Page 18 of Such a Good Wife

After a few minutes of ugly, hiccup crying, I stop cold when I hear something. The country music and howling from inside the bar is low and muffled, but still obscures the noise I’m certain I heard. A woman, maybe. Calling out for help? I open my car door and step softly. I push my ear forward, straining to hear. It sounded like someone screaming. Just a short, blunt, stifled scream. I take one of Ben’s baseball bats from his equipment bag in the trunk and stand in the wet, still air, waiting for another noise to tell me which direction it came from.

There’s a Ford pickup across the lot where the woods meet the dirt clearing. I can make out a man’s figure, just a shape in a streetlamp’s glare. I see him zip up his pants, and there’s a woman. He has her pinned against the side of his truck. I see her more clearly as I edge closer.

“Please,” is all I hear her say, and then she cowers as he raises his fist. He laughs at her and hits the metal of the truck bed instead, just missing her face: a warning. She scrambles to pull her shorts back up. She’s crying.

What should I do? I should call the police. Shit, no...I shouldn’t get involved. His hand is around her neck, he’s saying something, inches from her face. I can see the mist of his spit under the cone of light above him from the streetlamp all the way from here. Before I can unfreeze my body and make a run to my phone or run to her or do something, he lets go. She holds her neck and grips the side of the truck, trying to escape him, inching to one side so she can run. Suddenly, he turns away as if he’s done tormenting her, then turns back. His fist bashes the side of her face and she falls.

“Think you’ll say no to me? Look at you!” he yells, then picks his beer up from the ground and mutters, “Fucking bitch.”

When he walks back toward the bar, I swear he sees me. He’s looking my way, but he doesn’t, somehow. But I see him. I cannot believe who I’m looking at.

It’s Joe. Homecoming King Joey. Ben’s coach. Officer Joe Brooks. When I see he’s inside, swallowed up by the patrons and music, I toss the bat in the backseat and run over to the woman.

“Are you okay?” I ask, breathless, kneeling down next to her.

“Who are you? Fuck. Get away from me.” She yanks her arm away from my touch. I see that her mouth is bleeding.

“Sorry. Can I help you? I mean—are you—we should call the police. I saw what happened.”

After I say it, I realize why she’s looking at me the way she is. Joe Brooks is the police.

She sits against the truck and buries her head in her hands, crying. I can see she’s tipsy.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.”

“It’s not okay. I need to go home. He was my ride. I got a kid at home.”

“Let me take you.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“I saw what happened though. Did he...” I pause, but I need to ask. I need to help. I don’t say the words sexually assault you. I just look down at her still-unbuttoned shorts and then away. She doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t have to. She holds herself tighter with one arm wrapped around the opposite elbow and wipes her eyes with her free hand as she looks up, avoiding me.

“We need to get you outta here.”

She stumbles a little on the way to my car. When we pull out, I remember the first aid kit in my glove compartment. I open it and tell her to grab the alcohol pads for her lip.

“Thanks.” She rips open tiny paper squares and presses the cold pads to her face. Then she lights a cigarette and stares out the window.

“You know, just ’cause he’s a cop doesn’t mean you shouldn’t report him. That’s just—I can’t even...”

“You know Joey?”

“Yes. Well, I thought I did. I mean what happened? If you don’t mind my asking?”

“So, you’re fucking him too?”

“What—NO! What? Why? No.” I stammer, shocked at the question, feeling accused.

“Well, any girlfriend of Joe’s would never say they haven’t seen him like that. Is all.”

“This has happened before?”

I’m sincerely beside myself in disbelief. She just makes a scoffing sound and sort of laughs, ripping open a bandage with her free hand, puffing on a cigarette with the other.

“So, you’re his girlfriend?”

“No.”

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