Free Rape by Joyce Carol Oates Page A

bars in which in any case she had no desire to go. Better for Teena Maguire to buy her own provisions. Keep to herself. Walk the windy bluff at the edge of the Falls where it was always damp with spray. In fair weather the area swarmed with tourists like ants but in bad weather she was likely to be alone. Leaning against the railing above the American Falls. Staring into the crazed churning water far below.
    At the Whirlpool just below the Falls, sixty-foot vertical walls of water rushed in a giant circle fasterfasterfaster as if about to disappear into a giant drain.
    God help me. God give me peace. God?
    â€œMa’am! You don’t want to do that, ma’am.”
    Whoever it was interrupting her reverie, sometimes daring to take her arm, Teena was indifferent. She shrugged, she made no reply. Often she was driven home by park officials/NFPD officers soaked through, shivering convulsively and her teeth chattering yet with a curious passivity, as if by being taking into custody in such a way she’d become again merely a body, an inert and soulless weight.
    Her hair had grown back grudgingly, lank and curiously without color. When she saw her reflection in a mirror, taken unawares she did not think alarmed I must do something about my appearance, Jesus! but That pathetic woman, they should have finished the job .
    *   *   *
    One evening in early October it was Dromoor who brought Teena home.
    You saw from your window upstairs at the front of your grandmother’s house. Saw the unfamiliar vehicle, a Ford station wagon, low-slung and not new, the kind you’d expect to see littered with kids’ toys in the backseat, pull up to the curb. And out of the driver’s seat a tall man in a dark canvas jacket, bareheaded, with a shaved-looking steely-glinting head, going around to help your mother out of the passenger’s seat. Teena lurched to her feet, leaning against the man’s arm even as she made an effort to stand on her own.
    At first you didn’t recognize John Dromoor, out of uniform. Then you did.
    You ran downstairs breathless. “Momma?”—you called out. Pretending not to know who was with you, bringing Teena home.
    She’d been drinking again. And she was sick. She refused to take medication, see her therapist. Didn’t seem to give a damn what happened to her any longer.
    You halted at the foot of the stairs. Saw them just inside the front door, in the outer vestibule. Through the frosted-glass doors you could not hear what they were saying. Mostly Dromoor spoke. But what was he saying? How well did they know each other? They were not touching. You could hear Dromoor’s voice—low, urgent, almost eager—but not his words.
    Your mother laughed suddenly, without mirth. A shrill sound like glass breaking.
    Pushing then through the swinging doors into the inner vestibule, not seeming to see you; or, seeing you, paying noheed. Behind her Dromoor hesitated, as if wanting to follow her. But better not.
    He saw you then. He wasn’t smiling. He knew you of course—since the roadway in Rocky Point Park, he knew you—but had never yet called you by name.
    Awkwardly you pushed through the frosted-glass doors. You were a shy girl made bold, brazen. Your heart rang like a deranged bell in your chest. You were breathless stammering, “M-Mister Dromoor?—thank you for bringing Momma home.”
    Dromoor must have known, at that moment. The look in your face. The heat in your face. Yearning, desperation.
    I love you. You are all to me .
    You would remember: Dromoor telling you this was a hard time for your mother, you would have to take care of her. And you said, too quickly, in a voice of childish hurt, “I don’t think my mother wants anybody to take care of her.”
    Alone with Dromoor in the vestibule of your grandmother’s house. A roaring in your ears, as if you were leaning over a railing at the Falls: the visceral