5. Crucifixion
Survival Ain'Pretty (5 of 6)
(In opening up the novel into novellas, I can expand on parts I sacrificed to the velocity of plot. Earlier, I made the decision to take Maria off-island with her father after her assault. These chapters catch up with her while the Inspector is closing in on Tommy. In a novel, I might alternate it. Now, Maria has her own novella.)
James was sick.
Not in the serious, let’s call the hospital and take his temperature every hour sick, but in the snotty, red-eyed, sneezy sort of sick. Which meant that all of them would soon be sick.
So, no day care for the boy. He got to stay home with his sister.
Which was fine. Maria wasn’t going anywhere.
She sat in the TV room with James. He wasn’t particularly interested in what was passing on the screen. Instead, he was building a submarine out of Lego bricks.
He didn’t want any help.
But he wanted her there. She knew that. Her role was to be present, to witness, to applaud, if necessary. And that was fine.
It was good to practice.
She had thrown up. She hadn’t wanted James to hear it, but it couldn’t be helped and she could always tell him she was sick, as well. Which was true.
She was thinking of the Krugerand. She was thinking of Julian. She was thinking of solutions.
If she could find Julian, the two of them could just leave. He said he had plenty of Krugerands. That could get them a start somewhere. And she could work until the baby came. Then it would be the three of them, together, in the future.
And if they slipped off the island, in the middle of the night, they could just go anywhere. Magical thinking has that power.
Perhaps they could ride pink unicorns in the air.
Or they could take a Lego submarine.
She found that she had put her hand on her belly while she was daydreaming.
Meanwhile, the submarine had turned into a castle.
Rosie was also missing school, but only the first two periods. The adults needed to talk.
Her husband and daughter had come home on the late boat. They slept hard, woke up, and started puttering through their routines.
With Pop-Tarts in the toaster and coffee in the mugs, Rosie left the kitchen and went to his truck.
She could wait.
If she needed to, she could blow the horn at him.
She didn’t need to.
He slipped into the car, turned the ignition (keys never left it), and backed out into a three-point turn, then drove out onto Prospect. Nor surprisingly, he headed to the beach.
“Maria is staying home with James,” Rick pronounced.
“No shit. James is really staying home with her.”
He turned his head.
“Tell me the bad news,” Rick asked.
“She was attacked.”
“By who?”
“Billy Trotter and Jack Mitchell.”
He hit the steering wheel.
“Don’t kill us.”
“I won’t. That’s why I’m driving.”
He eased to a stop at a stop sign. After a full and complete stop, he urged the car forward. He had his hands on the wheel, at two and ten.
“How?”
“I don’t know. The usual way.”
Rick felt his rage ticking.
Rosie was weeping. She could still speak. Somewhere, in her transition to a bill-paying adult, she learned how to talk through tears.
“What did she tell you?” Rosie asked.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“She didn’t talk for a few days. We built steps and made cookies and did shit.”
“So when you texted that she was okay, what the fuck did you mean?”
“She was okay. No bleeding, no broken bones, no tears.”
“She got raped. She is not okay.”
Rosie pounded the dashboard.
“I know,” the words hissed out.
They turned the corner on Hummock Pond Road and were driving straight to Cisco Beach. While still in the gold of October, the air held the promise of January. In the winter, he would come out here and watch the wood ducks. A huge flock would fly east across the horizon, for an hour or so. No ducks yet.
He turned into an empty parking area, pulled into the front row, and saw that the ocean had sculpted a wall into the beach.
Rosie regrouped. It wasn’t his fault.
She would say that over his decapitated body.
“Coffin picked her up at the party. He took her to the hospital. They examined her.”
“What did they say?”
“They won’t tell me.”
“You’re her mother.”
“Laws and privacy. It’s bullshit. Coffin says they have a rape kit.”
The two of them stared at the eternal ocean.
“So she got raped.”
“He wants us to press charges.”
Rick closed his eyes. He had saws, hammers, and awls. Hammers. Awls
“I will kill them.”
“I know.”
There had been moments before. Pivots. When the vast weight of the world swung in a direction that he hadn’t anticipated. The wave had been too big to blast through and too sudden to duck under. Instead, you rode it or you got boiled. James, for example. When Rosie had told him that she was pregnant, again, it had picked him up and flung him forward. Not planned, not hoped for, just there. The future would boil him.
Now this.
