He came. And he never spoke to her about it after that. He avoided her altogether.

There were, of course, several weeks of terror that she might become pregnant. Once it became clear she wasn’t, Mary expected to feel relief. She’d done it: She’d fought him off, protected herself, made it so that he would never do it again. She was almost delirious with the thought of it.

But then, quite unexpectedly, part of her found Jim’s ability to disappear from her life to be utterly wrenching. She tried to ignore that feeling, but there was no mistaking it. She was heartbroken. Some part of her had truly believed, as a child does, that this was love.

* * *

—

SHE WAS ALMOST free now. Jim was no longer in her life. Soon neither would Peter or Matt or Donald. Her future was her own. At the end of eighth grade, not long after she was accepted to Hotchkiss, Mary was invited to a high school party hosted by the older brother of a friend. She said yes right away.

Mary told her mother she was sleeping over at her friend’s house. She left out the part about the party. When she got there, the big brother was there, along with two other guys, drinking Seven and Sevens. She joined in.

The guys invited both girls out to a well-known make-out spot in town to drink some more. Her friend said no; she had to stay home to take care of her little sisters. But Mary said yes and got into a car with them. By the time they came back, Mary’s friend and her sisters were all asleep. Mary was so drunk she could barely stagger back inside.

The boys, seeking privacy, found a walk-in closet, opened the door, and directed Mary inside it. One at a time, they followed.

Mary woke up a few hours later with no idea of where she was. She opened the closet door and found her way to the living room. Daylight streamed through the windows. Mary shuddered. Her mother was supposed to pick her up. She stumbled outside and waited on the curb, holding her stomach, trying to sort out what had happened.

The plan had been for her mother to take her to a dentist appointment. “I can’t go,” Mary said, as soon as she got in the car. “I’m sick.” Mimi might have gathered that her daughter had been drinking—this was her twelfth teenager, after all—but she said nothing.

It was then, on the way back home, it all came flooding back—two boys