The Atonement Child (6 page)

“Sorry,” Ethan said. “I should have asked you.” Leaning forward, he put his hands around the mug of cocoa. “You want to go with them?”

“No.”

“You want to go someplace else? Someplace where we can talk in private?”

She didn’t want to be alone with Ethan. The realization hurt and roused doubts about their relationship. She was afraid to be alone with him, afraid of what he had to say about his deepest feelings. She was afraid she already knew.

She was so confused, the choir of voices in her head debating and running through a hundred painful scenarios. “No. This is fine,” she said bleakly, knowing it wasn’t.

He looked into his mug. “You want to talk about what happened that night?” He raised his head slightly and looked at her. “Maybe it would make things better.”

Feeling a flicker of hope, she did as he asked. After all, he was the one who’d had all the counseling classes. He was the one who was going to be a pastor. Relief swept over her. Ethan was a shepherd. He would see her for what she was—a lost and wounded lamb. Drawing a steadying breath, she told him slowly about her evening at Stanton Manor House, starting with Mr. Packard’s warning. She told him about her long walk down Maple to Sycamore. She told him about the man in the white car and Martha waiting at the bus stop. She told him about Charlie and the ride along Sixteenth. She had relived that night a dozen times at the police station with Officer Lawson. She could do it one more time for Ethan. Surely it would be easier with him.

It wasn’t.

“I walked up Henderson. When I got to the park . . . he was just there. In the shadows. A shape.”

“And?”

“He grabbed me.”

His knuckles whitened around his mug. “Did you fight?”

She raised her head slowly and looked at him. Angry words poured into her head, but she held them back. Her mother had taught her not to give in to anger, not to speak rashly. Walk in the other person’s shoes for a mile.

“Yes,” she said simply, giving no details of how hard she had fought to get free. She hadn’t stopped fighting until he dazed her with a blow to the head.

“And?”

She looked down, unable to meet his eyes. “That’s all. You know the rest.”

“No, I don’t know the rest. What’d they do to you at the hospital? You were in that examining room a long time, Dynah. What was going on?”

She could feel the blood receding. “They were getting evidence,” she said in a low, shamed voice and bit her lip, praying he wouldn’t ask for details.

“Did they give you any tests while they were doing that?”

She went cold, the beginning of understanding striking her heart. Raising her head slowly, she searched his eyes.

“For venereal disease,” he said in a hushed voice, though no one was close enough to hear. “You know what I’m asking. Did they test you for HIV?” He looked down at his mug and then back up at her. “Well? Did they? You’ve a right to know if the guy gave you some disease.”

She wondered if it was her rights that worried him or something deeper, something more primeval. What he was really saying was
he
had a right to know. Tears burned. Of course, he was right. He did. “Yes. They gave me tests.”

“And?”

The hospital had called a few days later. “They were negative,” she said dully. For now. She’d have to be retested several times before they knew for sure she was okay. She pushed the mug away from her with trembling hands. If she tried to drink a drop of it now, she would throw up.

Ethan’s voice was tight. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I just thought . . . well, I thought we ought to get that out in the open.”

“Now that it’s in the open, I hope you feel better.”

His face darkened. “Don’t take it out on me. I didn’t rape you.”

Her cheeks went hot and then cold again. She stood up and fumbled with the small shoulder bag looped over the back of her chair.

“Where’re you going?”

“Back to the dorm.”

He uttered a word under his breath, a foul word she was sure had never before crossed his lips. He never would have said it at all if he hadn’t been so overwrought by what had happened to her. So she supposed she was to blame for that as well.

She heard his chair scrape back as she headed for the doors. He caught up with her just outside and fell into step beside her. “I’m sorry,” he said tersely, sounding anything but sorry. “I get mad every time I think about it.”

Mad at whom, she wanted to say. She wanted to jerk free and hit him. She wanted to scream and scream, but she kept silent because she had been brought up to be polite. If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all. Don’t say anything. Pretend it doesn’t hurt. Especially when someone you love is doing the hurting.

She was wearing Ethan’s engagement ring. The wedding was set for August 17. She had already ordered her white wedding dress.

White.

For purity.

Only she wasn’t pure anymore. She wasn’t a virgin.

Pulling away, she walked faster, desperate to get to the dorm, to get away from him, to close herself in her room and cry.

He caught hold of her hand and pulled her to a stop. “Is this how you’re going to handle everything? By running away every time you hear anything you don’t like? Talk to me!”

It was a command, not a plea. All his anger aimed at her.

“I did talk to you.”

“In a monotone voice. Like you were talking about something that happened to someone else. Don’t you feel anything?”

“Feel?” she said stiffly, pushed by his insensitivity. “I
feel
, Ethan. I feel defiled,” she said in a choked voice. “I feel ruined. I feel raped. Is that enough? Does that satisfy you?”

Ethan caught hold of her. “Dynah,” he said, pulling her back against him and locking his arms around her. “Dynah,” he said again and wept. Was he crying for her or himself? It didn’t matter. Turning in his arms, she put her arms around him. She understood his grief, but she knew, far better than she’d ever wanted to, that some grief was too deep for tears to wash it away.

Things didn’t improve over the next week.

Dynah had just finished a calming shower when Janet came into the room. “Your mom called again,” she said as she set her books down. “She asked me if I knew why you were so down in the dumps.”

