A Map of the World - Jane Hamilton [103]
“Yeah.”
“And the counselor’s office? Mrs. Dirks just told you they were, if you didn’t know before. Did you ever think of going to the principal’s office right next door for help?”
“He would holler at me.”
“He also hollered at you?”
“She was always pushing me down.”
“There isn’t a door for the nurse’s office, Robbie. Wouldn’t the principal have seen what was going on in Mrs. Goodwin’s office?”
“He don’t see everything!” He was pouting. For the first time he looked like a child.
“Why did Mr. Henskin holler at you?”
“He has to make sure everyone is good.”
“Weren’t you good?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mrs. Goodwin’s job is like that too. Her job is to help children get well, if they’re sick. Did Mrs. Goodwin check your ears or your throat because you were sick?”
“She was always pushin’ me down, tying me—”
“Right out in the open, where the principal could see if he walked by?”
He lowered his eyes again. I thought then that if I’d had one hundred thousand dollars I would have paid it right there. I would have paid the money if I could have seen what Robbie saw, if I could have known what was true.
“It was dark in there. It’s like a cave.”
“Why didn’t the principal hear you?”
“I couldn’t make no noise.”
“Why not?”
“She said she’d cut me up.”
“Where did the nurse push you down?”
“On her bed.”
“Was she trying to give you medicine?”
“She wanted to look at me. She said she’d bite me.”
“Did she bite you?”
“She said she would if I moved. She said all my blood would come out of there.”
“Isn’t a nurse supposed to help you if you’re sick?”
“She hollered at me. She was always—”
“When you needed medicine did you cooperate with her?”
Robbie looked at Rafferty again. “Yeah.”
“If she had to check your throat did you help her out by sitting still?”
“I told you,” he said, whining now, “I tried to help but she was always pushing me down. She told me not to tell; she told me she’d come after me if I tattled.”
“You were so sick once Mrs. Goodwin had to sit with you all morning. She had to hold you while you threw up. She sat by your side until your mother came to get you—”
“She always pushed me down,” he cried.
“She put cool cloths on your forehead and tried to get you to eat little pieces of ice cube. You were that sick.”
He had turned into his mother and was sobbing. “She pushed me down. She always pushed me down.”
During the hearing I thought that nothing could shake me more than Robbie’s expression already had. But when he was finished the investigating officer testified. He quoted Alice. She had shouted at the police. She had said, “I hurt everybody.” I thought I must not have heard him. It was one thing to have the boy look hurt, and another to have my wife saying she’d done wrong. I continued to assume that I had not heard properly. For almost a full hour Rafferty grilled Officer Melby about technicalities, about why he hadn’t read Alice Miranda, under what circumstances he read Miranda, what other questions he had asked Alice, how long he’d been observing her in the lunchroom. I couldn’t think of any reason or excuse, no matter how ill a person was, to say to an officer, “I hurt everybody.”
Rafferty sat at his table for the short closing statement. He had taken his suit coat off. It dangled behind him from his index finger as he spoke. He argued that the state hadn’t made out its case on all the charges. He stressed that Robbie didn’t have a very clear memory about the abuse, that he could come up with almost no specifics other than the anatomical details, which of course had been provided by Miss Flint. He concluded by asking the court reporter to please type up a transcript for him.
Mrs. Dirks, for her part, spoke about how a public health official is a person of trust in any community. Alice had violated that trust. Every school personnel was now going to be suspect, and parents would no longer feel safe sending their children off to learn their letters. Alice had spoken for herself to the police, and Robbie had merely corroborated her admission.
The work with the doll could not be undone. The judge mumbled