by Rae Agatha
“Guess it must have been quite a spontaneous decision that they’re coming, huh? Announcing it on Tuesday that they’d come in a few days—”
“Nah, I’ve known they were planning to come for over a week now. I just didn’t want to say anything until it was confirmed,” Martha said. “So, do you think Monica will have time to come on Friday and help me prepare the dinner?”
“Yeah, about that. I…I don’t think Monica and I will come,” Rick said clearing his voice.
“Why not?” Martha asked. Rick wasn’t sure if she was more anxious or disappointed.
Rick sighed. “There’s been an – an accident, Mom,” he drank some more beer.
“Oh my God, what happened?”
“Monica was assaulted. She went running in the park yesterday evening and – and she was attacked.”
“Oh, Jesus –“
“She – um – she was beaten up and raped.” He could hear his mother gasping the air with empathy.
“Oh Lord –“
“The doctor called me around midnight to come to see her. I got back from the hospital about an hour ago, actually.”
“How is she?”
“She – she doesn’t look too good, um,” he took another sip, “she has a swollen eye, bruises, she lost two teeth. They – they still need to –,” he was doing his best to hold on, but when he got to the HIV part, his voice broke down. He put the phone away for a few seconds and was breathing heavily, doing his best to get a grip. Finally, he resumed the conversation, Martha was patiently waiting for him. “They still need to do an HIV test, Mom, to rule it out. Three months from now.”
“Oh God,” Martha sighed.
“Yeah. I will take her home on Thursday.”
“Is there – is there anything I can do to help? Maybe I’ll visit her?”
“No, I don’t think it’s a good idea. She looks pretty bad, I don’t think she’d like anyone to see her like that. She – she needs time.”
“No, of course. Just please tell her I’m praying for her.”
“Yeah, will do.”
“Maybe – maybe you should, too? Under those circumstances -”
“I should what?”
“Pray? Go to church? I mean, it won’t hurt, but it might help.”
“How exactly would that help? Mom, there are four churches around us within three blocks. There’s so much prayer around us during the weekends that we might as well say we’re living in a prayer microwave, I mean I am surprised the popcorn doesn’t pop by itself on Sundays from all those vibes coming from so many directions. And yet, a guy was mugged around the corner three days ago and Monica was assaulted close to our home, too,” he said sarcastically. “And why would I pray post-factum? I might ask where God was yesterday around, let’s see,” he looked at the clock on the wall, “10 p.m. Tonight, I couldn’t care less about him. Come on, Mom,” he replied irritated and, almost immediately, felt bad about getting angry with her.
Martha was a sweet, tender, loving woman, but she kept on throwing the Bible and God into one’s face once in a while. She wasn’t fixated about it, that would be too much to say, but she did like to remind everyone from time to time that God was there, that God listened and it wouldn’t hurt her boys if they went to the church sometimes. Normally, Rick would ignore it, or perhaps delicately joke about it, but not that night. He wasn’t in the mood, to say the least.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry I said it. I’m just worried, too, you know?”
“Yeah, I know,” he said calmly and sighed.
“This is my way of dealing with such a horrible thing, Rick,” Martha said.
“I know. I’m sorry I got upset.”
They were both silent for a moment. Rick finished his beer.
“Mom, will you let Steve know? I don’t think I want to say it all over again to another person.”
“Of course, I’ll call him right away. It’s 7:30 p.m. in San Francisco, he’s probably home already.”
“Yeah, okay, thank you. I’ve gotta go, I’m really tired.”
“Okay, sure, I understand. Let me know if I can do anything, all right? If I can help.”
“Of course. Love you, Mom.”
“Rick?” He heard her voice when he was about to hang up.
“Yes?”
“Why weren’t you with her?”
“What?” He frowned.
“I mean, you always go running together, right? Why weren’t you with her?”
Rick had no idea what to say. Why wasn’t he with her? That was a question with a horrifyingly easy answer.
“I – I just couldn’t go yesterday.”
“I understand. Please hug Monica from me, all right?”
“Yes. I will.”
“Goodnight”
“Bye,” he hung up.
I wasn’t there yesterday because – because I had a chapter to finish. That was the only reason why I didn’t go with her. And she asked me to come, she wanted me to freshen my mind, she asked me twice. Rick threw his phone on the armchair, hid his face in his hands.
Even though he was extremely tired, he couldn’t sleep. First of all, he had never been alone in their home before. It might have seemed like something for Dr. Phil to take a closer look at, but the truth was that without Monica around, their home no longer felt theirs for him. The silence around him was devastating. No radio on in the kitchen or TV in the living room. No sound of boiling kettle, no steps in the bathroom. No Monica coming to him and telling him about her ad ideas or latest gossip at her office. It felt as if the whole place was dormant. And now the bed was empty. It was when he walked to the bedroom that it struck him with full strength – Mon wasn’t there.
