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  • Punishment
  • Gregory Blake Smith (bio)

She told the police she couldn't remember anything. From out of the pain and the dim apprehension that she was alive, she shook her head no. Even after she'd been stabilized and the swelling had gone down so that she could see—though her vision was blurred and the iv drip made her mind hover just out of reach—still she told them no. She heard the doctors explain that memory loss was consistent with her injuries: maxillofacial trauma, concussion, hemorrhagic shock. In time, they said, she might remember.

She had not been raped. There was no semen, no vaginal abrasion. But her breasts were horribly bruised, an eggplant purple that made the lpn gasp when she came to give her a bath. Her right eye socket was fractured, her nose too; her jaw was dislocated and three teeth were knocked out; one of her lips had to be sewed back together. Her whole face was blue and yellow and purple. Her face and her breasts—there were no other injuries.

She made it known that she did not want anyone to see her like this. That Emily should stay with her father. That she didn't want to see Bill, or her mother, or the press. No one. When they moved her out of the icu, Bill phoned, but it wasn't easy for her to speak, so he did the talking, let her know that Emily was all right, but that the police had been by to question him. "The ex-husband," he'd said, and there it was, even over the phone, even now. Did she remember anything yet? he asked. She found herself shaking her head no, and again: no, and then in a strangled voice saying the words into the phone: "No, I'm sorry, nothing."

But she did remember. She remembered everything. She remembered the man, his face, his voice. She remembered his wristwatch, his tie, and the wedding ring on the wrong finger. She remembered trying to protect her face, and how he had pummeled her breasts, and when she tried to protect her breasts, how he had beaten her face. And she remembered going in and out of consciousness. [End Page 106] And choking on her own blood. And she remembered thinking she was going to die.

She had driven out to the arboretum that day to cleanse herself of the bitter wives and injured husbands she'd spent the morning with in her courtroom. She had parked in her usual spot, in the turnaround down along the highway, changed into her Reeboks, and started up along the gentle path toward the monastery. It was early April, and the last of the snowmelt ran in braids underfoot. As she climbed she heard, over the tops of the trees, the lovely sound of the chapel bells ringing the hour.

She didn't see him at first. And then she did. He was keeping pace with her, coming down alongside her on a fork that led up to the cloister gate. For a second she thought it might be one of the nuns—she caught flashes of black between the trees—but no, it was a man in a suit. Just like her, dressed all wrong for a walk in the woods. When their paths came together she slowed down, tried to let him go on ahead, but instead he matched his pace to hers and said "hello." He was handsome, clean shaven, with a forced tan that a certain kind of handsome man maintains. A diamond stud glinted in his right earlobe. "Smart," he said, with a glance down at her Reeboks and then a rueful look at his own muddy loafers. So she smiled at him. And then he hit her.

She didn't scream. She was too stunned for that, sitting there on her fanny in the mud—stupidly, grotesquely. Her nose felt like it had exploded. "What?" she managed to say. As if she were asking for clarification. And then he was astraddle her, punching her over and over again, and it was too late to scream.

So this was it, she remembered...

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