By the time he emerged from the bathroom, freshly showered and wearing clean clothes, she was serving up the scrambled eggs and bacon she’d prepared. After all, it was morning. Most people were having breakfast at this time of day. Breakfast was the one conventional thing in this otherwise Looking-Glass universe in which she was now living.
As though he hadn’t dropped a bombshell before retreating to the bathroom, he thanked her for the plate of food she set down on the table in front of him. As he tucked in, she motioned toward a plate stacked with slices of toast. “The toaster works better. It popped them up.”
“Good. The repair saved me from having to buy a new one.”
Performing ordinary tasks like making toast and placing the stick of butter on a dish had given her a self-delusional sense of control over her situation. She knew he noticed the dish as he knifed a pat of butter and spread it over his toast. He acknowledged it with a glance toward her but didn’t comment.
Halfway through the meal, he asked if she wanted another cup of coffee.
“If you’re getting up, please.”
He came back to the table with their refills, then sat down, straddling the seat of his chair in the way of a man. Any man. A normal, nonviolent man. A man who hadn’t shot out the TV of his redneck neighbors at dawn.
No longer able to hold back the question, she blurted, “My picture was on TV?”
“I saw it on our way out. That’s why I had to go back inside and take care of it.”
“Were they saying—”
“I don’t know what they were saying. The audio was muted.” He took a sip of coffee, watching her through the steam rising out of the cup. “But in big yellow letters across the bottom of the screen was a notice of a reward. Twenty-five thousand.”
“Who put up the reward? Jeff?”
He shrugged. “But I couldn’t let the Floyd brothers see that. God knows what they’d have done in order to claim the reward.”
“Why didn’t you explain this to me right away? Why did you let me go on the way I did?”
He leaned back in his chair. “I wanted to learn what you really think of me. Now I know. You have a very low opinion.”
“That’s not true.”
He made a scoffing sound.
“Well, can you blame me? Pauline, who only met you last night, conjectured that you’re a fugitive.”
“She tell you that?”
“Lisa did.”
“That seems to be the consensus among them. Norman bragged about his lawbreaking and urged me to swap stories with him.”
“What did you tell them?”
He didn’t answer.
“Nothing,” she said, guessing but knowing she was correct.
He asked, “Lisa tell you anything else?”
She related the context of their conversation about him. He didn’t comment on the girl believing him to be an outlaw over a wife deserter, nor did he say anything in response to her qualifying him as a man who wouldn’t expect sexual favors in exchange for kindness.
“She holds you in high esteem,” Emory said. “But you remain a puzzle to her. She asked me what I made of you.”
He waited, unmoving and expressionless.
“I’ll tell you what I told Lisa. I don’t know what to make of you.”
He kept his level gaze on her a few moments longer, then got up and carried his empty dishes to the sink. They worked side by side to clean the kitchen. It was amazing to her that, given the events of the last twelve hours, the scene they were now enacting was so commonplace. They could be any couple anywhere, going about a morning routine.
Except that established couples knew what to expect from each other. There might be an occasional surprise, but typically one didn’t astonish the other with extraordinary acts of kindness followed by outbursts of violence.
And established couples usually didn’t kiss with the blatant eroticism with which he’d kissed her last night. Not unless the partners were skin to skin, and the kiss was a prelude to the lovemaking it intimated.
When the last dish was put away, she said, “If you don’t mind me borrowing another shirt…”
“Help yourself.”
On her way to the bathroom, she took a shirt and a pair of socks from the chest of drawers. Her running clothes smelled of the Floyds’ house. It was a relief to peel them off. She put them in the sink to soak while she showered and washed her hair. The goose egg was barely a bump, and, except for a little tenderness, she wouldn’t have known the cut was there.
He’d said it wouldn’t require stitches in order to close, and she wondered now how he had known that. Maybe he’d planned it that way. Maybe he had struck her just hard enough to knock her unconscious, but not so hard as to cause a gash that required stitches.
She wondered where he’d hidden the rock.
She wrung out her clothes and took them with her into the main room. As before, she moved one of the dining chairs near the hearth and draped the garments over the rungs of the ladder-back. She sat on the hearth and finger-combed her hair until it had partially dried.
“I should dry it completely,” she said. “But I can’t hold my head up any longer.”
He marked his place in the book he’d been reading and set it on the table. “I’m whipped, too.” He left his recliner and went to each window, pulling down shades behind the muslin curtains, making the room darker, leaving the end table lamp and the fireplace the only sources of light.
“How do you know the Floyds won’t come here seeking retribution for their TV?”
“If they planned to attack today, they’d already be here.”
“They’re on foot.”
“That’s not what’s holding them back. Underneath all the swagger, they’re cowards.”
“How do you know?”
“I know the type.”
“You know them. From somewhere. From something.” She waited for a second or two, then prodded him for a response. “Don’t you?”
“Go to sleep, Doc.”
Too weary to engage in an argument with a stone wall, she got into bed and pulled the covers over her. He returned to his recliner, switched out the lamp, and covered himself with a quilt. Ponderous minutes ticked by. As tired as she was, she couldn’t relax. Every muscle of her body remained rigid, her mind in turmoil, her emotions clashing.
She knew that he wasn’t sleeping either. If she opened her eyes, she would no doubt find his on her: ever watchful, penetrating in their intensity, remarkably still except for the flickering reflection of the firelight.
Had he not shot out their television, the Floyds might have noticed the bulletin, called the police, reported her whereabouts, and collected their reward. By now she would have been in familiar surroundings, reunited with Jeff and resuming her ordinary life.
Instead she was snuggled into the bed of this unnamed man, who by turns mystified, aroused, and appalled her.
Regardless of her intention to keep her eyes closed, they opened of their own accord. As expected, he was looking directly at her. “Before we left, you went back into the bedroom.”
“I wanted a private moment with Lisa.”
“What for?” When he didn’t say anything, she came up on her elbows so she could see him better. “What for?”
He took a long time to answer. “I asked which of her brothers had fathered the baby. She told me it could have been either.”