“What?” Carrie Thrush paused, her pen touching her checkbook.
“No. You examined me. Call it bartering.”
I was sure that was against some doctors’ rules, but I was also sure the offer would appeal to my employer. And I was right. Carrie Thrush smiled broadly, then said, “Thank God! No paper to fill out.”
“Thank God, no insurance to file,” I answered, and left, feeling that Carrie Thrush and I, cleaning woman and doctor, had, if not a relationship, at least the beginning of good feelings between us.
Chapter Nine
My bruised side ached more and more as Saturday dragged by. I moved through Mrs. Hofstettler’s apartment like a snail, but she was having one of her bad days and didn’t seem to notice. I wondered what it would be like to feel this way many days and to know for a certainty it would last the rest of my life.
I made my statement at the police station, sitting bold upright and taking shallow breaths. The man who took it down was a detective, I had to assume, since he wasn’t wearing a uniform. He told me he was Dolph Stafford and that he was mighty glad to meet me. He glanced at me out the corners of his eyes, and I saw pity in his elaborate courtesy. I knew he, too, had heard my old story, which I dragged around with me wherever I went, like the albatross around the Ancient Mariner’s neck.
As I drearily went through the details of the Ken doll and Norvel’s attack, I pondered an old problem. Now that my past was out, should I move? Before, the answer had always been yes. But I’d been in Shakespeare for four years now, longer than I’d been anywhere since I was raped. For the first time, I wondered if I might not just weather it out. The thought crossed my mind, and in crossing, it stuck there. When Dolph Stafford dismissed me, I went home to lie down, finally giving in to the pain. I’d just have to go grocery shopping Sunday or Monday.
My reluctance to go to the store wasn’t wholly due to the pain. I knew by now the story about Norvel’s attack would be all over town, and I just didn’t want to encounter sympathetic looks or horrified questions.
Carrie Thrush had slipped me a few sample pain pills when I’d left her office. Normally, I’d think twice before taking Tylenol, but I was positively longing for whatever relief the pills might bring.
Swallowing two of the capsules with some water, I was just about to leave the kitchen to ease myself onto the bed when I heard someone knocking at the door.
I nearly decided to ignore it. But it was the brisk kind of rap-rap-rap that tells you that the caller is both impatient and persistent. I was already peeved when I got to the door and looked through the peephole, so discovering the caller was my sometime employer the Reverend Joel McCorkindale did not make me any happier. I shot back the bolt reluctantly.
The minister’s “happy to see you, sister” smiled faltered as he took in the scratches on my face and the awkward way I was standing.
“May I come in?” He was wisely settling for dignified sympathy.
“Briefly.”
Taking that in his stride, McCorkindale stepped across the threshold and surveyed my tiny domain.
“Very nice,” he said with great sincerity. I reminded myself I must be careful. Sincerity was the Reverend McCorkindale’s middle name.
I didn’t offer him a chair.
This, too, he absorbed without comment.
“Miss Bard,” he began when he’d taken measure of my attitude, “I know that you and Norvel Whitbread have had a personality conflict”-here I snorted- “ever since you’ve had to work together at the church. I want you to know I’m extremely disturbed that he was so stupid last night, and I want you to know Norvel himself is very, very sorry he frightened you so badly.”
I had been looking down, wondering when he’d get through blathering, because my bed seemed to have acquired a voice and it was calling me louder and louder. But now I looked up at Joel McCorkindale.
“I was never frightened,” I said. “Mad, yes. But not frightened.”
“Well, that’s… good. Then, he’s apologetic for having hurt you.”
“I beat the shit out of him.”
The minister flushed. “He is definitely a sad sight today.”
I smiled.
“So, cut to the chase,” I prompted.
“I have come to ask you, most humbly, if you would consider dropping the charges against Norvel. He is repentant. He knows he should not have been drinking. He knows it is wrong, very wrong, to hold grudges. He knows it is against God’s commandments to harm another person, much less a woman.”
I closed my eyes, wondering if he’d ever listened to himself.
The bad thing was, I reflected as McCorkindale expanded on Norvel’s mental anguish, that if I hadn’t had my little life-altering experience, I might be tempted to listen to this crap.
I held up a hand, indicating for him to stop.
“I am going to prosecute him to the full extent of the law,” I said flatly. “I don’t care if you ever hire me again. You’ve known he was drinking again for weeks; you had to have known. You know whatever convictions he expresses are going to vanish when he sees another bottle. That’s his religion. I have never been able to understand why you kept him on when that became apparent to anyone who cared to look. Maybe he has something on you. I don’t know and I don’t care. But I will not drop charges.”
He took this well, like the shrewd man he is. He looked off to one side thoughtfully, turning something over in his mind.
“Lily, I have to tell you some members of our little church have felt the same way about you. They’ve wondered why I haven’t let you go. You know, Lily, you’re not everybody’s cup of tea.”
I felt an intense desire to laugh. The medication was undoubtedly kicking in.
“You’re a mysterious and violent woman,” McCorkindale prodded further. “Some people have wondered out loud to me if you should still be working in Shakespeare, or at least at our little church.”
“I don’t care if I work at your little church or not,” I said. “But I’ll tell you, if I catch you pressuring my employers to fire me because I’m ‘mysterious and violent,’ I’ll sue you. Anyone who cares to can look up my past. And as for violent, present me with a list of fights I’ve started, or times I’ve been in jail, and I’ll be real interested to read it.”
Ashamed of myself for offering even that much defense of charges that were indefensible, I waved the minister out of the door and locked it firmly behind him.
My bed was screaming now, and I never could ignore a scream. I floated down the hall and didn’t even register the painful process of lying down.
When I woke up, there was a note on my bedside table.
I’d have to admit, were the Reverend McCorkindale to chance by, that this
It was from Marshall.
“I came by at six to take you to supper in Montrose,” the note began, in Marshall’s tiny angular handwriting. “I knocked for five minutes, and then you came to the door. You let me in, walked back to your bed, got in, and went back to sleep. I was worried till I found the little envelope with ‘For Pain’ written on it. Call me when you wake up. Marshall.”
I read it over twice while I recovered from my flash of fear.
I looked at the clock. It read 5:00. Hmm. I rolled over somewhat gingerly to exit the other side of the bed. I peered between the blind slats. Black outside. It was five in the morning.
“God Almighty,” I said, impressed with Dr. Thrush’s medicine. I took a few steps around the room, and I was pleased to discover that I felt much better after my long rest. The worst of the soreness seemed to be gone. It worried me that I’d let Marshall in. Had I known it was Marshall? Would I have let just anybody in? If so, it was lucky that no one else had knocked. Or had they?
Suddenly anxious, I went through the whole house. Everything was exactly as it had been the day before; the
