I sit with Serena for about an hour, until the dizziness is too much. Then I go in search of some food. I find a microwave meal in the freezer, a welcome treat from the usual frozen burrito or pizza pocket. It’s beef and noodles. I put it in the microwave and then think of Serena. I get a glass of water and go back to Serena’s room. She is still sitting on her bed crying. Reg is gone.
“Do you want some food?” I ask gently.
Serena shakes her head no. I set the glass of water down on the floor near her feet in case she wants it later.
I go into the kitchen, eat my meal, and drink three glasses of water. Then I sit there, thinking about Chloe until Tommy comes in. He looks tired.
“They’re keeping her a few more hours,” he says. “I can go back to get her later this morning.”
I nod. The fact that Chloe is coming back to us gives me a rare feeling of comfort. I realize then that I have grown to love her, in a way.
The food is making me sleepy, and out our little kitchen window I see the morning sky lightening up on the horizon. I make my way down the hall and find Reg sleeping, her arms wrapped around her pillow. I fall into bed without changing clothes or showering.
And I dream of myself when I was young.
In the dream I’m about seven. Brit and I are on the school playground. Chloe comes to our school as the new girl, and she is little, maybe only five. She has started kindergarten with my favorite teacher, Mrs. Kettle. We invite Chloe to play, and I’m happy, because in kindergarten you learn that the police are your friends, and this time, maybe, the balding man with kind eyes will save Chloe. Save her before it’s too late.
When I wake up, the analog clock on our dresser reads that it’s after noon, and Tommy hasn’t come for us yet. I sit up and rub my eyes, and right away the gnawing sensation of fear starts in on me.
With a start, I remember Chloe. I look over at the other bed, and Reg is there, staring at the ceiling. No cigarette. No makeup. Just lying there staring.
“Did you hear Chloe come in?” I ask.
“Yeah. She looks terrible. Prepare yourself.” Then she abruptly gets up, tossing her blanket on the floor. “I have to pee.”
As Reg leaves, I part the window curtain near my bed and see that it’s a gray day outside. If Chloe is back, she must be okay. At least okay enough for the hospital to release her.
I pull on some jeans and tiptoe quietly down the hall to her room. I always try to avoid the men. I don’t see anybody, but I hear Tommy’s voice talking quietly to someone in the kitchen. Chloe’s bedroom door is closed, and I open it quietly, trying not to make any noise.
She’s laying in her bed, her back to me.
I tiptoe in.
“Chloe?” I whisper.
“Heather?” Her voice sounds normal enough, but I still can’t see her face.
“Oh Chloe, I’m so glad you’re okay!”
She slowly turns over, and I’m so horrified when I see her face that I take a step back. Her right eye is purple and swollen shut. Her lips are swollen and caked with blood. And I see scratch marks down her arms, as if an animal has attacked her.
“What on earth….?” I say, but she quickly pulls the covers up over her.
“Nothing’s broken,” she says, giving me a crooked little smile through swollen lips. “Tommy says I was lucky.”
“Were you at…I mean…the hospital let you come home?”
“Yeah. They’re busy and short of beds. It’s okay.
“You need to let somebody know what happened!” I say, my voice raising above a whisper. “Did you tell one of the nurses?”
“Shhhh!” says Chloe. She glances at the other bed, and I see that Serena is still asleep. “You’ll wake her. She was up all night waiting for me.”
“Was it those two guys? Did they just hit your face?” I asked. “Or…or are your hurt everywhere?” I have to know.
“I needed stitches,” Chloe says.
“Did they cut you?” I imagine knives and stab wounds on petite little Chloe. “Where?”
Chloe shakes her head. “No. No cutting. Just…” her voice trails off. “They were a little rough. With the sex and all. You know how it goes.”
It takes a moment to sink in, but from my own experience I get what she’s saying. “You mean you have stitches…down there?’
Chloe nods. “I tore.”
