No Good Deed - Marie Sexton Page 0,17
use that door, but that was the door his abuela had always used, and the door her friends had come to. Abuela spent very little time in any other room. She was always cooking or baking. Even her knitting had sat in a basket, tucked under the table next to her seat. And somehow, the idea of coming to the back door of the house had stuck for those in the neighborhood who knew him. They came to him for all kinds of things—wounds that needed stitched or bandaged. Coughs that lingered a bit too long. Arthritic knees and sprained ankles. He opened the door and found MacKenna waiting for him.
“I need your help.”
Being winter, it was already dark outside, and Charlie flipped on the porch light to get a better look at her. His heart clenched in his chest. She wasn’t just here for a headache, this time. Somebody had beaten her. One eye was already beginning to swell. Blood oozed from her nose and a cut on her temple, and one lip was split and badly swollen.
He held the door open for her. “Go into the exam room.”
Jonas did his best not to stare as she shuffled past him, sniffling. Charlie followed her down the hallway. He closed the door of the exam room behind them and turned to face her.
“Did your boyfriend do this to you?”
She nodded, tears welling up in her eyes. Charlie handed her a box of tissue off the counter.
“Does this happen often?”
“He’s mad. He’s hurting, that’s all.”
Charlie took “hurting” to mean he was an addict who needed a fix. “And since I wouldn’t give you painkillers for a headache, he decided to give you some actual injuries?”
She sniffed, her hand shaking visibly as she held a tissue to her bleeding nose. “It ain’t like that. He was mad ’cause I told him I wouldn’t come here again.”
And yet here she was, bleeding on his exam table. Charlie sighed and pulled out the supplies he needed to clean her up. For better or worse, treating spouses or children of abusers seemed to be one of his specialties.
She didn’t need stitches at least. Her nose finally stopped bleeding as he cleaned the cut one her head and put a butterfly bandage on it. He cleaned up her lip, gave her an ice pack for her eye, and finally settled on his rolling stool to face her.
“You shouldn’t go back there.”
“I have to.”
“Why? Because your stuff is there? I’ll get that for you tomorrow, once he’s calmed down.”
She shook her head. “I love him.”
Charlie resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Love made people do some stupid shit, but he always wondered if this could really be love.
She sniffled, glancing around the room. “If you could give me a little something, he’d settle down. That’s all I need. Just a little fix to get him through ’til payday.”
Animals in studies learned easily to hit a button that dispensed a treat. They learned just as quickly not to hit the button if it issued an electric shock. But if the button resulted in a shock most of the time, but still delivered a treat on occasion, they rarely stopped pushing it. They’d hit that button again and again, risking the electric shock on the off chance the next time resulted in a treat.
Junkies were much the same. A “no” didn’t mean anything if there was a chance of a “yes” at any point down the road. Sending MacKenna home empty-handed was dangerous to her in the short term, but sending her home with even a single pill would be dangerous to both her and Charlie down the road. Her boyfriend would undoubtedly decide it was worth beating her up and sending her back to Charlie if there was even a small chance in hell of getting oxy out of it.
He could give her a couple of Darvocet. The DEA considered it less problematic than oxy. Then again, despite all the evidence to the contrary, the DEA still considered marijuana to be more dangerous than methamphetamines, oxycodone, and cocaine. Meanwhile, two of the most addictive drugs in history—alcohol and tobacco—were readily available on every street corner.
So much for the wisdom of the DEA.
“I won’t give you oxy,” he told her.
She winced, looking everywhere but at him. “Maybe some Vicodin?”
“No.”
Her eyes teared up again. “If I go home with nothing…” She shook her head, crying harder.
“That’s exactly why you shouldn’t go home at all.”
“I have to.”
Talk about a rock