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“S
o, why did you join the police force?” Max and I were having dinner. She insisted on cooking tonight, so I let her. Turns out, she is an excellent chef. I was amazed. The rice was light and fluffy, while the steamed egg was as soft as a cloud. It melted in my mouth. Good food made me happy.
She looked lost in thought, so I asked her again. “Max, why did you join the police force?” “Uh, no reason.” I looked at her suspiciously as she took another bite from her food. "Come on; there must be something. No one joins the police force and exposes themselves to so much trauma just for the thrill of it.
If you do not want to tell me, then that is fine. But do not lie to me." She paused eating for a second as she looked out the window. “My mother was raped.” My food froze in my mouth. I could not swallow it anymore. I looked up at her. She was still looking out the window. "My mother was raped when I was in high school. She was never the same again.
I came back home to find her lying on the floor, unmoving. I ran toward her, asking her what was wrong. She looked like she was in a daze. I asked her again and rolled her over so she would lie on her back. She then looked at me; it felt like the first time she noticed my presence. ‘There were three of them,’ she whispered. I did not understand at that moment the gravity of the situation. I asked her what she was talking about. ‘There were three of them. One of them raped me. The other two watched, made jokes, and snickered about it.
They did not touch me, yet they left wounds too.’ It was like my whole world had fallen apart at that moment. She was still dazed. How could someone has done this to her? I thought. How do you look at someone and decide to rob them of their own right to their body, reducing them to a sexual object? It made no sense to me. Through the medical evaluation, the rape was confirmed. I took Mom to report it to the police.
The response was.... infuriating. Instead of catering to her and asking her the details of the case, they asked her questions like, "Why were you out at that time of night? What were you wearing?" as if it was her fault as if she did not deserve her rights and dignity as a human being.
All of the officers were, unsurprisingly, male. I hated the police force. Even though the men were caught due to the medical exam, I hated them. They were the reason my mom never recovered; they were the reason she woke up at night sobbing, blaming herself; they were the reason she was forever terrified of the dark.
Do you know her nightmares were not of the night she was raped; they were of the night she gave her statement? That is what haunted her more than anything. When I grew up, my hatred turned into something bigger. I decided to join the police force so that no woman would have to go through what my mother went through again.
No woman would have to blame herself when she was the victim. No man would consider himself entitled even after committing such a heinous crime. No man would consider himself right for it." There was nothing in her eyes as she said all of this. She only looked out the window. It felt like she was reliving all of it as she told me everything.
The food on our plates was cold and long forgotten. I did not know what to say to her. How is a person supposed to cope with all of this? What are we to make of it? How are we to be okay with the fact that one day, it could be us? Worst of all, we would just be another statistic, another headline, among the millions. People would forget.
We will never be able to let it go, but people will forget like they always do. That night, we simply sat there, contemplating our fates. That night, the sense of familiarity was not our bond but the similar danger that loomed over all of us. Our own rotten fates were the strings that held us all together. That night, we prayed for all women out there.