“Oh my gosh.” Suddenly the room tips, and I sit down on the side of her bed. They raped her so badly she tore. I have no words of comfort. There is nothing I can even think to say. I can’t even imagine. I feel tears in my eyes, but when I turn to Chloe, her eyes are dry.
She puts a hand on my wrist. I see the scratch marks on her arms again. “It’s okay,” she says.
“No, it’s not,” I say. I’m crying now.
“It is. Tommy will take care of me. He gave me some aspirin. I’ll be fine.” She lets go of my arm. “But I need to get some sleep.”
I nod, taking the clue from her to leave. Then I stand and walk towards the door. I’m about to close it quietly behind me when Tommy comes down the hall and pushes past me.
“Serena, get up. Heather? Why aren’t you girls dressed? Chloe stays home, the rest of you have work!” He’s bellowing, even though we’re right there. I shrink back from his loud voice, and hurry to my room. I hope he takes us straight to the hotels today. Now, after what happened to Chloe, I’m more afraid than ever to work the streets.
Back in my room, Reg is dressed and putting on mascara. She tosses a baggie with two white pills in it on my bed.
“Those are free,” she says. “Because of what happened to Chloe, I thought maybe you could use something to settle your nerves.”
She doesn’t look at me.
“Thanks,” I say. I put my bra on and stuff them down in. I know I gave up drugs, but I take them with me anyway. I just may need them today.
“Why did the hospital let her go?” I ask.
“It’s an inner city dump,” says Reg. “She was just another whore who got beat up by her John. They see it every day. She’s eighteen, so legally they have to let her go if she asks.”
“She’s not eighteen,” I say.
“She is on paper.”
It hasn’t occurred to me that some of the girls might have fake ID. I feel so stupid. “But isn’t anybody looking for her? I mean, whoever she was stolen from in the first place? Or a foster home? Or somebody? Wouldn’t they recognize her by her description?”
“There are so many girls who have gone missing. Do you think the people in the ER have time to look at every missing photo that comes through? And besides, nobody is looking for her. She ain’t got nobody. Tommy found her on the streets, alone and starving. Chloe isn’t even her real name.”
“What is her real name?”
Reg shrugs. “I’m not even sure she knows.”
“How can she not know her name?”
But Reg is done talking. She finishes putting on her makeup and heads out the door. I hurry up, too, because if I’m late, Tommy will be mad. And with the mood he’s in today, I don’t want to face him angrier.
How can someone not know their own name?
— — —
Heather was the name of my great-grandmother on Daddy’s side. His mom’s mom. Because his mom lived only three streets over from her parents, she spent a lot of time at their house when Daddy was little. He had fond memories of baking cookies and coloring with his Grandma Heather. Later, when Daddy showed an interest in painting, it was Grandma Heather who bought him his first watercolor paints. She took him to an actual art store to buy nice paper and expensive brushes, even though he was only about ten years old.
But Grandma Heather was more than sweet and fun. She stood up for what she believed in. Born in 1923, my great-grandma Heather saw her brothers go off to war, and she went to work as a teenager for the war effort. When she turned eighteen, she took college classes locally. Then, not to be held back by her gender, she enrolled in Harvard in 1945, the y
ear the first females were accepted into the prestigious medical program. She had a heart for war veterans and decided she could help them more with a medical degree. She became a physician assistant and worked part time for nearly twenty years in the local veterans’ hospital.
In the 1960s she marched for Martin Luther King and burned her bra for Women’s Rights. In the 1970s she volunteered with helping returning Vietnam veterans get jobs. Because she was also a part-time stay-at-home mom, once her kids were older and in school, she had time to volunteer with the local food bank, the elementary school down the street, and the library. She doted on her kids and later her grandkids. Daddy told me countless stories of everything that Grandma Heather did, and how much everybody loved her.
She died tragically when Daddy was a freshman in college. She was crossing a street on her way to the local food bank to volunteer her time serving soup, when someone ran a red light and hit her at the crosswalk. Daddy said at least she died doing something she loved doing.
