Katherine waited for one of the men to help him to his room, but no one moved.
“Come on then.” Katherine allowed him to put his arm around her shoulders and they took a couple of steps. She almost tripped when he turned back to the table.
“Guys, it has been great. I’ll see you, perhaps, next time I’m in town.”
Leaning on Katherine for support, he walked slowly across the room, the others calling their good-byes.
They almost ran over the bartender. Katherine was paying more attention to keeping Bill upright than she was to where they were going.
“Sorry,” she said. “I guess he had a little too much.”
Bill roused himself and clapped the bartender on the shoulder. “Willie, it’s been great. See you next time I’m in town.”
Willie didn’t respond. He looked at Katherine, dropped his eyes, and shook his head. She supposed he’d seen similar things before.
I don’t know why I’m the one doing this.
Katherine looked back at Bill’s buddies, still sitting around the table. They looked as if they were having a meeting. Jimmy was standing, and judging by his gestures, he seemed to be talking to the group. The others were leaning forward, as if they were listening to him intently. As she looked, Jimmy glanced over his shoulder, and several of the others looked in their direction, but no one made a move to help her.
“Can’t they see that I need some help?” Katherine said aloud. “If I couldn’t help him, if he had to crawl up to his room on his own power, would one of them pitch in, then?”
Maybe I should drop him, right here.
She shifted Bill’s weight to her other shoulder. “I’ll do my duty. At least we’re getting out of here.”
Katherine walked Bill to the door. As they entered the hotel’s lobby, she steered him toward the elevator. “I need to lie down,” Bill muttered. “I need to sleep.”
Good. Sleep is good.
She would get him to his room, let him go to sleep, and she could leave. She guided him across the lobby. Bill tripped as he entered the elevator and Katherine almost dropped him.
“Sorry, I’ve got you.”
Reaching his room, Bill fumbled in his pockets for the key. “I don’t have it,” he said. “Must have left it in the room. Have to go back to the desk.” He turned back toward the elevator, but Katherine stopped him.
“Just sit down. Right here, beside the door.”
Bill raised his voice. “I need to get my key.”
Katherine spoke softly, trying to calm him. “It’s all right, Bill. I’ll get the key. You sit here. I’ll be right back.”
Bill leaned against the wall and slowly eased himself to the floor.
“Good. I’ll be right back.”
Katherine rode back to the lobby and explained the situation to the clerk. The clerk was a young guy. He had seen her helping Bill across the lobby minutes earlier and he didn’t question her. He simply handed her another key. Two of Bill’s buddies, Arthur and Jimmy, were standing in the lobby, near the front desk, and seemed to overhear her request for a key.
“Everything all right?” Arthur asked.
“He forgot his key.” Katherine shook her head and hurried back to the elevator.
As Katherine returned, Bill staggered to his feet and took the key. He tried, several times to insert the key into the lock, but missed each time.
“Let me do it.” Katherine patted his shoulder. She knew he couldn’t help it, but she was feeling exasperated now.
“No, I can do it!” He tried again.
“Give me the key.” She pulled it from his hand. Opening the door, she helped him into the room. The Royal didn’t waste money on decoration, she decided, as she glanced around. A king bed occupied the space that had been intended for a double. Otherwise, there were a couple of straight chairs and a small chest. A giant-sized television set rested on the chest.
“Give me your coat. Can you loosen your tie?” He handed them over and she turned to hang them in the closet. “Take off your shoes and lie down. You can call me when you wake up. If it’s not too late, we can have something to eat.”
“You’re going to leave?”
“I’ll stay until you fall asleep. Call me when you’re awake.”
As she turned back toward him, Bill grabbed her arm and flung her across the room.
“Bill!” Katherine lost her balance and fell. She caught herself on her elbows before she sprawled backward across the bed.
Bill straightened up. He no longer appeared to be as woozy as he had before.
“Shut up, Katherine.”
