I kept on scrubbing, but my good sense conquered my pride. I laid down the sponge, pulled off my gloves, and pulled up my shirt.

"Oh, someone taped you, I see. Well, let me just take this off. ..." I had to endure all the probing again, to hear a bona fide doctor tell me just as Marshall had that none of my ribs were broken but that the bruise and pain would last for a while. Of course Carrie Thrush saw the scars, and her lips pursed, but she didn't ask any questions.

"You shouldn't be working," the doctor said. "But I can tell that nothing I could say would stop you, so work away."

I blinked. That was refreshing. I began to like Carrie Thrush more and more.

Cleaning the Shakespeare Clinic was an exasperating task because of paper. Paper was the curse of the doctor's office. Forms in triplicate, billing forms, patient health histories, reports from labs, insurance forms, Medicare, Medicaid—they were stacked everywhere. I had to respect each stack as an entity, lift it to dust and put it down in the same spot; so the office shared by the receptionist and the clerk was in and of itself a land mine. Compared with the office, the waiting room and examining rooms were cakewalks.

For the first time, it struck me that someone must also be cleaning those more often than once a week. As I vacuumed, I mulled this thought over. Nita Tyree, the receptionist? I couldn't picture Nita agreeing to that as part of her job. I barely know Nita, but I do know she has four children, two of whom are young enough to be in day care at SCC. So Nita leaves when the last patient walks out the front door, no matter what is sitting on her desk.

Gennette Jinks, the nurse, was out of the picture. I'd been behind the fiftyish Gennette in line at the Superette Food Mart only the week before and had heard (as had everyone else in a five-foot radius) about how hard it was to work for a woman, how young Dr. Thrush wasn't accepting the wisdom she (Gennette) had attained with years of experience, at which point I had tuned out and read the headlines on the tabloids instead, since they had more entertainment value.

So the surreptitious weekday cleaner had to be the good doctor herself. I had stacked up the bills. Without wanting to, I knew how much Carrie Thrush still owed for her education, and I had a feeling that some weeks it was hard for Carrie to pay even me, much less Gennette and Nita.

I chewed this over as I mopped, having dusted and vacuumed around the doctor as she sat at her desk, a stack of the omnipresent paper on every available inch of surface.

When I had everything gleaming and smelling at least clean, if not sweet, I stuck my head in the office door and said, "Good-bye."

"Oh, let me write you a check," said Dr. Thrush.

"No."

"What?" Carrie Thrush paused, her pen touching her checkbook.

"No. You examined me. Call it bartering."

I was sure that was against some doctors' rules, but I was also sure the offer would appeal to my employer. And I was right. Carrie Thrush smiled broadly, then said, "Thank God! No paper to fill out."

"Thank God, no insurance to file," I answered, and left, feeling that Carrie Thrush and I, cleaning woman and doctor, had, if not a relationship, at least the beginning of good feelings between us.

Chapter Nine

- |

My bruised side ached more and more as Saturday dragged by. I moved through Mrs. Hofstettler's apartment like a snail, but she was having one of her bad days and didn't seem to notice. I wondered what it would be like to feel this way many days and to know for a certainty it would last the rest of my life.

I made my statement at the police station, sitting bold upright and taking shallow breaths. The man who took it down was a detective, I had to assume, since he wasn't wearing a uniform. He told me he was Dolph Stafford and that he was mighty glad to meet me. He glanced at me out the corners of his eyes, and I saw pity in his elaborate courtesy. I knew he, too, had heard my old story, which I dragged around with me wherever I went, like the albatross around the Ancient Mariner's neck.

As I drearily went through the details of the Ken doll and Norvel's attack, I pondered an old problem. Now that my past was out, should I move? Before, the answer had always been yes. But I'd been in Shakespeare for four years now, longer than I'd been anywhere since I was raped. For the first time, I wondered if I might not just weather it out. The thought crossed my mind, and in crossing, it stuck there. When Dolph Stafford dismissed me, I went home to lie down, finally giving in to the pain. I'd just have to go grocery shopping Sunday or Monday.

My reluctance to go to the store wasn't wholly due to the pain. I knew by now the story about Norvel's attack would be all over town, and I just didn't want to encounter sympathetic looks or horrified questions.

Carrie Thrush had slipped me a few sample pain pills when I'd left her office. Normally, I'd think twice before taking Tylenol, but I was positively longing for whatever relief the pills might bring.

Swallowing two of the capsules with some water, I was just about to leave the kitchen to ease myself onto the bed when I heard someone knocking at the door.

I nearly decided to ignore it. But it was the brisk kind of rap-rap-rap that tells you that the caller is both impatient and persistent. I was already peeved when I got to the door and looked through the peephole, so discovering the caller was my sometime employer the Reverend Joel McCorkindale did not make me any happier. I shot back the bolt reluctantly.

The minister's "happy to see you, sister" smiled faltered as he took in the scratches on my face and the awkward way I was standing.

"May I come in?" He was wisely settling for dignified sympathy.

"Briefly."

Taking that in his stride, McCorkindale stepped across the threshold and surveyed my tiny domain.

"Very nice," he said with great sincerity. I reminded myself I must be careful. Sincerity was the Reverend McCorkindale's middle name.

I didn't offer him a chair.

This, too, he absorbed without comment.

"Miss Bard," he began when he'd taken measure of my attitude, "I know that you and Norvel Whitbread have had a personality conflict"—here I snorted— "ever since you've had to work together at the church. I want you to know I'm extremely disturbed that he was so stupid last night, and I want you to know Norvel himself is very, very sorry he frightened you so badly."

I had been looking down, wondering when he'd get through blathering, because my bed seemed to have acquired a voice and it was calling me louder and louder. But now I looked up at Joel McCorkindale.

"I was never frightened," I said. "Mad, yes. But not frightened."

"Well, that's... good. Then, he's apologetic for having hurt you."

"I beat the shit out of him."

The minister flushed. "He is definitely a sad sight today."

I smiled.

"So, cut to the chase," I prompted.

"I have come to ask you, most humbly, if you would consider dropping the charges against Norvel. He is repentant. He knows he should not have been drinking. He knows it is wrong, very wrong, to hold grudges. He knows it is against God's commandments to harm another person, much less a woman."

I closed my eyes, wondering if he'd ever listened to himself.

The bad thing was, I reflected as McCorkindale expanded on Norvel's mental anguish, that if I hadn't had my little life-altering experience, I might be tempted to listen to this crap.

I held up a hand, indicating for him to stop.

"I am going to prosecute him to the full extent of the law," I said flatly. "I don't care if you ever hire me again. You've known he was drinking again for weeks; you had to have known. You know whatever convictions he expresses are going to vanish when he sees another bottle. That's his religion. I have never been able to understand why you kept him on when that became apparent to anyone who cared to look. Maybe he has something on you. I don't know and I don't care. But I will not drop charges."