Kent Haruf - Eventide

Honey, I won’t hurt you. I promise. I need to look, that’s all. I have to examine you. Won’t you let me, please?

The nurse turned to her little brother. I want you to step into the hall for a minute, so we can be alone. She led him out and told him to wait there near the door.

Then she came back into the room and took the girl gently by the shoulders. This won’t take long, honey, I promise, but I need to look at you. Slowly she turned her around. Joy Rae stood sobbing with her hands at her face, while behind her the nurse unbuttoned the back of her blue dress and drew down her underpants, and what she saw on Joy Rae’s thin back and thin buttocks was even worse than what she’d seen on her brother.

Oh, honey, the nurse said. I could just about kill somebody for this. Just look at you.

AN HOUR LATER WHEN ROSE TYLER FROM THE DEPARTMENT of Social Services came into the nurse’s room, the two children were still there, waiting for her. They had been given pop and cookies and two or three books to look at. And soon after Rose arrived a young sheriff’s deputy from the Holt County Courthouse came in and began to set up a tape recorder. The two children watched him in terror. He talked to them but his efforts were of little use, and they watched him without blinking and when he wasn’t looking they glanced at his thick leather belt and revolver and his nightstick. Rose Tyler was more successful in her attempts, the children knew her from before and she talked to them quietly and gently. She explained that they were not in any trouble but that she and the officer and the nurse and their teachers were all worried for their safety. Did they understand that they only needed to ask them some questions? Then she asked the deputy to go out of the room and she took photographs of their welts and bruises, and afterward when the deputy returned they began the interview, with Rose asking most of the questions. These were not meant to be leading questions, so as to avoid planting anything in the children’s minds but to allow them to tell their story in their own words, but it didn’t matter, the children were very reluctant to talk at all. They stood uncomfortably at the edge of the cot, standing side by side, and looked at the floor and played with their fingers, and it was Joy Rae who spoke for both of them, though she herself answered very few of the questions in the beginning. Instead she adopted a kind of bitter defiant silence. Gradually, though, she began to talk a little. And then it came out.

But why? Rose said. What would make him want to do this to you?

The girl shrugged. We didn’t pick up the house.

You mean he expected you to clean the house.

Yes.

Yourselves? The two of you?

Yes.

And did you? The entire trailer house?

We tried to.

And was that all, honey? Was there anything else he was upset about?

The girl looked up at Rose, then looked down again. He said I talked back.

That’s what he said?

Yes.

Do you think you talked back to him?

It don’t make no difference. He says I did.

Rose wrote in her notebook, then finished and looked at the two children and looked at the sheriff’s deputy and suddenly felt she might cry and not stop. She had seen so much trouble in Holt County, all of it accumulating and lodging in her heart. This today made her sick. She had never been able to numb herself to any of it. She had wanted to, but she had not succeeded. She looked at the two Wallace children and watched them for a moment and began again to question the girl. Honey, she said, where were your mother and father at this time, while this was happening?

They were there, the girl said.

They were in the room?

No. We was in the bathroom.

Were they in the room when he began talking to you?

Yes.

But they weren’t in the bathroom when he whipped you?

No.

Where were they then?

In the front room.

What were they doing?

I don’t know. Mama was crying. She wanted him to stop.

But he wouldn’t stop? He wouldn’t listen to her?

No.

Where was your father? Did he try to do anything?

He was hollering.

Hollering?

Yes. In the other room.

I see. And you and your brother were with him in the bathroom at the same time?

No.

He took you in there separately?

Joy Rae looked at her brother. He took him first, she said. Then me.

Rose stared at the girl and her little brother, then shook her head and turned away and looked out into the hallway, imagining how that must have felt, being taken toward the back of the house and hearing the other one screaming behind the closed bathroom door, being afraid of what was to come, and the man’s face all the time getting redder and redder. She wrote in her notebook again. Then she looked up. Do you have anything else you might want to say to us?

No.

Nothing at all?

No.

All right then. I thank you for saying that much, honey. You’re a brave girl.

Rose closed her notebook and stood up.

But you won’t tell him, will you? Joy Rae said.

You mean your mother’s uncle?

Yes.

The sheriff’s office will certainly want to talk to him. He’s in serious trouble. I can promise you that.

But you won’t tell him what we said?

Try not to worry. You’ll be safe now. From now on, you’ll be protected.

ROSE TYLER AND THE YOUNG DEPUTY DROVE IN SEPARATE cars to the east side of Holt to the Wallaces’ trailer on Detroit Street. The weeds surrounding the trailer were all dry now and dusty, dead for winter, and everything looked dirty and ragged. Still, the sun was shining. They went up to the door together and knocked and waited. After a while Luther opened it and stood in the doorway shielding his eyes. He was wearing sweatpants and a tee-shirt, but no shoes. Can we come in? Rose said. Luther looked at her. We need to talk privately.

Well. Yeah. Come on in, he said. We’re in a terrible fix here. Dear, he called back into the house. We got company.

Rose and the deputy followed him inside. There was the sweetish-stale smell of sweat and cigarette smoke and of something spoiling.

Betty lay stretched out on the couch, sunken into the cushions and covered by an old green blanket that she kept wrapped about herself. I ain’t feeling very good, she said.

Is your stomach still hurting? Rose said.

It hurts me all the time. I can’t never get rested.

We’ll have to make you another appointment with the doctor. But I wonder, is your uncle here?

No. He ain’t here right now.

He’s over to the tavern, Luther said. He goes over there most days. Don’t he, honey.

He’s over there every day.

We need to talk to him, Rose said. When will he be back, do you think?

You can’t tell. Sometimes he don’t come back till nighttime.

I think I’ll just go find him, the deputy said. We’ll talk later, he said to Rose, then let himself out.

After he was gone Rose sat down on the couch beside Betty and patted her arm and took out her notebook. Luther went into the kitchen for a glass of water and came back and lowered himself into his cushioned chair.

Do you know why the officer and I came here today? Rose said. Do you know why I need to talk to you?

My kids, Betty said. Isn’t it.

That’s right. You know what happened, don’t you.

I know, Betty said. Her face fell and she looked very sad. But we never meant him to do nothing like that, Rose. We never wanted that, ever.

He wouldn’t even listen to us, Luther said.

But you can’t let him mistreat your children, Rose said. You must have seen what he’d done to them. It was very bad. Didn’t you see it?

I seen it afterwards. I tried to put some hand ointment on them. I thought maybe that might help.