Tangents, vol 1 Page 6

  “I – I had no idea what to say. I was afraid that if I said no, he would want to show me how, if I said yes, he might have assumed I am all into it, that I’m experienced, and he would want to go for it either way, so I said nothing and I was petrified,” Monica started crying again. “He must have – he’s around you all the time. So, do you know about adult things, or not? You’re a virgin?” he kept on asking and I still couldn’t say anything, I was just waiting, expecting everything to happen and Robert just looked at me again, he took his hand away, his sight changed and he told me that first of all, he knew I was a virgin, because who would have wanted me, not even the punk, and the very last thing he ever said to me was “If you tell your mother anything, I’ll find you and I’ll fuck you so hard, you’ll piss yourself. Remember.” He left and I almost fainted. I remember I couldn’t catch my breath for a while.”

  Rick was devastated. He had no idea what to say. He felt so sorry for her, it was tearing his heart apart. He was sitting there, hugging her, tears dropping down his cheeks as he felt completely powerless.

  “I’m so sorry I disappeared for all those years,” Monica kept on sobbing. “I’m sorry I cut you off, Rick, you’re the best thing that has ever happened to me, I swear, but I had to leave, I had to run away. I felt so scared, so betrayed, all I was focused on was to move on. I never wanted to return. I wasn’t replying to your letters because I was afraid Janice might, somehow see them, find them, that she might figure out where I was, come to see me, come with him. She didn’t know about Chicago, Rick, she had no idea where I was. I got a sports scholarship, part-time job in a clothes shop and a room at the dorm, so I was independent enough not to take any money from her. And if I did need cash, my grandma would send me some. You and she were the only people who knew where I was.”

  “So she was lying to me telling me she would talk to you when I kept on asking her to let you know I was waiting for any news from you.”

  “Yes. I suppose she didn’t want to admit she had no idea where I was, that she thought it would look suspicious, perhaps you’d start asking questions, putting things together. She had no idea how much you knew of what was happening to me during those last months at home, she didn’t want to make you too curious. I’m sorry I hurt you.”

  “I know, I understand, it’s okay, honey, it’s okay,” he kept on saying while stroking her head. “I’m the one who is sorry, for not knowing, for not paying attention to all those hints like not staying at your place, for not seeing the bruises, which had to be more or less visible, for not assuring you enough that you were the most important person in my life, which resulted in you not looking for my help, not coming to me with your problem,” he sniffed.

  “When I came for Thanksgiving and Christmas during that first year at college I asked you to meet me in the city because I wasn’t staying with Janice, I was staying with my grandma. I told her everything, she never made a fuss about it, never talked to Janice about it, and she was understanding enough to let me stay at her place without letting Janice know.”

  “Janice wouldn’t come to your grandma for holidays?”

  “No, she was my grandma from my father’s side. Janice severed any ties with her when my father had left her. She was the grandma who bought me the loft.”

  “But she also bought Janice a house.”

  “Yes,” Monica said quietly. “I don’t know why. Maybe she felt guilty her son left us, I don’t know. But the gesture hurt me a lot. From my perspective, Janice deserved nothing more than to go to hell.”

  “So, you saw Janice at the last will reading?”

  “No. The lawyer called me in Chicago, explained the situation. I asked him to arrange a different date of a meeting for me. He agreed.”

  “But you said you were all there, feeling like in Candid Camera.” Monica looked at him sadly. “I’m sorry, I lied. At that point, I really did not know if I was ever going to tell you any of this.”

  She kissed him. “The reason why I came back is that I missed you. That when I was away, when the time passed and the anger and humiliation started fading away a bit, I realized that I could have had dozens of colleagues and friends from work or school, but I was the loneliest person on earth without you. I’ve decided to come back because I was hoping that I could find you, that I could be with you, that – that you’d still want me. I love you, Rick,” she whispered. “I love you, too, Monica,” he replied softly.

  Rick kissed her forehead, eyes, and her lips. On the one hand he felt relieved, honored, she trusted him enough to tell him all this. On the other, knowing it all was horribly painful. Horribly. He turned the night lamp off, they lay down on their sides, nestled up. He tenderly brushed her hair aside and kissed her cheek delicately; crying made it red and swollen.

  “You’re safe, Mon, you’re with me, you’re safe. I will never let anyone hurt you, I promise,” Rick was whispering. He could feel her calming down. She grabbed his arm and was falling asleep. He knew he would never fail her, he would always be there, protect her against the world. That he would never let any harm happen to her again.

  II

  When Rick got to Saint Luke’s Hospital, he was overwhelmed by the chaos he saw in the emergency room area. Despite the fact that it was in the middle of the night, there were people literally everywhere, coughing, bleeding, vomiting, and screaming. There were people who had broken limbs, others had wounds or bruises. Nurses were running in all directions, children were crying. Madness. He saw a reception desk and went straight ahead.

  “Hello, um, my name’s Richard Lawrence, I was told my wife was here. Monica Lawrence,” he said to a nurse behind the desk.