Rick wasn’t able to find himself a restful spot or position to bring about to sleep. He felt exhausted, but the thoughts kept on running through his head. He was constantly asking himself if things could have been different if he had gone jogging with Monica. Maybe if he had been there, as he always had, he could have protected her, or they would have chosen an entirely different route. Martha’s question made him realize that perhaps he could have somehow prevented all those horrible things from happening. The thought was unbearable.
Finally, around 3 a.m. he fell asleep.
***
Monica woke up in the middle of the night, terrified and sweaty. She had a feeling someone was silencing her while holding a hand over her mouth. She quickly sat on the bed, not paying attention to the pain that went through her ribs, and turned on the lamp above the bed. Breathing heavily, she got out of the bed and walked to the bathroom, drank a couple of sips of cold water straight from the faucet, went to the bathroom to wash her face and came closer to the room’s door. Monica opened it slightly and felt relieved there was light all over the ward, and that was the moment she felt she was calming down. She came back to her bed, took her phone and started dialing Rick, but looked at the clockon the wall. 4.15 a.m. No, she did not want to wake him up, it wasn’t anything serious anyway.
***
Rick was back at the hospital around 9:30 a.m. He was groggy and had a feeling he had sand in his eyes. He had no idea what time he finally managed to fall asleep, but he assumed he probably slept not more than four hours and felt his body hadn’t rested properly, specifically after the previous day’s shock. He wasn’t only physically tired, but emotionally as well.
Rick bought two coffees on his way to the hospital, a black one for him and a latte for Monica, remembering to take a straw. He knocked on the door and heard her inviting him in. He walked inside, and saw her sitting on the bed.
“They gave me yogurt today,” she said while trying to eat it.
“Hi, honey,” he said and smiled. He put the coffees on a table next to her bed, hung his jacket on a chair and came closer to kiss her forehead.“How did you sleep? How are you feeling?”
“I slept well, I suppose they gave me something to make sure I would. And I am not feeling any better than yesterday.”
“No?”
he asked, concerned.
“Sorry.”
“I got you a latte, thought you might want it.”
“Oh, thank you, I will gladly drink some.”
“Do you need any help with this?” He asked while rolling up his sleeves and pointed at the bottle of yogurt on the tray on the bed.
“I – I guess so.”
Rick sat on the bed and started feeding Monica yogurt with a spoon, gently putting it into her mouth and giving her time to swallow. Sitting so close to her he realized her eye seemed to have been a little less swollen. Thank God.
“Will you comb my hair? My shoulders hurt when I lift them up.”
“Of course.” Rick helped her sit more comfortably and took a hair brush out of the drawer next to the bed.
“You know, a detective called. Martin Jackson. Is that one of the detectives that were here yesterday?” She asked.
“Yes,” he replied sitting behind her, gently brushing her hair. While he was doing it, he spotted quite a big bump on the back of her head. He sighed silently.
“He wanted to ask me if he could come and talk with me about what happened. I told him to come around 11:00 a.m.”
“Well, they told me yesterday they would come back.”
“Guess, I have to do it, don’t I?”
Rick did not reply. He didn’t know, but assumed that if the police were interested in what happened, they would give her a choice to talk or not at first, but later they would probably come back with some paper, document, warrant, whatever they could, to force her to speak to them anyway.
“Will you please get me something sweet from the cafeteria? To eat with the latte?” She asked and Rick had a feeling she smiled slightly. Mon always had a sweet tooth, so he thought it was a good sign, that things were very slowly, very painfully, but perhaps coming back to normal.
“Of course. What do you think you will be able to eat now that you are,” he stopped, looking for words.
“Dentally challenged?” She asked him and delicately winked.
“Yeah,” he smiled broadly, “exactly.”
“Surprise me, I don’t care as long as it’s sweet,” she replied and waved her hand in a gesture demanding him to leave and fetch her the needed portion of sugar.
“Okay, I’ll be right back,” he said and left.
When he was back on the seventh floor holding a portion of cheesecake for himself and a chocolate milkshake for Monica (he thought either she would say it was ridiculous to drink a coffee and a milkshake simultaneously, or praise him for his creativity), and a bouquet of flowers he got for her downstairs, he spotted one of the detectives sitting by the door of her room.
“Good morning, Mr. Lawrence,” Jackson said and got up.
“Good morning. You’re already here?” Rick replied and shrugged his shoulders in an apologetic gesture showing him they couldn’t shake hands as his were busy.
“I still believe we have no time to wait.”
“You came alone today?”
“Yes, my partner was held by other duties.”
