Insomnia

In any case, violators of the Domestic Violence bail agreement usually spend a lot more than just the afternoon in jail.”

“And hopefully the spouse he breaks the agreement to visit will still be alive when he comes to trial,” McGovern said.

“Yeah,” Leydecker said heavily. “Sometimes that’s a problem.”

Ralph went home and sat staring not at the TV but through it for an hour or so. He got up during a commercial to see if there was a cold Coke in the refrigerator, staggered on his feet, and had to put a hand on the wall to steady himself. He was trembling all over and felt unpleasantly close to vomiting. He understood that this was nothing but delayed reaction, but the weakness and nausea still frightened him.

He sat down again, took a minute’s worth of deep breaths with his head down and his eyes closed, then got up and walked slowly into the bathroom. He filled the tub with warm water and soaked until he heard Night Court, the first of the afternoon sitcoms, starting up on the TV in the living room. By then the water in the tub had become almost chilly, and Ralph was glad to get out. He dried off, dressed in fresh clothes, and decided that a light supper was at least in the realm of possibility. He called downstairs, thinking McGovern might like to join him for a bite to eat, but there was no answer, Ralph put on water in which to boil a couple of eggs and called Derry Home Hospital from the phone by the stove. His call was shunted to a woman in Patient Services who checked her computer and told him yes, he was correct, Helen Deepneau had been admitted to the hospital. Her condition was listed as fair. No, she had no idea who) was taking care of Mrs. Deepneau’s baby; all she knew was that she did not have a Natalie Deepneau on her admissions list. No, Ralph could not visit Mrs. Deepneau that evening, but not because her doctor had established a no-visitors policy; Mrs. Deepneau had left that order herself.

Why would she do that? Ralph started to ask, then didn’t bother.

The woman in Patient Services would probably tell him she was sorry, she didn’t have that information in her computer, but Ralph decided he had it in his computer, the one between his giant economy-size ears. Helen didn’t want visitors because she was ashamed.

None of what had happened was her fault, but Ralph doubted if that changed the way she felt. She had been seen by half of Harris Avenue staggering around like a badly beaten boxer after the ref has stopped the fight, she had been taken to the hospital in an ambulance, and her husband-the father of her daughter-was responsible. Ralph hoped they would give her something that would help her sleep through the night; he had an idea things might look a little better to her in the morning.

God knew they couldn’t look much worse.

Hell, I wish someone would give me something to help me sleep through the night, he thought.

Then go see Dr. Litchfield, you idiot, another part of his mind responded immediately.

The woman in Patient Services was asking Ralph if she could do anything else for him. Ralph said no and was starting to thank her when the line clicked in his ear. “Nice,” Ralph said. “Very nice.” He hung up himself, got a tablespoon, and gently lowered his eggs into the water. Ten minutes later, as he was sitting down with the boiled eggs sliding around on a plate and looking like the world’s biggest pearls, the phone rang. He put his supper on the table and grabbed it off the wall. “Hello?” Silence, broken only by breathing. “Hello?” Ralph repeated. There was one more breath, this one almost loud enough to be an aspirated sob, and then another click in his ear. Ralph hung up the telephone and stood looking at it for a moment, his frown putting three ascending wave-lines on his brow.

“Come on, Helen,” he said. “Call me back, Please.” Then he returned to the table, sat down, and began to eat his small bachelor’s supper. He was washing up his few dishes fifteen minutes later when the phone rang again. That won’t be her, he thought, wiping his hands on a dishtowel and then flipping it over his shoulder as he went to the phone. No way it’ll be her. It’s probably Lois or Bill. But another part of him knew differently.

“Hi, Ralph.”

“Hello, Helen.”

“That was me a few minutes ago.” Her voice was husky, as if she had been drinking or crying, and Ralph didn’t think they allowed booze in the hospital. “I kind of figured that.”

“I heard your voice and I. I couldn’t… “That’s okay. I understand.”

“Do you?” She gave a long, watery sniff, “I think so, yes.”

“The nurse came by and gave me a pain-pill. I can use it, too my face really hurts. But I wouldn’t let myself take it until I called you again and said what I had to say. Pain sucks, but it’s a hell of an incentive.”

“Helen, you don’t have to say anything.” But he was afraid that she did, and he was afraid of what it might be… afraid of finding out that she had decided to be angry at him because she couldn’t be angry with Ed.

“Yes I do. I have to say thank you.”

Ralph leaned against the side of the door and closed his eyes for a moment. He was relieved but unsure how to reply. He had been ready to say I’m Sorry you feel that way, Helen in the calmest voice he could manage, that was how sure he’d been that she was going to start off by asking him why he couldn’t mind his own business.

