Now That You Mention It: A Novel

by Kristan Higgins

  It wasn’t a good hit. He punched me back, calmly almost, full fist, square in the face, and my head snapped back, my eyes streaming tears, my nose filling with blood. I fell, tried to kick him, and he leaned over and yanked my hair, wrenching my neck.

  I screamed, louder this time, but it was April, and April in Boston can be as cold as winter. The apartment’s windows were new and snug and shut tight against the cold snap that was supposed to end tomorrow, it was supposed to be in the sixties tomorrow, typical New England. The walls made from brick. Bobby had made a joke about it two nights ago after some very athletic sex. “Good thing the neighbors can’t hear,” he had said afterward, hugging me close.

  I had closed the blinds not ten minutes ago. No one would see me being assaulted. No one would see a woman struggling not to be killed. I thought of the Common, so beautiful in the spring, the statue of Paul Revere, the tulips. Of the little brick restaurant where Bobby and I had dinner the other night. Of how it still felt, walking into the hospital in my white coat.

  Tonight I was going to die.

  Concentrate, Nora. Stay alive. Stay here.

  It was my mother’s voice.

  The man pulled me to my feet by my hair. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, and I almost laughed, because my face was swelling already. I tried to punch him again, in the throat this time, but my head was woozy, and he caught my fist and slapped my burning, aching cheek. I screamed again—no, I whimpered, and the weak sound broke my own heart.

  I wasn’t going to win, be triumphant, have the cops tell me I was amazing. No one would know how hard I tried.

  Try, anyway.

  The man, whose name I would never learn, just watched me. I punched once more, arms weak, hitting him on the side of the neck rather than the Adam’s apple, because my arm flopped a little at the last second. He slapped me on the side of the head, making my ear ring and my head loll.

  “Just do what I say. If you do, I’ll leave. If you fight, I’ll kill you.”

  I imagined that he’d kill me anyway, but maybe something miraculous would happen, maybe the Ambersons in 3F would need me to watch Chanelle, the baby, and they’d knock on the door. Maybe I could buy some time.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Nora,” I whispered. I shouldn’t have said that. I should’ve made something up.

  “Take off your clothes, Nora.”

  With hands that shook uncontrollably, I unbuttoned my shirt. Unzipped my skirt and stepped out of it as tears slid off my chin. Off with the bra. Don’t think about it, don’t think about being naked. Off with the panties.

  “Get on the bed. On your back.”

  I obeyed, legs shaking, teeth chattering. “You don’t have to do this,” I said. “Please. Don’t do this. You’re not a bad person.”

  He unzipped his jeans and stuck his hand inside, locking eyes with me.

  I started to pray. Please, let me live. Please, let me live.

  The man started pacing, fondling himself, muttering about what he was going to do to me. He ordered me to tell him I wanted him to hurt me, to rape me, to do all sorts of obscene, unspeakable things.

  I said the words.

  Apparently, they weren’t enough. He couldn’t get it up.

  A tiny seed of hope poked through the black tar of my fear.

  “Maybe we should take a break,” I said, and he backhanded me so hard my head slammed to the left. Shock protected me for all of a second, and then my whole face was on fire. I tasted blood, and one of my teeth was loose, maybe.

  He shoved his hand back in his pants, muttering horrible words, calling me names. Whore. Slut. Worse.

  Think, I commanded. Think of something. I should throw up, but lunch was so long ago, my food was way down in my intestinal track, probably in the descending colon by now. Could I pee? Make him disgusted? I tried. Nothing came.

  Think.

  Bobby and I had watched The Martian last weekend, cuddled up on the couch. What about that, right? Matt Damon, adorable son of Boston, had been stranded on Mars all alone. He wasn’t terrified all the time, though he had very good reason to be.

  I don’t think Matt Damon is going to help here, said the calm part of my brain. Also, that’s a work of fiction.

  So not helpful, unless I was trying to make water from hydrazine.

  My terrorist kept pacing. He punched himself in the head, and for some reason, that scared me more than the hand in the pants.

