Amy Scheiner

Special Victims Unit

Amy Scheiner

Here is a memory:

I am standing in the bathroom wrapped in a towel. My hair drips water down my back. The hot wind from the hair dryer hits my skin and I shriek with laughter as the air moves over my butt. My mom, standing behind me, chuckles as I squirm in front of the mirror.

“Hold still!” She continues the game and I wiggle in anticipation for her next move. She pretends she is serious about untangling my knots until a smile breaks and the hot air tickles me again. My six-year-old laughter floats above us.

This mother-daughter routine is one I savor. The gentle touch of my mom’s fingers through my hair, her mischievous smile baiting me into laughter.

Mom holds the dryer to her side and makes eye contact with me in the mirror. “I want you to promise me you’ll never keep any secrets from me.” Her smile disappears. I stare back. I’m not completely sure what she means but I feel like I should. I nod my head slowly. I understand.

*

When I was eleven, a friend and I blasted Avril Lavigne in my room and painted our faces with electric blue eyeshadow and Kiss-Me-Not red lipstick. We banged our heads up and down, our hair flying wildly, singing terribly off key.

“Snacks,” I told my friend. She and I jumped down the stairs, two at a time, and threw open the pantry door. Mom was standing in the kitchen, shuffling through the mail, phone cradled between her ear and shoulder. It was the weekend so her hair wasn’t styled and she wore no makeup. She nodded into the phone, the line between her eyebrows prominent. I had a mouth full of chips before I looked at my friend, her face struck with horror.

“He inserted his penis up his granddaughter’s rectum, do you really think he should retain any custodial rights?”

*

When I was nine, slouching in my seat in class, Mom and a detective walked past my open classroom door and she waved ferociously at me. I had to blink twice to make sure it was really her. When I was eight, I found out one of my friends went to see Mom after her stepfather molested her. When I was ten, twelve, sixteen, Mom gave talks to my class about internet safety. When I was fourteen, she prosecuted my Math teacher.

I knew the word rape before I knew my times tables. *

Mom was the Chief Prosecutor of Sex Crimes and Child Abuse in our county. Her job was a lot like Law and Order SVU, although slightly less melodramatic and minus the catchy theme song. For a while, she drove a 2001 dark green Lexus with tinted windows, a perk of her job.

“It used to be a drug car!” she bragged to everyone she met. I guess that’s why cops would frequently pull us over. Usually she knew the officer but if not, she would casually pull out her license and say: “Oh, would you like to see my badge as well?”

Mom worked a lot but I never felt neglected. In fact, it was the opposite. She was always around, hovering, watching.

One day when I was in middle school, our dog escaped from the backyard. “Take your brother and go look for him.” Mom’s voice didn’t waiver as she slipped her feet into her Crocs and jumped in the car.

I grabbed my younger brother’s hand and dragged him behind me. He shivered in his oversized jacket while mine flapped open around my shoulders, the cold air numbing my neck. We roamed around our cul-de-sac neighborhood, both of us yelling: “Lucky! Lucky! Come here boy!” The orange-red hue of the leaves crunching beneath our feet reminded me of lava.

“What are you looking for?” A man from a couple of streets over asked as he raked his front lawn. He looked like all the fathers in my town; he wore jeans, a polo sweatshirt, and a benign smile.

“Our dog ran away,” I called from the street, pulling my brother toward me.

“What does he look like?” the man said. Before I could answer, Mom pulled up in the minivan with Lucky in tow. “Get in the car, now!”

I felt Mom’s fury as my brother and I jumped in the back, Lucky licking our faces. I stepped over the take-out wrappers and stray toys on the floor to get to my seat.

“What did I say about talking to strangers?”

I grew to believe that men were dangerous. Mom never left me alone with one who wasn’t related to me and although that might seem surprising, it was a blindspot of hers I was fortunate to have. The men in my family, specifically my dad, paternal grandfather, and uncle were the ones with whom I felt most safe. But other men were always a threat.

I didn’t realize the immense amount of anxiety I felt on a daily basis as a child; I didn’t have the language yet to describe it. But I knew the statistics: one in three girls would be the victims of sexual abuse, many girls believe it was their fault, and it’s usually by someone you know.

Mom always accompanied me to appointments with any male doctor or professional and when I was fifteen, I went to physical therapy after I woke up one day and couldn’t move my neck. The doctor said it was because of stress.

My physical therapist was a grandfatherly man with white hair and soft hands. He worked in an office with workstations separated by curtains and inside was a mat table sanitized for my safety. I followed my mom inside of the office, “like a duckling” we used to joke. We had the last appointment of the day given my mom’s long hours so we were the only people in the office.

