by Nancy Rue
While Chief went back to the kitchen to make phone calls, I took the glass of water and put the warm mug in her hands, but she didn’t seem to know what to do with it. I was spooning tea into her mouth when he came back.
“They’ll be ready for us at the ER,” he said. “Nick Kent’s going to meet us.”
“Have you figured how we’re getting there?” I said. “The Sisters have the van, and I can’t take her on the bike. Obviously.”
“I called Hank. She’s coming over with her car and she’ll stay with Desmond.”
I love you, I told him with my eyes. But he was at the window. I turned to Ophelia.
“You’re not alone,” I said. “I’ll be with you every minute. With the doctor, the police officer, everything. When it’s over, I’ll bring you—”
I stopped when Chief turned sharply to look at me over his shoulder.
“I’ll bring you back here,” I said, my eyes on him. “And then we’ll decide what to do.”
“Can I be in the house?” she said.
“This house?”
“Whatever house you were talking about today. That house.”
“Sacrament House?” I said.
“Can I be in it?”
“Yeah,” I said thickly. “You can be in it.”
When I looked back at Chief, he had turned to the window again, his eyes closed in the reflection.
Ophelia’s prediction was absolutely correct. None of the doctors or nurses or rape counselors said it outright, but their lack of faith in her story was clear in the way they took down her answers and gathered evidence from her body for the rape kit, all without actually seeing her. Every time I started to tell them they were unfeeling pieces of coal, Chief squeezed my shoulder or touched my elbow or told me with the lines around his eyes that it wasn’t worth it for me to blow my cool with people who already thought I was nuts for even being involved in this.
Only Nicholas Kent showed any compassion when he questioned her, but he didn’t glean any more than we had.
“I asked them to do a blood test and see if she’d been drugged,” he told us when Ophelia was in the restroom. “They told me this is what they consider ‘an occupational hazard,’ and I told them … Well, I pushed. And there was enough evidence for a DNA sample.”
“How long will it take to get a match?” I said.
“Forever if there’s nobody to match it to. She can’t even lead us to a suspect.”
“She’s traumatized,” I said, hackles rising.
Chief put his hand right on the back of my neck as if he’d seen the hair standing up. “Do you think she’ll remember more when she comes out of shock?”
“She might,” Nicholas said. “Unless she was drugged. In that case, she might never be able to recall anything.” He looked at me closely. “You okay?”
I was shaking again, and this time I couldn’t hold down the bile that rose from the clench in my stomach. I barely made it to the trash can.
Even after I’d retched, I stayed there, bent at the waist with the blood crowding painfully into my head. There was no denying what was going on here. I was feeling everything Ophelia was so very obviously going through, just as I had with Zelda the day she was arrested. I told my mind to get it together, that what was happening to them wasn’t happening to me. But I couldn’t convince my body.
When we got home, I tucked Ophelia in on the couch, where she promptly fell into an exhausted sleep. When I got back to the kitchen, Hank said, “Desmond stayed crashed out through the whole thing.”
“Good.”
“What are you going to do about this, Classic?” Chief said.
I’d already been there several times on the way home with Ophelia’s head lolling on my shoulder in the backseat.
“I have to keep her here tonight,” I said. “She’s been through too much for me to do whatever I would do if I even had an idea.”
“And what about after that?” Chief said. “Vickie Rodriguez would pull those adoption papers in a New York minute if she found out you had a prostitute staying here with Desmond in the house, recovering or otherwise.”
“That’s kind of ironic, isn’t it?” I said. “Desmond grew up on the streets with hookers who, unlike this one, never had any intention of changing.” I pressed my fingers to my temples. “Don’t get me started.”
“Here’s my suggestion,” Chief said. “Desmond can stay with me for a few days until you get something figured out for Ophelia.”
“Are you sure?” I said. “It could take more than a few days. I can’t put her in Sacrament House yet. She’s not ready, and I’m not sure there’s room anyway. What if we get Zelda back?”
“You going to keep chasing your tail, or are you going to let me give you a chance to take this one ride at a time?”
I couldn’t help smiling at him. “You’ve been spending way too much time with Owen.”
“I’ll come back tomorrow around ten and take him home with me. We’ll go out to the beach first. I promised him that.”
“He’s going to be thrilled.” My voice was thickening again. “You just have to promise to let me have him back.”
I’d seen Chief look like he wanted to kiss me enough times to know it wasn’t just wishful thinking on my part. But Hank was there, and in spite of her tactful exit into the pantry for no apparent reason, Chief just squeezed my neck and gave me a look that stole my breath. “See you tomorrow, then.”
Almost before the door to the side porch closed behind him, Hank poked her head out.
“For somebody who has it all together in almost every other area of his life, that boy is dense as a brick when it comes to romance.”
I thought I was going to laugh, but what came out was something between a wail and a sob as I slid down the cabinets to the floor. My shoulders caved as she put her arms around them.
“This isn’t about Chief, is it?” she said.
