A Voice from the Field (12 page)

 

TWELVE

Settled at home on the couch, Tia closed her eyes, doing her best to just be in the moment. With Connor's arm around her neck, she rested her head against the deep pillow of muscle where his shoulder and upper chest came together. Connor had taken off his prosthetics and Tia's bare legs and feet were draped over where his legs used to be. The lights were low and her old AM/FM clock radio played a mellow jazz tune from a station out of Chicago. Ringo lay in a nearby chair, curled into a half-moon, breathing heavily, paws twitching.

Tia allowed herself to give in to the soothing sense of contentment and shelter that she knew in many ways she'd done her best to destroy. Even when he was like this, she thought, when someone else might look at him and see a cripple, Connor always struck her as larger than life. As so much more of a man than anyone else she'd ever known. Deep in her heart she couldn't help but be sad for him, but she knew he never looked for anyone's pity.

Then there's me,
she thought.
Blubbering, crazy-ass me.

Tia had called Connor, crying hysterically, after leaving Gage's office. When she got home, Connor was waiting for her at the farmhouse, still dressed in his white uniform from the market. Now, after dinner and with a glass of white wine in hand, she sat with him, clearheaded but desperate as hell.

“Thanks for coming over. I wouldn't have blamed you if you'd told me to just go piss up a rope,” she said, tilting her head back so she could see his face.

He smiled. “You always say that.”

“Always say what?”

“‘Piss up a rope.' I'll be damned if I even know what that's supposed to mean.”

“I don't know.” She shrugged. “Somebody in my old unit used to say it. Just stuck with me, I guess.”

He buried his face against her neck and took a deep breath. His voice sounded playful despite being muffled by her short hair. He patted the stump of his leg. “Taking any kind of leak these days is hard enough without making a trick shot out of it. But anyway, Suarez, you know damn well I'm powerless to refuse you.”

Tia reached up and stroked his hair, staring straight ahead. She had told him all about her session with Gage. Every detail. “You think I'm losing my mind, Connie? Have I gone over the edge or something?”

“Yeah, Suarez.” He nuzzled in deeper and nipped at her neck. “You're looney tunes. Ready for lockdown.”

She gave him a soft elbow. “Come on. I'm serious.”

“Serious?” His voice went soft and he pulled his head back to look at her. “Okay then, seriously, it's hard to know what to think, when you spend so much time drunk and high on meds.”

She felt a pang of insult that she tried to hide with a nervous laugh. She pulled away and sat up straight. “Damn. There you go again. Don't hold back. Tell me how you really feel.”

Tia regretted breaking the lighter mood. Her eyes welled and she turned her head.
You've cried enough. Knock it off.

“Remember, Tia. I went through the whole prescription med thing. I get it. They give you that shit like Skittles at a kid's birthday party. But at some point you've got to walk away or the pills will own you. It's no different than a hype on the street chipping heroin.”

Tia sat up, defensive. “Come on, Connie. It's not like I'm a frickin' addict.”

He looked at the wineglass she held. “You sure?”

“It's one glass of wine,” she said, her voice incredulous. “How do you go from that to a dope fiend on the street?”

“It's just a different crutch, Tia.”

Smart-ass,
she thought.
Damn know-it-all.
But he'd nailed it.

Tia knew. She had known for a while. She didn't need to go to a meeting, sit in a church basement, and listen to a bunch of strangers pour their hearts out. She could care less about following the steps of some program. But she didn't need to hit rock bottom to know the truth. Even now she felt the desire to anesthetize herself. Just one pill, to put a protective balm over her fear of being discovered, over the guilt she carried every day.

Her mouth watered at the thought of a real drink, something that packed some power. She felt the cool cylinder of a shot glass against her lips. The magnificent burn in her throat. What had started as a way to quiet a haunting memory had become a full-blown addiction. She could practically see the bottle inside the kitchen cupboard. Top shelf on the right.

When did I buy that? Yesterday, right? There's still a couple of inches left. Maybe even a little more.

