“I did it to myself,” Maryanne says, her voice very quiet.
April frowns. “For what purpose?”
“April…” I say.
“No, it’s all right,” Maryanne says. “I know you need to hear my story, Casey. Whether it’s to help with this baby or the poor dead woman or the hostiles in general, you need it. I’m just not sure it will make much sense. It’s like … a fever dream. I’d never done drugs. Well, nothing stronger than marijuana, but we didn’t consider that any more a drug than alcohol. I certainly never experienced hallucinations with it.”
“You wouldn’t,” April says. “Marijuana is not a hallucinogenic drug.”
Maryanne meets my gaze and the corners of her lips quirk, as if she’s figuring out my sister. She just says, calmly, “No, I suppose it isn’t. But I had friends who experimented with hallucinogens. Sometimes, what they experienced wasn’t so much a hallucination as a waking dream. It was real. Very real. That’s what it was like for me. It was real, and I had no sense that it wasn’t normal, that this wasn’t who I was.”
She stops. Squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head. “No, that’s not … That’s not quite right. In the beginning…”
She looks at April. “I’m sorry, Doctor. You were conducting an examination. I’ll wait for this.”
April looks at me. I’d like Maryanne to continue—I’m afraid if she stops, she won’t ever restart.
I’m still hesitating when Jen opens the door, baby in one arm, dinner in a bag over her shoulder. I tell April to continue her examination, and I take the baby, who is indeed fussing, sucking on her lower lip, as if she’s a few seconds from crying.
“Is this the baby?” Maryanne says, rising. A smile spreads, a real one, her entire face lighting up as she forgets to cover her teeth. “The one who was with a former hostile?”
I nod. “The
woman wasn’t her mother, though.”
“No, she wouldn’t be. There…” She swallows. “There are no babies. They do not—”
She rubs her hands over her face, the move agitated, as if she’s trying to scrub a memory from her mind. She stops, forcing her hands down. When she speaks, her voice is lecture-impassive. “If we become pregnant, they make sure we do not stay that way.”
She catches our expressions and shakes her head. “No, not me. I had a hysterectomy a few years before I came to Rockton. I was spared … that.”
April and I exchange a glance. Then April says, “I would like to conduct a full physical examination. Given the circumstances you were living under, there could be damage that your hysterectomy would not have prevented.”
Maryanne looks at her a moment before realizing what she means. She gives a short laugh. “No, oddly, that is another thing I was spared. Children are forbidden, but so is rape. Sex must be consensual.” She pauses. “Or as consensual as it can be under the circumstances.” Another pause, and a wan quarter-smile. “From an academic perspective, let’s just say it was as consensual as it has historically been for women. We knew the advantage of taking a mate, and we did so, and while I did not meet the love of my life, my relationships were, in some ways, healthier than the one I came here to escape. You may certainly conduct a full exam, Doctor, but rape trauma is the one thing I don’t suffer from.”
* * *
The baby sleeps, and Maryanne relaxes into the examination. I know from experience that bouncing back from the physical ailments is usually the easy part. The human body is a marvel of resiliency. The mind is an entirely different matter. On the surface, it has that same resiliency, yet even after we seem to be back on our mental feet, functioning and happy, the damage lingers, tucked down in the creases, impossible to scour clean.
The body repairs itself, leaving only scars where the skin can’t quite smooth away the damage. The mind does the same—it re-forms, it adapts, it builds bridges over the damaged parts. I can hide my physical scars with long sleeves and jeans, but I don’t. They’re part of who I am. Part of my history, and no cause for shame. I wish I could be as open with the mental scars. I probably never will be.
The physical damages make me look like a survivor. The psychological damage makes me feel like a victim. I know that’s wrong; I just can’t seem to get past the divide.
Maryanne’s scars will not be badges of honor. They do show that she survived trauma that would kill most people. Yet she won’t ever feel that way. When she’s ready to return to civilization—be that Rockton or Halifax—she’ll want help covering those signs.
In her examination, April suggests ways to conceal the rest of the physical damage. It’s reassuring for Maryanne, hearing her trauma discussed in the same way a cosmetic surgeon might suggest fixing a crooked nose. April doesn’t mean it to be soothing—she’s ticking off the boxes that will return her patient to optimal health. Yet Maryanne is soothed, and that’s what counts. Caps will cover her filed teeth. Plastic surgery will remove blackened tissue and make the frostbite damage less obvious.
Maryanne eats after her physical. As she does, while April makes notes, I say, “May I ask you questions?”
She smiles. “May I hold the baby afterward?”
“Certainly. I have a thousand questions, as you might imagine. But I want to begin with ones that April may be able to help me with.”
My sister looks up. She says nothing, though, just resumes her note-making.
“You say that your party was attacked in the night,” I begin. “The party who left Rockton with you.”
“Yes.”