Kate left. She left, and I was the one left to pick up the pieces. Every day, every night, for weeks I pushed and prodded Betty along, sometimes literally physically manhandling her into place. It was a pretty rough time, for the both of us. You haven't got the first clue what a brave, broken heart looks like until you've sat, night after night, with a woman who's lost the love of her life.
That's right, the love of her life. A woman, she loves a woman. Don't screw your face up like that. It doesn't hurt anyone, and it's not illegal. I checked, you know. When I first realized.
Well, anyway, she left, but she wasn't gone long. One night, I was sat there, Betty already passed out on the bed, finishing my whiskey. There was a knock on the doorframe, and then there she was, stood there like no time had passed.
"Betty, wake up," I said. She didn't move, so I reached out, shook her hard. "Betty."
She woke up, grumpily, like she always does. I told you to quit it with the looks - I'm her friend. I'm engaged, see. I'm her friend, nothing more. Have you got any of those?
Anyway, she woke up and saw Kate, and I have never seen the woman move so fast. She practically fell out of the bed. They hugged and said the kind of stuff people say when you're reunited with someone you never thought you'd see again. I don't remember exactly, I wasn't writing this all down. I was excited too, out of my seat and bouncing. Kate's my friend too.
I jumped up, took Kate's hand. And that's when I saw it - a big round burn, right on the back of her hand. It didn't look new, either. The way the edges were puckered suggested it had scabbed over and been reopened. What kind of sick bastard does that? Repeatedly burns someone? In the same place every time. Herr Freud would have an actual field day.
No, I'm saying it was her mother. I'm saying it was her father. Pastor Rowley. Least godly man I've ever met. There were other marks, too, bruises, little scratches. Check for yourself, if you don't believe me. She'd told us what he'd do to her, if she went back. And yet, when he came, she went with him anyway. I can't imagine how scared you'd have to be to do that.
I offered to drive her to her rooms or hotel, but then I saw the half-empty suitcase she'd left just outside the door, and I knew. She didn't have any rooms, she didn't have anything, she'd just run and made it to the first place that she felt safe. So I went home, and left them together. I don't know what they did. Slept, I guess. None of my business, and none of yours either.
The next morning Betty and I had work. Kate didn't have her papers with her, and the way she left, VicMu weren't going to take her back on spec. Betty said she was staying in the boarding house, taking time to calm down and so on. I don't know what she did - prayed, probably, and cleaned Betty's pig sty of a room. She's a swell girl, Betty, for sure, but not the tidiest.
The shift was busy, as usual, quota's going up all the time, now the war's escalating. My fiance, he's a Lieutenant in the US army, he says there'll be a big push soon, and it'll be over within the year. That's what he says, but sometimes I think he just says things to reassure me.
After the shift we picked up Kate, and went to dinner at this new place down on Cherry Street. It's relatively new, and not that expensive. The table next to us was taken by an old woman and her son. She was so deaf, he shouted everything, and she kept making him repeat himself into this ear trumpet thing. Betty and I just cracked up, and Kate sitting there disapproving only made it funnier.
Yeah, this is important, actually. If you'll just give me a chance to finish.
We laughed all the way home. I was really worried I'd laugh too much, and not be able to steer straight. Kate said if I didn't stop laughing I'd probably kill someone. We stopped laughing as we opened the door to Betty's room. I'll never forget that - the way the laughter just stopped, and a chill ran down my spine. Kate's father was stood there, this smile on his face that set my teeth on edge.
"Run back to your whore, have we?" he said, and I watched all the colour drain from Kate's face. I've never seen that actually happen before, not in real life. I thought it was just an expression, but no - her face just went grey, totally grey.
He was holding something, I couldn't see exactly what it was, but Kate seemed to recognise it. She ran at him, screaming, and Betty went forward too. He backhanded Kate right across her face, as if it was nothing, and she fell to the bed, crying. Betty tried to hit him back, and she's got one hell of a punch on her, but he just pushed her away and shoved her against the sink, hands round her throat. He was ranting, saying how we were all headed straight for Hell, quoting the Bible, shouting incessantly about sin and temptation. All the time, I just stood there in the doorway. I don't know why, I couldn't move, just stood and watched it all happen.
The shouting drew the attention of some of the other girls, and their shocked gasps made me move. I moved over, pulled on his shoulders, tried to make him let go of Betty, who was gasping and choking for breath. He just shrugged me off, and kept on squeezing. Her face was going purple, and I had to do something.
I grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the side, and brought it down, hard, on the back of his head. I'd seen it in the movies, and people always fall over, unconscious. He did, he fell, dropped to the floor like lead. I didn't expect all the blood. I mean, I know it was glass breaking, and head wounds bleed a lot, but there was just so much blood. Betty just stood there, leaning against the wall, still gasping for breath, hands up to her throat, struggling to breathe. Kate screamed, and climbed off the bed, shaking him.
He didn't move, or wake up, and she just kept screaming, "Gladys, what have you done?"
I remember dropping the bottle, it made this sick kind of crunching thud on the carpet. I don't know who called you, but I was still stood there, staring, when the police arrived. One of the girls down the hall is a nurse, in training, and she'd already said he was dead. I didn't mean to kill him. I didn't think I'd hit him that hard. They never die in the movies.
Please, what's going to happen to me? Are my parents here? Do they know? It wasn't murder, not even. It was defence. Please, what's going to happen now?