Roen took in every word, glad for the dark that kept her from seeing him wince. He had asked, so he was duty bound to listen. “And how do you answer my question now?”
“He punched me, threw me to the ground, and kicked me. He dislocated my shoulder so often I mostly could put it back on my own. I had black eyes, a swollen jaw. He broke myfingers. He liked to put his hands around my neck until I almost passed out, and when I was as limp as a ragdoll, he’d release me. I fell down the stairs trying to get away from him. I still have a slight limp when I’m tired because of the time I hurt my knee. Jeremiah had fists as big as hams, or it seemed that way. He could drive the breath from my lungs with a single blow. I lost a child that he didn’t know about because he punched me in the belly. For a long time I thought there was a possibility that I somehow encouraged him to hit me there. Perhaps you’ll think it was wrong of me, but I didn’t want the child.
“The law doesn’t account for a husband raping his wife, and I didn’t either back then, but I know now that’s what it was to be in bed with him. He raped me.”
“Jesus,” Roen said under his breath. Lily fell quiet for a time and Roen did nothing to coax more from her. If she hadn’t exhausted herself, she was nearing that end.
“I loved him,” said Lily. “Or I convinced myself I did. You might think that I married young, but I was almost twenty-one. I knew he liked his drink before I married him, but I was naïve enough to believe I could change that. He never struck me while he was courting me, although it was a brief courtship. I am primarily responsible for that. I wanted to leave home. I spent years caring for my mother, who complained of one malady after another and insisted she needed me close. Doc Dunlop saw her regularly back then and he told me that she was a malingerer, and that if I let her, she’d make me her lifelong captive. My father left years earlier. My brother married and moved away. I believed I was doing my daughter’s duty by her. It was Doc who made me wonder if that were true.”
Roen squeezed her hand. “Frying pan into the fire.”
“Exactly,” she said. “I left my mother for Jeremiah, traded one cage for another. Mother, by the way, moved to Denver shortly before my wedding. She lives with her sister and is doing very well according to my aunt, so Doc wasn’t wrong in his estimation of her illnesses.”
Roen nodded. “When did the abuse begin?”
“The denigration began within weeks of marrying. There were so many things I couldn’t do to meet his expectations. You probably know how I responded to that.”
“You tried harder.”
“Yes. I wanted to please him.” She sighed. “I couldn’t. It’s another thing I know now that I didn’t understand then. For years, I truly believed I was at a fault. If he hit me, I thought I must deserve it. If he berated me, it was because it was justified. I can give you dozens of examples of how I disappointed him, and you will shake your head because you’ll see right through to the truth and know no one could have satisfied him. Violence was in his nature. Drinking unleashed it, but so did I, or I believed I did.”
It was difficult for Roen to reconcile the strength he saw in Lily now with the subjugated woman she had been, but he trusted every word of her account. “Did he hurt the children?”
“No. Not intentionally. Sometimes Clay would put himself in harm’s way trying to protect me and get swatted or fall, but Jeremiah never turned on them. I’ve often wondered if he had struck them whether I would have left him. I think I would have, and I think he knew it. He never crossed that line.”
“You would have left,” said Roen. “I know it as well as your husband knew it. Believe it, Lily. You would have gone.”
Lily slipped her hand out from under his. She lifted one of his hands in hers, bent his fingers, and pressed her mouth to his knuckles. “Thank you for that. Thank you for trusting me to do it.”
“You said that people knew what was happening inside your marriage. Did anyone try to help you?”
“Doc did. Doc Dunlop at first, and when he left, it was Ridley who treated me.”
“I understand, but they took an oath to do that. What about other folks?”
“Ben. Once he became sheriff, he more or less made it his mission to get me out of my situation.”
“And when was that?”
She thought back. “About four months before Jeremiah died.”
“Lily. You were married at least ten years when he died, and you’re telling me Ben intervened only in the last four months?”
“I will not tolerate you being critical of him,” she said firmly. “He was a deputy for five years before and he did whathe could, mostly at Sheriff Brewer’s direction. You need to understand, Roen, that I didn’t want their interference. I discouraged it. It was worse for me when they’d lock Jeremiah up and then release him a day or so later. I didn’t acknowledge that my husband hurt me, and even if people suspected or knew for a fact it was happening, I was grateful for them pretending it was otherwise. I had my children and I had my pride. Folks obliged me. I was gratified that they spared me the humiliation.”
“So you were alone.”
“For a lot of years that was true, and I accept that it was by my choice. What I didn’t know was that people had never stopped being concerned. Behind my back, Ben presented the draft of a law to the town council that would make it a crime for a husband to beat his wife. Before that, if I’d pressed charges, enforcement of the existing law would have been difficult because Jeremiah and I were married.”
“The law passed?” he asked.
“It did. Unanimously. They barely had time to record it in the books when Jeremiah was killed.”
“Then it never helped you.”
“On the contrary. It helped me to know that there were people who cared deeply. The thinking had turned against men like Jeremiah. I thought because I blamed myself for how he treated me that folks also blamed me. That wasn’t true, at least not in the main. Amanda Springer supported the law. So did Ridley Madison. They were important voices on my behalf because I no longer had one.”
“And this all took place before Jeremiah died?”