Kind of like Daddy.
He was grief-stricken, and he met my mom six months later. They fell in love quickly, and he said if they ever married and had kids, he wanted to name their daughter Heather. Mom loved the idea, so when I was born, I was given Grandma Heather’s name.
I have a photo of Grandma Heather in my room. She’s in her fifties in the photo and has long dark hair, like mine, and my same brown eyes. I have always loved my name because of her.
And my middle name is Jean, from my mom. That’s her name, although Daddy always called her Jeanie.
I wonder what Chloe’s name is, and if she ever had a family who loved her enough to give her a special one. There’s a lot in a name.
I hate leaving Chloe behind, but Tommy drops me off at the motel. The first guy comes in, and he’s quick.
When I’m with the men, I’ve found a way to pretend I’m somewhere else. I close my eyes and go as far away from myself as I can. Sometimes I pretend I am home playing with Gracie, and she’s purring. I try to make the purring so loud in my head that I can’t hear the men grunting.
Sometimes I pretend that I’m on my way to Brit’s house, and I’m driving in my car. I turn the music up really loud in my head so I can’t hear or feel anything else. Just the beat of the music.
But mostly, I just go away. I go away someplace empty and don’t hear or see or feel. I just get through the day.
It’s hard without the drugs. The monotony of it, the pain of it, the disgusting smells and touching and fluids and sweat become too much for me.
Dark thoughts start entering my mind. That’s been happening a lot lately, but today I think of Chloe, lying home in bed, in pain. Torn. Bleeding. I wonder when Tommy will make her work again. Will he give her time to heal? Probably not completely.
I think of Reg and the long cuts up her arms. I wonder when she tried to kill herself. And who stopped her? Who found her and rushed her to the hospital? I’ll have to ask Chloe.
There’s a man on top of me, and he’s huffing and pushing, and his sweat is sliding across my stomach and dripping down my sides. He stinks. The low light from the small lamp doesn’t hide the hairs in his ears, which I can see clearly because the side of his head is up against my eyes, rocking back and forth.
I feel bile creeping up in my throat, and just as he empties himself in me, I turn over, spilling him out and vomiting over the side of the bed. There’s not much in my stomach, just a candy bar this morning and one glass of water, so my vomiting soon turns to dry heaves.
I hear him exclaiming something, then cursing. He gets up and throws the covers over me, muttering something about how disgusting I am, but I am clinging to the sides of the bed, heaving up air and noise, and nothing else.
I hear the rustle of clothes. The zip of his pants. And then, the slam of the door.
I hope he left the money.
I hang over the side of the bed for a few minutes, until the heaving stops. Then I roll back over. I’m naked and covered in sweat and filth, and his sperm has leaked across my thighs, and all I can think of is how much I don’t ever want to do this again.
Where is my mom?
Why did Daddy die and leave me?
Why hasn’t Brittney come to save me?
In the Disney movies, the later ones, the princesses are always saving themselves. And the world. Or their friends. Or their pets. Somebody. And in Hunger Games Katniss saves herself. And Peta.
And in the beginning, her sister.
But me? I can’t even keep myself from getting raped.
And what did I do for Chloe? I shouldn’t have let her go with those men. I should have stopped her.
The door is opening and the next guy is coming in. How long have I lain here? He sees the pile of vomit on the floor and steps over it.
He takes his pants off and I see him growing inside of his briefs.
I close my eyes and retreat back into the world of nothingness.
— — —
The watery vomit soaks into the dirty carpeting and stays there the rest of the night. People just step over it, or don’t notice it. I am too tired and depleted to clean it up. My hands are shaking because I’m so hungry. I only ate the candy bar, and I can’t remember the last time I drank water, but apparently it was long ago because I haven’t had to pee all day.
I can’t quit thinking about Chloe.