“Bill!” She tried to get up, but Bill walked to the bed and towered over her, blocking her attempt to stand.
“All I’ve ever wanted from you, all I’ve ever wanted, is love. I wanted you to like me, to care for me, to pay attention to me. Is that too much to ask? Just pay attention to me?” He glared down at her. “You treat me like scum. You talk to me like I’m a child.”
“Bill, I was only—”
“I said to shut up.” His voice was soft but angry.
“Now, I took the time to fly to New York, just to see you. Nothing else. Did you take a day off? No. Did you take an hour off? No. Did you work late? Yes. You stayed in that rat’s nest of a hospital patching up dirty people who would be better off dead, and you sent me on my way.”
He stared at her for several seconds. Katherine was not certain whether she felt angry or frightened, but she squeezed her hands into little balls to stop them from shaking.
“Bill, I am going to leave.”
“You Jacksons are all alike,” he growled as he turned away. “You think you’re better than everyone else. You look down your noses at all of the others, at all of those whose families can’t be traced back for hundreds of years. You think you’re better than we are.”
He turned back to Katherine, shaking his finger. “Well, you’re not. I’ve more money than you have, more than your father has, or your grandfather or—”
Katherine slid off the bed and took a step toward the door.
“No.” Bill blocked her path. “All of the times I came to visit, all of my letters, my calls—you never cared. Everything I tried to do, you ignored.”
He took a deep breath. “I came here today just to see you. No appointment, no case, no one else to visit. I came just to see you. And what did you do? Did you take the day off? No. An hour off? No. You worked late.” He stopped, looking confused. “Did I just say that?”
“Bill, I—”
“Shut up,” he bellowed. “All I wanted was for you to pay me some attention. Well you’re going to do that now.”
She heard a knock at the door.
Bill didn’t even turn. “Come in, guys.”
Arthur and Jimmy, the two who were loitering in the lobby, walked into the room. Jimmy held a bottle of beer in one hand, like a club.
“Lock the door, the security bar. She can be slippery.”
“Bill, I’m leaving now.” Katherine took another step toward the door, but the three men, standing side-by-side, blocked her path.
“Later. Right now you’re going to be a good little girl and pay me some attention.” He stepped toward her, placed his hand in the middle of her chest, and pushed her back onto the bed. “Arthur and Jimmy are here to make sure that you behave. When you and I are finished, you’re going to properly thank them for coming up to help.” He smirked. “Have I got your attention?” he spat at her. “Lie down.”
***
An hour later, Katherine lay face down on the bed as she heard the door close. She opened her eyes, looked over her shoulder, and saw Bill looming over her. Arthur and Jimmy were gone.
Bill threw a blanket across her body. “Cover yourself, tramp.”
“I’m not a—”
“Quiet! Only a tramp would act like you have.”
“I did nothing.”
“That’s right! You are right, Dr. Jackson. You did nothing.” He leaned over her, his fac
e almost touching hers. “Nothing. You didn’t protest. You didn’t scream. No fighting, no struggling, no argument. You. Did. Nothing.” He made a sound of disgust. “Aunt Betty says that a lady will always fight.”
“I was afraid.” Katherine had been stoic throughout, but now her voice caught as she spoke, and tears began to run down her cheeks.
“Afraid of what?” He snorted. “No one threatened you. No one hit you. Look.” He snatched the blanket away.
“No! Give it back.”
“Look at yourself,” he ordered. “Not a scratch, not a bruise.” He waited as she curled into a ball, then he tossed the blanket at the foot of the bed, smirking as she grabbed for it and spread it across her body. “A modest tramp! Imagine.” He snorted. “A bit late.”
He leaned over her again. “This is your fault, you know. All I wanted was some consideration, a little of your time. If you’d come with me this afternoon—”
“I couldn’t leave,” she whimpered. “They needed me.”
“I needed you! And that’s bull. You did what you wanted to do. You’ve always done what you wanted to do. You’ve led me on all these years, but you just don’t care.” He leaned closer.