“No. It’s all this stuff I feel that I shouldn’t be feeling because it isn’t my stuff.”
“You’re going to have to give me a little more to work with, Al.”
I raised my head to look at her. “I wasn’t the one who was raped tonight. I didn’t snort up a speedball and drive somebody’s car up a pole. But here I am, feeling like I’ve been punched in the face and handcuffed to a wall and it isn’t like I’m just imagining it.” I pressed my hands to my abdomen. “It’s physical, Hank. Only I can’t treat it with ice or a pain pill. It’s throbbing and I can’t do anything about it.”
I finally stopped for air. Hank stepped into the pause.
“You know how you hear things from God,” she said.
“Yeah, again, finally.”
“I hear them too, only in my case they aren’t prophecy. They’re … Let’s call them insights. It just so happens that most of them are about you.”
I drew the snot from under my nose with the side of my hand and looked at her.
“I know,” she said. “Go figure, right? And here’s the insight I’m getting now. If you want to hear it.”
“Are you serious? Tell me before I lose it completely.”
She handed me a paper towel. “You’re gifted with a sensitivity to God’s presence, not just in the cosmos, but inside other people.”
“This is a gift?” I said.
“Oddly, yes. It’s always been part of any prophet. ”
I blew my nose. “Well, you know what? This is one of those times I wish God had given my gift to somebody else.”
She folded her hands in that no-nonsense way she had and said, “Then it’s a good thing for all of us that wishing doesn’t make it so.”
Hank left shortly thereafter. There wasn’t a whole lot more to say, and I needed to at least try to get some sleep.
But I didn’t g
o to bed. I sat wrapped in blankets in the red chair-and-a-half the way Ophelia had just a few hours before and watched her sleep the sleep of the beaten-up.
I went over the events of the day, asking God the obvious questions and getting no direct answers. I’d resigned myself to the fact that wash their feet was going to be the background music in my soundtrack from here on. But the feet had been washed, and here I was, with no place to bathe the rest of this woman who was on my sofa, or the others who walked West King Street or rode in cars with johns this very night and would drink and shoot themselves up to kill the pain before the sun came up on it. Here I was, in this big house with many rooms I wasn’t allowed to fill.
I sat up in the chair.
This big house. A house some woman in a beige Mercury Sable apparently wanted to buy so much she was mad when I had a party that prevented her from seeing it.
I could almost feel Sylvia in the room, giving me the stare that could melt confessions out of me for crimes I hadn’t even committed yet.
“I know I promised you,” I whispered. “But if you could feel what these women feel, Sylvia … I’m just going to find out how much this person offers. I’ll just ask.”
I got no sense of approval from Sylvia. Or, for that matter, from God. All I knew was that I had to provide for Ophelia and Zelda and Jasmine and Mercedes and Sherry and the rest of our Sisters who were making their journey toward us. Because the pain wasn’t going to leave me alone until I did.
When my phone rang the next morning, I was still in the chair, twisted in some kind of impossible sleep position I could hardly get out of to answer it. Not that I wanted to answer it. Every time a bell rang it seemed to start an avalanche.
But Chief’s voice was calm. “Is Desmond packed yet?”
“Is he going somewhere?”
Chief gave a throaty laugh.
“Oh, yeah.” I scrubbed at my face with my free hand. “I thought you weren’t coming until ten.”
“It’s eleven.”
“You’re not serious! Why didn’t you call me sooner?”
I threw off the afghan and tried to find the floor with my feet.
“I did. Desmond said you were still asleep, so I told him not to wake you up.”
“Desmond was in here answering my phone?”
I bolted up in the chair. Then he’d seen Ophelia, who, I realized, was no longer on the couch.
“Did you tell him he was coming to stay with you?” I said as I sprinted for the kitchen.
“I did. And he’s already given me a list of food I need to buy. I’m going to need to take out a second mortgage.”
I stopped just short of the kitchen door and cupped my hand around mouth and phone. “I’m a terrible mother. I didn’t even get up in time to talk to him about this before he saw Ophelia.” I shoved my hair out of my face. “I don’t know how I’m going to handle this with him.”
“Have you seen him yet?’
“No.”
I could hear the almost smile. “I think you’ll find him handling it himself. I’ll be there in ten.”
I stuffed the phone in the pocket of yesterday’s dress pants and pushed open the kitchen door. Desmond sat at the bistro table across from Ophelia, pouring orange juice into a tall pilsner. She was curved like a question mark in the bistro chair, but half of a toaster waffle was missing from her plate. The other half swam in about a half a bottle of Mrs. Butterworth’s. Desmond’s Mother D persona was gone, along with the tuxedo, but he was certainly putting the servers at the Waffle House to shame.
“Hey, Big Al,” he said. “We was fixin’ to starve half to death so I went ahead and cooked us some breakfast. You want some?”
My stomach still felt like I’d eaten bad shrimp, so I shook my head. “I see you’ve met Ophelia.”
