Chapter Twenty-nine
At eight on the nose, twin brothers from Halifax dropped to their knees and presented matching engagement rings to their sweethearts. When the blushing girls said yes, the remaining lumberjacks burst into song, serenading the brides-to-be with “O Canada.” No sooner had they started than old Ian Mackintosh nipped across the road and returned with his pipes, striking in and accompanying the young men as they followed up with a heartfelt rendition of “Farewell to Nova Scotia.”
Ellis sipped his whiskey steadily and continued to stare at me like he wanted me dead.
Halfway through “A Ballad of New Scotland,” I could stand it no longer and rushed upstairs, locking myself in my room. I leaned against the door, panting.
Not two minutes later, with the pipes still blaring on the main floor, I thought I heard something and pressed my ear to the door. Ellis was swearing and stumbling in the hallway and sure enough came straight to my room. When he found the door locked, he began to pound it.
“Maddie! Maddie! Open the goddamned door!”
“Go away!”
I dove onto the bed, pulling my knees to my chest.
“Open the goddamned door! I’m fucking serious!”
I knew he was using the side of his fist because of the way the door jumped in its frame. I wished I could light a candle so I could see if it was in danger of giving, but my hands were shaking too hard to strike a match.
“Maddie! If you don’t open the goddamned door right now, I swear to fucking God I’ll break it down—do you hear me?” he roared, renewing his assault.
I curled into a ball and pressed my hands to my ears. I couldn’t scream for help—there was no possibility anyone would hear me over the booming of the pipes—but where the hell was Hank? Surely he’d noticed we’d both disappeared, and surely he’d been at least vaguely aware of the state Ellis was in.
Over a period that felt like centuries, the thumping slowed to an uneven staccato and, finally, stopped altogether. I heard a soft clunk as Ellis slumped against my door. He began to weep.
“Maddie? Oh, Maddie, what have you done? You’re my wife. You’re supposed to be on my team. Now what am I supposed to do? What the hell am I supposed to do?”
His fingernails scraped against the wood as he slid to the floor. He continued crying, but that, too, eventually petered out. A few minutes later, all I could hear was my own ragged breath.
Just as I began to believe he was out for the night, I heard shuffling on the carpet, then a pause.
I held my breath.
A terrible, primal scream preceded a massive blow to the door, followed by another, and then another, as he repeatedly rammed it with his body.
When the wood started to crack, I scrambled off the bed, fumbling in the dark until I found the grate and the fire irons. Then I crouched behind the chair, clutching the poker and crying.
There was another tremendous blow to the door, and the clatter and thud of a body falling, followed by copious swearing.
Then I heard Hank. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I need to talk to my wife!”
“Get up, you moron,” Hank said calmly.
“I need! To talk! To my!” Ellis huffed and puffed, but could not seem to come up with the final word.
“You can’t even stand up. Let’s get you to bed.”
“I need to talk to her,” Ellis insisted, although he sounded suddenly out of steam. He moaned, then began sobbing again.
I crept over to the door, still clutching the fire iron.
“Good Lord,” said Hank. “You’re a complete mess. Give me your hand.”
Ellis mumbled something incoherent.
“No, you didn’t dislocate your shoulder. If you had, I wouldn’t be able to do this.”
There was a sharp holler of pain, followed by whimpering.
“See? But if you had dislocated it, you’d have fucking well earned it for being a knucklehead. Give me your hand. All right, upsy-daisy. Now, give me your key and don’t move.”
There was a crash against the wall right outside my door.
“Jesus. Can you at least try not to fall over while I get your door open? Do you think you could handle that?”
Ellis was drawing heavy, wheezing breaths, so close it sounded like he was in the room with me.
The door to his bedroom opened, and Hank came back.
“All right. One foot in front of the other.”
After a few seconds of clunking and shuffling, I heard the violent screech of bedsprings. It sounded like Hank had tossed Ellis into his room from the doorway.
“Stay put,” said Hank. “If you don’t, I swear to God, I’ll tie you to the bed.”
The door shut, and a moment later there were three polite raps on my door.
“Maddie?” said Hank.
“Yes?” I said, still crouched with the fire iron.
“Are you sitting by the door?”
“Yes.”
“Are you okay?”
I didn’t answer. My heart was thumping so hard I was sure he could hear it, and I was shaking uncontrollably.
After a pause, he said, “Okay, I get it. You’re mad at me, but what was I supposed to do? Knock the bottle from his hand?”
“Yes.”
He sighed, and I heard him scratch his head. “Yeah, you’re right. This won’t happen again, I swear. By the way, I locked him in. Want the key?”
“No. You can have it.”
“Get some sleep,” he said. “He won’t be bothering you again tonight. And Maddie? I really am sorry.”
He waited awhile before going away, hoping, I suppose, that I’d tell him it was okay.
But I couldn’t. Things weren’t even remotely okay, and with Ellis out of pills, they could only get worse. Why, oh why, had I flushed them?