Katherine gagged as she inhaled the stench of stale bourbon mingled with the odor of Bill’s sweaty t-shirt.
“In fact, all you had to do was to ask to leave, to ask nicely. I’m a gentleman, Katherine. You know I would have let you leave.” He straightened. “But you weren’t nice. You issued an order, like a true Jackson.” He looked down on her and sneered. “But you didn’t have your daddy’s gun this time, did you?”
She huddled under the blanket, grasping it against her body, shaking and crying.
“You’re ruined, you know. Ruined. No decent man will want you now. Take Dr. Richardson, he seems like a decent man. Is he?”
Katherine didn’t answer.
Bill pounded his fist against the bed. “Is he?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“He won’t want you now.” He laughed.
“But—”
“But what? He loves you? Bah! Don’t argue. You know it’s true. Your own mother would tell you it’s true.”
He was right. Katherine recalled her childhood babysitter, Anna. She was assaulted one night walking the two blocks from Katherine’s house to hers.
The rumors were vicious. “Asking for it,” they’d said, and, “I knew she was that kind.”
Katherine had overheard her mother and father talking about it too. “It’s not fair, Thomas, but it’s true,” her mother had said. “She’s ruined. No decent man will want her.”
Katherine had talked with Anna at the picnic a few weeks earlier—unmarried, still living at home.
“But the police…”
“Will never know. You won’t report it because they won’t believe you. You didn’t put up a fight. You have no evidence, no proof.” He laughed. “Do you think my Aunt Betty will believe you? The things she’ll say! The stories she will tell!”
He walked to the window and looked out. “Your mother won’t be able to go in public, not even church, without hearing the whispers. Poor Alice, how does she bear it?Poor Alice, what did she do wrong?”
He turned around, the smirk fading from his face. He bent over her once more, his expression blank, emotionless. He placed his hands around her throat.
“Silence is golden, Katherine, golden. Yours for mine.”
Katherine gasped for air. At that moment, she believed that he would kill her. She tried to speak, to agree, but her mouth refused to form the words.
Bill’s hand tightened and she sputtered.
“Yours for mine.”
She gave a quick nod, and he dropped her head to the bed. He looked around, picked her scrubs from the floor, and tossed them across the room.
“Get up, whore. Put those on and get out.”
Katherine was frozen in place, afraid to move.
She screamed as Bill jerked the blanket away and pulled her onto the floor. “Get dressed and get out!” He turned his back.
She slipped on her scrubs and her shoes. “I can go?” she whispered.
Bill opened the door and stepped aside.
Katherine walked slowly down the hallway, her mind numb. She stopped at the elevator. As the doors opened, she looked back. Bill wasn’t there. The door to his room was closed.
The cold air hit her as the elevator’s doors opened in the lobby, and Katherine realized that she was wearing neither her long-sleeved tee, nor her coat. Bill had not given them to her. Holding her arms around herself, she walked across the lobby, on auto, not thinking, not seeing.
As she passed the front desk, she bumped into a man who had just checked in.
“Sorry, ma’am.” He reached out to steady her, but she jerked away and continued walking, saying nothing.
The wind was blowing harshly as she passed through the front door, but even though her thin cotton clothes did nothing to shield her body from the bitterly cold air she continued to walk. As she approached the entrance to the bar, Katherine glanced to her right and saw her reflection in the window. Her hair was disheveled, her face streaked with tears, her clothing inappropriate for the cold weather.
Willie, the bartender, stood by the door, taking a break.
As she drew nearer, their eyes met, and his dilated in recognition. Just as he averted his gaze, Katherine saw the same look of pity on his face that she had seen as she had helped Bill from the bar.
He knew.
Katherine stared, and he ducked his head, turned, and fled into the bar.
He knew what they were going to do. He did nothing!
