to Ed", sweetheart, so don't sweat the small stuff He reached for the phone again, and this time when Helen reached for his wrist, he pushed it away.
"You have reached the Derry Police Department," a recorded voice told him. "Push one for emergency services. Push two for Police services. Push three for information."
Ralph, who suddenly understood he needed all three, hesitated for a second and then pushed two. The telephone buzzed and a woman's voice said, "This is Police 911, how may I help you?"
He took a deep breath and said, "This is Ralph Roberts. I'm at the Red Apple Store on Harris Avenue, with my neighbor from up the street. Her name is Helen Deepneau. She's been beaten up pretty badly." He put his hand gently on the side of Helen's face and she pressed her forehead against his side. He could feel the heat of her skin through his shirt. "Please come as fast as you can."
He hung up the telephone, then squatted down next to Helen.
Natalie saw him, crowed with delight, and reached out to give his nose a friendly honk. Ralph sanded, kissed her tiny palm, then looked into Helen's face.
"I'm sorry, Helen," he said but I had to. I couldn't not do it.
"Do you understand that? I couldn't not do it."
"I don't understand anything," she said. Her nose had stopped bleeding, but when she reached up to swipe at it, she winced back from the touch of her own fingers.
"Helen, why did he do it? Why would Ed beat you up like this?"
He found himself remembering the other bruises-a pattern of them, perhaps. If there had been a pattern, he had missed it until now.
Because of Carolyn's death. And because of the insomnia which had come afterward. In any case, he did not believe this was the first time Ed had put his hands on his wife. Today might have been a drastic escalation, but it hadn't been the first time. He could grasp that idea and admit its logic, but he discovered he still couldn't see Ed doing it. He could see Ed's quick grin, his lively eyes, the way his hands moved restlessly when he talked... but he couldn't see Ed using those hands to beat the crap out of his wife, no matter how hard he tried.
Then a memory resurfaced, a memory of Ed walking stiff-legged toward the man who had been driving the blue pickup-it had been images from that day last July. The thunderhejds wasn't an avalanche of old stored seris building over the airport. Ed's arm popping out of the Datsun's window and waving up and down, as if he could make the gate slide open faster that way. The scarf with the Chinese symbols Hey hey, Susan Day, how many kids did you kill today, Ralph it was Ed's voice he heard, and he pretty well knew what Helen was going to say before she even opened her mouth.
"So stupid," she said dully. "He hit me because I signed the petition they're circulating over to town-that's all it was and someone Pushed it into my face when I was going' into the supermarket day before Yesterday. He said something about a benefit for WomanCare, and that seemed all right. Besides, the baby was fussing just..."
"You just signed it," Ralph finished softly.
She nodded and began to cry again.
"What petition," McGovern asked.
"To bring Susan Day to Derry," Ralph told him-"She's a femini..."
"I know who Susan Day is!" McGovern said irritably.
"Anyway, a bunch of people are try On behalf of WomanCare."
"When Ed came home today he was n a great mood," Helen said through her tears. "He almost always is on Thursdays, because it's his half day. He was talking about how he was going to spend the afternoon pretending to read a book and actually he is just watching the sprinkler go around...
You know how he is... just watching the "Yes," Ralph said, remembering how Ed had Plunged his arm into one of the heavyset man's barrels, and the crafty grin that came falling of vivian's m a across the heavyset man's t Of his hand ow s. Remembering that was like opening the door of Fibber McGee's closet in that old radio show onlyjunk but a ing, so Ing to get her here to speak.
(I know a trick or two of that) on his face. "Yes, I know how he is,"
"I sent him out to get some baby-food. becoming fretful and frightened. "I didn't know he'd be upset.