But What About Me?

by Marilyn Reynolds

  Nothing like coming straight to the point, I guess.

  “Mostly I just think I’ll figure that out when the time comes.”

  “When do you think the time will come?” Mom asks.

  I look at Mom questioningly.

  “Well . . . are you late?”

  “A little. But they told me at the hospital that it wasn’t uncommon even to skip a period, or lots of periods, after a rape.”

  “I’m sure that’s true. I just wonder if you’ve given it any thought.”

  “Well . . . I’d probably have an abortion. I mean, Joey’s baby?”

  “I hope that’s what you’d decide,” Dad says, studying the pattern

  on his dinner plate.

  “Or, adoption, if you’d have bad feelings about an abortion,” Mom says.

  I sigh. “You know, I really would rather not think about this unless I have to.”

  “Well . . . we’re just worried about you, Erica. You seem so withdrawn . . .”

  “Your mother and I thought it might be a good idea just to talk about all of the possibilities . . .”

  “Dad . . .”

  “Okay. E.J. Okay. Just don’t shut us out.”

  “I won’t. I’m trying not to,” I say, giving each of them a kiss on the cheek and then going into the bathroom to run the water for the scalding hot bath I’ve been taking every morning and every night since Joey made me so dirty.

  I’ve got a lot on my mind. My time is late, and I’m never late. I know what they said at the hospital, about it being pretty common to have your whole cycle messed up after a rape, but what if I am pregnant? God. I don’t want Joey’s baby! I don’t want any baby, but the idea of having a baby with Joey’s genetic make-up? No way do I want to add any more of those genes to the next generation!

  And then there’s the AIDS test. HIV they call it, but what’s the difference? If you’re HIV positive, eventually you get AIDS. And the hearing is coming up. I dread testifying at the hearing. I thought I’d have a choice, like if we dropped the charges then I wouldn’t have to go through all that. But the lawyer told me that because Joey’s on parole I could get subpoenaed anyway. And then, after the hearing, maybe there’ll be a trial.

  I want Joey to stay locked up but I get all sweaty just thinking about being placed on the witness stand and having to testify in public, and then being asked all kinds of embarrassing questions by a defense lawyer. It doesn’t seem fair—first there’s the horrible experience of being raped, and then there’s another horrible experience of a trial. But what can I do? I’ve always had plans and goals, but right now I’m sort of doing that one day at a time thing.

  And speaking of plans and goals, I’m so far behind in school it scares me to even think about it. And another thing I’m scared to think about is Beauty’s going to be adopted out.

  Things are weird at home, too. My parents are always watching me. My mom and dad are always totally serious, and sort of sad, all the time. My dad, who was such a big joker, hardly ever jokes around anymore. On the other hand, Rochelle hardly ever even looks at me, and when she does, it’s like I’m a stranger. I know she was scared to death that night, as scared as I was, I guess. But now it’s like I’m invisible, or something. I don’t know which is worse, feeling invisible, or feeling like I’m being watched all the time.

  It’s weird at school, too. I feel like everyone is watching me, knowing I’ve been raped, whispering. April says no one even knows, and that I’m being too sensitive. It seems like I’m either too sensitive to everything around me, or I’m numb living somewhere out on Pluto. I can’t find a balance.

  On the day before the hearing, where April, Rocky and I will all have to testify, I’m so nervous I can’t even think right. A lawyer from the district attorney’s office has talked with us about every detail of that night with Joey. He’s told us what to expect from the defense lawyer and even had us practice answering questions.

  Some of the questions get me really angry, like didn’t I always secretly wish Joey was my boyfriend, and wasn’t I wearing something that would reasonably cause Joey to think I wanted sex—questions that could make the virgin Mary sound like a slut. No wonder I’m all shaky.

  It’s bad enough we had to go through all that stuff in the D.A.’s office. Now we have to say it all again at the hearing, in a courtroom, in front of a bunch of people, including Joey. I don’t want to do it, but I can’t figure a way out. April says she’ll just pretend she’s an actress in a movie, but I’m not sure I can do that. Lately I’ve had a hard time floating overhead, staying detached. Lately I’ve had to live with myself—no escape.