And, as if she had read his mind and wanted to let him know he. wasn’t entirely off the hook, Helen said, “I spent most of the ride here, and the check-in, and the first hour or so in the room, being terribly angry at you. I called Candy Shoemaker, my friend from over on Kansas Street, and she came and got Nat. She’s keeping her for the night. She wanted to know what had happened, but I wouldn’t tell her. I just wanted to lie here and be mad that you called 911 even though I told you not to.”

“Helen-”

“Let me finish so I can take my pill and go to sleep.

Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Just after Candy left with the baby-Nat didn’t cry, thank God, I don’t know if I could have handled that-a woman came in. At first I thought she must have gotten the wrong room because I didn’t know her from Eve, and when I got it through my head that she was here to see me, I told her I didn’t want any visitors. She didn’t pay any attention. She closed the door and lifted her skirt up so I could see her left thigh. There was a deep scar running down it, almost all the way from her hip to her knee.

“She said her name was Gretchen Tillbury, that she was a familyabuse counsellor at WomanCare, and that her husband had cut her leg open with a kitchen knife in 1978. She said if the man in the downstairs apartment hadn’t gotten a tourniquet on it, she would have bled to death. I said I was very sorry to hear that, but I didn’t have a chance to think I want to talk about my own situation until I’d had it over.” Helen paused and then said, “But that was a lie, you know.

I’ve had plenty of time to think it over, because Ed first hit Me two years ago, just before I got pregnant with Nat. I just kept… pushing it away.”

“I can see how a person would do that,” Ralph said.

“This lady… well, they must give people like her lessons on how to get through people’s defenses.”

Ralph smiled. “I believe that’s about half their training.”

“She said I couldn’t put it off, that I had a bad situation on my hands and I had to start dealing with it right away. I said that whatever I did, I didn’t have to consult her before I did it, or I listen to her line lof bullshit just biecause her husband had cut her once. almost said he probably did it because she wouldn’t shut up and go away and give him some peace, can you believe that? But I was really pissed, Ralph. Hurting… confused… ashamed… but mostly just P.O.'d.”

“I think that’s probably a pretty normal reaction.”

“She asked me how I’d feel about myself-not about Ed but about myself-if I went back into the relationship and Ed beat me up again.

Then she asked how I’d feel if I went back in and Ed did it to Nat.

That made me furious-It still makes me furious. Ed has never laid so much as a finger on her, and I said so. She nodded and said, ’That doesn’t mean he won’t, Helen. I know you don’t want to think about that, but you have to. Still, suppose you’re right?

Suppose he never so much as slaps her on the wrist? Do you want her to grow up watching him hit -you? Do you want her to grow up seeing the things she saw today?” And that stopped me. Stopped me cold. I remembered how Ed looked when he came back in… how I knew as soon as I saw how white his face was… the way his head was moving…”

“Like a rooster,” Ralph murmured.

“What?”

“Nothing. Go on.”

“I don’t know what set him off… I never do anymore, but I knew he was going to start in on me. There’s nothing you can do or say to stop it once he gets to a certain point. I ran for the bedroom, but he grabbed me by the hair… pulled out a great big bunch of it… I screamed… and Natalie was sitting there in her highchair… sitting there watching us… and when I screamed, she screamed…”

Helen broke down then, crying hard. Ralph waited with his forehead leaning against the side of the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. He used the end of the dishtowel he’d slung over his shoulder to wipe away his own tears almost without thinking about it.

“Anyway,” Helen said when she was capable of speaking again, “I ended up talking to this woman for almost an hour. It’s called Victim Counselling and she does it for a living, can you believe it?”

“Yes,” Ralph said. “I can. It’s a good thing, Helen.”

“I’m going to see her again tomorrow, at WomanCare. It’s ironic, you know, that I should be going there. I mean, if I hadn’t signed that petition.

“If it hadn’t been the petition, it would have been something else.”

She sighed. “Yes, I guess that might be true. Is true. Anyway, Gretchen says I can’t solve Ed’s problems, but I can start solving some of my own.” Helen started to cry again and then took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry-I’ve cried so much today I never want to cry again. I told her I loved him. I felt ashamed to say it, and I’m not even sure it’s true, but it feels true. I said I wanted to give him another chance.

She said that meant I was committing Natalie to give him another chance, too, and that made me think of how she looked sitting there in the kitchen, with pureed spinach all over her face, screaming her head off while Ed hit me.

God, I hate the way people like her drive you into a corner and won’t let you Out.”

“She’s trying to help, that’s all.”

“I hate that, too. I’m very confused, Ralph. Probably you didn’t know that, but I am.” A wan chuckle drifted down the telephone line.

“That’s okay, Helen. It’s natural for you to be confused.”

“Just before she left, she told me about High Ridge. Right now that sounds like just the place for me.”

“What is it?”

“A kind of halfway house-she kept explaining that it was a house’ not a shelter-for battered women. Which is what I guess I now officially am.” This time the wan chuckle sounded perilously close to a sob. “I can have Nat with me if I go, and that’s a major part of the attraction.”

“Where is this place?”