“I love you,” I’d say, my voice flat as a pancake.
“Say it like you mean it.”
“I am!”
But I wasn’t. And God help me, but there was something about his begging, something about the naked neediness of him that made it hard as the dickens for me to give him what he wanted.
“Kiss me back when I kiss you,” he’d tell me.
I’d pucker up like a fish, but keep my lips immobile.
“Open your eyes,” he’d say as he made love to me. I’d gaze at the ceiling like a store mannequin.
He’d pepper me with questions. “It’s Joe, isn’t it? It’s Joe again.”
“How could it be? You made me send that letter.”
“Did he come here? Did he come when I was gone?”
“Yes!” I finally told him. I was at the end of my rope, and I wanted to wound him, to make him realize all his efforts couldn’t stop Joe from loving me. “Yes, he came here. He didn’t believe I wrote that letter. He wanted me to go away with him. I refused and he left. End of story.”
But as far as Charlie was concerned, it was just the beginning. It ate at him. He questioned me more and more. Did I sleep with Joe? Did I kiss him? How long did he stay? Did he see Becky? How many times had he visited? The more he questioned, the more perverse and angry I grew. He started drinking again. The more I withheld affection, the more he drank. And the more he drank, the more I withheld.
After a month or so, he begged my forgiveness and tried wooing me. He brought me flowers. He did the dishes. He had his parents watch the children so he could take me on a romantic weekend to a cabin by a lake near Jackson. Bless his heart, he couldn’t have known that it would remind me of that blissful time with Joe. He only knew that I sobbed all weekend. Charlie cried, too. “How can I make you love me?” he asked, making me feel like a monster, but not making it any easier to show him affection.
My saving grace was that Charlie started traveling. His early efforts to convince his father to branch out and expand the hardwareside of the lumber business started paying off. Instead of just running a retail store in Wedding Tree, they’d become a supplier to out-of-town five-and-tens and general stores, providing them with nails and screws and other items. There were plans to open another full lumber store in another small town. Charlie was usually gone two nights a week, and on those nights, I would breathe easier. The children and I would usually have dinner with my parents or his parents. None of our surviving grandparents were doing too well at that point, and my maternal grandmother lived with my parents.
One morning after Charlie had been on a trip—it was the Saturday before Easter, I distinctly remember that—he came home at ten in the morning. That was unusual, both because he’d been gone on a Friday night—and Good Friday at that!—and because when he traveled overnight, he was usually far enough away or had enough business to keep him busy all day, so he never returned before evening. The other thing that was unusual—for the hour, anyway—was that he reeked of alcohol. I don’t know how he’d driven home in that state; perhaps he finished off a pint in the driveway. All I know is he was slurring his words when he stumbled in. He seated himself at the kitchen table, sent Rebecca outside to play, told me to put on a fresh pot of coffee, and ordered me to sit down.
“There’re going to be some changes around here,” he declared. “I’ve decided that what’s good for the gander is good for the goose.”
I eased myself into the chair across from him, thinking he’d drunkenly mixed up the metaphor. I was about to say something, but his eyes held a diamond-like glint that made my blood run cold. “What kind of changes?”
“It’s high time you ’preciate all that I’ve done for you. Not every man would marry a woman pregnant with another man’s child, then put up with her treating him like dirt.”
“I—I do appreciate all you’ve done, Charlie.”
“No.” He thumped his hand on the table so hard the saltshaker slid off the cherry-printed tablecloth, onto the linoleum floor. “In order to ’preciate it, you need to fully ’xperience it for yourself.”
By then, I felt like I had ice in my veins. “What are you talking about?”
He glared at me, all cold-eyed. His nose was red and I saw a glimpse of evil in him that I’d never seen before. It struck me as the underbelly of love; if you flipped the emotion over on its back like a turtle, the opposite side would be black and sin-soaked and gin-fumed. Anyway. He sat there, his eyes red and shining, scary as any Halloween mask. He leaned forward, his forearms on the table. “You’re gonna raise my illegitimate child, and you’re gonna love it as your own.”
I must have half laughed, because he pounded the table again and stood up. He loomed over me, and for the first time in a long, long time, I was scared—physically afraid—of Charlie. This was a man I didn’t know.
“I got a girl pregnant.” He hitched up his pants, as if he was proud of this. “She’s gonna have a baby, and she’s gonna give it to us to raise.”
I stared at him, uncomprehending. “We’re... going to adopt?”
“No, damn it. Aren’t you listening? No adoption’s needed. It’s mine.” He thumped his chest with his right hand.
I sat there, trying to take this in. Charlie had been unfaithful? The thought sent my mind reeling, but the matter of adultery didn’t hurt at first. Oh, it did later—but I knew I was largely at fault for that. At that moment, I simply couldn’t process what he was saying. “You want everyone to know you’re having an illegitimate baby?” I asked.
“No. And no one ever will, because they’ll think the baby’s yours. You’re going to start wearing padding.” He leaned back against the kitchen counter, a pleased smirk on his face. “People will think you’re pregnant, and when it gets close to time, we’ll go to Mississippi. Dad’s planning on opening a store up there anyway; I’ll stall it until the timing’s right. Folks’ll think you had the baby there.”
I felt as if I were in a nonsensical dream. “That’s crazy. It’ll never work.”
“Why not?”
