Wood floor, empty walls, log walls, and a small, empty fireplace made out of mismatched brick.
He nudged her toward the door.
So many locks, she thought. Why would he need so many locks?
He opened them, one by one.
Everything—her plans, her hopes, her pain, her fear—fell away as she stepped outside on the short, sagging porch.
The light, oh, the light. Just the hint of the setting sun sliding behind the mountains. Just a hint of red against the peaks.
The smell of pine and earth, the feel of air moving over her face. Warm, summer air.
Trees surrounded her with a scraped-up patch of ground where vegetables grew. She saw the old truck—the same one she’d so foolishly climbed into—an old washing machine, a tiller, a locked cattle gate with barbed wire forming a toothy fence around what she could see of the cabin.
She started to step off the porch, lost in wonder, but Sir yanked her back.
“This is far enough. Air here’s just like out there.”
She lifted her face as tears of stunned joy rolled down her cheeks. “Oh, the stars are coming out. Look, Rory, look, my baby. Look at the stars.”
She tried to tip the baby’s head up with her finger, but he only grabbed on to it, tried to gnaw.
It made her laugh, kiss the top of his head.
“Listen, listen. Do you hear the owl? Do you hear the breeze going through the trees? Isn’t it beautiful? It’s all so beautiful.”
As he babbled and gnawed, Alice tried to see everything at once, absorb everything.
“That’s enough. Go back in.”
“Oh, but—”
The rope dug into her throat. “I said ten minutes, no more.”
Once a week, she remembered. He’d said once a week, too. She went inside without a sound, and this time saw the shotgun on a rack over the empty fireplace.
Was it loaded?
One day, please God, one day she’d try to find out.
She limped back down the steps, amazed the ten minutes had both exhilarated and exhausted her.
“Thank you, Sir.” She didn’t think—couldn’t think—of what it meant that the humble words didn’t burn her throat as they once had. “Rory’s going to sleep better tonight for getting that fresh air. Look there, his eyes are drooping already.”
“Put him in his bed.”
“I should feed and change him first.”
“Put him in his bed. He wakes up, then you do that.”
She settled him down. He barely fussed at all, and quieted when she rubbed gentle circles on his back. “See that? See how good that was for him?”
Once again, she kept her head down. “Did I do everything you told me?”
“You did.”
“Can we really go outside once a week?”
“We’ll see about it, if you keep doing as I say. If you show me you’re thankful for what I give you.”
“I will.”
“Show me you’re thankful now.”
Keeping her head lowered, she closed her eyes tight.
“You’ve had more’n enough time to heal up after birthing the boy. And he’s eating solids so he don’t need your milk the same as he did. It’s time you do your wifely duties.”
Saying nothing she walked to the cot, pulled the baggy dress over her head, lay down.
“You’ve gone to sagging here and there,” he said as he stripped. Leaning over, he pinched her breasts, her belly. “I can tolerate such things.” He climbed on top of her.
He smelled of cheap soap and kitchen grease, and his eyes held that wicked, burning light she knew too well.
“I can do my duty. You feel my staff, Esther?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“You say: ‘I want my husband to use his staff to take mastery over me.’ You say it!”
She didn’t weep. What did words matter?
“I want my husband to use his staff to take mastery over me.”
He rammed into her. Oh, it hurt, it hurt.
“Say: ‘Take what you will of me, for I am your wife and your servant.’”
She said the words as he pounded and grunted, as his face contorted with a horrible pleasure.
She closed her eyes, and thought of the trees and the air, of the last rays of the sun, and of the stars.
He kept his word, so she made the trip up the stairs and onto the porch once a week.
When the baby was a year old, she worked on the nerve to ask him if she could fix him a fine meal to repay him for his kindness. To celebrate Rory’s birthday.
If she could convince him, then show him she was obedient, she might get to the shotgun.
He came down with her evening meal, picked up the baby as always.
But this time, without a word, he carried the baby to the steps.
“Are we going outside?”
“You eat what I brought you.”
Fear made her voice sharp. “Where are you taking the baby?”
“Past time he was weaned. Time he spent more time with his father.”
“No, please, no. I’ve done everything you said. I’m his mother. I haven’t nursed him tonight. Let me—”
He paused on the steps, out of her reach. “I got a cow. He’ll get plenty of milk. You do as I say, and you’ll come up and sit outside once a week. But you don’t, you don’t.”
She fell to her knees. “I’ll do anything. Anything. Please don’t take him from me.”
“Babies grow to boys, boys to men. It’s time he knew more of his daddy.”
When the door shut, locked, she got shakily to her feet. Something snapped inside her. She could hear it, like the crack of a dry twig inside her head.
She went to the chair, sat, folded her arms, rocked. “Hush now, baby. Hush now.” And smiling, she sang a lullaby to her empty arms.
— Present Day —
More than ready to go home, Bodine stepped out into the lingering wild lights of sunset. She justified leaving earlier than usual—knowing she’d concentrate better on reports, spreadsheets, and schedules at home.
She just couldn’t shoulder more grief on top of her own without breaking down.
Then she stepped out under a sky licked and laced by reds and purples and golds, and saw Callen standing with the horses, entertaining a young couple and their deliriously delighted toddler.
“Horsie, horsie, horsie!” He chanted, bouncing on his mother’s hip, stretching out to bang his hands on Sundown’s neck.
She noted Callen confabbing in low tones with the father, then the father whispering something in the mother’s ear that had her shaking her head quickly, then biting her lip, then giving Callen a long look.
“Up to you,” Callen said. “But I can promise this one’s gentle as a lamb.”
“Come on, Kasey. He’ll be fine.” The father, already grinning, pulled out his cell phone.
“Just sitting. Just sitting,” Kasey insisted.
“You got it.” Callen swung into the saddle—a move that had the toddler clapping as if he’d performed a magic trick. “Want to come up here, partner?”
When Callen held out his arms, the little boy would have leaped straight into them. Conflicted, the mother held him up, then pressed both hands to her heart at the sight of the toddler squealing with joy in front of her.
“Horsie! I ride horsie!”
“Smile at your daddy so he can get your picture.”
“I ride horsie, Daddy!”