“What are we going to do?”
This was a trick. She knew what she wanted to do; she wanted to be polite. He knew her tricks and, because he loved her, he didn’t call her out or get petulant.
“Assuming I don’t kill the boys.”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t we press charges?”
Rosie fought the urge to be sarcastic. The jostling inside their marriage did not help the dangers outside it.
“It will turn into his word against hers. It will be public. It will be a mess. You know this place.”
“So, no.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “We have to ask Maria.”
He stopped and saw them all dressed up, in court, with Maria telling her story and everyone he knew in the audience.
“They could tape her testimony?”
“I don’t know,” she allowed. “Maybe we should talk to a lawyer?”
“Or Coffin.”
“Yeah.”
And none of this would work.
“She needs counseling.” Rick said.
“Yes.”
“Do you know someone?”
“Martha.”
“Martha,” he scoffed. She wore macrame sweaters and claimed to be a witch. When he fixed her outdoor shower, he had to remove twenty pendants and wind chimes over it.
“What happens when Little Miss Peace Frog fails?”
“I don’t know.” The honesty surprised him. “We can’t send her back to school with her rapists.”
He nodded.
“We can’t leave the island.”
The September sky pooled pewter in the west.
“We could,” he said. “I could get work off-island.”
“Would it pay like it does here? Where everyone wants a whirligig?”
“No,” he said. “But I could commute.”
“Okay,” she said. “We could move.”
This answer surprised him. Rosie never agreed with him.
“How will Maria feel when we are all living in Mashpee because of her?”
“Well, it would be better than sending her away.”
“Let’s think about that later, shall we?” Rosie said. “Let’s leave that option open. I want us to think about putting Maria in a recovery center.”
“A hospital.”
“Something like that, sure.” Rosie said. “Someplace where there are pros to help her get her head back.”
He was absorbing it all.
“Sure.” Rosie said. “And then, after that, perhaps a boarding school.”
“Like she wouldn’t get raped there.”
“The chances are a lot less. We aren’t talking about St. Paul’s. I want lesbians and nuns and furry armpits.”
The diffident autumn swell sighed up onto the beach, then slipped back.
“Either she goes or we all go.”
“Yup. With some time in a recovery center.”
“Hospital.”
“A building with beds, locks, and doctors,” Rosie spit back at him. “Call it a camp.”
In the past, it would have been enough to light his candle, but not tonight.
What he thought didn’t matter. The wave had come and flipped him around in the wash. He had been boiled. He was angry, he was confused, and he didn’t know what to do other than crucify the two boys on his lawn.
He had enough four-by-fours to make three crosses, if needed.
“No charges?”
“It would crucify her.”
He was glad they were both on the same page.
Now, she had to talk to her daughter. That would be fun. If only the girl would leave her room.
The Inn on Brant Point (Novella)
Milestone 1: The Boy Who Climbed the Windmill
Milestone 2: Remember
Milestone 3: Snitches Get Stitches
Milestone 4: Survival Ain’t Pretty
2. She Could Recognize Trauma When It Woke Up in her House.
Some of my writing…
Barr’s For Life: A substack of essays and claptrap
The Boat at the End of Lover’s Lane
(NEW) The Girl Who Ran the Polpis Road
The Inn on Brant Point (Novella)
Her Lover on Monomoy Road. (Novella)
Her Father Came Home to Deacon’s Way (Novella)
Love Letters (Novella)
The Fisher King (Novella)
The Costs of Faith (novella)
Winter: A Collection of Island Living Essays set between January and April 1.
The Boys: A collection of essays about my two sons, written as they grew.
Rolling in the Surf: Essays on Teaching.
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So I am looking forward to not doing this any more. Not the writing,, the re=-wrertiing. This novel and these chapters have been on the table for decades now. In the novellas, I have to tighten the stories up, throw some wonderful character stuff out, and make the story work. I like it, and I like how this story is coming together since making some changes, but I am so tired of rewriting this stuff when it is so much fun just writing it fresh.
the frustration and rage for the parents is hard to really present. I think rosie is trying desperately to make it real, but controlling Rick from over reacting.
Let me qualify. I think, as a writer, there are all sorts of whirlpools I can get stuck in. Going back and rewriting, revisiting, reqworking old stories is one of them. I love this story. I am overjoyed at the new version of it that is emerging here. But....
After this is done, I get to write new stories.