Chapter 15: Return

The rooster, living much closer to the east side of the compound than to the bunkhouse, crowed more loudly than expected at the first faint light of dawn, rousing Sarah from a light doze. Disorientation gripped her: cold grass and very sore limbs belied a dream of a sandy beach.

“Sarah?”

“Mhmmmmm,” Sarah murmured groggily.

“You have to get back to the bunkhouse. Like now.” Rebecca’s voice emerged softly, but very urgently. Her voice drove Sarah into wakefulness immediately.

“Fuck,” Sarah mumbled as her cramped limbs made themselves known. Pins and needles jabbed at her clammy flesh. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“Thank you for keeping me company,” Rebecca said, “but, you have to run.”

Sarah awkwardly pushed herself to her feet. A door opened and closed somewhere, the echo resounding across the compound in the quiet morning air. It felt somewhat like running naked down a hospital corridor being chased by a clown, like sprinting underwater. She managed to get her legs moving and she fled through the dimness towards the bunkhouse.

As she entered, a number of the women looked up, surprised. She hurried to Uma’s bunk where Uma rubbed sleep from her eyes.

“Is she okay?”

“She says she is.”

“She’s strong, she’ll be okay. You shouldn’t have gone.”

Sarah nodded, but she knew if Rebecca was ever in The Box again, or even if Rebecca hadn’t returned by bedtime, she would sleep outside again.

Blessed is the one whom God corrects.

Sarah retired early from the campfire after listening to a short sermon focused on reflection and punishment. She only spared a single glance at Brady before walking back to the bunkhouse alone, stripping off her clothes and climbing into Rebecca’s bunk. She lay staring at the wooden beams of the roof, absorbing Rebecca’s scent for a long time before the door opened unexpectedly.

Haltingly, Rebecca stumbled in, supported between John and Lawrence, her arms heavily about their shoulders, her chin falling to her breast, hair limp. Sarah immediately scrambled down the ladder and ran lightly to them. Rebecca raised her head and smiled weakly through chattering teeth as Sarah approached.

“Rebecca,” Sarah exclaimed happy to see her, upset at her condition.

Sarah pushed John away and draped Rebecca’s arm about her own shoulder, surprised at the sudden weight. A deep-seated chill seeped into Sarah’s bare shoulders from Rebecca’s arm.

“Get her water!”

John looked at Lawrence, who nodded, and then left quickly.

Sarah lowered Rebecca to her bottom bunk and covered her. John returned with a flask of water. The two men stood awkwardly as Sarah lifted the flask to Rebecca’s dry lips. Rebecca gulped greedily, such that Sarah was forced to pull the flask away.

“Slow down, you’ll be sick.”

Rebecca sighed softly. Sarah turned to John and Lawrence. “Thank you for bringing her back. I’ll take care of her now.”

The two men cast embarrassed expressions, and retreated without speaking.

Sarah returned the flask to Rebecca’s cracked lips. “Sip, this time.”

Rebecca obeyed and slowly drained the container. Sarah filled it again at the drinking fountain and coaxed Rebecca to sip the remainder. Setting the empty flask on the floor beside the bunk, she climbed under the sheet with Rebecca. Rebecca’s skin felt dangerously cold and clammy against hers.

“I no longer recommend The Box,” Rebecca said with a sad laugh.

“That’s not funny. You could have died.”

“I didn’t. But I’m really, really tired.”

“I’ll bet.”

Rebecca closed her eyes and nearly immediately drifted to sleep. Sarah cradled her and watched Rebecca sleep for a while, then closed her own eyes. Neither of them noticed when the rest of the women wandered back from campfire.

A week later, the harvest complete, a chinook descended upon the compound late in the season. Sunshine warmed Sarah’s face as she sat with a mostly recovered Rebecca on the hilltop under an ancient pine. Both women removed their boots and socks, toes flexing in the cool autumn grass. Interspersed amongst the pines, vivid red and yellow leaves trembled. Rebecca gazed on the equations in the beginning of Sarah’s ragged sketchbook.

“You really were a math nerd,” Rebecca remarked, her finger tracing the numbers and the notes in the margins. Sarah could see that Rebecca didn’t comprehend the numbers and symbols there. Even to Sarah, the numbers swirled into a repeating pattern of nonsense.

“Other than the fact that I can’t concentrate lately, I am still a math nerd,” Sarah said. She leaned back on her hands, watching the clouds float by.

“Why can’t you concentrate?”

“Sex. Brady.” Thoughts of Brady drove pangs of desire into her, tingling in all the right places.

“S will do that to you. So will Brady. Amongst other things.”

Rebecca flipped the page. The image of a vodka bottle lying in the sand evoked painful memories for Sarah and she looked away. Rebecca noticed.

“Your parents?”

“Mother. She drank. I drank. I don’t, anymore.”

“Because of this?” Rebecca’s finger jabbed at the bottle lying lonely in the sand on a faraway beach. Sarah nodded.

“Uncle Patrick drank, too. I called him Uncle, but he wasn’t actually related to me.”

“I see.” Rebecca stared at the sketch, her finger now tracing the campfire in the distance with its shadowy figures.

Sarah sighed. “Grant raped me that night, along with most of the remaining boys. On the sand, waves washing over my legs. I couldn’t fight him off because I’d drank most of that damn bottle and they held me down. I had a lovely hangover the next morning, not to mention the bleeding. I stopped drinking after that; I haven’t touched a drop since.”

“I wondered why you never touched the wine at dinner.” Wine was offered occasionally with dinner, usually on what Sarah assumed was Sundays. Sarah always politely refused and Lawrence never insisted. Sarah wasn’t the only resident to avoid alcohol.

“Now you know.”

“What happened to Grant?”

“I think he went to law school or police academy. I kind of avoided him after that night.”

“I mean, what happened about the rape?”

“I didn’t tell anyone. I couldn’t. Even if I’d said anything, it wouldn’t have mattered. Uncle Patrick had me whenever he wanted and when I told my mother about it, I ended up grounded for a month. It’s an easy lesson to learn.”

Rebecca looked at Sarah, then nodded in understanding. “I get that.”

Sarah idly wondered how many occupants of the Blessed Shelter were rape or abuse survivors. Perhaps all of them.

At least there was no pity in Rebecca’s face. Sarah didn’t think she could stomach pity. The memory hurt, but she was stronger now. This place inherently liberated an inner strength that even Sarah hadn’t known that she possessed. The clouds scudded by.