“Henry, people will look for me. Officer Yates, Lydia, Cash. Someone will wonder. You can’t get away with this.”
“Tara never thought I was stupid, Zoe. But you, you question me at every turn. Honestly, it’s so infuriating.” He says this conversationally. “I asked Yates to pass it along to Cash and Lydia. We had a rather heated conversation about your past. Your secrets. I told her everything, your drug pushing. Evelyn. You are not the person everyone thinks you are.” He purrs in my ear. “You just want to be left alone. You’re afraid. You’ve run away again.” He walks over to the dresser, picks up a wad of cash, waves it in my face. “You’ve even taken some of my money.”
I had shared different pieces of my story with different people, but no one knew the whole thing. Cash knew the most, he wouldn’t be deterred. But, but, he would go to Yates first. After her talk with Henry, she’d assume I’d stolen Henry’s money and skipped town.
Henry lies on the bed, curled into me, his breath hot and wet on my neck and I want to kick him away but I can’t make my legs cooperate. Three months. He’s going to keep me here for three months.
I’ll die first.
? ? ?
I wake up covered in urine. I smell it before I feel it. Henry is ripping the sheets from underneath me and I tumble against my cuffed wrist, shearing the skin until the blood runs down my arm, which enrages him even more. He is angry, yelling words I can’t understand. The sheets come away piss yellow and red. He rips off my underpants and nightgown, feels along my hip, those crusty ridges. He asks me, What the fuck is this? I answer him, It’s my clock. I don’t think it through; it just comes out and not even coherent. I can’t even be sure of what I say, it sounds garbled. All he hears is clock.
He marches to the dresser. Rips the clock cord out of the wall and slams the door behind him. With my free hand, I feel along my naked hip. Twelve days. I’ve been here twelve days.
? ? ?
I think he leaves the house during the day. I force myself awake, hear the door slam, the car slide down the driveway. I scream for as long as I can. I imagine Trisha from the market down the road in a little pink warm-up suit, shiny and metallic looking, a bright purple sweatband, new sneakers, trekking past the house, on a power walk trying for the last time to lose the baby weight. I scream for Trisha. I scream until my voice gives out and I am weak, hoarse. I scream all day. Or at least what I think is all day. I scream until Henry comes home.
? ? ?
Sunup, sundown, faint lights through the curtains, switch arms, a sponge bath. His hands roam my naked body but he can’t keep it up, so he gives up. More foreign clothing: track suits and gym clothes, baggy and falling off, I’m wasting away. I’d rather just starve to death. That will come faster than three months, surely.
“I got you a present.”
A smaller syringe, a faint yellow liquid.
“It won’t make you sick.” He smiles. This is my present. A drug that will kill me slower. I need to do something.
“Henry, wait. Hal.” I recall the name on the back of the picture. Hal and TJ. My voice is thick, molasses coated, stuck like tar on my tongue. I feel the edge of my dress, a summer garden dress, fit for bridal and baby showers, sweet-smelling perfume, and flutes of champagne. Pizzelles. Where did that come from? I remember my sister’s picture, smiling in front of the library on her college graduation day. A flower dress.
“What?” He stands at the foot of the bed, his fingers tapping against my bare foot impatiently. I struggle to sit up. Between doses, I retain a shocking amount of lucidity. Like the drug doesn’t so much seep from my system as much as it dumps out, the fog lifting like a heavy stage curtain.
“Hal,” I repeat.
“Don’t call me that.” His eyes narrow, his wrist, holding the syringe, flicks.
“Why? Isn’t it what you want?” I inch forward, suddenly sure-footed. Steady. I reach out, the handcuff pulling against my skin like a vise and I touch his arm. It’s warm under my fingertips and I close my eyes, remembering when, not that long ago, I would have made this gesture sincerely. Loving. The flat bones in his wrist are unyielding. He meets my gaze and falters. “Let me try.”