An Unspeakable Mission (Olympia Brown Mysteries) Page 2

  Olympia didn't know the real name of her daughter. Her sons didn't know they had a half sister. Only Olympia's mother, who to this day refused to speak of it, and Father Jim Sawicki, a gay Catholic priest, knew of the girl's existence. She had held the child one time, just minutes after her birth, and with water from a drinking glass beside her bed, she touched the tiny wrinkled forehead and christened her Faith.

  Considering the relative emotional weight of the two letters, Olympia chose to begin with the letter of resignation. She was so engrossed trying to find the right words she didn't hear the timid knocking; but when she did, she pushed herself back from her desk, pasted a smile over her consternation, and opened the door.

  “Professor Brown?”

  It was one of her freshmen, red-nosed, wet and bedraggled from the misery of a late March snowstorm.

  “Bridget, you're early, aren't you? Your class isn't until this afternoon. Come in and warm yourself.” Her impatience was already dissolving into motherly concern.

  The girl stepped over the threshold and stood just inside the door twisting her hands.

  “What is it, Bridget? Hey, are you all right?”

  The look on the young woman's face said that something was very much not all right. During her years of teaching and campus chaplaincy, Olympia had learned to wait and let a troubled student be the first to speak.

  “Professor Brown, uh …” the young woman stammered, “you said that, uh, if we ever had a problem or something, we could uh, like …”

  “Come in and sit down. You're cold and wet. I have some instant cocoa, would you like some?”

  Bridget shook her head, sat down at the edge of the chair, and stared at the floor. This was not a student asking for an extension for her term paper or permission for an incomplete grade.

  Olympia put the cocoa offer on hold, sat down opposite the girl, and placed her two warm hands over Bridget's two icy ones. Without looking up, Bridget's entire body began to heave in silent sobs, but no tears came. Olympia held on tight, hoping her steady presence would calm her. After a few minutes, she tried again.

  “Can you tell me what happened?”

  The young woman drew a halting breath. “If I do, you have to promise you won't tell anyone.”

  It wasn't a question.

  “I promise.”

  Olympia didn't like making such promises and wondered what in God's name was coming next.

  Fighting for control, Bridget pressed her two hands against her chest and whispered, “I got raped last night.”

  Four

  “Bridget Mary coming home this weekend?”

  Eileen O’Mara, Bridget's older sister, ignored her father and addressed the question to her mother. On Friday mornings she always stopped by her parents’ house to see her Mam. She was standing next to the kitchen table, swallowing the last sludgy inch of her mother's industrial strength Irish tea. She set down the cup and picked up her coat. It was time to leave for work.

  Behind her, Terrence O’Mara lit a cigarette, flicked the match into the sink, and turned on his wife.

  “How would we know where Bridget is these days? The little vixen never comes home any more, does she? I told you what would happen. Women don't need college. It just makes ‘em wild and puts ideas in their head. This is all your fault, you know, you're the one who encouraged it.”

  Margaret O’Mara looked past her husband, “I guess I forgot to tell you. She called before you got home yesterday. She's staying in the dorm with her friends this weekend—something about a pizza party with the girls on the floor. I can't remember it word-for-word, but that's the gist of it.”

  “It's no wonder she doesn't come home.” Eileen turned and stood with her hands on her hips, glaring at her father. “You say the meanest things, especially to her, and you wonder why I moved out the minute I had a job. The only reason I come back at all is so I can see Mam.”

  Before her father could speak, Eileen yanked open the kitchen door, stalked out, and slammed it shut behind her. Her high heels cracked like rifle shots on the back stairs leading down from the second floor of the Dorchester double-decker.

  Bridget's mother waited until she heard the outside door close, then turned and picked up a piece of tattered sponge and began wiping the counter around the sink. She knew why Bridget wasn't coming home, but there was no point in setting herself up, especially on a Friday.

  Eileen O’Mara stood on the sidewalk and took a couple of deep breaths before she set off down the narrow, car-lined street toward the bus stop. Once she reached the corner, she changed her mind and kept on going. Walking the two miles to work would discharge some of the anger that being in her father's presence never failed to produce.

  A fine, icy sleet was falling. It was a cold, miserable, late March day in the mostly Irish Catholic neighborhood south of Boston. The calendar said spring, but the weather looked and felt like winter. Her grandmother from the north of Ireland, the Protestant one, always used to say, “If you don't like weather here, just you wait a minute, lovey.” But Eileen was tired of waiting.

  As she walked along, she pulled the collar of her tweed jacket tighter around her neck and squeezed her eyes half shut against the stinging mist. She could feel it collecting on her eyelashes, but every so often, through the blurry window of her vision, she caught the purple flash of an early crocus, and her spirits lifted. Everything seemed more hopeful in the spring. Well almost everything.

  Eileen shook off her dark thoughts and trudged on, head down against the weather. She hated going home. If she weren't so concerned about her mother, she would never set foot in the place again. She shuddered at the very thought of it. If that was marriage, she was having none of it. A good job with the insurance company and a cute apartment shared with two other girls was heaven compared to the unspeakable torment and drunken abuse she had left behind.

