Dr. Townsend hasn’t been able to fix me. He hasn’t been able to rinse the colors from my head. He knows the colors also appeared to a great-aunt on my mother’s side of the family. Or maybe he already knew this flaw of mine can be passed on to babies just like it was passed on to me.
Tomorrow’s escape has to happen. Has to.
14
Before...
NOVEMBER 1938 TO FEBRUARY 1939
When I awakened in my bed, head pounding, I believed for a handful of hazy seconds that what happened the previous night with Truman had all been a ridiculous dream—the wine, the dancing, the confiding, the kissing, the touching, the unspeakable act on the rug—all of it a dream. It had seemed like one in those first moments of sleepy consciousness. I would never have sex with a married man, my employer’s husband no less, and someone old enough to be my father—drunk or not. I would never do that. The memory of having done so was a creation of my imagination.
But as I became more alert and the throbbing in my head did not clear, I knew I had imagined none of it.
Waves of regret and shame rushed through me. God Almighty, how could I have done such a thing?
Yet it hadn’t entirely been my fault. Truman had given me too much to drink. He’d kissed me and I’d wanted him to stop.
But then I kissed him back.
I had liked his kisses. I’d wanted them. And then I hadn’t found a way to stop him from doing the rest. I should have tried harder to push him away. I should have insisted. I shouldn’t have let him tug at my underwear or push my legs apart or...
I felt the contents of my stomach roil and I dashed out of my bed to heave over and over into the toilet. I sat back on my knees when my stomach was empty, trembling with the realization that even with the retching, I would not be able to rid myself of what I had done and what I had failed to do. Minutes passed before I rose to my feet. I dressed in my uniform and made my way gingerly into the kitchen. Everything ached—my head, my stomach, the private place inside that had been invaded, my inner being.
I laid out Truman’s breakfast before I heard him moving about the house and retreated into the kitchen when I heard him coming down the hall. I listened as he sat down at the table, opened the newspaper that I’d placed at his chair, lowered his coffee cup onto its saucer. I heard the faint scraping of fork tines against his plate.
It was usual for me to refill the Calverts’ coffee cups as they ate breakfast without them having to ask, and though I wished I could just stay in the kitchen until he was finished eating, Truman called for me. He wanted more coffee, please.
Seconds passed before I reached for the coffeepot and pushed open the kitchen door, which was usually latched open unless there were guests. I had unhooked it that morning so that it would swing shut.
Truman was wearing a starched white shirt and twill pants, and his hair was plastered neatly into place with pomade. Even so, he looked disheveled. Tired. Out of sorts. I walked over to where he sat and began to pour. My hand shook, and coffee spilled off the rim of his cup and onto the saucer.
“Rosie.”
I stopped pouring and slowly raised my head to look at him.
“Why is the kitchen door closed?” His voice was both gentle and earnest.
“I... I was... ,” I stammered. “I don’t know.”
“We need to go back to the way our lives were before. Exactly the way they were before. It’s important.” His tone was quietly insistent, his gaze intense. “What happened last night needs to be forgotten. Like it didn’t happen. We had too much to drink. Things got out of hand. I shouldn’t have kissed you. We shouldn’t have...” His voice dropped away.
I nodded, unable to speak a word.
“The kitchen door should be open this morning, right?”
He waited until I answered.
“Yes,” I whispered.
He reached out to touch my arm, but it was not like last night. It did not make my insides ache to be held. It was the touch of someone in quiet distress. “Can you do what we both must do? I need to know.”
In his voice I heard the unhappy man who told me he wished he could go back to when he had been my age. When he’d had options.
“Yes,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure I could.
He removed his hand and exhaled. “How about you try again with the coffee?”
This time when I poured, my hand stayed steady. He thanked me. I went back to the kitchen and relatched the door open on its hook.