Katherine peered through the window. Willie had retreated behind the bar. He saw her looking through the window, and he turned his eyes away, studiously wiping the counter with a damp cloth. Five of Bill’s friends still sat at the round table. They were laughing. Arthur was raising his glass, as if in a toast. Celebrating?
She had an impulse to walk into the bar and demand to know who had known, who was complicit.
She grasped the door’s handle.
They all knew what was going to happen to me, and not one of them tried to stop it.
As she pushed against the door, Arthur turned and looked at her. He laughed and pointed in her direction. Katherine stopped, stumbled back into the street, and ran.
Aftershock
Katherine ran and ran—down a block, right two blocks, left another—until she could no longer see the hotel. As she crossed the next street, a car swerved to miss her, the blare of its horn interrupting her flight, causing her mind to focus. She stopped, out of breath, not sure how far she had come, not sure where she was.
It was completely dark now. She walked to the streetlight on the corner. As she turned around, trying to locate a familiar landmark, she bumped into a man walking briskly, with his head down against the wind. She stumbled, and he reached out to catch her.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t see you. Are you all right?” He helped her regain her balance. “Katie? What are you doing? Aren’t you freezing? Come in for a minute and get warm. I’ll walk you home.”
Her flight had taken her to Steven’s house.
“I’m a little late tonight,” he continued, “my meeting, you remember.” When Katherine didn’t respond, he looked at her closely. “What happened to you? Are you all right?” He put his arm around her shoulder. “Come in with me.”
“No!” She jerked loose and backed away from him. “Don’t touch me.” She spun around and took off, not looking back.
Arriving at her apartment, she reached for her keys, then realized she had left her tote bag at the hotel. She knocked, tentatively at first, then harder.
“Who is it?” Becky peered through the peephole and then opened the door. “Forget your keys?” She took in Katherine’s appearance. “What happened to you?” She looked over her shoulder. “Sara, come here.”
She pulled Katherine into the apartment. “You’re so cold, your a
rms are blue.” She turned as Sara walked in. “Bring a blanket, Sara.”
They wrapped her up and brought a mug of tea.
“What happened, Katherine?”
Katherine gulped. She closed her eyes. Her body was trembling.
Becky shook her. “Katherine, tell us what’s wrong. Tell us what happened.”
A tear slipped down her cheek. “Bill Wilson…”
As best she could, through tears and shame, she told them the story, beginning with Bill’s arrival in the ER, ending as she ran from the hotel.
“Oh my God, Katherine. Where have you been?”
“I, uh, I don’t know. I’m not sure. Walking I guess, running. I saw Steven, I think.” She looked around the room, then lowered her head, placing it in her hands. “I don’t know.”
“I’ll call your mother,” Becky said, reaching for the telephone.
“No! You can’t tell anyone. No one can know what happened. No one. Promise me. Swear!”
“Not tell anyone?” Becky shouted. “Are you crazy?”
“I’m fine.”
“Fine? You’re not fine, Katherine. Three men raped you, you look like hell, and you don’t know where you’ve been. You’re not fine. You’re going to the hospital.”
Sara was already slipping on her coat. She handed Katherine a heavy sweater. “We’ll take you.”
Even as she protested, a part of Katherine allowed them to help her to Sara’s car. Sara ran into the ER to get help, while Becky held Katherine in place, keeping her from running.
“Dr. Jackson? Dr. Jackson, what’s wrong?” The head nurse rushed toward the car, followed by two orderlies with a gurney.
“I’m fine. I’m fine.”
“What happened to her?” The nurse turned to Becky.
“She was raped. Three men.”
“Oh, my—I’ll call Dr. Fisher. Kelly will take care of her.”
Becky reached out a hand to stop her. “She didn’t want anyone to know.”
“Keep it a secret? Not happening. No one’s doing this to Dr. Jackson and living to tell it.” She turned to the orderlies. “Take Dr. Jackson straight to the back. Exam Four is open.”
The Handfasting Page 14