To fight the pull of it she took a gulp of her wine, finding it a completely unsatisfying, temporary fix.
Just like a hype chipping heroin
.

“I worry about you, Tia. The independence. That attitude you carry around. Telling everyone to go ‘piss up a rope.'” He pulled her back to nestle against him once more, kissing her cheek and tapping his finger lightly against the top of her head. “But I know there's more going on in there. You don't want to talk Gage? Fine. Then pick someone else. Me. Ben. Alex. We all need somebody, Tia. Even you.”

In the dim light Connor's blue eyes went gray, softening his face and making him seem open to the truth. She took a breath, ready to launch in. A breath away from telling him everything, the words got caught in her throat. She took another drink of wine; when he looked away, she knew that Connor realized she was holding back.

So I'm a private drunk,
she thought.
What if I'm okay with that?
She ignored the internal dialogue, knowing it wasn't what people wanted to hear.
Time to appease. Make a few promises. Change the subject. Create some distance. Isn't that what addicts do?

“I'll stop, Connie. I will. No more meds. I'll go easy on the booze. But just tell me something.” She turned to look him right in the eyes. “You believe me, don't you? I don't care what Gage thinks. And Sawyer can believe what he wants. But Connie, I need you to believe me. There was a girl in that van. As sure as I'm sitting here. She looked right at me.” Tia shook her head and her voice turned angry. “Tactile stimulation my ass. I
touched
her.”

“If you say you saw it, Suarez, I believe you. But are you trying to convince me or yourself?”

“Gage says hallucinations are—”

He cut her off. “What did you just tell me? The hell with Gage, right?” Connie rubbed his hands over his face. “Look, I know how it is with shrinks. I had a whole team of them who wanted to tell me all about what it's like to lose half my body. To wake up every day scratching at a leg that isn't there. To remember watching a guy get blown to hell and winding up with his brains all over my uniform. They know all about that shit even though they never leave their offices.

“The hell with them. In the end we all have to find our own way. Figure life out for ourselves.

“Believe in yourself, Tia. Forget all those experts. Whatever it is you're carrying around inside you, find your own answers. The hell with the experts. They can just go piss up a rope, right?”

Tia closed her eyes, resting her head against his chest. “I know what I saw, Connie. Damn it. I know what I saw.”

“I believe you, Suarez.” His voice was tired but still reassuring. “Just believe in yourself.”

That's the hard part,
she thought.
It's hard to know what to believe. How to divide the real from the surreal. If you only knew what goes on in my head
. What if she told him?

She knew how he'd react.
Entire conversations, Suarez, sure. You're losing it.

Now, as she sat here with Connie, sobriety felt good and oddly familiar. She wondered why she didn't let herself always feel like this. Why not just be this way?

As if on cue, somewhere in her heart a tiny voice called out. Small and quiet, lacking any of its usual joy. Nothing for Tia to take comfort from. Only anxiety and fear. Just like when it came to her that day in the courtroom. Once again, the voice was pleading for Tia to do something.
Ir a su, Tia. Go to her now. She needs you.

It was the same voice. Tia was sure of it. When she had stood at death's door, it was this voice that had kept her in the living world. The same voice had been in the courtroom during the abuse case, overwhelmed with the sadness of Tia's testimony.

Hearing the voice is one thing,
she thought.
Listening is another.
And hearing voices in your head was not a confession any cop would ever make. It wasn't the sort of thing Tia would share with anyone—not even Connie. Tia needed to keep her feet planted firmly in the real world. She put her wineglass on the table, then leaned in and kissed Connor on the lips. He began to respond and she backed away, teasing him.

He looked at her and she could hear affection along with feigned offense in his words. “Knock it off, you little shit.”

“Knock it off?” She pushed him back on the couch, pinning his arms above his head. She lay across his chest and took a playful nip at his neck. “Make me.”

She squealed as he easily flipped her onto the floor before purposely falling off the couch and landing on top of her. Their banter continued until it turned into something more. The small voice went quiet and Tia reminded herself how lucky she was to have Connor Anderson in her life. She closed her eyes as he kissed her neck and she worked hard to enjoy silence in her head and just be in the moment.