Dynah sat on the bed, her head wrapped in a towel and her body encased in a thick bathrobe. “What’d you tell her?”

“I didn’t tell her anything.”

“Thanks.”

“I didn’t convince her, Dynah. She knows something’s wrong. Don’t you think you should tell her what happened?”

Dynah unwound the damp towel from her hair. She didn’t want to think about that night. She didn’t want to think about the shattering effects it had had on her relationship with Ethan. He was just beginning to adjust. He was getting past it. Things were improving between them. A few more weeks, a month, maybe two, and it would be forgotten. “She’d tell my father, and then they’d both worry. And what good would come of it? It can’t change what’s already happened.”

Janet studied her. “She knows something’s wrong. She said she’s thinking about flying back here and seeing you.”

Dynah let the towel drop around her shoulders.

Janet came over and sat on the bed beside her, brushing the tangled hair back from Dynah’s face. “Maybe Ethan could help you talk with them.”

Dynah gave a soft, humorless laugh and shook her head. “I’ll tell them I have the flu or something.” She smiled wanly. She had never lied to her parents before, but what other choice had she? They would go to pieces if they knew the truth. “It’s partly true,” she said, trying to excuse herself. “I’ve been feeling sick to my stomach for the last week.”

Janet stared at her. “Oh, Dynah! You don’t think . . .”

A chill crept over Dynah as she looked into Janet’s horrified eyes. “Think what?” she said softly, afraid.

“That you might be pregnant?”

Dynah’s heart began to pound with sickening beats. “No.” She clung to that word as it hung in the air.
No! You wouldn’t do that to me, would You, Lord? Oh, please, God, no.

TRUST ME, BELOVED.

Dynah began to tremble inside. She knew. She didn’t have to take a test. Something told her already that the sifting hadn’t stopped. It had only just begun.

Janet stood up and began to pace. “You can’t be. There’s no way. They would’ve given you something at the hospital that night to make sure it didn’t happen. A morning-after pill. Or something! They did, didn’t they?”

“No.”

“You were in shock, Dynah. You probably don’t remember.”

She remembered every single detail of that terrifying night. She hadn’t been able to forget any of it. “They didn’t give me anything, Janet.”

“But that’s criminal! Didn’t they even ask?”

Dynah bit her lip, ashamed to admit the doctor had done more than ask. He had tried to convince her to have estrogen therapy. She was the one who had refused to face the devastating possibilities. It was her fault. It was all her fault.

Reaching for her day planner, she opened it with trembling hands, turning back the pages one by one. Two months and four days to the day of the rape. She kept going until she found the small notation two weeks before that. Clutching the planner on her lap, she stared at the date. “I guess I’d better go see the doctor.”

Janet came back and sat down beside her. She took Dynah’s hand between her own. “It’ll be okay,” she said, sounding less than convinced. “I’m sure if you are pregnant, which you probably aren’t . . . I mean, you’ve been through so much; of course, you’d skip. That’s probably what’s happened. They can give you something to get you back to normal again.”

Normal? Oh, God, will I ever be normal again?

Janet’s hand tightened on hers. “Even if you were pregnant, they’d take care of it for you. You wouldn’t have to worry about it. Nobody would even have to know. This early, it wouldn’t be anything anyway, and it’s not like it was your fault. So it’ll be okay. Whatever happens, it’ll be okay. Hang on to that, Dynah. It’ll be okay.”

Only it wasn’t. It wasn’t okay.

I’m never going to be the same, am I, Lord? Never again.

Dr. Kennon pulled off his gloves and dropped them into a metal waste receptacle while a nurse helped Dynah sit up on the end of the examination table. The doctor glanced at the nurse and gave her a nod. She quietly left the room. Turning his back on Dynah, he turned on the water and began washing his hands while she adjusted the hospital gown to cover herself completely. Her heart thumped heavily as she awaited his verdict.

He pushed the faucet handle down with the back of his hand and yanked two paper towels from the holder. “You should’ve taken the estrogen therapy, Miss Carey.”

Her heart sank into the pit of her stomach. He might as well have punched her the way he said the words. The implication was clear enough. She had been a fool. Her skin went clammy; yellow spots danced before her eyes.

Drying his hands, he looked at her grimly. He dropped the towels into the waste receptacle. She closed her eyes, feeling the wave of shock crest and recede, leaving her numb.

“I’m sorry,” he said flatly. Assessing her face, he took her wrist lightly, checking her pulse. “Lie down for a few minutes.”

“No, thank you,” she said. She wanted to sit up and die.

He put her hand on her thigh and stepped back. “I’ll schedule a suction curettage for later this afternoon.” He took up her chart and began making notations on it as he spoke. “It won’t be as easy as the pill would have been, but it won’t be too bad either. The procedure won’t take very long, but expect to be in recovery for about an hour afterward. I don’t expect any complications. It’s just a safety precaution.” He flipped the chart closed and lowered it to his side as he looked at her again. “You’ll need a friend to drive you home. Your fiancé, perhaps?” He had noticed the diamond solitaire she wore.

She didn’t say anything.

“Miss Carey? Do you understand what I am saying to you?”

“Yes, sir,” she said in a choked voice, trembling inside. Was life really so cut and dried?

He looked at her solemnly. “Can you get dressed by yourself, or would you like the nurse to help you?”