  Almost everyone is gone from the Humane Society. Sinclair is still in his office upstairs, and the caretaker is in his apartment across the alley from the back parking lot. The night-shift officers are out in their trucks. I check on a cat that was spayed this morning. It is quiet tonight in the infirmary, orderly and clean.

  I stand facing the locked double doors that lead to the off-limits area. I know where the keys are kept. I know how to mix the solution based on an animal’s weight. I know it would be quick and painless. No hearings. No late periods. No HIV tests. No eyes watching, voices whispering, none of that, no more for me. Ten steps away, the keys are in the can that looks like furniture polish, in the bottom drawer of Dr. Franz’s desk. Dazed, motionless, I stand, staring at the locks on the doors, imagining a timeless peace.

  I’m roused by a frantic barking, different than the barking that is always background for my work here. This is trouble barking, hurt barking. I run to the kennels and see Beauty, struggling to get through the fence, yelping, howling, making sounds I’ve never heard come from any dog before. All the other dogs are stirred now, adding their own racket to the clamor of the night.

  As soon as Beauty sees me, she lies down, resting her head on her paws, suddenly calm. Sinclair stands looking down from the balcony outside his office.

  “What was that about?”

  “I have no idea.” I say, reaching through the gate and petting Beauty. She licks my hand and wags her tail. Her coat is thick now—no more mange or bare spots.

  “Everything okay in there?” the caretaker calls through the back gate.

  “I guess so,” Sinclair says.

  I sign out and go home. Rochelle is on the phone to Jessica, giggling. My mom is at the desk paying bills, and my dad is washing the dinner dishes. I imagine for a moment how this scene would have changed with a phone call announcing my death, requesting that one of them identify my body, the sorrow and confusion that would have surrounded their memories of me. I apologize silently to my unknowing family—I’m sorry for even thinking such a thing.

  Was it coincidence that Beauty caused such a commotion in the kennels just as I was being drawn to the double doors and oblivion?

  Or did she sense something and reach out to me, as I had reached out to her when she was so close to giving up? Two dogs have saved my life, first Kitty, when she attacked Joey, and now Beauty.

  In a flash of clarity I know I will become a vet. I’ll get past the aftermath of the rape and the loss of dreams I shared with Danny. I’m not sure how, but I will.

  Chapter

  20

  We are sitting lined up on a bench, Mom, Dad, April, Rocky and me, outside the hearing room.

  “You be Jody Foster and I’ll be Kelly McGillis,” April says to me on the morning of the hearing.

  “I wanna be that girl on ‘Flipper’,” Rocky says. We all laugh in that nervous way people do when a room is filled with tension.

  Gladys Kendall and Alex are sitting on a bench on the other side of the courtroom doors. Gladys is dressed in a dark pants suit with a light turtleneck sweater, looking very sober and business-like. Alex is wearing a dress shirt and a tie. I suppose their lawyer told them how to dress, just as the D.A. made suggestions to us.

  It is nerve-racking, just sitting here, waiting to be called inside, but that’s what we’re supposed to do. After about a
n hour of wasted time, I decide I could at least be studying.

  “I want to get my books from the car,” I tell Dad, holding my hand out for the keys.

  “Hurry,” he says, handing them to me.

  I’m halfway to the car when I hear footsteps behind me and turn to see Alex.

  “Wait up,” he says.

  When he catches up to me he says, “I know my mom tried to get you to drop charges.”

  I nod.

  “I just want you to know I don’t agree with her,” he says.

  “You don’t?”

  He closes his eyes and shakes his head, and I wonder if he is going to cry.

  “My mom is blind when it comes to Joey, but I know . . . I know he’s not a good person.”

  We are standing in the cold, in the parking lot, and I’m waiting to hear what’s next.

