Lost (40 page)

  And that was it.  The moment we left the hospital together I decided it was the end of the rape, as far as I was concerned.
 

                                              *****

  Walking back into my place I was surprised it looked spotless, which meant either my mom or my brother cleaned it up while I was in the hospital.  I didn't know who, but either way it was another nightmare for me.  I pictured the blood and stuff on my sheets, and I imagined the blood which must have collected at my front door when the police were talking me into opening it for them.
  I tried to imagine what everyone saw, but I didn't want to, so I ignored it.  The only thing I did do, was walk to my kitchen to see a perfect pane of glass where he may have entered.  I couldn't see the blood sample on the floor that was mentioned, and I wouldn't have known anyone entered that night through the window if I didn't know it had actually happened. 
  After the kitchen, I walked to my bathroom to look at the covered window and blind, realizing I maybe should have known I could be seen.  So testing it, I shut off the light, and I did see sunlight through the little tiny holes where the strings attached to the end of each slat, but the holes seemed so insignificant to me, I couldn't believe someone would even put forth the effort to stand there, potentially getting caught by anyone passing for the main door, just for a tiny glimpse through an even tinier hole to see me using the washroom or naked in and out of the shower.
  After seeing the tiny bits of sunlight, I walked to the hall closet and pulled down 3 towels one-handed. Calling my mom to help she joined me in covering up the window completely with the towels.  She helped me cover it and then I walked back to my hall closet and pulled out more.
  Walking to the kitchen window, I asked her to help me cover it as well.  Then the dining room window was covered, followed by the living room next.
  Once I ran out of towels, I grabbed sheets and little throw blankets which my mom helped me cover the 2 living room windows with without protest or even speaking.  She covered them as I gave them to her one-handed and determined, until there was only my bedroom window left, which I couldn't enter. 

  My mom seemed to understand my silence though as I stood still outside the room, so she grabbed the last of my throw blankets, and even a dark sheet and went into my bedroom to cover the window as I moved to sit in the suffocating darkness of my living room alone and unable to speak. 
 
   When my mom finally joined me on the couch, she asked if she could turn on a light and I nodded yes.  The darkness certainly wasn't helping my mindset, so hopefully some light would.
  “What are you thinking about?” She whispered.
  “I don't know...” I answered honestly.  “I’m scared, but I'm not.  I'm tired, but kind of jacked up on adrenaline or something.  I feel sad and not like myself at all, and I have that weird stoned feeling from the meds, but I'm still really aware of everything, too.”
  “What can I do to help?” She asked taking my good hand.
  “Order Chinese?” I huffed a laugh as she grinned beside me.
  Laughing at my stupidity, she said, “I can't wait for the day you finally lose your awesome metabolism and get fat.” 
  “What?” I laughed.
  “I used to be tiny too, you know.  You've seen the pictures,” she sighed and I had seen them.  I had the same smallish body of my mom when she was younger.  “But then I had kids, hit thirty, and voila, I got a huge ass and a belly that won't go away,” she said pushing her stomach in with her hand.
  “So you want me to get fat?” I again laughed.
  “Kind of,” she grinned.  “Just so I won't feel so irritated when I see you eat half a chocolate pie with your dad but still fit into those tiny jeans of yours.”
  “That's mean...” I giggled.
  “I know,” she laughed again. “But I guess after shitty hospital food you're entitled to some edible food.  Where's the menu?”
  “In the second drawer beside the stove,” I grinned as she rose for my kitchen.
  After we ordered, while we waited for the food to arrive, neither of us spoke.  We literally sat in silence in my dimly lit living room because I didn't know what to say, and clearly, neither did she.  We didn't speak, but she did sit right next to me holding my good hand in her own while we waited.  However, when the food arrived we abandoned the silence to eat like total pigs. 

