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Grazia stretched out on the exam table, hearing the tech snap on gloves, trying not to think about the needle going into her arm and the tube after tube of blood being drawn out of her. She moved her foot slightly back and forth to relieve the tension. When the tech had finished, Janine returned.
    “The lab has to know all the drugs you are taking. Then they can isolate any new ones from last night. Tell us the truth. In this situation, you will not be prosecuted if you admit to taking illegal drugs, according to New York state law. Are you using marijuana, heroin, cocaine, or drugs like those?”
    She shook her head. “I don’t do drugs.”
    “Mind if I look?” Janine gently grasped Grazia’s left wrist and slowly pulled her arm straight. She peered at it from all sides, wrist to shoulder. Then she checked the other arm, both legs, and her stomach and abdomen. She made a note on the chart. “Sorry, honey. Women come in here saying they were drugged and raped, but they lie about the drugs they’re on and we can’t figure out how to help them. Do you drink alcohol?”
    “One glass of wine. Or I throw up.”
    “Have you ever used Rohypnol? It’s also called “roofies,” “rope,” or “roaches.” It’s a feel-good drug. People take it to get high. Or they take it after methamphetamine or cocaine to lift the depression. It’s a popular drug for raping women. It’s banned in the US but well known in other countries.”
    “I said I don’t do drugs,” she snapped.
    “What’s in your medicine cabinet at home? Prescription drugs? Antibiotics?”
    “Aspirin.” 
    “Sleeping pills?”
    “A friend gave me some for jet lag, but I haven’t taken any.”
    “Throw them away,” said Janine. “A brain as drugged as yours can’t handle sedative-type drugs. You could end up in the emergency room again.” She checked her list. “Are you taking medications for panic or anxiety? Many of these are used on women to cause amnesia.”
    “No.” Grazia didn’t mention that the friend had also offered her anti-anxiety pills, worried that Grazia would have trouble saying goodbye to Francisco at the airport. But Grazia didn’t need them. She hadn’t felt a twinge of emotion. She was fed up with Francisco and his back-and-forth to Belinda. So she hadn’t taken any pills, but they were in her cosmetics case.
    “Did you ever wake up one morning and couldn’t remember the night before?”
    “No.” Her answers were getting shorter as the full meaning behind the questions struck home. She had been raped. She felt herself beginning to withdraw.
    Janine took a Polaroid camera out of a bag. “Time to photograph your bruises.”
    It took a long time. First her face. Then her back, shoulders, elbows, and hips. Grazia lay still, even though every muscle in her body screamed out to leap off the exam table and run out of the emergency room. She couldn’t think about what Janine was doing because then she would have to think about how the bruises got there. She began listening to what was going on in the adjoining curtained cubicles. So much misery in one room on a Sunday morning! How we human beings suffer, she mused, feeling detached. She wondered at her lack of feeling. Did she not care about these sufferers on either side of her? Or were her efforts to deaden her own reactions to her situation making her dead to other people’s misery?
    “Deep blue-purple bruising,” Janine said, breaking into her thoughts. “That means relatively recent. Matches your story.”
    Grazia watched Janine sign each photo on the back and record it in the chart.
    “One more decision,” announced Janine. “We recommend certain tests for sexually transmitted diseases. Your insurance might not pay for them. Our hospital can’t afford to do these for free. What do you want to do?”
    “Do all the tests. I’ll find the money.”

 
    Chapter 5
     
    Long after noon, Grazia was finally pulling on her jeans. She felt weak with hunger and