  “Something went wrong with Joey a long time ago. Maybe when my dad left. Or maybe he’s always been that way. Even when we were little kids, I was afraid of him. He’d hurt people, just to do it . . . we had a cat . . .”

  “Your mom thinks Joey didn’t mean anything by what he did to me.”

  “God. Erica, when I heard . . . how awful for you . . .”

  Alex is having a hard time talking.

  “I . . . it wouldn’t have happened if I’d been home, I swear.”

  We walk together to my parents’ car. I get my books out and we walk slowly back toward the courthouse.

  “Danny’s quit drinking,” Alex says.

  “Good.”

  “We’re not selling anymore, either. We were lucky we didn’t get caught. Joey talked us into it, the small business plan, you know? We were stupid.”

  “I was pretty stupid, too,” I say.

  “You?”

  “When I saw how drunk Danny was that night, I should have left then. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t always been trying to take care of Danny instead of watching out for myself.”

  We get to the door and Alex touches my shoulder. “You’re doing the right thing.”

  It is the right thing, I think, as I enter the courtroom and wait to take the stand. But it is not an easy thing, going over and over the details of being raped. It’s like it will never be over.

  The night after I testify, I wake up screaming, feeling it again, living it again. Mom and Dad both rush to my room. It takes me a moment to get calm, and then I tell them, “I’m okay—just a dream.”

  “You’re not okay. Erica. I want you to call Jenny and get started with one of her groups.”

  “I don’t see how that can help,” I say.

  “Maybe it can’t, but it’s worth a try.”

  The Rape Crisis Center occupies space in the old YWCA building. The room where Jenny’s group meets has high ceilings and windows that are so tall they can’t be opened or closed without using a long pole. There is a cart of coffee, tea, and cookies setting in the corner. Counting Jenny, there are nine of us sitting in mostly worn-out upholstered chairs that have been arranged in a circle.

  Only girls and women sit in this room at the Rape Crisis Center. Women, Jenny calls us, but I don’t feel grown-up right now, and I doubt that the twelve-year-old sitting next to Jenny does either. There are three African American women, three who I guess to be Mexican, counting me, and one Asian and two white. Not that it matters. I just notice those things.

  When it is my turn to introduce myself I say, “My name is Erica—I’m only here because my mom kept nagging me to come.”

  The woman next to me, Jewel, turns to me angrily. “The first thing you better figure out is what you want, not what someone else wants.”

  “How long did that take you, Jewel?” an older woman sitting across from us asks softly.

  Jewel flashes her a look, then lets out a raucous laugh. “About thirty years.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-nine.” Jewel says.

  Everyone laughs and the tension lifts.

  “Maybe saying you’re here because of your mother is only an excuse to do what you want to do, anyway,” Kendra says.

  Maybe so, I think, but I don’t say it.

  Gradually, over a period of weeks, I learn about the women in the rape survivors support group. Most of their stories are worse than mine—the twelve-year-old was raped by her older brother. Jewel was gang raped at a party, another woman was raped repeatedly by her own husband, once in front of a neighbor. But we don’t just stay stuck on the bad stuff. We talk about what makes us stronger, too.

  One of the things the support group helped me out with is how to deal with flashbacks. Like yesterday. I ran a comb through my hair and noticed it’s longer—almost long enough now to grab hold of. Suddenly I could feel Joey’s hand grabbing, pulling my head back. I smelled his whiskey breath, as if it were happening all over again. I took three deep breaths and repeated to myself, it’s over, it’s over. And then it was over, and I went on with what I was doing. I learned that in the group: Breathe deep, know it’s over. Let it pass. It’s over.

  The group helps in other ways too. Knowing other survivors helps. Thinking of ourselves as survivors rather than victims also helps.

  In February, the day before Washington’s birthday. I call the clinic to get the results of my HIV test. I get put on hold so I hang up. What if I’ve tested positive? Maybe it’s better not to know. But I’ve got to know. I press redial. I give the person at the test results extension my secret identification number.

  She puts me on hold. This time I wait, breathless.

  “Negative,” she says.

  “Thanks.”

