the trigger. One woman left the home, so Daralyn became her replacement. Which suggests to me her father and uncle also shared her mother. Unlike Daralyn, she was severely beaten, on a regular basis. Ended up in the hospital multiple times. Never filed one charge against them. Social workers couldn’t get her to even consider it.”
Dr. Taylor’s expression was grave. “I have that from police reports, not Daralyn herself. She has very little memory of her mother, except as a shadow who fed and bathed her for a short period of her life.”
The psychiatrist rose, started herself a cup of coffee. Rory shook his head when she offered him something again. He thought he might crush the cup in his hand. He didn’t want to hear this. But if Daralyn had had to live it, he could damn well handle hearing it.
“I believe Oscar and Burton Moorfield found the abuse distasteful,” Dr. Taylor said, taking in his expression. “Viewed it as ‘necessary’ only because Daralyn’s mother was too old to be properly trained to obey them without question, serving them however they demanded. So after she died, Daralyn was the perfect answer to that. She could be trained from the very first.”
She returned to the sofa, cup in hand. It was one of those photo mugs, with a Westie on it. Her dog, he assumed. “Pre-puberty, they made a moderate effort to choose methods of release less painful to a child of her age and physical development.” She glanced his way. “An orifice less risky for their needs.”
He was going to be sick. He swallowed, hard, and Dr. Taylor’s eyes were on him.
“Okay?”
He inclined his head, jaw tight. “Keep going. Please.”
“Her father had more control of his impulses than her uncle. When Burton was drinking or high, he was far less careful. Oscar appears to have intervened enough to keep her out of a hospital, which they would have avoided, for obvious reasons. He apparently had a friend who was a male pediatrics nurse—a fellow pedophile—who treated her several times for UTIs and other issues.”
She rested a hand on her knee, her other hand on the cup she’d placed at her side. “Serving their sexual needs was merely one of the domestic functions they required of her. While they cared nothing for her responses, emotionally or physically, once they moved to sexual intercourse, when she was around eleven years old, a basic effort was made to ensure the act was not unbearably painful.” Her mouth thinned. “Again, a functional decision, not a compassionate one. They weren’t sadists. Her involuntary reaction to that level of pain would have been disruptive to their own release.”
She took a breath. “So, to answer your question, other than those times with her uncle, she didn’t fear sex any more or less than their other requirements of her. Denying them, or doing something they found objectionable, held a far greater terror for her.”
Rory stared into space while she sipped her tea. He expected Dr. Taylor was giving him time to figure out what he wanted to say or ask next.
“I don’t envy you your job, Doc. I have a punching bag that could file a domestic violence complaint against me. The more I learn about what they did to her, the more I have to beat the crap out of it.”
“I’m glad you have that outlet. I expect you’re smart enough to have realized your justified anger at them isn’t something she can handle well.”
“Yeah. Is she angry at them?”
Dr. Taylor’s eyes filled with sadness. “I think she views them as a caged and abused animal does. Just glad to be free, even while always fearing she’ll wake up and find herself in that cage again. Only this time, having found a life that is so much more than that, she’ll have lost the coping skills to survive it.”
“So the key is helping prove to her she’ll never be in that cage again.”
“Helping her prove it to herself,” Dr. Taylor corrected. “Every positive change for Daralyn will come from inside her. That’s what we focus upon, because it teaches her she has personal power. Your behavior and feelings toward her are very important, Rory, but it’s vital for me to emphasize that. The only thing we can give her are tools. Not a solution. That has to come from her for it to be real.”
“That makes sense.” He went with a different question, honestly needing to back away from the other. “Food. Has she explained why