“You need to leave the curtain open,” Mom said during the first session. She had just come from work and held a portfolio of files close to her chest to read while I was being treated.

“Is there something wrong?” The physical therapist asked, his brow curved in confusion.

“No. This is just for your protection as well as hers.” I was too embarrassed to speak. My mother’s candor made me uncomfortable in my body, as if she was drawing more attention to it, it’s possibility of being a sexualized body, a victimized body.

*

There was never a question in my mind how much my mother loved me. She made it clear that everything she did was to protect me, even though I was suffocating under her protection. She had to know where I was every minute of the day. I couldn’t go over to a friend’s house if she didn’t know (and trust) the parents. She demanded to know my email and AIM passwords. Nothing was allowed to be private.

I’d hide in my closet journaling about my anger toward her, my desire to break free from her control. Writing that one day I’d move far away and never come back.

I told her I hated her and begged her to leave me alone. She told me I was dramatic and naive. I thought if I was naive, then it must have been her fault.

*

A handful of times I went to watch Mom in court, usually during a sentencing or a hearing. One summer when I was twelve, Mom brought a neighborhood girl and me to work with her. She was a year older than me and I wanted to impress her and show her that even if I had nothing interesting about me, at least my mom did.

“I’m glad you’re here. This happens to so many girls and it’s important to talk about it. Most girls keep it a secret though when it happens.” Mom was sending emails as she spoke, her messy desk covered in papers, heels hidden under her desk. Her department was small and her office was located furthest down the hall with signs hanging on her door reading “Chief Prosecutor” and “The Witch is In” with an illustration of a wart-nosed hag on a broom.

“I just have a brief sentencing this afternoon, girls. Do you want to watch or would you rather stay here?” She asked while we snacked on M&Ms in her office.

“I want to go!” said my companion.

We sat in the audience seating with only a judge, defense attorney, and Mom in the courtroom. The room was still and warm. Mom sat at the table on the right, faced away from me, wearing stockings and a pencil skirt and blazer. She had to wear this every day when I was growing up and I remember thinking that I never wanted a job where I had to wear stockings.

I don’t think my mother ever questioned the appropriateness of bringing her young daughter to court. She had become desensitized to the daily traumas she witnessed and most likely thought that this was the safest place for me. That here all the bad men were locked away.

The defendant sat in the jury box, a pale man with patchy hair, a look of pleasant disinterest on his face. The judge took his seat up front and Mom rose upon his arrival.

I leaned over and whispered to my friend, “Mom says he was arrested for raping a woman in an alley. He’s pleading insanity.”

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“I think it means he’s crazy.”

While the judge sentenced him to the criminal psychiatric ward, the defendant slowly turned his head to look at my friend and me. His eyes were a cool blue of menacing evil.

We jumped down to hide ourselves behind the seats in front of us, she laughing, me almost pissing myself. I would have nightmares and about those eyes for weeks after. *

Once a year, I’d visit Mom’s office for Take Your Child To Work Day. A group of us, sons and daughters of law enforcement, sat in the jury box as the police officers, detectives, and prosecutors put on a show to entertain us. We were fingerprinted and put under a lie detector test, the police officers sticking wires on kids and asking them questions like: “Did you really brush your teeth this morning?” and “Is there a girl here you have a crush on?” We laughed. It was fun.

They put on a mock trial, a police officer playing the defendant, the judge playing himself, and Mom playing herself. The plot was simple— the accused had stolen an old lady’s purse.We kids were bewitched at the justice unfolding before us. Mom was always the most dramatic actor, waving her hands and elongating her words for the theatrics. I was proud of my mom, her godlike presence commanding a room.

Mom always had a larger-than-life personality which was never more evident than when she was at work. She was the boss. She was in control. She was in her element. And because I was her daughter, I was important, too. Detectives and secretaries and judges who had known me my whole life would rush over to me with big smiles and hugs. Even the defense attorneys would greet me warmly.

The world made sense there. There was right and wrong. There was crime and punishment. There was Mom, supervising it all.

Eventually, I grew up, as all girls do. At least, the lucky ones who survive. When I first went away to college I was shy and nervous around my male peers. I didn’t know how to interact with them; I had been kept in a bubble of safety, which is to say, the bubble of my mother. In the beginning there was alcohol to help me. I went to parties and clubs and made a competition with my girlfriends to see who could make out with the most guys in one night. Getting men to buy me drinks, kissing them, and swatting their hands away when they wanted more. I was in control. I was powerful. I was like every other college girl—fearless.

And then I had sex for the first time with a man I had met only once before. Of course, I never told Mom, not because she was puritanical about sex (she was the one who told me I should “test drive” the car before I buy it) but because I put myself in danger. Because it was with a guy I didn’t know or trust and I followed him to a nondescript location without letting anyone know about my whereabouts. Shouldn’t I have known better? Were all of Mom’s teachings wasted on me?