  I call April, and Mom at work, and tell them the news.

  “When do you have to be tested again?”

  “Six months. Every six months for two years.”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me if that scum bag Joey has HIV,” April

  says.

  “Thanks for the reassurance.”

  “I’m sorry. But really, don’t you just know that creep’s done every drug in the book and had sex under the very worst possible conditions?”

  “No, I don’t know that. I suppose it’s possible though.”

  “Anyway, you tested negative, that’s all that matters.”

  “It could still be in the incubation period,” I say, “but I’m relieved, anyway.”

  “Me too,” April says. “Remember I drank from your soda bottle last week.”

  We laugh. There’s a kind of airhead girl in Peer Counseling who insists she knows someone who got HIV from drinking from a friend’s soda bottle. No amount of scientific information will change her opinion. She’s one of those people whose motto is “Don’t confuse me with the facts.”

  Things are looking up for me because Washington’s birthday, the day after I got my test results, I finally get my period.

  “Yea!” I scream.

  Mom comes running into the bathroom.

  “What is it?”

  I know this sounds totally gross, but I show her the wad of toilet paper smeared with blood. She looks at me blankly at first, then throws her arms around me.

  “I’m so glad you don’t have to deal with a pregnancy,” she says. “So glad!”

  Rocky comes in to see what’s going on. “Is it today you are a woman?” she asks, all smart alecky.

  “Just because you’ve read a booklet from the Kotex Company doesn’t mean you know everything,” I say.

  We all laugh, and I feel a lightness I’ve not felt in a long time.

  When Dad gets back from the hardware store Mom tells him, “Good news—she fell off the roof.”

  I don’t know where my mom comes up with these sayings, but Dad understands immediately. He picks me up and twirls me around.

  “Let’s celebrate,” he says. “I can replace light fixtures any day.”

  We all pile into the car, Kitty included. We stop at the Grains and Greens market and get salads, bread, drinks, paper plates—everything we need for a picnic, and then drive to Griffi
th Park. I attach the leash to Kitty’s collar, and we find a spot on the side of a hill that’s not too crowded.

  “The joys of Southern California,” Dad says, stretching out on

  our giant picnic blanket. “Picnics in February.”

  “It beats Germany, doesn’t it?” Mom says.

  “Yep. In fact, I think I’m not even going back to Germany! I’ll just stay in Southern California.”

  We all stop what we’re doing and look at Dad. Can he be serious?

  “I need final approval, but I’ve requested a change of duty—I can work in recruiting, in Los Angeles, for the next two years and then retire.”

  “A desk job?” Mom says, raising her eyebrows. “I thought you’d never take a desk job.”

  Dad looks from one to the other of us. “It’s worth it to be home. The trial’s coming up . . . I don’t want to be overseas while you’re all going through that . . .”

  Mom sits down on the blanket next to Dad. She looks him in the eye, holding his gaze for what seems a long time.

  “I didn’t even know you were considering such a change.”

  “Well . . . I wanted to be sure it could happen before I got us all stirred up about the possibility of a normal life,” he smiles.

  Rocky, never one to be slow about seizing an opportunity, says, “Will you help coach my softball team?”

  “We’ll see,” Dad says.

  “Are you sure about this?” Mom asks.

  “I guess they could say no—I was going to wait until I got the final signed papers to tell you. But I’m ninety-nine percent sure they won’t say no.”

  Mom puts her arms around Dad and leans into his chest. “I can hardly believe it,” she says.

  “I know—a totally different life than any we’ve ever had. Even when we were all living together on army bases I was out on maneuvers half the time.”

  Dad strokes Mom’s head. “Can you stand to have me around all the time?” he asks.

  “It’ll take some getting used to,” she laughs, hugging him.

  I watch, wondering about love. It seemed like Danny and I had so much together, but—I don’t know. Was it all in my head? Just wishes and dreams and no reality? Sometimes I wonder if I will ever in my whole life find a real love. And how will I know? I was so sure with Danny. How can I ever be sure again? And I wonder if I’ll ever