  I found myself going numb. The pain throbbed, but it was more distant now. There was too much. I was sinking into the mattress. I wanted to go to sleep. It was possible I had a concussion.

  Here’s the thing about abject terror—you can’t stay there. Well, maybe you can. If you’re a mother, for example, and your child is the one at risk. And yes, I was abjectly terrified. There was an intruder in my house, and he had beaten me and was trying to maintain an erection long enough to rape me and possibly kill me afterward, and believe me, that was as terrifying as it gets. But here I was, wondering why Matt Damon was so damn appealing.

  This morning seemed so long ago. A different life when I had gotten dressed, back when I cared about looking the part of a successful doctor. I loved that white blouse. It was a silk-cotton blend. If blood got on it, would it come out?

  Think, Nora. Focus.

  I tried to map the man’s face. He looked like any ordinary white Bostonian male—not that tall, not that fit, scrawny but with a beer belly, pasty complexion, a few pimples, crooked bottom teeth. Brown hair. Blue eyes.

  He looked so normal.

  “Stop staring!” he said, coming at me with his fist. I curled into the fetal position, to protect myself, but he pounded me on the ribs, and it hurt, God, it hurt, the pain reverberating everywhere, a fierce, fiery throb.

  “Roll on your back and open your legs,” he said.

  Terror surged again, chaotic and churning, and my mind emptied. Again, I obeyed. There was a cobweb in the corner where the wall met the ceiling. I’d clean the apartment this weekend, with the stepladder, really get every nook and cranny.

  Or not. I might be a murder case by then.

  I glanced at him. He still didn’t have an erection, and when he saw that I was looking, he lunged at me, making me flinch, then laughed, a mean, thin sound.

  What could I use for a weapon? The red vase from Home Goods? If I smashed that over his head, would it be enough? Could I cut his throat with a shard of broken glass?

  Where was my phone? Why had I put it down? I could’ve pressed that last 1. I knew something was wrong, why hadn’t I listened to myself? I could’ve made the call, then thrown it and screamed, and the police could track my number (I thought so, anyway) and they’d come, breaking down the door, and I’d be safe.

  His hand was jerking rapidly in his pants.

  Think, Nora. Think. Be as smart as Matt Damon. He’d find a way.

  “I just have one question,” I said. Maybe I could buy some time. My words were slurred, which concerned me. “How did you get in?”

  He actually brightened, proud of himself.

  He had been planning this, he said. He saw me at the corner market about a month ago. He’d followed me home, trailing well behind, just trying to see where I lived.

  Took to walking his dog on my street to learn my schedule, figure out when my boyfriend came over. Saw me on my balcony one night.

  He was the man I’d waved to. From three floors above, I hadn’t been able to see his face clearly.

  He’d been waiting to see me again. Tonight, after he’d held the door for me at the market, he’d run around the block, racing to get home before I did. The apartment below mine was empty. He climbed the magnolia tree, jumped onto the balcony, climbed up onto mine and picked the lock. It was amazing what you could learn on YouTube, he said. He had lain down in the tub, so I wo
uldn’t see him at first glance.

  He said he’d just gotten in place when I came in.

  If I hadn’t stopped to talk to Tyrese, I might’ve seen him coming in the slider and could’ve run. Instead, I’d wanted to talk to Tyrese because I hadn’t felt safe.

  Irony could be such a coldhearted bitch sometimes.

  I’d waved. I’d waved to my would-be rapist as he was stalking me. Such a nice person, that Nora Stuart.

  I looked at the clock. An hour had passed...maybe a little more.

  He still didn’t have an erection.

  Lizard Brain popped in with a new word for me.

  Worse.

  “Do you want a drink of water, Nora?” Voldemort asked, and while this night had been completely surreal, that was the strangest moment of all, maybe.

  “Yes, please,” I said.

  “Stay here. Don’t move. I’ll get you some water, and then I’ll leave if you promise not to call the police. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Sure, mister. No worries.

  “Stay here,” he said again, turning away.