  Shortly after she'd moved out, her younger sister Bridget was awarded a scholarship from St. Bartholomew's. It was the new priest, Father Jim, who had arranged it and who finally convinced her reluctant parents to let her go to Meriwether College that previous September.

  As her anger began to dissipate, Eileen slowed her pace. She felt so helpless in the face of it all. Bridget was out and safe for the time being anyway, but her mother was still there.

  For years the O’Mara women had lived in fear of the abusive and tyrannical Terrence Michael O’Mara, pillar and daily communicant of St. Bartholomew's Roman Catholic Church and executive manager of the local branch of the Emerald Bank and Trust. But now, with the two daughters out of the house, Eileen knew her mother would be the sole target of her father's rage.

  Of course, nothing was ever said, but who could miss the bruises covered over with make-up, the dark glasses and the awkward excuses? Eileen was worried for her mother, and she was furious at being so helpless in the face of it all.

  On bad days she wondered how long it took for a person to die of cirrhosis of the liver and then instantly crossed herself and begged forgiveness for such a sinful thought.

  Just thinking of something isn't a sin, is it? Or maybe he could have a car accident?

  Eileen turned out of the wind and into the doorway of the building where she worked. She wondered if she still had time to wash her face and touch up her makeup. She knew that she needed to run a comb through her hair and repair her mascara. Eileen took care with her appearance. She would never want the girls at work to think she'd been crying.

  Five

  Olympia pointed toward the office door. “Okay if I close it, Bridget? That way we won't be interrupted.”

  The girl nodded.

  When she returned to her seat, Olympia leaned forward and once again took Bridget's hands in hers.

  “Can you tell me who did this to you?”

  She shook her head.

  “Listen to me, Bridget. You need help. If you won't tell me his name, will you at least tell me if he drugged you or beat you up?”

  “It was my own stupid f
ault, Professor.”

  Olympia went cold. “Bridget, if someone has sex with you against your will, or forces you to do anything you don't want to do, it is not your fault.”

  “It is my fault,” Bridget insisted, addressing her words to a spot on the wall behind Olympia. “I went to a fraternity party with my roommate. We've gone to parties there before, we knew the guys were kinda wild. If I didn't go there it wouldn't have happened, right? So it is my fault. Anyway, last night when we got there, everybody was drinking and, you know, making out and stuff. Well, my roommate got up and went into this guy's room with him. Pretty soon I could hear them.” Bridget blushed. “You know, they were …”

  “And,” said Olympia.

  Bridget was twisting her fingers again. “The guy I was with started hitting on me. He pushed me down on the couch and started pulling at my clothes. I told him to stop, that I didn't want to. I tried to shove him off me, but …” She stopped, unable to finish the sentence.

  “Afterwards, I couldn't stop crying. He just stood there and told me I better get used to it, and then he laughed.” The tears she couldn't shed when she first walked in erupted in a miserable torrent.

  Olympia got out of her chair and stood behind the sobbing girl, rubbing her back and smoothing the short dark curls that framed her face. She knew she needed to get her to a doctor and to a rape counselor. Please God, thought Olympia, don't let her be pregnant, or worse, infected with HIV.

  “You need help, Bridget. Will you let me take you to the college health service? They have a women's health center there.”

  Bridget turned away, shaking her head.

  “I'm never telling anyone about this, and you promised me you wouldn't either. On the first day of class you said we could talk to you about anything. You're the College Chaplain, right? I figured you'd be safe even if you're not Catholic.” The tears came again. “Maybe someday God will forgive me.”

  “Bridget, I'm going to say this again. I'm a minister and a mother, and I know the difference between right and wrong even if I'm not Catholic. This awful thing happened against your will. You're not a sinner, you're a victim. No one, not a priest, and surely not God, would ever blame you or say it was your fault. You need to report this to the police, and you need to be examined by a doctor. If there's any sperm left inside you, they can prove who did it. You can't just let him get away with it. Otherwise, he'll do it again, and there will be another victim just like you.”

  Bridget stared at the floor and said nothing, so Olympia decided to try a different approach. “Was this the first time for you?”

  Bridget turned a tear-ravaged face away from Olympia and whispered, “Sort of.”

  She looked at the wretched creature slumped in front of her. It was a curious answer, but it was not the time to question her about her sexual history.

  “You could be pregnant. For God's sake, Bridget, look at me. The guy could have AIDS. You're over eighteen, so no one can force you to press charges if you don't want to, but please, I beg you, let me take you to the health center and get checked.”

  Bridget raised her head and looked at her professor. “I don't have to go to the police if I don't want to?”

  “I wish you would,” said Olympia, “but no, you don't have to. When we get to the clinic, I'm certain they'll do an internal exam. Have you ever had one?”

  “My mother told me that the time for such things was after I got married. Irish people don't talk about sex, Professor.” Bridget looked out of the window. “What else will they do?”

  Olympia allowed herself a flicker of hope.

  “To tell you the honest truth, I don't know. The doctor or nurse who examines you will probably offer to bring in a rape counselor.”

  “Can I say no?”

