Not having a car means that Grace cannot get groceries with the children in tow. It means not being able to take the kids to the playground or to visit her mother. It means that she is an actual prisoner now, not just a psychological one. But then she wonders: Wasn’t she always a prisoner of sorts? At Hunts Beach, they had a car, but Grace couldn’t drive it. Gene had to take her to a grocery store every Thursday night. But then again, she had neighbors in Hunts Beach, Rosie for one. She had Gardiner’s, where she could pick up the fixings for dinner. And her mother was within walking distance.
Pull yourself together, she tells herself, a week is nothing.
By the fifth day without a car, the pantry holds only canned ravioli, a box of macaroni, a dozen Campbell’s soups, a jar of jelly, and half a box of cornflakes. Grace calls her mother and asks her to bring milk.
Her mother, chauffeured by Gladys, brings with her a carton full of fresh vegetables and fruits and hamburger and milk and bread and cookies she baked herself. Grace receives it as if she were a desperate refugee. She puts on the kettle and the two older women, both in sleeveless dresses, their arms white, the skin loose and damp, sit at the table. Claire climbs up onto her grandmother’s lap, and Tom wanders over to Gladys with a curious look. Gladys produces from her purse two sets of keys and dangles them in front of the boy, who takes them and sits at her feet to play with them.
“Bad luck not having the car,” Gladys says to Grace.
“Especially now that the town pool is open,” her mother adds.
Grace pictures the deliciousness of falling into the water, feetfirst, and having it close over her head.
“But,” Gladys points out, “having two children who can’t swim at a pool might be more work than staying at home.”
“Worth it to get out,” Grace says, pouring iced tea into glasses. She unwraps her mother’s plate of cookies.
This is help, Grace thinks. This is the help that might have come to her rescue at the stone wall. Right here in her kitchen. With the children underfoot, she might even now be able to convey to Gladys and her mother her fears for her own and the children’s safety. Gladys would think her overwrought; her mother would reassure her that once the car came back, she’d be herself again. Both would say as they left that it was only a matter of time.
Time until what? she’d want to ask.
On the seventh day, Grace calls the auto repair company. “Hello, this is Mrs. Holland. I’ve been wondering if you were able to fix my car.”
“Yep, we fixed it good.”
“What was wrong with it?” Grace asks, curious.
“There was a heck of a lot of water in your gas tank.”
“Water?” As if in slow motion, Grace falls onto the chair by the telephone table and bends her head to keep herself from fainting. Sweat breaks out on her palms and face, and she thinks she might vomit.
She sees it with absolute clarity. A man. A garden hose. A Buick.
“You still there?” the repairman asks.
“Yes,” she says. “I’m here. Can you drop it off and I can pay you what I owe you?”
“But…well…your husband didn’t tell you? We sold it.”
Grace stands and spins with disbelief. “You sold it?” she asks incredulously. “But it was mine! That was my car!”
“You’re a mister and missus, aren’t you?” the mechanic asks.
“Well, yes.”
“What’s yours is his, I guess. I called this number to tell you it was ready and he answered and he told us to get rid of it. We did. It’s gone now.”
Grace swallows. Her disbelief turns hard.
Grace walks down the driveway, across the street, through the cut grass and pebbles, and screams into the roar of the surf.
That night, after the children have brushed their teeth, the reality of her situation penetrates. If she is not a prisoner behind bars, she is one in a house she now can’t abide. Every night she will have to sleep in the nursery with her children and the door bolted. The ugliness she has seen in Gene will intensify. Whatever was good in her—as a mother, as a person—will begin to shrivel in confinement.
Grace reads to the children, watches them fall asleep, and then lies on her own cot. She guesses it safe enough to leave the screens open as she did before, but she knows not to let down her guard, not to give in to the pleasure of the gentle breezes that so seduced her on the night she woke with Gene standing over her. She tries to remain in an alert state. She listens to every sound in the house, but all she can hear are the waves crashing on the rocks across the street.
In her dream, she’s a child again, and her mother is knocking on the door. No, it’s her birthday, and her mother’s banging on the door so that she won’t miss her birthday party. Grace sits upright and knows that the person on the other side of the door is Gene. He bangs hard, and the children wake. He keeps up the pounding. Claire jumps out of bed and races to Grace’s cot. Tom, standing, tries to climb out of the crib. Gene shouts, “Grace! Grace! I need you!” A fist on the door again, over and over and over. Grace lifts her children, one to a side on the narrow cot, and holds them tight so that they won’t fall out. Tom crawls on top of her. Claire whispers, “Is that Daddy? Why is he doing this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mommy, please make it stop!”
“Shhhh,” Grace says.
Gene begins to wail, a sound that starts softly and then rises in ghastly volume. The cry is so haunting that she presses Tom to her chest, Claire to her side, and covers her daughter’s remaining ear with her hand.
Yes, maybe Gene is owed a piteous wail. But not here, and not now. Maybe he wants his life to go back to the way it used to be, but it can’t ever. Grace knows it’s a ploy to get her to open the door.
She has seen his anger, his bitterness, his deception. She believes him capable of anything. He might hurt the children if he thought it would crush Grace. He would certainly hit Grace, she knows that now. If she opens the door, he won’t again believe in her calm voice suggesting they descend the stairs to go to his room where they might this time have sex.
The wailing continues. She wishes she could cover her own ears. Claire makes scurrying motions as if she would bore deeper into her mother. “Make it go away!” she begs.
“It will go away,” Grace says, trying to calm her daughter. “I’ll protect you, no matter what. Just try to go to sleep.”
“I can’t go to sleep. Make him stop!”
“Shhh,” Grace whispers, but inside she’s trembling.
Before she is even out the door, he grabs her by her upper arm. His grip is strong. He puts his weight against the top post of the banister, pulling her along with him. She knows that if he loses his balance, she’ll fall to the floor, too.
“I want answers,” he demands.
“Keep your voice down. The children are scared to death.”
“It was the only way I could get you to come out.”
“Don’t you care about them at all?”
His face is red, and his hair is dirty. His yellow pajamas have stains on them. He doesn’t look like a man who has been lying calmly in a bed.
“I asked about the razor blade, and you didn’t answer me,” he says.
She doesn’t answer him now, either.
“I asked you about the piano, and you brushed me off. A piano doesn’t just float through the air and take itself down a flight of stairs.”
“And a gas tank doesn’t just suddenly fill itself with water!” she exclaims with fury, knowing instantly it’s a mistake to mention the car.
“How did you buy it?” he asks, shaking her arm.
“I worked for it,” she answers, bracing herself with her feet apart.
He seems surprised, but he doesn’t lessen his grip. “You worked? I don’t believe you. Where?”
“In a doctor’s office.”
“That injun?” he asks, his eyes narrowing.
“Yes, that man.”
“I see now. The razor blade was his.”