Lisa Gardner - The Survivors Club

Please, kiss me.

She shivers. And a moment later, she realizes that for the first time all night, she is afraid.

From outside comes the sound of voices. The nurse and the police officers are once more talking about her.

“Latex? She was tied up with strips of latex ? For God's sake, gentlemen, that's the kind of detail you might want to mention to me. I just approached her all gloved up and she about climbed the walls. No wonder she was scared out of her mind.”

“So you think she was raped?”

“Of course she was raped. Have you looked at her mouth? Consensual lovers don't generally gag their partners.”

“Yeah, yeah, but… listen to her. ‘Isn't it a beautiful night.' And she's humming all the time and smiling to herself. What's that about?”

“It's called euphoria, Officer. Because even if Miss Pesaturo doesn't consciously remember being raped yet, her subconscious knows damn well what happened and it's telling her she's grateful to be alive.”

The officers don't say anything more. A moment later, the door bursts open and the nurse comes bustling back in. Meg stares at the woman's hands, but they are bare now. The woman opens a cabinet, pulls out a separate box. She hands the box to Meg.

“Are these okay with you?”

Meg looks into the box. It also contains gloves, but these are different. She takes one out, holds it in her hand. It is thin and smells of rubber. The box says it is a vinyl glove. She sniffs again. She has an instant memory of dish soap and sudsy water. That's all.

She hands the box back to the nurse. “Okay,” she says and her voice is now equally grave.

The nurse spreads a white drop cloth on the floor. Meg stands on the drop cloth and takes off her clothes, including her bra and panties. The nurse puts each item in a separately marked bag. Meg holds out her arms. The nurse shoots Polaroids of her naked body, including her mouth, wrists and ankles. The nurse runs a comb through her pubic hair. The results go into another bag.

Then Meg must lie back on the table. Her feet go into stirrups. Her heart is pounding again. She tries not to think about it. She tries to remember she must trust this woman, because something horrible has happened even if Meg can only recall rich chocolate eyes and a gentle lover's kiss.

Meg shivers. The room is too cold. She is frightened by the swabs the nurse is taking. Frightened by the things they might know that she doesn't. She is overexposed, and even when the nurse hands her a pink hospital gown, it is not enough.

There is evidence of vaginal penetration, the nurse tells her. Traces of fluid in the cervix. Is Meg on birth-control pills?

This sounds right to Meg. She nods. It is only the beginning, however. She doesn't have to take the morning-after pill unless she really wants to, but there is still the risk of sexually transmitted disease. Herpes. Gonorrhea. AIDS. She will give blood samples today, and more in the coming weeks as they continue to look for signs of infection. For example, it can take up to six months to detect the first sign of AIDS after initial exposure.

Meg nods again. Her euphoria is gone. She is tired. More tired than she has ever felt. Her mouth hurts. Her ankles, her wrists. She sits with her legs tightly crossed and she hopes, somewhere way down deep, that no one will ever touch her again.

A knock on the door. An officer sticks in his head. Meg's parents are here. A Providence detective is here. They need to ask her some more questions…

“You're going to be all right,” the nurse tells Meg.

Meg just looks at the woman. She finally understands that this kind, stern woman is paid to lie. Meg has been raped. Meg has lost her mind. Meg does not recognize the man and woman now rushing into the room sobbing her name.

Meg will be many things in the days, weeks, months to come. But she will not be all right. That will be a much longer-term project. It will take years. Most likely, it will take the rest of her life.

Monday morning, 7:10 A.M., Meg finally crawled out of bed. She hadn't slept well last night, though she wasn't sure why. Today might be the big day, but it would be a bigger day for everyone other than her. The prosecutor, Ned D'Amato, wasn't even going to call her to testify. As D'Amato so bluntly put it, what could she contribute? She still didn't know anything about that night. During cross-examination, the defense would eat her alive.

Kind, gentle Meg. Sweet, lucky Meg, who still didn't remember a thing.

From downstairs came the distant clang and clatter of pans. Her mother must already be in the kitchen, whipping up breakfast. Then came a high-pitched giggle, followed by a shrill demand for “Pancakes, pancakes, pancakes!” Meg's little sister, Molly, liked to get up at six.

Meg's lack of memory didn't bother her so much anymore. About four months ago, she realized she possessed a deeper, instinctive knowledge of things if she was just willing to listen to her inner voice. For example, she couldn't remember her mother's name, age or general description. But the minute her mother had burst into the hospital exam room and wrapped her arms around Meg's trembling shoulders, Meg had known that this woman loved her. She felt the same way about her father and Molly. And when they brought her back here she'd definitely had a sense of coming home, even if she couldn't have given a street address.

Sometimes, little things got her going. A song on the radio would shake the cobwebs in her mind. She would feel a memory stirring, rising up, like a word stuck on the tip of her tongue. If she tried too hard, however, strained her mind, the thought would disappear almost immediately. She'd have to wait for the song to air once more, or the scent to ride the wind, or the déjà vu to return.

Lately, she'd been working on not working so hard. She focused on her inner voice more. She let the moments of semiclarity linger like a fog in front of her eyes. She spent long periods of time thinking of nothing and everything. Post-traumatic amnesia was the mind's way of coping, the doctors had told her. Forcing the issue only created more trauma. Instead she should rest, eat healthily, and get plenty of exercise. In other words, take good care of herself.

Meg took good care of herself. These days, she didn't have anything else to do.

Now she heard the sound of voices, closer, down the hall. Hushed voices, the way people spoke when they were fighting and didn't want others to hear. Her parents, again. She'd gone to sleep listening to the same sound.

Her Uncle Vinnie kept coming by. Yesterday he'd been here until almost ten at night, speaking low and furiously with her father. Her mom didn't approve of Uncle Vinnie. Her mom didn't like him coming over so much, and obviously didn't like whatever he and her father had been talking about.

Meg herself didn't get it. Uncle Vinnie had a loud, booming laugh. He smelled of whiskey and stale cigars. His head was nearly bald, his stomach bursting huge. He looked to her like Kojak crossed with Santa Claus. How could you not like Kojak crossed with Santa Claus?

Meg waited on the other side of her door until her parents' voices finally faded away. Molly was still downstairs. Probably now decorating the floor with bits of pancakes. Her mother had probably returned to her. Her father had to get ready for work. Meg crossed the hall unnoticed and crept into the upstairs bathroom, where she took a long, steaming shower.

She needed to get moving if she was going to be at the rue de l'espoir by eight.

Twenty minutes later, clad in jeans and a T-shirt, her long, damp brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, her face freshly scrubbed, she went galloping downstairs. By now her father had probably left for work, which made it easier for her, easier for him. One year later, he couldn't look at her without seeing a rape victim. And Meg couldn't look at him without seeing him look at her as someone who had been raped.