She sat a moment, eyes closed, until she could gather herself. After slamming out of the car, she yanked up the hood. Cursing again, she stomped back to grab a flashlight out of her glove compartment.
She could change a tire—and had. She knew how to add water to a radiator, gas to the tank, and check battery cables. Other than that, she might have been staring at a rocket engine.
She left the hood up, paced over to kick the front tire before digging her phone out of the purse she’d left on the front seat.
Her first instinct was to call Chad—the cheating, lying, no-good ex. Then she remembered they were exes. She considered calling one of her divorced parents, but neither of them lived that close by.
She toyed with doing a search for a twenty-four-hour road service or calling her friend Sal. Sal was closer, but—
She heard an engine, saw the swish of headlights, and thought: Thank God!
When the truck slowed down, stopped behind her car, Billy Jean hurried over to the driver’s window.
He said, “Looks like you need some help.”
She gave him her best smile. “I’d sure appreciate it.”
— 1992 —
Another Thanksgiving came and went. Alice knew the days by squares and numbers on the calendar. He hadn’t taken that way—yet. She marked time by it, and tried, tried so hard to imagine herself at home, around the big table in the dining room.
Ma making two big turkeys—one for the ranch hands. If she tried hard enough, she could smell it scenting the kitchen. Grandpa would grill beef, too, and Grammy would glaze a ham. Her favorite.
And all the trimmings, too. Mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes with marshmallows, green beans, brussels sprouts—not her favorite. Biscuits and gravy.
She’d make the cranberry sauce. She liked watching the berries pop as they boiled up. Reenie would make deviled eggs. They took time, and too much patience.
And just when you thought you couldn’t eat another bite? All those pies!
She imagined herself as a little girl, sitting beside her sister at the kitchen table, making little tarts with the leftover pie dough.
Ma humming as she rolled out more.
But even as Alice’s lips curved, the images wouldn’t stick. They flickered and faded away until she was lying on the cot in that terrible room, the irons heavy on her leg, and her arms empty.
He’d taken her baby.
Though her milk had dried up—painfully—the phantom ache in her breasts remained, a terrible reminder.
She escaped into sleep—what else did she have? In sleep she tried to go back home. Thanksgiving turkey, riding a fast horse while the sky exploded with sunset light.
Would she ever see the sun again?
Putting on lipstick, buying a new dress. Lying out under the summer stars with a boy who wanted her.
Would anyone ever touch her with care and sweetness again?
She willed herself into her bedroom. Pink walls and movie-star posters, the windows bringing the sky and mountains to her.
But when she opened her eyes, her reality weighed like lead on her soul. Four dull walls, a concrete floor, and a locked door at the top of a set of steep steps.
No, she’d never see the sun again, its rise or its fall. Her world had no window to bring it to her.
No one would ever touch her with care or sweetness. Because only Sir existed. Only Sir, who pounded into her every night. And when she screamed because her body hadn’t healed from childbirth, he pounded harder and slapped her into silence.
She’d never see her bedroom again, so pink and pretty, or sit around the big table at the ranch and share Thanksgiving dinner with her family.
She’d never hold her little baby girl again. Her Cora with the tiny pink fingers and toes.
The loss of it all, the emptiness inside her at the loss of a child she hadn’t believed she’d wanted and had loved so much, so quickly, smeared every thought like fetid smoke.
She ate because when she refused, he poured soup down her throat, dragging her head back by the hair, pinching her nostrils closed. She washed because when she stopped, he beat her and scrubbed her with cold water and a hard brush until her skin broke and bled.
She begged for her baby. She’d be good, she’d take care, she’d do anything if he gave her baby back to her.
She’s somebody else’s problem now.
That’s what he’d told her. He had no use for daughters.
She hoped he’d beat her to death, but he seemed to know just how far he could go.
He wouldn’t let her die as she wanted. Just let her die, let her slide away into sleep where she could sit on the front porch rocker, looking at the mountains while she sang to her baby.
If she’d had something sharp, she’d have used it to slit her own throat. No, no, his first, she thought—all but dreamed—lying on the cot, eyes shut tight so she didn’t have to see her prison.
Yes, she’d kill him first, then herself.
She wondered if she could somehow sharpen one of the plastic spoons he brought her with her meals. Or her toothbrush. Maybe her toothbrush.
She could try, she would try, but God, she was just so tired.
She only wanted to sleep.
As her mind drifted she imagined tearing up her sheet, making a noose. There was nothing to hang it on, but maybe if she tied it to one of the steps, wrapped it tight enough around her neck, she could choke herself.
She couldn’t go on this way, couldn’t wake day after day, night after night in this terrible place, knowing he’d come down those stairs.
Worse, even worse than the brutality, the rapes, were all the endless hours of aloneness. An aloneness that grew deeper, wider, blacker, without her child.
She made herself get up, studied the sheet with dull, listless eyes.
Should she tear it into strips, braid the pieces? Would that make it stronger for what she needed?
So hard to concentrate when every thought had to fight through a fog. She toyed with the sheet, looking for weak spots, easy-to-tear spots.
The concept of killing herself seemed no more frightening than solving a routine math problem.
Even less so.
But she had to wait, she reminded herself. He’d come down soon. Wait until after he leaves again. Killing herself might take some time.
Today, she thought with a tired sigh. She could die today.
Escape.
She stood again, but this time the room swayed.
No, she realized, she swayed. And her stomach pitched.
She barely made it to the toilet, dropping to her knees as that pitching stomach emptied.
Clammy, queasy, she caught her breath, sicked up more.
Tears came as she curled on the floor, breathless, shivering. Tears of grief, and a strange kind of joy.
She heard the locks thunk. Heard his boot steps—heavy, heavy.
Shoving herself up, bracing on the sink, as her head still spun a little, she faced him.
She found her hate again as the long fog lifted into a terrible clarity.
Placing a hand on her belly, still saggy and loose from giving birth, she found a reason to live again.
“I’m pregnant,” she told him.
He nodded. “It best be a son this time. Now clean yourself up, and eat your breakfast.”
CHAPTER SIX