said. “But only if you really think it would be enough for you.”
“It wouldn’t,” Patty said.
“I’m sorry?”
“I said it wouldn’t be enough.”
“I thought you just said it would be.”
Patty began to cry again very desolately.
“I’m sorry,” Joyce said. “Did I misunderstand?”
“HE RAPED ME LIKE IT WAS NOTHING. I’M PROBABLY NOT EVEN THE FIRST.”
“You don’t know that, Patty.”
“I want to go to the hospital.”
“Look, here, we’re almost at Daddy’s office. Unless you’re actually hurt, we might as well—”
“But I already know what he’ll say. I know what he’ll want me to do.”
“He’ll want to do whatever’s best for you. Sometimes it’s hard for him to express it, but he loves you more than anything.”
Joyce could hardly have made a statement Patty more fervently longed to believe was true. Wished, with her whole being, was true. Didn’t her dad tease her and ridicule her in ways that would have been simply cruel if he didn’t secretly love her more than anything? But she was seventeen now and not actually dumb. She knew that you could love somebody more than anything and still not love the person all that much, if you were busy with other things.
There was a smell of mothballs in her father’s inner sanctum, which he’d taken over from his now-deceased senior partner without redoing the carpeting and curtains. Where exactly the mothball smell came from was one of those mysteries.
“What a rotten little shit!” was Ray’s response to the tidings his daughter and wife brought of Ethan Post’s crime.
“Not so little, unfortunately,” Joyce said with a dry laugh.
“He’s a rotten little shit punk,” Ray said. “He’s a bad seed!”
“So do we go to the hospital now?” Patty said. “Or to the police?”
Her father told her mother to call Dr. Sipperstein, the old pediatrician, who’d been involved in Democratic politics since Roosevelt, and see if he was available for an emergency. While Joyce made this call, Ray asked Patty if she knew what rape was.
She stared at him.
“Just checking,” he said. “You do know the actual legal definition.”
“He had sex with me against my will.”
“Did you actually say no?”
“ ‘No,’ ‘don’t,’ ‘stop.’ Anyway, it was obvious. I was trying to scratch him and push him off me.”
“Then he is a despicable piece of shit.”
She’d never heard her father talk this way, and she appreciated it, but only abstractly, because it didn’t sound like him.
“Dave Sipperstein says he can meet us at five at his office,” Joyce reported. “He’s so fond of Patty, I think he would have canceled his dinner plans if he’d had to.”
“Right,” Patty said, “I’m sure I’m number one among his twelve thousand patients.” She then told her dad her story, and her dad explained to her why Coach Nagel was wrong and she couldn’t go to the police.
“Chester Post is not an easy person,” Ray said, “but he does a lot of good in the county. Given his, uh, given his position, an accusation like this is going to generate extraordinary publicity. Everyone will know who the accuser is. Everyone. Now, what’s bad for the Posts is not your concern. But it’s virtually certain you’ll end up feeling more violated by the pretrial and the trial and the publicity than you do right now. Even if it’s pleaded out. Even with a suspended sentence, even with a gag order. There’s still a court record.”
Joyce said, “But this is all for her to decide, not—”
“Joyce.” Ray stilled her with a raised hand. “The Posts can afford any lawyer in the country. And as soon as the accusation is made public, the worst of the damage to the defendant is over. He has no incentive to speed things along. In fact, it’s to his advantage to see that your reputation suffers as much as possible before a plea or a trial.”
Patty bowed her head and asked what her father thought she should do.
“I’m going to call Chester now,” he said. “You go see Dr. Sipperstein and make sure you’re OK.”
“And get him as a witness,” Patty said.
“Yes, and he could testify if need be. But there isn’t going to be a trial, Patty.”
“So he just gets away with it? And does it to somebody else next weekend?”
Ray raised both hands. “Let me, ah. Let me talk to Mr. Post. He might be amenable to a deferred prosecution. Kind of a quiet probation. Sword over Ethan’s head.”
“But that’s nothing.”
“Actually, Pattycakes, it’s quite a lot. It’d be your guarantee that he won’t do this to someone else. Requires an admission