to Trav on that first day of driving, and I still do not know what prompted that observation. He is, though. It is a trait I do not share. Trav can step back, smile, and assess a situation with a sense of perspective and comfort.
“It is adaptive,” Trav answered, but I disagreed.
“I think it is innate.”
I watched Trav’s face as he drove, and I watched his body, too. Had I not been present, his approach would be more aggressive, and I appreciated his effort to drive slower and with more deliberation, a nod to my comfort, as the traffic got thicker.
He handles vehicles well, and his steady hands rested on the bottom of the steering wheel after pulling a pair of aviator sunglasses from the pocket of his well-worn hooded sweatshirt. The highway billboards—illegal in Maine—popped up in abundance as we sped through Massachusetts. The initial set advertised junk cars for sale, then an Army recruiting station, and when the first religious message appeared, it was a Bible verse.
First Corinthians. “Love is patient.”
Having just noted Trav’s patience, I thought this, too, seemed like an omen.
Trav laughed when I said I preferred the alternative translation of “Love suffers long.”
“Semantics,” he said.
It felt like a good sign.
At the exact moment we left the New England states and diverted onto the New Jersey Turnpike, Trav’s neck stiffened. It was a subtle change, and I doubt another person would have noticed. My feet still rested on the dashboard, and although I had long finished the hot tea from Maine, I continued to fiddle with the empty paper cup.
The New Jersey portion was a blip on our trip’s overall itinerary, but it took up the most mental space. It is a simple marker, the line into New Jersey, but neither of us spoke because there were no good words. New Jersey is loaded with significance.
Trav described his first arrival in Newark at age eleven as one of chaos. An unaccompanied minor in the pre-mobile phone era, he got lost in the airport and, until located, spent his time wandering the terminals alone.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I don’t remember,” he said, “but I must have found a pay phone and called someone.”
Photos of the American Boychoir School’s historic Albemarle campus building façade match Trav’s memory: a wide circular driveway, eight portico columns, and five dormered windows on the third floor. Trav described the 1917 estate in remarkable detail, and photos align against his details with an eerie level of accuracy. In one image is the formal staircase where he learned to maintain a military-style formation line before descending at each mealtime. He described the sharp creases in his uniform: navy blue pants, white shirt, and red sweater.
When Trav lived at the Albemarle campus in Princeton, classes were conducted in a series of rooms on the first and third floors. Because the choir traveled often, classes also happened in the tour bus. He learned science and math, social studies and language arts.
When not on tour, Trav practiced choral music every day in a high-ceilinged open space called “The Loggia.” For a little boy raised in a modest home, Italian architectural vocabulary felt foreign and overwhelming.
“The Loggia,” he repeated softly when he told me.
Albemarle’s physical details also included the second-floor living spaces. Occupancy varied according to age, and in Trav’s first year he bunked with eight boys. Their bedroom connected directly to an overnight staff perpetrator’s room, and Trav remembers trying to sleep through the sounds from behind that particular room’s door, wondering if and when he might be next.
Stretching behind the school itself, a manicured, formal field extended toward a natural spring-fed pool with freezing-cold water where Trav would swim. Beyond this pool was a stand of forest where Trav hollowed out a place in the thicket to crouch and hide.
Trav described laundry facilities in a dark basement and a strange hallway-cupboard storage space on the main floor. The former he avoided at all costs, and the latter he converted into another secret hiding place.
Late at night, Trav snuck into the school’s kitchen and ate dry cereal by the handful.
“Well,” I said. “That might explain your current late-night food compulsions.”
I suspect many people have no idea about the pervasive and long-lasting nature of childhood sexual abuse, and this lack of awareness is among the hardest parts to navigate because no lawsuit, apology, or jail time will ever make things right. We both wanted some form of understanding, though, so when Trav gave me permission to contact the school, I struggled to find the right words.
I had long ago requested that the American Boychoir School stop sending us solicitation letters, and they did; so, I proceeded with the good-faith assumption that honest conversations can resolve most issues. Since the American Boychoir School had participated in a court case,22 however reluctantly, that helped change child sexual abuse laws, I expected them to be, if not leaders on the topic, at least willing to discuss the issues.
HARDWICKE V. AMERICAN BOYCHOIR SCHOOL. Decided August 8, 2006. http://caselaw.findlaw.com/nj-supreme-court/1138661.html
Given the long history of allegations about the school, I also expected there would be a basic protocol for reporting, resources, and reparation.
I was naïve.
Trav and I have a friend who practices law locally, and before I contacted the school I asked her informally about the best process for obtaining some form of apology. Instead of meeting over our usual coffee, our lawyer friend invited us both to her office. Her tone was grave, and she wanted us to fully understand the process.
Her space, warm and inviting with exposed brick walls, antique wooden fixtures, and natural light from tall windows, overlooked a small park in Portland’s Old Port district. Sitting at her conference table, we learned about criminal action and civil action.
In simplest and most reductive terms, criminal charges happen with a goal of jail time for the perpetrator. Civil action holds a person or an organization responsible for damages, almost always financially. Both put the burden of proof on the party who claims he or she was wronged. In a criminal proceeding, proof must be beyond a reasonable doubt. With civil charges, the burden is known as “preponderance of the evidence” or, in numerical shorthand, 51 percent. This is a key distinction. Civil cases must demonstrate it is more likely than not that a person or organization is responsible.
Our friend explained that the first step in a civil proceeding is to send a demand letter. Although this is a mean-sounding term, a demand letter outlines the circumstance and invites a conversation.
“Great!” Trav and I agreed. A letter seemed perfect! We would include a statement from Trav’s doctors to demonstrate our legitimacy with more than ten years of documented treatment, and we would start a conversation—exactly what we wanted.
That is when our lawyer friend said that if we sent this letter, we must be prepared to enter litigation.
“Say more,” we requested. Neither of us is stupid, but litigation was a word we generally heard only on televised court dramas.
The