 

THIRTEEN

The third man in thirty minutes stood over her. Or was he the fourth? Angelica couldn't be sure, but like those before him he dropped his trousers to his ankles as he stared down, sizing her up. He hefted up the fat of his belly with one hand while dipping his other into the metal bucket set on the flipped-down tailgate of a pickup truck. Scooping thick, greasy lubricant into his palm, he reached below his waist to coat himself, his gaze never leaving her naked brown body. His face bore a familiar expression, one she'd often seen on men back home when they bartered over the value of livestock. In the moonlight she picked up on the squint of his eyes and the purse of his lips. He shook his head in the obvious belief he'd overpaid. Angelica cringed and turned her face away.

Not looking didn't make her unaware. The man above her tossed his worn hat to another who stood nearby, dropped to his knees, then lowered himself on top of her. His substantial weight forced the air from her lungs, filling her with panic. He bumbled and pushed his way inside her, huffing and cursing as if the awkwardness of the moment were somehow her doing. Once in, he began a steady pounding that allowed her only gulping breaths of air at the intervals when his weight was lightest. Brittle cornstalks poked through the coarse wool blanket that was like sandpaper on her already-bloodied back. A thousand fire ants joined in the vicious assault, welting her buttocks, thighs, and legs. The hot summer air trapped odors of sweat, dirt, and whiskey against her face.

While her latest rapist lost himself to some fantasy place, it seemed to Angelica the surrounding circle of tall corn bowed down over the scene like a sorrowfully compelled audience. Beyond the small clearing she heard
ranchero musica
blaring over a radio and voices of a dozen men she knew were waiting their turn. Some would have the decency to pass, but she had come to learn none would have the courage to intervene. The beat of the music kept time as the man continued to thrust against her.

She pulled her arms close to her body in a boxer's clutch and tears squeezed out as she screwed her eyes shut tight. He grew inside her, his hot breath wet against her cheek, his steady grunt in her ear. Overwhelmed by pain, she screamed, begging him to stop. Instead, his pounding intensified. She heard bargaining begin with the next man in line, who was asking for the acts she most despised. The man on top of her finished with a series of thrusts that left the lower half of her slender body numb and pushed deeper into the dirt.

Dry cornstalks crunched under familiar boots, filling her heart with bitter hate. The one called Tanner approached. The American
ratón
with the pale body of a sickly boy and the scraggly hair of an old woman. He was responsible for this nightmare that seemed to have no end. Sneering, he delivered a rough kick to the man's bare skin. Angelica saw that Tanner was shoving a wad of bills into the bulging pocket of his overalls.

“Time's up, amigo,” Tanner said. “Get back in line if you wanna pay for another go.”

As her attacker struggled to his feet, Angelica realized he was not much more than a husky boy around her own age of seventeen. He pulled his trousers up. As he slinked away, their eyes met for an instant. His judgment seemed to turn inward and Angelica saw he now shared her look of humiliation.

Tanner's voice called out,
“Vamonos, hombre.”

The next man stepped up, already fumbling with his belt. Swaying on his feet, he was glassy eyed with what seemed to be a look of drunken expectation. Angelica saw he was much older than the last man to take her. He could be an
abuelo,
she thought. Maybe even a
bisabuelo.
His small, black, rodent-like eyes stared out from a face with skin that had the plated look of an armadillo. Clothes hung loose on his boney frame, which took odd turns at the knees and waist. He stared down, slack jawed, and raised a gnarled, shaking finger toward her face. The fingers of his other hand hung at his side, wrapped loosely around the long glass neck of a half-empty bottle of mescal. His voice rattled like a snake.

“La boca.”

Tanner pulled Angelica up to her knees. With his unshaven face just inches from her own, he took a fistful of her hair in one hand and cupped her chin with the other. He gave her head a harsh shake and said the simple foreign phrase that Angelica had come to understand. “Open up.”