LOChp10excerpt


Publications by R.V. Roush

	A Lesser Offense Chapter 10 Excerpt
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	She understood that the streets she�d always run hadn�t become less safe because she�d been raped, yet she�d taken a week off from jogging. And she helped Julie and Jillian move in with her. She offered to let them live rent free, though they�d have to contribute to food costs and late night ice cream provisions. She packed her seashells and glues and varnishes and piled the cardboard boxes into a back corner of the hallway closet to reclaim the guest bedroom for her new guests. She told them all about the quirks of the house, and laid down a few ground rules. She called the number on the business card that Officer Henkle had given her, requested the name of the detective in charge of her case, and was transferred to his desk. She had hoped that her case would be assigned to a female detective in some kind of special victims unit, but then she thought that the gender of the detective didn�t really matter, since a woman could be as harsh as a man, if Officer Henkle was any indication. �This is Detective Lieutenant Git Maher,� the voice said. �How may I help you?� �I�m Elizabeth Brolin,� she hoped that recognition of her name would prompt the detective to do most of the talking. �Good morning, Ms. Brolin,� the detective said. �I have your folder in front of me. I�ve been reviewing it all morning. I�m developing a plan to proceed with interviews and followups.� �No progress yet?� Beth asked. �No ma�am, not yet. But I�m looking into your case this morning. The less time that elapses, the better chance we have that people will remember helpful details.� �Do you need for me to come to the station.� She thought she heard impatience in the detective�s voice. �Ms. Brolin, Officer Henkle took exceptionally comprehensive notes in her interview, and we have Doctor Mawbry�s statement. We will contact you when we have questions or suspects.� Beth thanked the detective, and hung up.
	When she returned to her jogging routine, she began to look at guys in crowds and on the jogging paths, wondering if one of them was her attacker, wondering if he were watching her, wanting her again. In the evenings, she wondered if he was raping someone else because she hadn�t been able to give a better description of him to the police so that they could catch him. She divided some of her time to research. She went to the library and found articles on security measures for residential homes. She couldn�t afford much, but with the landlord�s permission, she�d do what she could, short of booby-trapping the property. When her bed sheets and nightie were returned by the police forensics lab, there was a large hole cut out of the sheet. Her underwear had not been returned. She washed the nightgown and threw the sheet away. Then she got permission from the police and vacuumed the house. She thought about suing Mr. Thompson for not providing safe, habitable shelter. She contacted a paralegal named Randy Schermer that she�d met a couple of times when she worked as a foot messenger in high school. After eight years, the merged firm�s name had become Tuchman, Orenstein, and Julius, LLP.
		She also joined a Tae Kwon Do class, got an unlisted telephone number which she impressed on Julie not to divulge to anyone who wasn�t in her immediate family, leaned a baseball bat beside her bed, and went to bed every night with a kitchen chair wedged under the bedroom door doorknob as a back-up to the flimsy door lock. She started attending a rape avoidance seminar and a victims of violence support group meeting, locking the car doors as she drove to each, acutely attuned to her own potential to be physically abused. At the meetings, she found that none of the women had an attitude that mirrored her own about moving on with life. They seemed to wallow in their victimization, which struck Beth as unhealthy. It seemed more important to her to find women who dealt with their personal violation as she dealt with hers, but all that the group offered was an outlet for the expression of trauma rather than of healing. Listening to the horrific stories of the women in the therapy groups, Beth felt strangely lucky. She hadn�t been beaten, broken, or bruised. Comparatively, she felt as though she�d been the victim of a lesser offense. She was additionally lucky that she hadn�t gotten an STD or gotten pregnant, but the doctor had seen to preventing both with regimens of penicillin and the offer of RU-486 morning after pills. �Beth,� the moderator of the support group said during an early meeting Beth had attended, �how did you feel about yourself after your assault?� �I don�t know what I�m feeling,� Beth answered. In fact, she didn�t feel much differently about herself. It was everything else in the world that she was wary about. �That�s okay. Sometimes people are afraid to fully acknowledge what their feelings are. They like to think of themselves as good and moral and strong, though their feelings may conflict with their image.� �I wonder that I don�t feel more angry, hurt, weakened.� �Those feelings may yet come, though your self image as a strong woman may be inhibiting them. When we feel threatened, fearful, or experience loss, we turn to people for psychological comfort�eye contact, touching, holding, attachment, understanding. You can�t be accessible and wholly responsive, emotionally engaged if you�re not able to experience and express your own vulnerabilities. You fail to tell others what you need or to explicitly ask others to respond to you. We all need attachments.� �I haven�t felt those needs.� �It�s my experience that you do have those needs.� �I don�t feel it.� Another woman in the group said viciously, �I wonder if she was really raped or if she just wants attention. That�s just sick.� �Look,� Beth defended herself, �I�m stronger than most of the women here. I can handle it emotionally. I was definitely raped, and not being incapacitated by trauma doesn�t negates that.� Beth refused to allow others� opinions shape her life or her opinion of herself. � 2004 R.V. Roush

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