  I ate nonstop and without pause.  Long after my mother groaned and pushed her plate to the coffee table, I was still happily eating my 2nd huge plateful of Chinese.
  “Maybe I should get fat, then I won't worry about...” But I suddenly stopped my words.
  I knew how horrible and sad they sounded.  And I hated how pathetic and desperate I sounded.  I knew I was being irrational and unrealistic, but I couldn't help thinking of the ways I could prevent ever being hurt again.
  “Sophie, you didn't do this.  And you can't think that way.  You just can't.  Being small or big doesn't change anything.  What happened to you is horrible, but you didn't do it to yourself because you're small.  It was a-”
  “It's okay.  I don't really want to talk about it, okay?  I was just kidding about getting fat,” I exhaled with a fake smile.  “I’m going to lie down for a while.  Feel free to leave or put the TV on, or whatever.  My shoulder hurts and I can't take another painkiller for a few hours, so I just want to sleep for a bit,” I said attempting to remove the couch cushions on my end of the couch.
  “Are you sleeping here?” My mom whispered.
  “Do you mind?”
  “Not at all.  Let me help you,” she said standing.
  So together we unfolded and opened up my sofa bed.  My mom took from me the remaining sheets I had in my hand from the closet, and she helped me make the bed.  My mom grabbed the extra pillows in the closet and after putting on fresh pillow cases, she quietly asked if I wanted my comforter from my bedroom.  Gasping I shook my head no.  I never wanted to touch those sheets or blankets again.
  “Would you like me to get you something to sleep in?”
  “Please...” I moaned because just the thought of walking into my bedroom made me want to throw up.
  So I excused myself for the bathroom, though it was only 5:00 in the evening, and I waited for her to hand me a shirt to sleep in with my tights. 

   Amazingly, I managed, albeit painfully, to remove my sling and arm from my baggy sweater, and I almost succeeded in putting on the long shirt.  Almost.  But my shoulder was too sore, and I couldn't quite get my arm back in the sleeve without help.
  “Mom?  I'm sorry, but I'm stuck,” I laughed from the bathroom door, with half my boob hanging out, and my arm killing me as it hung trapped in the sleeve opening.
  So jumping up to help, my mom slowly, painfully pulled my arm through the sleeve, ignoring my boob completely.

  “Is that all?” She asked.
  “For now... Thanks,” I said closing the door again, but I knew what I had to do. 
  I had been cleaned at the hospital.  I had been cleaned with a sponge bath, and even a half shower that a nurse helped me with before I left, but I needed to wash myself again with my own soap.  I
had
to.
 

  So tucking my t-shirt under the collar, it was up and around my chest, as I pulled down my leggings and underwear.
  Pulling them off, I started the shower.  Pulling them off, I ripped down my underwear and pantyliner, gagged once, and threw them in the garbage can in the corner.
  I didn't know why I gagged, but I swear I smelled sex on me.  Logically, I knew I was wrong and I couldn’t possibly smell like sex, because the morning after pill actually made me bleed a little off and on, but I just couldn't get past thinking I smelled like dirty sex.
  Looking at my tub as the water warmed, I knew my hair was filthy, but there was nothing I could do about it in that moment.  I needed help holding my shoulder out of the water because of the weird bandaging which seemed totally impossible to stay dry when washing hair, but I could wash my body without help.
  Stepping over the tub wall, I sat on the edge with the handheld and I cleaned myself one-handed.  Moving the spray around, I used soap all over my lower body and I washed myself as cleanly as possible.  I even stood and washed myself from behind as best as I could.  The soap stung the vaginal tear, but I didn't care. I was washing away everything that could be left on my body from that horrible night.  I was making myself clean again, because I
was
going to be clean again, I decided.
  An hour later when my mom knocked on the bathroom door, I finally jolted and recognized my surroundings.  Calling out, 'one minute', I finally turned off the water and my tears.

  Grabbing a pair of neatly folded pajama bottoms from the wicker shelf, I dressed again cleanly.  I even looked in the mirror for the first time as I brushed my teeth and saw the damage to my face; damage which though painful didn’t look half as bad as I had thought it would.

