The Convenient Accusation

“There has to be something to it,” his mom said as she took a drag on her cigarette.

She sat silently waiting for Chad to reply, but he didn’t say a thing. He was too hurt.

This was not the first time this conversation had come up and from the looks of things, it probably wouldn’t be the last. Chad couldn’t figure out why his very own mother couldn’t see what was happening.

He figured that if anyone were intuitive enough to see that since all of his siblings were talking to the same counselor then there had to be some sort of brain washing going on.

Chad shook his head, “So you believe that shit, too?”

“Well, if all three of them claim the same thing,” his mother said.

“But that’s the point,” he responded, “their stories are all too pat. All the same…”

“It doesn’t matter,” she interrupted, “because it had to have happened!”

Chad sighed as he gave up, knowing it was hopeless.

His mother entrenched herself in the idea that he had molested Kurt, and his two sisters, April and Liz. And it was obvious Chad was going to be unable to change her position.

All this started after April’s operation to remove some tumors in her lower abdomen. When the doctors operated they discovered her hymen ruptured and somehow April came to point the finger at Chad.

It was a convenient accusation since their parents were in the middle of a nasty divorce and Chad had invited his old man to come live with him. He couldn’t stand seeing his dad living in his car in a parking lot.

Of course Chad had no way of knowing of the accusations against him, as he was busy with his own life. He had been out of the country when their mom took the kids and moved to Coos Bay, some one-hundred or more miles away.

By the time Chad heard the rumor he had molested any of his siblings, he was getting ready to get married. He had invited his brother to Brookings to spend the night before his fiancée Jenny, Kurt and he left on the long drive to Reno.

The two had been up late into the night drinking beer, when they decided to take a walk around the tiny town. It was a chilly January night and both of blew breath smoke into the darkness as they walked and talked.

“You know,” Kurt started, “I’ll never forgive you for molesting me.”

Stunned, Chad looked at him and asked, “What?!”

Kurt repeated himself, “I’ll never forgive you for molesting me.”

Chad didn’t know what to say, so he continued walking in silence. He tried desperately to think of anything to say, but nothing came to mind.

He was in shock, then Chad thought, “Perhaps it the beer talking.”

That was the beginning of the rumors and stories that he had misused his brother and sisters. Chad tried not to think of it, but every time he visited his mom, the subject either came up or one of his siblings would show up and make certain to ignore him.

Chad’s youngest sister Liz even went so far as to name him as the person the Coos County Sheriffs Department wanted for suspicion of child molestation. It was a Friday morning when they knocked on the front door of his mobile home.

When Chad answered, three officers rushed in and pushed him to the ground. As one hand cuffed him and another read to him his Miranda warning, another informed him that he was under arrest for child molestation on a warrant out of San Francisco.

When they rolled him over, the three realized they had the wrong man, who was unfortunate enough to have the same name as the bad guy they were looking for. It took nearly 48-hours to clear the mess up.

The three officers, thoroughly admonished by Judge Gillespie, apologized before heading back to California. In the meantime, the judge told Chad he ought to cut all ties with Liz, as painful as it might be.

Then a year before moving into a new home, Kurt and Chad stopped talking after a fist fight erupted in their mother’s home. The brother’s didn’t speak to each other even when their step-father died two-months later or as their mom lay dying in the hospital almost six-years afterwards.

It wasn’t until a late evening in November nearly seven-years since their fight that Kurt called the house looking for Chad. Intoxicated, he wanted to talk.

Again the subject of molestation came up; only this time Kurt wanted an apology from Chad.  However, he refused to say sorry for something he did not do.

Chad responded, “I don’t know the name of that shrink you kids were seeing, but if I ever find out…”

He was abruptly cut off, “Then let’s just forget about it, but I won’t forgive you.”

All Chad could do was shake his head and say, “Okay — fine, whatever.”

Eventually, he knew though he’d have to let all three of his siblings go.

“There is just no way I can continue to let them do this to me,” Chad told himself as he hung up the telephone.