The light kept me blinking, and pretty much blind, but I recognized the voice. “Stokes?”
“You’re out late. Been on a date?” he asked. There was a taunt in his tone I didn’t like. Stress hormones coursed into my bloodstream.
Stay calm. Just keep talking.
“I was visiting my aunt,” I said, discreetly stretching my foot down the step to feel for the phone. “What are you doing here? And where’s your car? I didn’t see your car.”
The light swept away from my face toward the shed.
“I rode my bike.”
Spots danced in front of my eyes for a moment, but then I could distinguish the form of a bike leaning against the shed’s side.
“These miner lamps are great, but I don’t want to wear out the battery,” Stokes said. There was a click and everything went black again. “I took the bike so I wouldn’t wake Kelly, so she wouldn’t hear me leave. Man, I had to beg her to come home. She wanted to stay at Grace’s.”
Oh shit. Had he done something to her?
“I think you know why she left,” he said.
I heard him take a few steps toward me. Bile rose in my throat. My legs pulsed with tension like a runner at the starting line. The only thing I could see was Stokes’s dark, hulking form.
“She came back, but she told me I had to sleep on the couch. I couldn’t sleep. The fucking voice wouldn’t shut up. I kept hearing this goddamn fucking voice inside my head,” he said.
I took a step backward. There was nowhere to go—the front door was locked.
“It wouldn’t stop. It kept needling me. Wouldn’t let me sleep. ‘Why did you do it, Stokes? How could you do it? You are a degenerate son of a bitch.’”
Tendons pulsed on either side of my neck. If I could make a break across the field and run like the wind, I could lose him in the forest. But what if he was faster? My hand began working the keys. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. It took an eternity to maneuver them between my fingers into a spiked fist.
“You can come to hate the person you once loved. Isn’t that true, Nora? You’ve felt that hate inside, haven’t you?”
He took a few more steps. He came close enough that I smelled the smoke on his clothes. The alcohol on his breath. The sharp stink of his sweat. I swallowed hard. My tongue felt heavy as lead.
“Sure,” I said.
“You probably couldn’t stand the sight of Hugh. What a scumbag that guy was. You must’ve prayed for bad things to happen to him. You imagined making them happen yourself, didn’t you? You wanted to take your revenge. Isn’t that right?”
I clenched my barbed fist. Take one more step, Mister. Meet Gladiator Girl.
“Isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Shit!”
I heard him slap his jeans, spin around and walk away from me, kicking the dirt as he went.
“So, tell me what the hell I can do to change that, Nora!”
“Huh?”
“Kelly hates me. She wants a divorce. She said she hoped my dick would rot off. And if it didn’t rot off, she might cut it off like that woman in Virginia did to her husband. What’s her name . . . you know . . . Lorna?”
I was so light-headed with relief, I had to think for a second.
“Lorena Bobbitt?”
“Yeah, her. But I never loved Helene. I’ve only ever loved Kelly. Help me out here, Nora. Please. You’re the only one I can think of to ask. You’ve been through it. What could Hugh have said or done that would get you to forgive him? Tell me what she wants to hear.”
He sounded so sincere and bereft. I sat down on the doorstep and started to laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. It’s just . . . I’m relieved. You scared me. You know there’s a killer on the loose, Stokes.”
“Oh fuck. I’m sorry. I’m, like, crazy over this.”
“Come inside and we’ll talk. It’s too cold out here. But do me a favor first? Turn on that headlamp and help me find my phone.”
His hair shone with grease. He hadn’t shaved for days. Dirt discolored his fingernails. His jeans looked like they could walk away on their own. I poured Stokes a beer and myself some of the Stoli from the freezer while he fidgeted with his headlamp and avoided my eyes. He took out his pack of cigarettes.
“Please, could you not smoke inside?”
“Sorry,” he said, palming them. “I started after Kelly got pregnant. I think I was scared of how everything was changing. Kelly wasn’t interested in sex anymore. We’d get into bed and all she wanted to talk about was how her boobs hurt and her ankles were sore. But Helene . . . you know she shaved her hooch?”
I recoiled. This wasn’t an image I wanted in my brain.
“Gee, no, I didn’t.”
“We did wild stuff. Triple-X-rated. Things that Kelly would never get near.”
Was that it? Had Hugh betrayed me to fuck a sex tiger? Had I bored him in bed? Is that why he cheated with Helene and the others?
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Helene was just using me, I know that now. I was a dumb-ass. A slave to my dick. All I want is Kelly back. I love her. I can’t live without her. And I want to be a family with her and our baby. You’ve gotta tell me how I can make her love me again.”
He was frantic with narcissistic remorse. What could I say to this guy? So, your wife’s sex drive took a dip while she was pregnant. She was physically uncomfortable. She needed some extra love and attention to help get her turned on, or maybe some curated porn? Instead you gave her the shiv. You were feeling sexually neglected, so you broke her heart. Or were you so afraid of becoming a parent that you acted like a selfish child?
But his question had me wondering if there was anything Hugh could have said to change the way I felt. Could I have forgiven him if he hadn’t gotten Helene pregnant? I didn’t know. I guess I forgave his road affair without ever confronting him. No. That wasn’t forgiveness. That was denial. My silence was complicit. Like Hillary Clinton and countless other women who stayed with their cheating men, I’d made my bed.
“It all comes down to trust,” I said, pouring my second shot. “You have to earn her trust again. And that’s not going to be easy. It’s going to take a very long time.”
“You think there’s a chance?”
I nodded. Who was I to say there wasn’t? Forgiveness comes more easily to some.
“Here’s what I think. Take it slow with Kelly. Don’t be surprised if she warms up to you and then goes nuts again. Don’t answer any ‘specific’ sexual questions about your affair. She’ll ask, but if you answer, it will hurt her in a way she won’t be able to recover from. Make sure you tell her repeatedly that you think you were an idiot. And show her that you want to be a good dad. Take those parenting classes with her. If you really love your wife and want to save this marriage, you just might be able to.”