  “Just a minute, sir, let me check it,” she replied and looked at the computer screen. Rick felt like he was waiting an eternity for the confirmation.

  “Yes, I can see that. She was admitted about two hours ago. Dylan Anderson is her doctor, you should talk to him. Go to the gynecology ward, it’s on the seventh floor.”

  “Gynecology? Okay. Where’s the elevator?”

  “Straight ahead, on the right.”

  “Thank you.”

  While in the elevator, he was trying to calm his thoughts, to sort them. He kept on imagining Monica in hospital, beaten up, raped. Good God, how she must have been scared. But he was there now, he was with her.

  The bell rang and the elevator door opened. To the right there was a maternity ward, to the left he saw a line of doors with tags attached to them. Pregnancy abnormalities, contraception clinic. Doctors’ office. Rick stopped in front of the doors and knocked. A few seconds later, Doctor Dylan Anderson opened it. Rick spotted his nametag.

  “I’m Richard Lawrence. You called me. Where’s my wife?”

  “Good evening, Mr. Lawrence, please come in,” the doctor replied, shook Rick’s hand, and closed the door once he was inside. “My name is Dylan Anderson, I’ve admitted your wife.”

  “Go ahead, please,” he said and pointed at a chair behind a desk. Rick sat there and dr. Anderson took a seat opposite to him.

  “What happened, where is she, how is she feeling?” Rick asked.

  “She’s doing fine. She’s resting. I don’t know exactly what happened, all I can tell you is that she was admitted to the Emergency Room a bit more than two hours ago. An ambulance was called to Central Park’s Transverse Road 4, near 96th West Street. A person calling said he found an unconscious woman in the alley. Our ambulance got there and found your wife. She was immediately taken to hospital.”

  Rick was listening to the doctor as attentively as he could under the circumstances. His heart was beating like crazy and he was breathing heavily.

  “When she was admitted, she was already fully conscious. She was able to move all her limbs, her pupils were reacting properly. The tomography showed she had no internal hemorrhage or severe injuries apart from numerous bruises. She lost two teeth, a right upper and a right down molar.”

  Rick sighed. He was still tense, but felt relieved Monica’s
condition seemed to have been less severe than he was afraid of.

  “Your wife was, however, raped.”

  Rick looked at the doctor. A mixture of rage and fear was pulsing in his skull.

  “Apparently, she was beaten first, then raped and finally, the perpetrator knocked her out.”

  “How is she?” He asked and cleared his throat.

  “She’s resting. We performed all necessary tests, including VD and HIV.” Dr. Anderson stopped for a second when he saw the grimace of pain on Rick’s face. “It’s a standard procedure. We always do that in such cases as this,” he explained.

  “I – I understand. It’s just that, you know, it’s all surreal. I mean some hours ago we were sitting at home watching the evening news,” Rick said and felt a gulp in his throat.

  Dr. Anderson nodded. He had seen similar reactions many times. The patients, their families, they always had to go through the shock phase, it was comprehensible.

  “Mr. Lawrence. From physical point of view, your wife has been quite lucky –“

  Rick snorted, “Poor choice of words, doctor.”

  “Yes, perhaps, but what I want to say is that I am more worried about her psychological condition rather than physical. As brutal as it might sound, she could have ended up much, much worse.”

  They were both quiet for a moment. Guess it was your lucky day, Mon, Rick thought bitterly.

  “Where is she? Can I see her?”

  “Of course. She’s resting now, we gave her some sedatives to help her sleep, but she’s been asking for you since she was admitted. Please, come with me.”

  They left the doctors’ office and started walking to a room at the end of the hall.

  “When will I be able to take her home?”

  “Very soon. She did suffer a small concussion, so we want to keep her for another day to make sure everything is fine. I’d say that two, maximum three days from now you will be able to take her home. However, she will need to see a dental clinic to either remove what’s left of the teeth she had knocked out or to rebuild them. Or to have a prosthesis made.”

  Dr. Anderson opened the door of the last room on the left and allowed Rick to walk in.

  “I’ll leave you alone. You can be here as long as you like. In case you need me, I’ll be in the office,” the doctor said and left.

  Rick nodded and shook Anderson’s hand. He walked into the room.

  Monica was sleeping. A night lamp was delicately lighting her face. Rick walked toward her bed and his heart stopped for second. All anger that was rising in him, all the emotions that were filling up his body, and his mind vaporized, became irrelevant when he saw her. She had almost the entire right side of her face swollen. Her eye was basically invisible, there was a gash on her upper lip and a huge bruise on her left cheek. She had a dressing on her right temple and a Band-Aid on the forehead. Her hands were on the quilt and Rick could see scratches on her right palm, she was probably defending herself with it.

  Rick covered his mouth with his hand, he was in shock - his Monica was lying there, hurt and violated. He couldn’t help but think about what almost happened to her seventeen years ago and how it got back to her. As if the fate wanted to finish the job.

  Rick quietly sat on the armchair beside her bed.

