The Catalyst

“He wanted to know where the guns were” Lise sobbed, her rapidly swelling eye starkly outlined in red against the clammy pallor of her skin. “He wouldn’t believe Dave when he said we didn’t have any firearms. He just kept kicking Dave in the stomach every time Dave told him and then he ….. he hit me across the face to maybe try and force Dave to tell him the truth, but Dave WAS telling the truth.”

Lise’s voice broke as she recounted the sequence of events that had taken place earlier that day in broad daylight. She lifted her eyes to meet the impassive gaze of the female police officer taking her statement. The desultory way in which she had conducted the interview had not done much to reassure Lise of her commitment to the investigation. Indeed, the officer almost seemed to resent Lise for inconveniencing her with yet more paperwork.

Lise thought about her husband in intensive care down the hallway. His assailant’s blows had ruptured his internal organs and he was being operated on right now. She had come off lightly in comparison, she thought to herself. The rape had been traumatic, but in a way, the fact that Dave had been unconscious through it all had made it a little easier to accept. She didn’t think she could have borne it if he’d been watching her degradation; her destruction as a woman.

The police officer excused herself to go the bathroom and as Lise watched the fat-bottomed, uniformed body lumbering down the hallway, she resolved that, once Dave was off the critical list, she would be buying herself a gun and learning how to use it. She would never again allow herself to become a victim of violent crime. Anyway, she smiled bitterly to herself, she might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.