“Met her yesterday,” he said. “Only I almost didn’t recognize her since somebody rearranged her face.”
“You have such tact, Desmond,” I said.
Either Ophelia hadn’t heard or she didn’t see the point in being offended. Her right eye and cheek were less swollen than the night before, but her skin was now a heinous shade of purple. My own face throbbed.
“You want coffee, Ophelia?” I said. “I’m going to make a pot.”
“She done that already,” Desmond said. “Me and her on our second cup.”
I gave him the death stare. “Tell me you did not consume caffeine.”
He grinned. “Gotcha, Big Al.”
“Wretched child,” I said. “Are you packed? Chief’ll be here in five minutes.”
“I got it all in two trash bags.”
I poured what looked like liquid mud into a mug. “And you’re planning to get that into Chief’s saddle bags?”
“I was thinkin’ you could bring it over later and I could fix y’all a candlelight dinner.”
There was so much awry in that statement I didn’t even answer. I filled the space in the mug with milk and nodded toward his room. “Get your leathers so you’ll be ready.”
“We goin’ to the beach, Big Al,” he said, voice rising to that range that would soon have dogs howling all over St. John’s County. “I don’t need no—”
“No leathers, no ride.”
That came from Chief, now blocking out the sun in the side porch doorway. Ophelia slid out of the bistro table and whispered, “Is it all right if I take a shower?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “I showed you where last night. I’ll be up in a minute with fresh clothes for you.”
She seemed to evaporate from the room.
“Leathers?” I said to Desmond.
He glanced at Chief’s legs, which, bless the man, were clad in chaps. “They in the garage,” he said, and went out the side door.
“How’s she doing?” Chief said.
“I really don’t know. Those were the first words I heard her say. She made coffee, though.” I frowned into my mug. “At least, I think it’s coffee. And she asked to take a shower. Every other woman who’s come here I’ve had to put in a half nelson to get them into the tub.”
“She’s not a drug addict,” Chief said.
“She’s an alcoholic, though, or at least she self-medicates with it.” I looked at the kitchen door that still swayed slightly in Ophelia’s wake. “She needs to recover from something, I know that much.”
“Then she’s come to the right person.”
I kept my eyes on the door, but my mind saw the look I heard in his voice. When I turned to him, it was there, and I couldn’t breathe.
He had just made love to me.
Right on cue, the side door banged open and Desmond bolted through it and toward his room almost in one noisy motion. One of the bistro chairs tottered as he rammed between it and Chief.
“We’ve got all day,” Chief said drily.
But Desmond slammed his door behind him, and I heard his headboard knock against the wall. That was the sound of him throwing himself across his bed, a move usually reserved for me announcing his next dentist appointment.
Chief shot up an eyebrow.
“He’s going to fight this leathers thing to the very end,” I said. “Oh, and by the way, while you have him with you, would you have a talk with him about his ‘women’? I don’t think …”
I stopped because Chief was looking past me and through the front window, eyes trained on something that brought the lines in tension. I turned to follow his gaze, in time to see a beige vehicle back out of the short driveway in front of my garage and head toward the exit from Palm Row.
“Was that the car?” I said.
Chief was already looking at the notation he’d made in his phone. “Yeah, same one.”
“Shoot. I wanted to talk to her.”
“About …” he said, eyes narrowing
.
“I just want to see how much—”
“No, Big Al!”
I whirled around to see Desmond standing in his doorway, chest heaving, eyes bulging from his head. He flung himself in the direction of the snack drawer, but he didn’t touch it. Nor did he yank open the refrigerator door, although he showed every intention. When he made an aimless dive for the pantry, I knew that if I waited he would eventually proclaim me the best listener on the planet, but I feared for the condition of my canned goods.
“Desmond, what is it?” I said.
He hurled himself into the pantry anyway and then did an about-face that knocked a container of olive oil from a shelf and sent it bouncing and denting under the table.
“Don’t have nothin’ to do with that woman,” he said to me. “Just don’t.”
“Do you know her?” Chief said.
“I just know she evil.”
“Does she look evil?” I said.
Desmond swallowed so hard I could almost hear his Adam’s apple hit bottom. “Yeah. She jus’ look like she ain’t got nothin’ good on her mind. Like she nothin’ but trouble for us.”
I rifled back through what I’d just said to Chief. Had I actually gotten out that I was going to ask her if she was interested in buying the house? Or had Desmond just picked up on her interest in Palm Row property from my conversation with Owen? The boy was, after all, everywhere he didn’t need to be, hearing everything he didn’t need to hear. I supposed that was how a kid like him survived on the streets.
“Would it make you feel better if your mom promised not to talk to her?” Chief said.
I glared at him. Nice. Use the boy for your own agenda.
“If she cross her heart and hope to die right here on the floor.” Desmond’s eyes swelled again. “No. You don’t got to die. Just cross your heart and hope to spit.”
I glanced out the window. “She’s gone anyway,” I said. “Now both of you, quit doggin’ me and go to the beach.”