  III

  “Monica, can I ask you something?” Rick said when they finished breakfast. She was putting yesterday’s dinner salad into her lunch box.

  “Sure,” she replied. “What is it?”

  Rick stood up from the chair by the kitchen island, walked toward her, put his chin on her shoulder and took out a small box from his pocket. He placed it before her and opened it with a thumb.

  “Monica, marry me, what’d ya say?” he whispered into her ear.

  “I knew it!” she started laughing. “I mean I felt it when you said “Monica”, ha, ha!” She replied.

  “So, is that a yes, or a no?” He asked smiling, a bit surprised by her reaction.

  They had been together for over four years and even though, he knew since the first minutes of 1992 that she would end up as his wife, the whole process of popping out the question was nerve-wrecking. Rick had been thinking of the proposal for months. The first time the thought appeared in his head was when they went to Marty and Alice’s wedding in May 1996. To be honest, he had never been a wedding enthusiast, and, as far as he knew, Mon had no special needs regarding the formality issues either. However, when he saw how happy their friends were, he started wondering if it wouldn’t be, in fact, a nice addition to his relationship with Monica. Besides, he thought it would have been awkward to keep on calling her his girlfriend his whole life.

  About a week after the reception, he began operation “Engagement”. Monica had never worn too much jewelry, never cared about it. She did not like any rings on her fingers, once she would put on some earrings, they were usually small dots in her ears that she would forget about and keep wearing for weeks before replacing them with another pair. Having a rather limited imagination as far as presents were concerned, her attitude certainly made Rick’s life a bit harder around birthdays, holidays and anniversaries. He secretly envied his friends who could just walk into a jewelry shop, pick up rings, bracelets or earrings and have their girlfriend-gift-shopping done in an hour. Rick, on the other hand, had to be more imaginative, more flexible. He would usually circle around books, concert tickets, cassettes or scarves. Mon had a thing for scarves. Not shoes, not purses. Scarves. She must have had dozens of them.

  Getting an engagement ring was a challenge. With her picky attitude toward jewelry, he had problems figuring out what it ought to have looked like. He knew it had to have some red element. She loved red. It also had to be something non-standard as Mon had an allergy toward everything that would fit into “everybody does that”, “everybody wants it”, “that’s how it is” categories. Diamonds were out of question. Too obvious, too popular. Boring. Ruby then. Perfect.

  Rick spent about a month checking out jewelry stores, looking for his engagement Holy Grail. He finally found it—the moment he laid his eye on a certain white-gold-ruby precious little thing, he knew that was it.

  He started asking his already or soon-to-be married friends about how they proposed. Their imagination was surprising to say the least. A parachute jump, a diving course, riding to her on a horse during a garden party at her parents’, writing her riddles so she could figure out where the ring was and what the question was, exotic holidays and hiding the ring in a coconut. Jesus! Listening to those stories made him seriously wonder if by any chance his friends were not focusing on creating all those unusual situations only to make sure their girlfriends would be too stunned, or too embarrassed, or too scared to say no.

  For quite a long time he was thinking of organizing a picnic on the beach, in the place they both loved going for their biking trips. It seemed like a far better idea than a cliché ring-found-on-the-bottom-of-a-glass- during-a-fancy-dinner scheme, and certainly safer than a double bungee jump.

  Rick had everything arranged; he would let her know he was going to come back late from work, and ask her to meet him there, at their spot, but, surprisingly, he would be there first, having a bottle of champagne ready to be open. Blah, blah, blah.

  However, on that August morning, he looked at Mon walking around the apartment, with her hair unkempt, groggy, yawning, in her Donald Duck pajamas and he knew, with whole certainty, that he did not need to do anything fancy, that all this planning, arranging, all of it was one big nonsense. Rick knew he had loved that woman since they were both fourteen, he knew her inside-out. Mon would not care about any champagne, any picnics. And he, on the contrary to his friends, did not need an element of surprise to make sure his plan would work.

  It was, however, a bit surprising when Mon wasn’t instantly answering. He could see her eyes were glowing, he considered it to be a good sign, but how long was he supposed to wait? It felt strangely insecure. Maybe she did want all that engagement cheesiness, af
ter all?

  “You know what, Mr. Lawrence?” She finally said.

  “What?”

  “You know me so well.” She kissed him. “This is the most original proposal I’ve ever heard of; with a lunch box and Donald Duck pajamas as the supportive characters, by the sink. I’d never have expected anything like that,” she was smiling broadly.

  “But?” He asked, still tensed.

  “But without kneeling it simply doesn’t count,” she looked at him pretending to be disappointed.

  Rick smiled, took a step back, kneeled on one knee and handed out a box.

  “Monica Parkson. Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” He asked as seriously as he could, but they both ended up laughing two seconds later.

  “As a matter of fact, I will,” she replied and allowed him to put a ring on her finger. He got up and kissed her. Monica looked at the ring. “It’s beautiful, I love it,” she said honestly.

  They were standing there in the kitchen, hugging for some time when Mon delicately let him go and looked at him apologetically. “I really need to get ready for work now.”