Murphy_Shirley_Rousseau_Cat_Coming_Home_BookFi

20

EVEN AFTER THE two darkly dressed figures had left, Nannette Garver couldn’t cry out for help. The gag in her injured mouth was so tight it sent pain through her whole face and throat. She felt as if she were suffocating. Her jaw hurt so bad where they’d kicked her, she thought it might be broken. She lay on the living room floor, her legs bent double and bound up to her waist with heavy rope, her hands tied behind her. One big upholstered chair was overturned, her two small side chairs broken almost to kindling. Books had been pulled from the shelves, pages torn out in handfuls. The little porcelain figurines that she so loved, the little rabbits and running children, all were broken into jagged shards.

She didn’t think she could stand the pain of the gag much longer. But of course she had no choice. The phone lay across the room, where they’d knocked it off the little writing desk. When she tried to roll to it, she was jerked back—was tethered, like a tied-up dog, to the leg of the heavy armoire. She tried gingerly to pull it along with her, afraid it would fall on top of her. But it was too heavy to move at all, with the big old TV inside. She wondered if, with the receiver off the phone, that would alert 911.

But she knew better. She’d taken the receiver off many times when she didn’t want to be bothered with phone calls from salesmen or annoying pollsters. If you took the headset off, the canned voice would come on for a while, then the beeping would start, would go on and on until eventually blessed silence fell. Now she didn’t bless the promise of silence, but prayed someone was at the other end, someone to help her.

She thought if she could get free of the heavy armoire, even with her legs bent double and her hands tied behind her, she could roll or squirm across the room to the phone, thought that even with her hands tied and useless, she could depress the buttons on the fallen phone somehow, maybe with her chin. She couldn’t just give up, she had to do something.

The minute the robbers were out of the house, as soon as she’d heard a car pull away, she’d begun to fight the rope that tied her hands, wriggling and pulling, bending her fingers trying to get a grip on the knots. The harsh hemp fibers tore at her skin, she could feel the blood start. She hated the increasing frailty of her body as she grew older.

She’d be eternally thankful they hadn’t raped her. Because of disease, because of injuries, mostly because of the emotional distress, the terrible shame that would never go away. At seventy-two, a widow for ten years, she was sure the distress of such brutality would have been worse than if they killed her.

She wondered why there had been no rapes in these invasions. She’d followed the news on TV and in the paper, but she never thought it would happen to her. Only now did she see how stupid that was. She wondered if these people were afraid of the prosecution involved with rape. This county attorney was known for getting maximum sentences when it came to sex offenders; he had been criticized more than once for what some called his one-sided view of the law. And didn’t that make a person laugh.

But if these men were so afraid of the law, and, according to the news, they stole no more than a few items, mostly electronics that could be easily sold, why did they bother at all? What was this about, these forced break-ins, this terrifying emotional harassment?

It seemed hours passed as she worked at the knots, her fingers raw and bleeding from the rough hemp rope, blood making the knots so slick that she nearly gave up. But at last, when she was about at the end of her strength, her hands and arms shaking with fatigue, the knot she was working on loosened a little. It was so slippery. She mustn’t lose the feel of just where to pull, to untie it all the way. It seemed to take forever, but at last she worked the knot loose, felt the rope ease enough so she could slide her right hand free. Her left hand was bound separately, tied to the rope that went around her waist and legs.

With the one free hand she pulled herself up enough to work loose the rope around the leg of the armoire, tearing two nails to the quick. When the rope fell away, when she was free of the armoire, she rolled painfully to the center of the room. Her own weight on her doubled-up legs, as she rolled over on them, was excruciating.

Pausing to rest, she tried again to remove the gag, pulling and jerking at it. The blood from her hand at last turned it slick enough that she was able to slide it down around her chin, down until it circled her neck. Everything was bloody—her face, her clothes, the carpet were all smeared with blood.

She rested again, then tried once more to free her hand, which had gone to sleep beneath the tight rope that bound her waist and legs. She fought the knots until she was convinced she couldn’t loosen them. She looked toward the phone again, and again began to squirm across the carpet, heavy and clumsy and hurting, with her legs and one arm bound. She had gone only a little way, to the edge of the flowered easy chair, when she realized she was whimpering like a hurt puppy, a pitiful, begging sound.

Silencing herself, she wriggled like an injured beast toward the fallen phone, toward the one item in the room that could liberate her, toward her one contact with the world beyond her own walls.

It seemed to take another eternity before she reached the phone. She felt weak and confused. Could feel the double beating of her heart that sometimes happened when she was under stress. Hunching forward, she pressed her face against the fallen headset.

Of course it was dead, having been off the hook for so long. With her bleeding hand she depressed the button, waited with her face to the phone for the dial tone to resume. She waited a long time. When the phone remained silent, she pressed the button again, held it longer this time. Then again, her ear to the fallen phone, listening.

No dial tone, no sound. No little canned voice telling her to hang up and try again. Just a hollow emptiness as vast as eternal space. After a third try she pulled the cord toward her. Watched it snake away from the wall, the cut line slithering to her, the cut wires sharp and useless against her fingers.

The only other phone was upstairs. Bound as she was, she didn’t think she could make it up the steps. And had they cut that line, too? Cut both phone lines, intending to lead her on uselessly? Imagining herself hunching and crawling up the stairs only to find that phone dead, too, she lay down with her face against the carpet, tears spurting uncontrollably. She felt destroyed, beaten, beyond trying to think what to do.

All her windows were closed against the chill evening and because, how ironic, she was wary about break-ins. Praying that some neighbor was home and would hear her despite those glass barriers, she tried to shout. She was very hoarse, her voice so weak she didn’t think anyone would hear. She wondered if young Bobby West might have his window open upstairs despite his mother’s complaints. Beverly said he’d have the house freezing all the time if she didn’t make him close that window. Expecting no response, still she tried. Even the effort of shouting hurt so badly, and exhausted her.

Death from thirst and starvation seemed impossible, right here in the little village among the closely crowded cottages, with neighbors all around. She had no relatives living close who might call or come by, wanting to check on her. How long might it be until one of her casual friends tried to reach her, tried so many times they grew impatient and reported her number out of order? And would the phone company actually come out to take a look? Despite her friends’ admonitions to get a cell phone, she had never wanted one. Until now.

When her strength returned a little, she thought about the cut phone line, and she hunched toward the wall until she found the other cut end. With one hand, she managed to hold the two cut ends together, hoping they might connect and allow a signal to come through. But she was too clumsy, the wires wouldn’t join just right. The blood was so slick, everything slippery and her fingers so stiff, too. Twice she thought she had the wires joined right, but when she bent her face to the handset there was no sound, the phone remained dead. At last, so weak she couldn’t think straight, she lay limp on the carpet, defeated, wondering if she would die there—and wondering, inanely, if she could ever get the blood out of the Persian carpet.