After that night, I realized that sex, this thing that had always been so concealed in danger because it was connected to violence, wasn’t that scary after all. I felt powerful in my body. I had proved my mother wrong—I wouldn’t be afraid.

I wanted to erase my past and prove to myself that I could be carefree like all of my friends. I heard her voice in my head: You’re so naive. Perhaps the risks I continued to take proved I was naive— getting into strangers’ cars, bringing back guys from clubs and bars to my apartment, taking drink after drink from men whose sole purpose was to get laid. But I felt the opposite was true. I was the one in control, I was the one who owned my body, who couldn’t be hurt by men.

Of course, this rationalization wasn’t that simple. Nothing ever is. My risk-taking was complex and could not be solely blamed on my mother’s hypervigilance. There were so many other reasons as to why I did the things I did.

But the reality was I knew the risks I was taking and I chose to ignore them. How easy it is to push

things out of your mind when you are tired of thinking about them. I was tired of being afraid, tired of living under my mother’s control, tired of living in my own dysfunctional mind. There was something thrilling about proving my mom wrong, proving that I would not be the victim.

Here is a memory:

Mom was on the phone talking about her recent Lasik eye surgery to her best friend. “It’s a miracle, it really is! I don’t need glasses at all anymore. Dr. W is a genius!”

Dr. W. had advertisements everywhere. His office was always on the local radio station and we passed billboards with his looming, tanned face from his Florida vacation house.

“I made you an appointment for an eye checkup. You’ll love him. He’s the best,” Mom said.

I didn’t particularly want to see an eye doctor. I was prescribed glasses when I was ten but refused to wear them until Mom finally caved and bought me contacts. I was in eighth grade and was bullied regularly at school and desperate to get out of my house. I felt like I couldn’t breathe inside of my home, inside of my life.

A few weeks later, I found myself sitting in a large, leather chair as the optometrist assistant turned off the lights and placed a machine in front of my face: “E-K-F-M-S-C” I recited.

“Perfect!” she exclaimed.

Dr. W. came in.

“Hello, Robin,” he embraced Mom and she began joking around with him.

“Doctor W., this is my daughter.”

“Nice to meet you.” He reached out and my hand disappeared in his large, firm handshake.

“I’ll be right back, I wanted to check with Celia about something up front.” Mom disappeared and at the time, I didn’t think much about it. Mom was a social butterfly and knew who to trust.

Dr. W. pulled his small, rotating stool in front of me. He wore khaki pants and a blue button down shirt, his hair greased back.

“So, I hear you play soccer,” he said. He placed another machine to cover my face.

I squeezed my legs together, feeling uncomfortable at his proximity.

He moved his stool closer to look through the machine. His legs widened as he planted his feet on either side of my chair. I felt the bulge in his pants pressed up against my knees.

“Yeah,” I answered.

I tried shifting my legs but I was stuck. Something felt wrong, but I couldn’t explain what or why. I felt my whole body tense, my shoulders rising to my ears. I felt his body against me. Was he just trying to get a closer look at my eyes or if I was now one of those girls? One of those one in three girls, one of those girls who believes it was her fault, one of those girls who knew the person.

I squirmed but couldn’t move far, holding my breath until it was over.

“Your eyes look good.” He turned on the lights.

Mom returned, still babbling and joking, always the life of the party.

We got into her Lexus and started toward home, me sitting in the passenger seat, her in the driver’s. I considered telling her what had happened, but I wasn’t even sure what had happened. I felt my stomach

drop. Was I keeping a secret from her? Or was I over-reacting? After all, Mom wouldn’t have left me alone with someone she didn’t trust. She was the protector of children, and I was her child.

“I just love that Dr. W.” she said, turning onto the highway. “Such a nice man.”

Here was my moment to tell her but I clammed up. Confused and unable to process the event, I said nothing. Looking back, I wonder what would have happened if I had told her. There was never a doubt in my mind that she would have brushed off my accusation or declared that I had misunderstood. That was one of the gifts she gave me— unyielding trust. But maybe she would have have blamed herself, thought that she failed as a prosecutor and as a mother. The roles that defined her, the roles she had sacrificed so much for.

Or, maybe she would have swerved the car and ran into that office, shaking her first and swearing vengeance. Maybe he would have cowered, his eyes drifting toward the floor, terrified of the consequences of his actions. Maybe he would have furrowed his brow, chuckled at the misunderstanding, professed that he didn’t touch me, of course, he would never touch me. And then what would I say?

“Yeah.” My voice drifted as I spent the rest of the car ride staring blankly out the window.