  Olympia chose her words with care, “I suppose you can, but I think it would be good for you to talk to someone who understands these things. Whatever you say will be held in confidence.”

  “They won't tell my parents?”

  “They can't. You're over eighteen, so legally you're an adult. You're on the college health plan, aren't you?”

  Bridget nodded.

  As she sat waiting for the girl to come to a decision, Olympia listened to the sound of her watch and the beating of her heart.

  “I'll go.”

  Olympia let out a long, slow breath, picked up the telephone and dialed the switchboard.

  “Hi, Rena. Look, I've had something come up, and I need to cancel my classes for the rest of the day. No, nothing serious, but I do have to take care of it. Would you mind calling the Dean's office and letting him know? I'll put a sign on the door here.”

  Olympia hung up the phone and began to collect her things.

  “Do you want me to carry your backpack?”

  Bridget shook her head and grunted softly as she tugged the purple and white collection of straps and zippers over her shoulder.

  “I'm okay.”

  Bridget opened the dull green door to the examining room and walked across the waiting area to where Olympia was sitting and not reading the dog-eared magazine that lay open in her lap.

  “We can go now.” Nothing more.

  Later, when the two were safely buckled into Olympia's battle-scarred VW van, she whispered, “Thank you.”

  Olympia twisted and turned her way through the narrow back streets of Cambridge. She didn't know whether it was best to say nothing or ask the girl if she wanted to talk. She knew from her years of ministry that it helps to talk things out, but Bridget didn't look as if she was anywhere near ready.

  On the other hand, she was not about to let her out at the dorm to sort it out by herself. It was obvious the girl was in no shape to be left alone, or worse, left in the company of a bunch of college kids making ready for another party weekend. The truth was that Bridget was in no shape at all. She was crumpled into a wounded heap on the seat beside her.

  Olympia moved through late afternoon traffic with none of her familiar ease. It was a perfectly miserable day with a bone-chilling, snowy mist dripping off leafless trees that in warmer days would grace and frame the elegant byways of Victorian Cambridge. She had driven these streets for over twenty years but never with a rape victim sitting beside her. Bridget sat staring straight ahead and looking every bit as gray and dismal as the weather. Olympia reached out and turned the heat up another notch.

  “Do you think it might be better if I took you home rather than back to the college? Dorchester isn't very far out of my way. I threw everything I needed into my backpack before we left the office—just in case, so we wouldn't have to stop if you didn't want to.”

  “Just take me back to the dorm. I'll be all right.”

  Olympia turned right onto Massachusetts Avenue.

  “Are you going to press charges?”

  “Bridget shook her head, “I told you, no.”

  Olympia reached over and put her hand on Bridget's arm.

  “Okay, here's another idea. Why don't we go back to my office for a few minutes and clear our heads. You've had a horrible experience, and I think you might need some time to collect yourself. Can we do that?”

  Bridget nodded, then added, “But I'm not going home.”

  When they were back in the office, Olympia rummaged around the collection of odd bits in her top drawer and came up with a packet of mostly intact saltines and held them out.

  “Maybe you should eat a little something. Food might not be the first thing on your mind right now, but a couple of these will be easy on your stomach. Want me to get you a Coke or a glass of water?”

  Bridget accepted the crackers and pulled on the little red tab to open them. “I guess I am a little hungry now that you mention it. Thank you.”

  “Do you want to talk about what happened in the examining room?”

  Bridget took a bite of her cracker.

  “I was scared as anything, but they were really nice. A lady doctor came in and told me what was going to happen. She asked me a lot of questions,
like had I showered since it happened, and if it was my first time and … I was wicked embarrassed, but …”

  Olympia nodded, giving the girl time and space to find her own words.

  “Then the doctor called in a nurse, and she did the exam. The nurse stayed right beside me the whole time. She even held my hand. The doctor was very gentle. She told me that I wasn't bruised or torn, and then she uh, well, she said there was probably enough stuff still in there to identify the man if I was going to press charges.”

  “And,” said Olympia, daring to hope for a change of heart.

  “I told them I had to think about it, that I wasn't sure, but I'm not going to. I just said that so I could get out of there.”

  “Did you talk with a rape counselor before you left?”

  Bridget shook her head. “There's no point, Professor, I'm never going to tell anyone.”

  Olympia wondered how far she dared press the girl. “What if you're pregnant?”

  Olympia left the rest of her fears unspoken. AIDS was considered to be the scourge of the gay community, but if the man who raped Bridget was a drug user or had sex with an infected partner, the consequences could be deadly.

  “I'm not pregnant,” said Bridget. “They did an early pregnancy test right then and there. They took blood for the other stuff and said they'd send the results to my college address.”

  “Are you sure you wouldn't be better going home?”

  Bridget lifted her chin and glared at Olympia, her wide, china blue eyes turning violet with emotion.

  “I'm sorry, Professor, but you just don't get it, do you? Good Catholic girls don't go to the kinds of parties where they could get raped. I told you it was my own fault, and that's what my parents would say if I ever did tell them, which I never will, because my father would kill me.”

  Olympia looked at the sad, defiant young woman and chanced a very long shot.