It’s late. Or early morning. The clock in the hotel says 2:30 a.m. I’m waiting for another man to come in. This one is late, I guess, because I have had some time in between clients. I fell asleep briefly, and I am chilled. I feel feverish. Maybe I’m sick. But then in the back of my head, I remember learning in Health Class that if you are dehydrated, you can feel feverish. I really should go get myself a drink of water.
I sit up, and the room spins. I take a few deep breaths, and when the dizziness recedes I walk naked to the bathroom and fill up one of the glass cups on the sink.
I drink it all.
I feel really light-headed, so I fill it up again and take it back to the bed. I’m about to sit down when I see my bra laying on the floor near my dress. It has the package of white pills near it.
I pick up the baggie and hold it between my fingers. What if I take one, just to knock the edge off?
I open the baggie and swallow one before I have time to talk myself out of it.
Chloe’s face comes back into my head. Her big eyes, so wide and pretty; one now swollen shut. Her lips caked with blood. I see a picture of those guys who picked her up so vividly in my mind, of them beating her, of them both raping her. And her alone in a motel room with no one to help her.
I take another pill. I wash it down with the water.
I don’t ever want to be like Chloe. I don’t want to be like Reg and slit my wrists. I don’t want Tommy to hit me again, or for another man to lay on top of me and use me to make himself feel better.
I want to go away. Farther away than I go in my head when the men are here. Farther away than back home, or out of this town.
I want to see Daddy again. And meet Grandma Heather. And laugh and be safe. I want to go somewhere where no one can hurt me again.
I swallow a third pill and drink the last of the water. Then I lay down on the bed and wait for rest to come.
— — —
“What the—?” Someone is standing over me, cursing. Through slit eyes I see it’s a man. He has a beard, and he’s white. His beard is black. He’s black and white.
“Hey,” he says. He slaps me gently on the cheek. I moan but can’t talk. I turn my head, and he pats me on the other cheek. “Hey. You okay?”
I want to tell him to leave. To let me go away. But I can’t speak.
I can’t even keep my eyes open.
“Are you sick?” His voice raises a pitch. “Did you OD?”
He is starting to freak out. I hear him jangling his car keys, fishing through his pants pocket. Then he has his phone out and is punching buttons.
I hear Grandma Heather talki
ng to me. She’s telling me to come home. In my mind, I am running towards her, and I am a child again, and there’s flowers in the field I’m crossing. Flowers of light blue and lavender. And then just as I’m about to reach her, blackness closes in on me.
***
Bright lights. There’s a terrible pain in my stomach. A tube down my throat. A gurgling sound.
“Here it comes,” says someone. I squint up at the lights and see someone wearing a green cap. It looks like a nurse. The gurgling becomes louder, and I fade out again.
— — —
I open my eyes, and I’m in a bed. There’s a needle in my arm and a bag of something dripping down a tube to my veins. Someone put an IV in. Tommy is standing by my bed.
“You really messed up this time,” he says to me. His arms are crossed. He’s wearing the look he has when he’s not happy.
I turn my head a little bit. It looks like I’m in a hospital. An emergency room, maybe, because there’s a curtain separating the beds.
I try to sit, but I’m really light-headed.
“Lie still,” Tommy says. “You need a few more fluids, and then you can go.”
I lie back and do as he says. I’m really groggy, but as soon as a doctor comes, it’s my chance to get out of here. I try to fight through the fog in my head to find the right words. Help. Rape. Hostage.
I drift off again and…
“Coke whore,” someone is saying quietly. “They sell themselves for drugs. That’s what they all do. This one overdosed.”
The whispered voices are coming from behind the curtain. A man and a woman. The curtain is pulled aside, and they both come in. To my left I see Tommy sitting in a chair next to my bed.
“Got your stomach pumped,” the nurse says. She is older than my mom, and her hair is grey. She has frown lines all over her face. She looks down at me and shakes her head but doesn’t make eye contact.
The doctor, a middle-aged white man with bags under his eyes, looks at the monitors overhead and pulls out my chart.
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