The Invasion of the Tearling

“Your husband doesn’t own you.”


Lily looked up, suddenly furious, because Dr. Anna didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. That was all marriage meant: ownership. Lily had sold herself for someone to take care of her, to pay the bills and tell her what to do. Certainly there had been some buyer’s remorse along the way, but that was the proverbial pig in a poke, as Lily’s mother would have said. Mom and Dad hadn’t wanted her to marry Greg, but Lily had been so sure of what was best. Thinking of her parents, Lily felt a sudden, hopeless longing for her old room back at their house in Pennsylvania, for the twin bed and oak desk. The furniture had been plain, nowhere near as nice as the things Lily owned now. But her room had been her own. Even her parents didn’t come in without knocking first.

Lily’s eyes had watered; she wiped a quick hand across them, smearing her makeup. “You don’t know anything about it.”

Dr. Anna gave a mirthless chuckle. “This dynamic never changes, Mrs. Mayhew. Believe me, I know.”

“He’s only done it a few times,” Lily mumbled, knowing even as she spoke that it was a mistake to answer. Had she ever resented Dr. Anna’s clinical, impersonal manner? She longed to have it back now. “He’s been under a lot of pressure at work this year.”

“Your husband’s a powerful man?”

“Yes,” Lily replied automatically. It was always the first thing that popped into her head about Greg: that he was a powerful man. He worked for the Department of Defense, acting as a civilian liaison between the military men and the weapons contractors. His division oversaw supply for all of the military bases on the East Coast. He was six foot two and had played football in college. He had met the president. There was nowhere that Lily could escape to.

“Even so, there are places you can go, you know. Places you can hide.”

Lily shook her head, but there was no way to explain to Dr. Anna. Women did run sometimes, even in New Canaan; last year, Cath Alcott had just taken off one night, packed her three kids into the family Mercedes and disappeared. Security had found the car, abandoned in Massachusetts, but so far as Lily knew, they never found Cath. John Alcott, a big, quiet man who had always made Lily feel slightly uneasy, had hired a private firm to find his wife, but it hadn’t helped. They couldn’t even trace her tag. Cath had done the impossible: she had taken her children and gotten away clean.

But Lily would never be able to disappear, even without children in tow. Where would she live? How would she eat? All of the money was in Greg’s name; the big banks wouldn’t open individual accounts for married women anymore. Even if Lily had known people who could create a new identity for her–she didn’t–she had no skills. She had graduated college with English credentials. No one would hire her, not even to clean houses. Lily closed her eyes and saw the homeless of Manhattan in their shapeless garbage bags, living in clusters beneath the roadways, fighting for scraps. Even if she made it so far, she wouldn’t last a day in that world.

“Well, think it over,” Dr. Anna told her, face severe again. “It’s never too late.”

Reaching into her pocket, she produced a card and, with a questioning glance at Lily, tucked it into Lily’s purse where it sat on the chair. Then she slipped out, closing the door behind her.

Lily slithered down off the paper-covered exam table, carefully shedding her paper gown so that it didn’t rip; her parents’ waste-not-want-not upbringing still ruled her sometimes, even in such silly matters as a paper gown that couldn’t be reused. Looking down at herself, she saw purple finger-shaped bruises on her upper arms from where Greg had grabbed her on Tuesday. The rest of the cuts and bruises from the bad night almost a month ago had finally healed, but these new marks meant that she couldn’t wear anything sleeveless for a while, and Greg liked her in sleeveless tops.

She began to put on the rest of her clothes, trying not to look down at the rest of her body. Greg had been under a lot of stress; that, at least, hadn’t been a lie, and he had been sorry afterward. But “a few times” was stretching it. There had been six times so far, and Lily could remember each of them in detail. She could lie to Dr. Anna, but there was no use varnishing the truth inside her own head. Greg was getting worse.