  My hair covered the stitched cut on my temple, and the black eye wasn’t as dark as they looked in the movies.  My black eye looked more like I hadn’t slept in a week or two, more like dark coloring all around my eye, which somehow I thought I could easily cover with make-up.

  But I really didn’t care about how I looked, I was just glad to be clean.  I felt clean, and I smelled clean, so I decided nothing bad happened to me.
 

  When I left the bathroom finally, I laid on the sofa bed with my mom watching TV beside me and I slept a dreamless, medicated sleep of exhaustion.  I slept knowing unconsciously my mom was beside me, and I slept knowing I wasn't in my bedroom of shame.
                                                          

                                             *****

  The following days with my mom were easy, and sometimes even a little fun.  My mom and I watched way too much TV, ate endless amounts of crap food, drove to the grocery store for more crap food, and took little walks around the neighborhood together.

  We drove to Home Outfitters and I bought black-out curtains for every window in my apartment, and a new comforter with matching sheets.  We even stopped at the cafe once, but I wasn't in the mood to speak, so she ran interference as I left and waited outside for my French Vanilla with chocolate shot.
  We just did nothing and everything until it became almost boring.  And then I begged her to leave on Saturday evening the following morning. 

  I explained I was going to work Monday morning and I wanted to settle into my own routine again.  I promised I was okay, even after she protested, but she gave in like I knew she would even though she didn't think I was well enough to go to work, or to be alone.  I knew she thought I was a step away from losing it, but she was wrong. 

  I had decided the previous Monday night hadn't happened, and I was actually starting to feel like it didn't really happen.  When I ignored the various aches and pains, and the residual bruising around my temple, eye, and cheekbone, I felt like I looked like a normal woman.
 

  So on Sunday morning before she left, I put on a flimsy nightgown and my mom stood in the bathroom beside the tub helping me shower and wash my hair.

  She actually washed my long hair because I couldn’t move my shoulder properly, and she was soaked by the time we were done.  But other than making a few jokes, she didn't seem to care.  She helped me slip the nightgown off, wrapped in a towel without any of my body being seen naked, and then she dried my hair for me.
  My mom was so kind to me I choked up once when she was drying the back of my hair and told me to tilt my head forward.  She was so kind, I cried a little, and whispered a very meaningful 'thank you' when the dryer finally stopped. 

  Before my mother left Sunday morning she told me she'd come back anytime in the night if I needed her, and then she let me know what I might expect at work, which honestly I hadn't thought much about, but clearly should've.
   I didn't realize I had made the papers as an unnamed 'sexual assault' victim, and I didn't know my parents had told the head of HR about the attack.  I hadn't really known what they said, but somehow I thought it was something like, 'Sophie's sick', or 'Sophie fell and screwed up her shoulder', or even 'Sophie needs the week off for personal reasons.’ Never in my worst nightmare would I have thought my coworkers had been told the truth.
  Crying from her betrayal, my mom didn't let me close down completely without hearing how she
had
been evasive about my absence until a Madeline and a Deborah had contacted Steven as my next of kin with questions regarding what had happened and when I would be returning.  And so my mother told them the truth, but with a promise of absolute confidentiality.  A confidentiality she actually had faith in, that clearly I had none.   And as she spoke calmly, I realized my job at Halton Facilities was probably over, because I knew if Madeline knew, everyone knew.
  After she explained what happened I put on my game face, thanked my mom for everything, pretended I understood why she betrayed me, and gently forced her to leave my home.
  We hugged, and again she offered me endless words of love and affection, with the opening for her to return just a phone call away, until finally, she left me alone. 
  After she left me I walked around my place, unsettled, and insecure, until I eventually passed the day away with mindless TV and an attempt to read Beautiful Losers which I had once loved.
  But I was horribly unsettled.