The cal came at eight the next morning. I was up on Rachel’s floor by eight-fifteen. Hazel was not there to greet me. Instead, it was a sad-eyed doctor named John Sokul. He slid a summary of Rachel’s injuries in front of me.
“Just so you know what we’ve been dealing with, Mr. Kel y.”
I scanned the sheet. A fractured skul, two cracked ribs, fractured col arbone, fingers, and cheek.
“As you know, there were two assailants,” the doctor said. “According to Rachel, they hit her with a brick so she was at least partial y unconscious during the attack. There was no sexual assault, but, of course, this was a brutal attack. We’ve kept her under mild sedation due to the extensive physical injuries, but also to ease the mental and emotional trauma she’s suffered.”
“And now?”
“And now she needs to reenter the world. Or at least start the process. She’s been mostly withdrawn, which is not unusual. She answers our questions and takes al her medication, but she doesn’t offer anything on her own. She doesn’t react wel to most physical contact and typical y wil not al ow any male member of our staff to touch her at al.”
“What does she do al day?”
“Most of the time, she just sits in our common room and looks out the window. And she holds that dog you brought, Maggie. She holds that dog al day.”
RACHEL WAS SITTING with her back to the door, by a window overlooking the lake. She had a splint on one hand and the pup cradled in both arms. I approached quietly. She turned as I sat down beside her. One side of her face was swol en with bruises, and her left eye was stil partial y shut. There were stitches holding together her lower lip, and one cheek was covered by a bandage. Maggie wagged her tail and squirmed in Rachel’s arms. She let the pup go, and I picked her up. The pup licked my face.
“She misses you.”
“Yeah.” I put the dog down. She scrambled across to Rachel, who gathered her up again.
“How you doing?” I said.
Rachel scratched the dog’s ears and turned back to the lake. “My face hurts. I feel like I’m about a hundred and I got viciously attacked by some fucking animals. That doesn’t include the quality time I spent with your friend Jim.”
I reached out to touch her sleeve.
“Don’t.” I thought she might push me away, but she just hugged the pup, who buried her head under Rachel’s arm.
“You know al the work I do with the Rape Volunteer Association?” she said.
The association was a support group for women who’d been assaulted. I’d met Rachel at its annual fund-raiser.
“Sure.”
“I used to think I shared this special bond with the victims. Felt their pain just because I felt something. Truth is, I was clueless, smiling like an idiot, trying to comfort someone about something I knew absolutely nothing about.”
“You think the women you helped feel that way?”
“If I were them, I would.”
I shook my head and joined her in looking out the window. After ten minutes or so, Rachel sighed. I ran my fingertips across her hand. She dropped her head to my shoulder, and I slipped an arm around her. She felt thin and brittle. The pup yawned and wagged her tail slowly.
“I’m sorry, Rach.”
“I know.” Her face was wet and I brushed away a tear. She swore and dabbed at her face with the back of her sleeve. “Pretty bad when you’re no longer aware you’re crying.”
“It’l get better, babe.”
“Maybe, but it won’t be the same.”
We fel back into the chasm of silence. After a while, Rachel moved to a chair across from me and leaned forward.
“I don’t know where anything goes from here,” she said.
“We’l figure it out, Rach. Day at a time.”
She held up a finger, close to my lips, but not touching. “Shh, Michael. Listen.”
I fel quiet.
“It’s not always about figuring,” she said. “And it’s not always about ‘we.’”
I felt the cold touch my heart, the lovely bruise rising with her name on it, the ache I was already pretending wasn’t there.
“That’s al right,” I said, smiling hard against the lie.
“No, it’s not, Michael. But sometimes things happen. And sometimes there’s no going back. The truth is, we just don’t fit in each other’s lives. No matter how hard I try to convince myself otherwise.”
I stared at a cracked tile on the floor. She tilted my chin up until my eyes met hers. Then she took my hand, kissed it and laid it against her cheek. That was when I felt her pity and knew it was real. And that was probably the worst thing of al. We sat that way for another minute or so. Then the doctor stepped in from the corridor and gave me the sign to wrap it up.
“I think they’re booting me out of here,” I said. Rachel tried to stand and winced.
“Careful,” I said.
“I know. Whole fucking thing’s fal ing apart on me.”
I smiled. She laughed, and that led to another spate of crying that final y subsided.
“Wil you stop by again?” she said.
“That what you want?” My voice felt dry and tight.
“A visit would be nice, yes.”
Maggie jumped up and crawled close. Rachel gathered the pup into her lap. “Al right if I keep her for a while?”
“Sure.”
Rachel traced a finger across the back of my hand. “Thanks for coming.”
“Thanks for letting me in.”
She nodded and seemed suddenly tired, suddenly adrift. I tried to keep her close, but she rol ed away from me like the tide, leaving nothing between us but a bare beach, littered with the bones of a broken relationship.
I kissed her careful y and gave the pup’s ears a scratch. Then I left. Rachel turned back to her view of the lake. Maggie’s eyes fol owed me al the way to the door.