Obviously, Monica’s case wasn’t the only thing on their mind, Rick thought a bit bitterly. On the one hand it made perfect sense, on the other, once something like that happens to someone close to you, one cannot help but treat it personally and expect the same attitude from everyone around.
“So, can I talk to your wife?” Jackson asked.
“Let me ask her, okay?”
“Of course.”
Rick walked into the room and put the cake and milkshake next to the coffees and the flowers on a chair.
“Thank you,” she smiled delicately when she saw them. Then, she spotted the milkshake. “Really?” Her eyes laughed and Rick shrugged his shoulders showing her he had no other options and winked.
“You know, the detective is here,” he said seriously a moment later. She nodded, curled her knees under the quilt and asked Rick to call him. Martin Jackson came to the room and shook hands with Monica. Her looks did not surprise him a bit, Rick thought the man had probably seen much worse cases and that he was used to it.
“Good morning, Mrs. Lawrence, my name’s Martin Jackson, NYPD”, he showed her his badge.
“Good morning,” she replied. “I’m very sorry to see you in such condition. I am here to talk to you about what happened two days ago in Central Park.”
“I – I know,” she said. “I will talk only if my husband is here with me.”
“Naturally.”
Rick sat right next to her. She leaned on the pillow and took his hand. Detective Jackson sat on the armchair.
“What time did you go running?”
“I went out around 9:00 p.m.”
“Is that a usual hour you go jogging?”
“Yes, around 8:00 or 9:00 p.m.”
“Do you have a regular route you usually run?”
Monica looked at the detective. “Why are you asking me about usual and regular things concerning my jogging routine? Are you assuming someone deliberately attacked me?”
“No, not at all, I just need to have everything as precisely as possible. It’s a normal procedure.”
Monica took her latte from the nightstand, Rick handed her the straw and she drank a few sips.
“Okay. Let’s continue.”
“So, where did you go running?”
“Near our home, around Transverse Road 4. We usually go jogging there.”
“We? You mean who exactly?”
“Rick and I.”
The detective looked at Rick. “You weren’t with Mrs. Lawrence that night? Why?”
“No – no, I wasn’t. I stayed at home. It’s true we usually run together, but that night – I decided to stay at home. I – I was too busy working,” Rick grabbed Monica’s hand tighter.
“What were you doing?”
“I was – writing. I’m a writer, I wanted to finish a chapter,” Rick cleared his voice and replied quietly, a bit embarrassed.
“So, Mrs. Lawrence, how long do you usually run?”
“About an hour.”
“So, tell me what exactly happened in the park two nights ago.”
Monica took another sip of the coffee and sighed.
“I was already running for about half an hour when I spotted somebody moving in the bushes, near the tunnel. I – I stopped, took my headphones off and was looking there for a minute, trying to see what was happening.”
Rick embraced her and she felt tears coming to her eyes. After a moment, Monica rubbed her forehead, cleared her throat and continued.
“There’s hardly any lampposts in that area, so I really couldn’t see anything clearly, but I heard noises in the bushes; someone was being beaten up. There was a struggle and one man asking another one to give him a wallet and a phone. When I saw what was happening, I thought I needed to do something. I figured I’d just scream and the mugger would get scared and just – just run away.”
“What happened next?” The detective asked.
“I – I said something like “Hey, let him go, what the hell are you doing?”, but he didn’t let the man go, he just looked at me. He had half of his face covered up, I could only see his eyes…He said through his teeth: “Get the fuck out of here.” At that point the man who was attacked started calling me, asking me for help, he said “Don’t go, help me, and please don’t leave me.” I started screaming at the mugger, I took my phone out and I said, “Let the man go or I’m calling the police!” And he did let him go. The victim got away but within, like, seconds, the son of a bitch was on me. I did not even have time to scream,” she was sobbing. Rick was listening to all of this in horror; Monica was hurt because she wanted to help someone. Jesus Christ…
“I’m so sorry, but we need to go through everything that happened,” the detective said.
“Come on man, just let her catch her breath,” Rick said and kissed the top of Monica’s head. He handed her tissues. “It’s okay, Mon.”
“He, um, he grabbed me by my hair and dragged me
into the bush area. He – he hit me a few times, I think, I’m sure that was when I felt my teeth fall out, it was very painful – and he kept on asking me why the fuck I was there and that I should have left as he had told me to. He said that I was a dumb bitch to get involved and even dumber not to run when he gave me a chance and that he would show me what the price to pay was.” Monica’s voice became firmer, more controlled. “I wanted to scream, but he covered my mouth with his hand and hit my head on the wall. One more thing that I remember was that before I passed out entirely, I felt his hands all over me and I knew he was unbuttoning my tracksuit pants. And that was it. I passed out and woke up in the ambulance.”