  Now, said Lizard Brain. Go.

  I was off the bed before he even left the room. He didn’t notice.

  My ribs screamed in pain, and blood flowed from my nose. My left eye was swollen closed, but I followed him down the hall, just a few feet behind him. I could smell him, his sweat, his disgusting musk.

  He stopped. I stopped, too, just three or four feet behind him, and fear seemed to gather in me and lift me off my feet. I didn’t even breathe. Every molecule in my body was focused on him. I could feel my heart beating. Otherwise, not a move.

  He started moving again, into the living room, around the pale green couch into the kitchen. I went to the door.

  He went straight to the end of the counter, because that’s where the knife block was, right out in the open, one of my joyful purchases—a Wusthof knife set from Williams-Sonoma. Knives for all occasions—paring, peeling, chopping, slicing. Murdering.

  He reached out and his hand closed on the biggest knife handle in the block.

  I saw this out of the corner of my eye, because I was almost there, almost out, so close.

  Then my hand felt the cold metal of the doorknob, and I snapped the dead bolt open.

  Get out. Go. Go. Go.

  Then I was out, running down the hall to the stairs, and I was screaming, my voice unrecognizable, hoarse, hysterical, but spot-on in message.

  “Call 911! Call 911! Call 911!”

  Jim Amberson, the dad in 3F, opened the door and saw me.

  “Help me!” I screamed, staggering toward him.

  “Jesus!” he said. “Get in here!”

  He slammed the door behind us, threw the dead bolt, yelled for his wife. The kids came running, then halted at the sight of me, bruised, naked, bleeding, swollen. Chanelle started to cry.

  My legs gave out, my bladder, too, and I sat in a puddle of urine, my back to their locked door. “Nine-one-one,” I sobbed. “Call 911. Call 911.”

  * * *

  I was taken to the hospital, x-rayed, coddled, given the five-star treatment by my peers. The director of medicine of Boston City came down to see himself, and his eyes filled with tears as he took my bruised hand. My face and chest were x-rayed; I had a cracked rib and a bone contusion on my jaw. My left eye was swollen shut, my face...

  Well. We’ve all seen pictures of women who’ve been beaten. I also had bruises on my legs, ankles and ribs. No damage to internal organs.

  The police told me I was smart and brave and lucky. I told them to check the security video at Avi’s grocery store. They took pictures of my injuries and asked repeatedly if I’d been raped. Sent in a female officer to ask the same thing, then a rape-crisis counselor. When they were assured I hadn’t been, a sketch artist came in. So did a social worker to talk about PTSD and shock. I was given a sedative; my teeth wouldn’t stop chattering, which made my jaw ache horribly.

  “I’ll call your mom,” Bobby said. He hadn’t left my side since I was admitted.

  “No.”

  “She should know, Nora.”

  “No. It’s over. Don’t call her.”

  “You sure?”

  “She’s not that type of mother. She’ll be... Just don’t.”

  Besides, I just wanted to sleep. My mother... There was always that hint of blame or...or something. I was too tired to think about it.

  I looked at Bobby. I remembered him wondering aloud what it would be like to date a normal person. And we’d been so normal, so happy, so fun...and now look at me. My face was turning all sorts of colors, and I’d just almost been killed. So much for sunshine and bluebirds. “Let’s put things on hold,” I whispered, squeezing his hand, causing pain to flash in my knuckles from the punch I’d managed to land. “This isn’t what you signed up for.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he said, his voice fierce and shaking a little. “I’m staying right here. I love you, Nora.”

  All my friends and colleagues visited the next day, and my room filled with flowers, and Bobby stayed with me. I was in the hospital for two nights, which was more professional courtesy than because I needed to.

  It was all over the news—Young Doctor Foils Home Invasion, Survives Rape and Murder Attempt. Suspect At Large. I didn’t let them release my name, because I didn’t want to be known as that poor thing. Bad enough that all my colleagues knew.

  The police never did catch him. Apparently, he left the way he came, out my balcony. They canvassed the neighborhood, but he was never found.

