I couldn’t go back to the apartment.
“You’re moving in with me,” Bobby said. “Don’t even argue about it. It was a matter of time, anyway.” I was grateful. I was so, so grateful.
Tyrese, who’d wept at the sight of my face when the ambulance came, oversaw the movers.
I had nightmares and awoke drenched in sweat and gabbling with fear. I was afraid to go anywhere alone. Bobby took two weeks off—unprecedented in his career—and was absolutely, utterly wonderful. He let me talk about it. He understood when I didn’t want to talk about it. He told me stories from his childhood, and I clung to the love I had for him, trying to let it wash over the ugliness, the fear, the obscenity.
I waited for the bruises to fade and got back to work. Pretended that I’d been brave, that I’d dodged a bullet and was grateful and fine.
I wasn’t.
“Did you hear about that home invasion?” my mother asked in our bimonthly phone call. “Saw it on NECN. Wasn’t that near you?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I actually moved in with Bobby, though. I, um...I don’t live there anymore.”
“Good thing, I guess. You never can tell.” There was a pause. “But you’re good, Nora?”
“I’m fine. What do you hear from Lily and Poe?”
“Oh, they’re fine, I guess. They moved again, too.”
We fake-chatted some more; I told her she should come out and visit, Boston was beautiful in the spring. She reminded me that Scupper was also beautiful in the spring. “Maybe Bobby and I will come out in June,” I lied. It was a relief to hang up the phone. My mom couldn’t give me what I needed—she never had—but Bobby came through.
He called me during the day if I wasn’t at the hospital, making sure our friends were around so I was never alone. He took me to funky restaurants, filled our days with goofy entertainment like the duck boats and trampolining. He made me laugh, cooked dinner, brought me flowers, watched happy movies and home renovation shows, because anything violent, anything about crime made me shake.
When I woke up screaming, he held me close. “I’m here,” he’d say. “I’ve got you, babe. I’m right here.”
Somehow, the words never made me feel safe. Roseline, who’d grown up in a rough neighborhood in Port-au-Prince, understood. “When something like this happens,” she said, a faraway look in her eyes, “you realize this shit is everywhere, all the time. It’s not that the world is different. You just know the ugly side now.” She took my hand and held it.
I tried to get better. I saw a counselor who specialized in this kind of thing. She said everything I was feeling was normal, which I already knew. I took a self-defense class, the kind where you got to hit a guy dressed in padding, looking oddly like the Pillsbury Doughboy. I wasn’t the only one who’d been attacked, and it helped a little to know other women had gone through this—and worse—and survived.
Bobby and I started having sex again about a month after the Big Bad Event. I’d started calling it that to lessen its impact, and because the words assault and home invasion sounded way, way too scary. Whenever thoughts of my attacker came into my head (constantly), I tried to think of him as Voldemort. After all, Voldemort dies. As for the sex, I needed Bobby to take up more space in my brain, to force Voldemort to the side.
I wanted good physical contact, life-affirming sex, normalcy. “You sure?” Bobby asked.
I was. He was kind and gentle, and I was glad when it was over. A hurdle jumped.
But things weren’t the same.
My sunshine was gone, and every day seemed a little grayer. We got Boomer, a multicolored ball of fun, and truly, the only time the clouds seemed to lift was with that goofy mutt, who slept with me when I took a nap, his head resting on my hip, a paw on my leg.
Around the ten-month mark, I sensed a hint of...impatience from Bobby. He was getting tired of this. He’d felt that way about Mia the anorexic, too. Being a white knight was fun for a while, but staying a white knight...that got old.
The thought of being without him caused rivulets of panic to swirl around my bones. I would get back to my old self, that happy, successful woman with great clothes—I’d been wearing scrubs a lot these past few months, which wasn’t against any rules except my own. I’d be outgoing and funny again, smart and independent. Bobby would love me with the same ferocity he’d shown at my bedside in the hospital...and even better, with the same sense of eagerness and joy before the Big Bad Event.
So I redoubled my efforts. Forced myself to do the things I’d done before. I started running along the Charles again, though now with pepper spray and a rape whistle and a big dog—Boomer grew fast. I went out with Doctors Without Spouses, threw Roseline a bridal shower, served as bridesmaid at her wedding. Did some pro bono work at a clinic in Dorchester, though I had a taxi bring me right to the door, and called Bobby as I walked in. I was so scared of seeing him or someone of his kind, of being followed, of being attacked, of another Big Bad Event...one that didn’t end so well this time.
I did get better. At least, I seemed better from the outside. But those rays of sunshine that used to glow from my skin, that sense of happy wonder with my life...I had to fake that. Everything that had gotten me to where I was seemed gone. The woman who’d won the Perez Scholarship, who’d graduated in the top quarter of her medical school, who’d gotten a fellowship at one of the best hospitals in the world...the woman who’d won Bobby’s love was something of a memory now, and in her place was someone who was just going through the motions.
As for Bobby, he still said he loved me. It just didn’t seem as heartfelt as it once had.
The grayness stayed, right up until I was hit by the van with the giant bug on the roof.
11
“You’re hired, darling. And aren’t you adorable!”
I blinked. “Uh...thanks. Good. That’s great.” My interview had lasted four minutes.
Dr. Amelia Ames, medical director emeritus of the Ames Clinic, stood, swaying, and shook my hand. “See you...tomorrow? Did we say tomorrow?”
“Yes, we did. See you tomorrow.”
I was fairly sure Dr. Ames’s coffee mug did not contain coffee.
Three days after I’d moved into the houseboat, I shed my sling, found my arm to be in working condition with just a little soreness and emailed the director of the Scupper Island Urgent Care Clinic. I attached my CV and necessary paperwork. She called me last night, and here I was now. Hired.
“Ta-ta!” said Dr. Ames now, wobbling to the office door and ushering me out. “Lovely to see you again.”
“We’ve never met be—”
“Ciao!” The door closed.
No tour of the facility, no questions on my experience.
“Hey,” said a woman about my age. “I’m Gloria Rodriguez. Are you Dr. Stuart?”
“I am. Nora. Nice to meet you. I’m pretty sure I’ve just been hired.”
Gloria laughed. “You have been. You’re a doctor, you’re licensed in Maine, and that’s good enough. Honestly, the clinic can’t get anyone out here except the interns from Portland. No one likes the quiet. Pink eye and sprained ankles aren’t exactly sexy medicine, and that’s 90 percent of what we do. Come on, I’ll give you a tour.”
Gloria was a nurse practitioner. There were four nurses on staff, a semiretired doc who took calls at night, the occasional intern and Dr. Ames. “Her family put up the money for the clinic about twelve years ago, so she’s the director,” Gloria said, making quote marks with her fingers as we walked down the hall. “She doesn’t practice.”