17
THE MAN
DAY 2—HOW COULD HE KNOW
A THING LIKE THAT?
Rhoda arrives for her shift forty-five minutes early, her rucksack heavy on her back. After what happened yesterday they’ve asked her to stay on the patient’s ward again today. They told her she’d be staying on with him at least for today, considering what he’d been through on the ward and given his unusual situation.
If Rhoda were a cynical person, she’d say the hospital might be trying to cover their backsides over what happened there yesterday. How had that situation been able to occur on an active ward? Why had a confused and recently bereaved man been placed on an open ward and left unattended? It was a valid question that a lot of people were already asking.
There had been reporters hanging around the hospital entrance last night after her shift ended, a woman and a man. They asked her what she thought about hospital security. What she thought about immigration. What she thought about the patient found on the beach that morning. Did she think he was a hero? they asked. Did she know his name? She hadn’t wanted her picture taken, though they’d asked her politely if she would, but it had been a long day and she had worried it wouldn’t come out well. Finally, she had told them she needed to go and she’d thought no more about it.
Since the scuffle on the ward she’d replayed the incident with Mr. Garrett over and over in her mind.
Should she have done something? What if her patient hadn’t stepped in? What if it hadn’t gone the way it did, if something very bad had happened? People could have been hurt because of her failure to act.
She’d tried to remember her counselor’s words while she made a cold-plate supper for herself that night, her cream cockapoo Coco bouncing around her heels. Her counselor has been telling her for the past five weeks, since the incident in the park, that it wasn’t Rhoda’s fault. But it’s hard not to blame yourself when something bad happens to you. Because she knows if she’d just fought back, then maybe things would have been different. The fact is, in actuality she did nothing and she let something terrible happen to her. She knows she can’t blame herself, she shouldn’t blame herself, but she does.
Her thoughts had circled back around to her new patient, the odd feeling she’d had that he’dknownabout what happened to her. It was the way he’d looked at her, the way he’d pointed out the scar running jagged down her temple, her dark skin puckered and still tender where the stitches had been. She’d been styling her hair differently to cover it; people at work had only noticed her new hairstyle. But Rhoda noticed the scar every time she looked in the mirror. And—somehow—he’d noticed it too.
How had he known? She hadn’t told anybody what happened to her in the park. She’d only called the police, grudgingly, after realizing that she wouldn’t want the same thing to happen to someone else next time, someone younger or older, someone frailer.
She’d reported it but she hadn’t told anyone else, not her friends and certainly not her family. She didn’t want them to see her that way, to think of her like that. She’d lied in those days after it happened and told anyone who asked that she had slipped on the stairs in her building, rainwater on the steps, and people had grimaced and sympathized but thought no more about it.
The police had filed a report but they told her that they couldn’t do any more without eyewitnesses. And there had been no one else there that day. Just her and Coco and the skinny old man with his walking cane, sitting on a park bench. She’d noticed his dog, a Staffie, nosing around a bin for scraps, off the leash.
It had all happened so quickly.
Usually Rhoda would unleash Coco as soon as they got to the park, letting her run free in her dizzying circles as happy as can be. But that day, seeing the Staffie there, running loose, she’d kept Coco close.
Her intuitions had been right because as soon as the Staffie had looked up from its search and seen Coco, the dog had bolted full-pelt straight for her. Rhoda had fleetingly thought to pick Coco up, but she hadn’t had time and it hadn’t mattered anyway because just before making contact with Coco the big dog had swerved and knocked Rhoda down onto the muddy grass. A flash of pain had ripped up her leg and into her hip. A shout came from across the park, the old man’s voice calling angrily to his dog, making his way to help her as fast as his cane would allow. At least that was what she’d thought, but as he got closer and she’d raised a hand so he could help her up to her feet, that’s when the first blow came. His thick wooden cane struck her so hard across the cheek, the blow knocked the air straight out of her. She’d gasped a breath in to shout out, but the next blow came down before she could make a sound. And all the while he was shouting at her. Poor Coco, dancing around her on the grass yapping furiously.
None of it made any sense as he glared down at her while swinging his cane a third and final time, his hate-filled voice saying terrible things, a storm of ugly words she would only begin to process afterward. He told her she was stupid, a stupid bitch, why had she got in the way of the dog, she was a stupid fucking n*****, and suddenly she knew why this was all happening.
Disbelief in burning hot waves had flushed through her. She hadn’t thought things like this happened anymore, not here in this country, not now, and yet, somehow, here she was.
After the third blow the old man had pulled back, spittle hanging grotesquely from his chin as he scowled down at her. Then he’d lowered his cane, looked around the park purposefully, and called to his dog before turning and stalking away. Just like that.
The way he’d walked off, in such an ordinary, everyday way, her ears ringing and blood stinging her eyes as he’d left her to bleed in the mud. That was the thing that made the tears come as Coco whined and nosed around her.
Rhoda lay almost motionless, stunned, crying hot tears of confusion, scalding tears of rage. What had been a nice afternoon walk was now a nightmare. He’d walked away and she couldn’t think of what to say or what to do, so dizzy and disoriented she’d screamed at the top of her lungs after him.
“HEY! HEY!”
And at that, he’d turned back briefly to look at her, his eyes scanning the still-empty park beyond her. But seeing no one else, no one but the two of them, he’d turned and stumped away, his stupid oblivious dog following obediently at his heels.
Rhoda stayed in the park long after he’d left. The last thing she wanted was to see him again farther down the street back toward her home. She needed to fix herself, wash her face, check the throbbing wound on her forehead, but she had no pocket mirror in her bag. Rhoda knew she was a brave woman, she’d been a nurse for nearly three decades, but for some reason she’d not fought back. When the moment came, she did nothing. Why? She’d asked herself then, and every day since.
She’d talked it all through with the police counselor of course. It was shock, he’d told her. Simple as that. The old man had caught her by surprise; no one expects to be attacked in a public place in broad daylight walking their dog. No one expects frail old men with canes to be a threat. She had been blindsided, plain and simple.
Just as she’d been blindsided again on the ward. But this time someone else had been there to help. He’d looked into her eyes, and he’d understood her fear. He’d stepped in for her. He was her lucky charm. Her gift from God.
So, when she gets to work, she heads straight to his ward and shakes out the contents of her bulging rucksack on his bed. He sits motionless under the blankets, watching, as six thick books tumble out, alongside pens, pencils, and a brand-new sketchpad, with their discount stickers still attached.
Rhoda smiles at him. The library books are foreign dictionaries, the library maximum was six, and the sketchpad was the idea of one of the police officers yesterday.
If he couldn’t talk, then perhaps he could draw? the policeman had suggested. Perhaps he could communicate where he was from or anything he could remember?