  I couldn’t go back to the apartment.

  “You’re moving in with me,” Bobby said. “Don’t even argue about it. It was a matter of time, anyway.” I was grateful. I was so, so grateful.

  Tyrese, who’d wept at the sight of my face when the ambulance came, oversaw the movers.

  I had nightmares and awoke drenched in sweat and gabbling with fear. I was afraid to go anywhere alone. Bobby took two weeks off—unprecedented in his career—and was absolutely, utterly wonderful. He let me talk about it. He understood when I didn’t want to talk about it. He told me stories from his childhood, and I clung to the love I had for him, trying to let it wash over the ugliness, the fear, the obscenity.

  I waited for the bruises to fade and got back to work. Pretended that I’d been brave, that I’d dodged a bullet and was grateful and fine.

  I wasn’t.

  “Did you hear about that home invasion?” my mother asked in our bimonthly phone call. “Saw it on NECN. Wasn’t that near you?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I actually moved in with Bobby, though. I, um...I don’t live there anymore.”

  “Good thing, I guess. You never can tell.” There was a pause. “But you’re good, Nora?”

  “I’m fine. What do you hear from Lily and Poe?”

  “Oh, they’re fine, I guess. They moved again, too.”

  We fake-chatted some more; I told her she should come out and visit, Boston was beautiful in the spring. She reminded me that Scupper was also beautiful in the spring. “Maybe Bobby and I will come out in June,” I lied. It was a relief to hang up the phone. My mom couldn’t give me what I needed—she never had—but Bobby came through.

  He called me during the day if I wasn’t at the hospital, making sure our friends were around so I was never alone. He took me to funky restaurants, filled our days with goofy entertainment like the duck boats and trampolining. He made me laugh, cooked dinner, brought me flowers, watched happy movies and home renovation shows, because anything violent, anything about crime made me shake.

  When I woke up screaming, he held me close. “I’m here,” he’d say. “I’ve got you, babe. I’m right here.”

  Somehow, the words never made me feel safe. Roseline, who’d grown up in a rough neighborhood in Port-au-Prince, understood. “
When something like this happens,” she said, a faraway look in her eyes, “you realize this shit is everywhere, all the time. It’s not that the world is different. You just know the ugly side now.” She took my hand and held it.

  I tried to get better. I saw a counselor who specialized in this kind of thing. She said everything I was feeling was normal, which I already knew. I took a self-defense class, the kind where you got to hit a guy dressed in padding, looking oddly like the Pillsbury Doughboy. I wasn’t the only one who’d been attacked, and it helped a little to know other women had gone through this—and worse—and survived.

  Bobby and I started having sex again about a month after the Big Bad Event. I’d started calling it that to lessen its impact, and because the words assault and home invasion sounded way, way too scary. Whenever thoughts of my attacker came into my head (constantly), I tried to think of him as Voldemort. After all, Voldemort dies. As for the sex, I needed Bobby to take up more space in my brain, to force Voldemort to the side.

  I wanted good physical contact, life-affirming sex, normalcy. “You sure?” Bobby asked.

  I was. He was kind and gentle, and I was glad when it was over. A hurdle jumped.

  But things weren’t the same.

  My sunshine was gone, and every day seemed a little grayer. We got Boomer, a multicolored ball of fun, and truly, the only time the clouds seemed to lift was with that goofy mutt, who slept with me when I took a nap, his head resting on my hip, a paw on my leg.

  Around the ten-month mark, I sensed a hint of...impatience from Bobby. He was getting tired of this. He’d felt that way about Mia the anorexic, too. Being a white knight was fun for a while, but staying a white knight...that got old.

  The thought of being without him caused rivulets of panic to swirl around my bones. I would get back to my old self, that happy, successful woman with great clothes—I’d been wearing scrubs a lot these past few months, which wasn’t against any rules except my own. I’d be outgoing and funny again, smart and independent. Bobby would love me with the same ferocity he’d shown at my bedside in the hospital...and even better, with the same sense of eagerness and joy before the Big Bad Event.