Rape by Joyce Carol Oates Read Free Book Online Page A

too, but don’t remember what it means: something to do with the skull, the brain.
    Maybe the hemorrhages have ceased. Maybe the leaky blood has been reabsorbed by the brain. Maybe Momma will soon be well. You don’t want to think beyond this, for now.
    Another flower delivery is made for Teena Maguire. You will have it perched on her bedside tray when the nurses bring her back. Not a very big bouquet, one of the smaller, cheaper ones. But it’s pretty: pink, red, white carnations and spiky green leaves. When Momma returns you show her the card, excited.

    But Momma is squinting, can’t see to read. And she’s confused, suspicious. When you tell her the name is “Dromoor” she says she has no friend by that name. She says, her voice rising, “I don’t want anybody’s damn pity, Bethie. Tell them that .”
    Two NFPD detectives come to the room. Promise not to stay long. Not to tire or upset the patient. Just a few questions to ask. A few pictures of “suspects” for her to look at.
    By this time, arrests have been made. Charges filed. Bail has been set at $75,000 for each of eight young men in custody.
    *   *   *
    By her twelfth day in St. Mary’s, Teena Maguire is beginning to remember something of what happened to her. You see the stricken look in her face sometimes, her mouth opening in a silent cry. She knows now that it wasn’t a car crash. It wasn’t an accident. She knows that you were involved but that you weren’t hurt as badly as she was. She knows that it happened on the Fourth of July, in the park. She has heard the word assault . It’s possible that, given the nature of her injuries, she is thinking rape . Yet her knowledge is vague. She is so hopeful, trusting. The detectives speak patiently with her as you might speak with a frightened child. “I don’t knknow,” she murmurs, beginning to tremble. “I’m afraid I just don’t know .” They have no luck showing her photographs of the suspects, for her bloodshot eyes fill so rapidly with tears, Teena is virtually blinded.
    And so tired! In the midst of the interview with these awkward strangers, Teena Maguire falls asleep.
    In the corridor your grandmother demands to know when those animals will be sent to prison.
    The vigil at St. Mary’s. The end of your childhood.
    Naps. Meals on trays. Afternoon TV. Now that your mother can manage soft-solid foods, her appetite is returning. The gauze has been removed from her head, her scalp is tender, pinkish-pale, near-bald, but covered in soft,fair down like the down of a fledgling bird. At last Momma is free of the damn bedpan she’d hated, makes her slow shaky determined way to the lavatory leaning heavily on you and pulling the IV gurney. She jokes about slipping out of the hospital like this, running away home.
    Home! What was Momma thinking?
    Long days ebbing into dusk, and into night. The routines of a hospital. Routines of convalescence. Each night at 11:00 P.M ., you and your grandmother leave your mother’s room, Momma is already asleep. Wave good night to the nurses on the floor who smile at you, think you are a brave girl as your mother is a brave woman, fighting for her life and fighting now to recover. You would not wish to think for a fraction of a second that anyone at St. Mary’s—nursing staff, aides and attendants and custodians, gift shop salesclerks, cafeteria workers, the heavily made-up receptionist at the information desk—would not like you, would wish you harm.
    Relatives of the suspects. Friends, neighbors.
    Girlfriends.
    That woman. What did she expect? Asking for it, the bitch .
    Dressed like a hooker. Her word against theirs .
    Who knows what was going on in that park in the middle of the night?!
    You’ve seen the eyes. Drifting onto you and your grandmother Agnes Kevecki. You’ve seen, and looked quickly away.
    Grandma doesn’t seem to notice.