But wasn’t that a good thing? An abundance. An overflow. It sounded perfect to me. I didn’t know what it was like to have too much of anything.
I thought of that as the first drop of blood hit my white blouse and ruined it. Finally. Extravagance. It wasn’t what I’d always hoped it would be. And even though I knew I could soak my pretty shirt in ice water, try to erase the dark blot with stain remover and sunshine, I’d always know that beneath the line of turquoise embroidery there was a smudge of evidence. Proof that I wasn’t the woman I believed myself to be: wanted, safe, loved.
Maybe everything would have been different if we had been alone that night. I’ve already admitted I’m prone to escape. What’s the point in fighting when you can walk away? But we must have woken her with our arguing, and when she stumbled bleary-eyed and half-asleep into the kitchen to find me bloody, she screamed.
Her fear was primal, a dark and wild thing that made her cling to me like a spider monkey. She was all arms and legs, sinew and terror wound so tight that I ended up bleeding all over her, too. The next morning I didn’t even try to wash her Dora pajamas or my flowing peasant shirt, even though they were both favorites. I just crumpled them in a ball and pushed them to the very bottom of the garbage can beneath the sink. Out of sight, out of mind.
We used the same tactic to divert her attention. A half-eaten bag of M&M’s calmed her down while I dabbed at my face with a dish towel. She rested her cheek on my shoulder and ate the candies one by one from his outstretched hand, saving the green ones for last because I had once told her they were my favorite. When the only chocolates left were green, she snagged the bag and handed it solemnly to me.
“For your owie.”
“I fell,” I told her, and had to suppress an inappropriate, crazed giggle because it was so cliché. A bad after-school special. I determined right then and there that we were gone, baby, gone. Forget the farmhouse I thought I loved and the way that he ran his calloused hands over my bare skin. Forget that strong chin and the look he gave me when he wanted me. My auntie always told me there were plenty of fish in the sea and maybe this time I would find one worth keeping.
But when I dared to sneak a glance at him, he was crying. Real tears on his cheeks and a line dashed across his forehead that proclaimed his guilt, his never-ending regret for what had happened.
“I’m so sorry,” he mouthed to me. And when I gave an almost imperceptible nod he made a quiet, strangled sound like a sob.
“Why are you crying?” she asked him. “Mommy’s hurt.”
“Your momma’s hurt makes my heart hurt,” he said, avoiding my eyes. “I’m just so sorry that it happened.”
“She fell,” my little girl said sagely, and though a little burr of disgust caught and held in the pit of my stomach, I let her go to him when he reached out his arms.
“We have to take good care of her, you and me,” he said, pressing her head into the crook of his neck. “You and me . . .”
She was asleep in no time.
And I, foolish fairy-tale-believing simpleton that I was, didn’t run.
I’m running now.
Day Three
* * *
Friday
LIZ
WHEN YOU LIVED in a town like Key Lake (population 6,567, give or take a few), Walmart was a necessary evil. It was the only chain store that would set up shop in such a little haven, never mind that businesses boomed during the summer as vacationers gleefully stocked up on everything from sunscreen to cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Always PBR. Because: small-town America.
The truth was, like it or not, Walmart was the only place in all of Key Lake where Liz could buy the essentials. Makeup and the dish soap that didn’t make her rags smell musty and cheap birdseed for her collection of feeders. And, of course, party supplies.
Liz grudgingly made a list because it was better than dwelling on the fact that her granddaughter (sweet Mary and Joseph) was asleep across the lake. She had learned long ago that sometimes getting lost in the details was better than stepping back to look at the whole, ugly picture. So rather than deal with the dull ache in her heart that made it difficult to breathe, Liz took out a pen and paper.
Napkins (the nice thick ones)
Citronella oil
Strands of white LED lights
Vodka (cheap)
Baguette
Mozzarella pearls
Prosciutto
Limes
Walmart would provide. But Liz didn’t have to like it. Thankfully, she also didn’t have to go when she risked being seen by someone she might know.
It was after midnight when Liz pulled into the oversized parking lot. She marveled at the number of cars at such a late hour and the myriad out-of-state plates. Mostly Iowa and South Dakota. But she spotted an SUV from Michigan and a motor home that hailed, impossibly, it seemed to Liz, from Florida. Why? she wanted to ask the driver. You’re surrounded by sea. Key Lake was, in comparison, an embarrassment. A dirty little mud puddle.
Liz slipped her purse strap crisscross over her chest and prepared herself for the worst. Drunk teens. Or—please God, no—drunk adults who should know better. Who would crack jokes and slur their words and flirt badly. There was nothing Liz hated so much as a bad flirt, the kind of man who damned a woman with faint praise or downright insulted her in a weak attempt to be charming. Liz had learned that even at fiftysomething she wasn’t immune to that sort of vague humiliation. But even corny pickup lines were preferable to idle chitchat over the watermelons with Agnes from the church’s Ladies Aid. Or Helen or Mira or Josephine. Liz was a good, God-fearing woman and a regular at the First Reformed Church of Key Lake, but she wasn’t the quintessential parishioner. She was fond of Jesus, not so much his people. And they seemed to love Walmart more than seemed strictly conventional.
For all her idle fears, Liz found the aisles of the store to be almost completely vacant. There was no greeter at the door at such a late (early?) hour and the customer service counter was abandoned. The gardening section echoed with her footsteps, and as she drew close to the darkened corner of the store the motion-sensor lights hummed to life in greeting. Clearly she was the first person who had wandered this far in a while.
There was a feel of apocalypse in the air, as if the Rapture had happened and Liz had been left behind. It felt inevitable, desolate, and she sank onto a gingham patio set display couch and put her head in her hands.