Chapter One: Loretta
Loretta Anne Lane. Loretta Lane.
As I look at the outfit Matt ordered, I realize it won’t cover the bruises on my arms. Or my legs. I also realize that part of my stupid infatuation with Matt was his name and how it fit with mine. Loretta Lane. I’d told myself it sounded glamorous, like a classic movie star. And when he said he wanted me to be a homemaker, baking bread, wearing pretty dresses, and having babies, I wanted those things, too. I told myself that it would be the perfect American dream. It would be something simple in a world that keeps feeling too complicated.
I have those things now. So why doesn’t it... feel good? Why does something that was supposed to be easy seem to get harder with each day? What am I doing wrong?
I ask myself this question a thousand times a day, more on days when he’s angry, and the voices whisper that none of this is my fault.
But he shouts down the voices, face inches from mine, hands squeezing my arms to hold me still, making it so I can’t turn away, ensuring that every hurled insult hits its mark.
Long hours. He comes home sullen and silent or raging and shouting about how he’s working ten-hour days to feed and clothe this family, and I’m not contributing. And when I say I could work, he shouts that I don’t think he’s going to make it, not going to provide for us.
You can’t win. You realize that? You never win with Matt, and marriage isn’t supposed to feel like a battle every day.
Today, he’s home early to get ready for the company Halloween Party. “Come on! Put it on, baby.” Matt is suddenly in the doorway, a beer in his hand and a leer on his face.
“I... It’s so skimpy.” Why? Why the hell would he want me to wear this to his work party when he spent last night telling me my stomach looked disgusting, shaming me for breastfeeding and getting saggy tits when the calories I’m burning haven’t even fixed my baby belly?
“I figure it’s time I show the guys what a perfect, pretty little wife I have at home.” He kisses my neck and squeezes my chest, looking disgusted when his hands come away wet. “Udders leaking,” he laughs it off and shrugs.
My breath remains a prisoner in my throat. We’re just going to laugh it off? Okay. Good. Tonight, he’s in a good mood.
Thank God.
“Go feed Arianna. My mom should be here by quarter of six.”
“Right. I will. What are you going as?” I’ve asked before, but I never got an answer.
He lightly slaps my ass. “My costume matches yours, baby. I’m gonna shower and shave before I put it on.” He tosses an orange and black bag from the costume store on the bed and heads to the bathroom.
I look at the plastic package spilling out of the bag.
The Big Bad Wolf.
Snarling, bloody teeth in a grotesque rubber mask. A shaggy suit that looks hot and itchy. Even though Halloween night is chilly in North Lake, the small city where we live, I know Matt is going to be sweaty. And irritable.
I hurry to feed Arianna, wondering how my little red dress with frilly cap sleeves and barely enough fabric to cover my butt is going to work with the evidence of Matt’s anger.
When I come out of the nursery almost an hour later, after nursing and showering, Matt looks me over. “You gotta getglasses or something, Loretta. You must bump into things five times a day.” He jerks his head at the bruises on my arms, and I don’t bother to correct him.
Does he truly not remember? I don’t know, but I know I don’t want to find out via a long, awkward discussion that will only make him angry.
“I have some dark stockings that’ll work with this,” I mutter and sidestep him. I tell myself that all husbands and wives have rough patches. That we’ve only been married two years, and it’s only been bad since Arianna came. He’s cranky because she won’t sleep through the night. Cranky because she had colic, even though it passed pretty quick. Cranky because she’s been miserable and getting over an ear infection.
Just plain cranky.
Angry.
But he’ll be back to his old smiling, joking, vibrant self if I can make everything go smoothly. Tonight is Halloween, a night for daring and danger, for scary and fun-to-be-scared movies. Couples clinging to each other. Chocolate. Sexy little costumes. Risqué romance.
I swallow and slowly let my towel drop. Maybe this will be the start of something good. Starting over.
ARIANNA’S SHRILL CRYmakes me gasp, and my harlot red lipstick skids across my lower lip, dropping into the sink. I rush from the little bathroom adjoining our bedroom and into the nursery.
Matt is cursing and hopping on one foot, punching the pastel tapestries of nursery rhyme characters that line her walls, putting holes in the plaster.
I grab Ari and clutch her to me, her panicked screams settling into half-asleep whimpers as I soothe her, my hand protectively on her back.
