Mrs. White

by Margaret Tracy

  “Yes,” Mrs. White whispered. From spice cabinet to silverware drawer to the pot cupboard beneath the stove.…

  Why didn’t I stop him? Why didn’t I stop Cornell and say, My husband is a murderer, help me, save me, someone, please.…

  Mrs. White felt tears welling up in her eyes. She heard her husband’s voice going on and on like a lullaby. He’s toying with me, she thought sickly, he’s pretending he doesn’t know when he does—he does.

  Mrs. White felt the tears filling her eyes, ready to flow over. She did not know how long she could keep herself together. What’s the matter? Paul would ask.

  You, thought Mrs. White. And what you do to those women.

  “I think a young guy, you know, can’t be with his mother all the time or he gets soft, that’s the thing. I mean, a mother’s good to teach a boy manners and …”

  Mrs. White turned and stepped quickly to the refrigerator. She opened the door and pulled out the vegetable drawer. She seized an onion and brought it back to the counter. She just had time to slice it in half before the tears started pouring down her cheeks.

  She cut the onion and cried and cried while Paul’s voice crooned on.

  “Anyway, the important thing is I was thinking, you know, maybe I’ve been working too hard. Maybe … is anything wrong?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, barely choking back a sob. “Just the onion.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Oh, yeah. What I was thinking is maybe we don’t spend enough time together. I mean all of us, as a family. I’ve seen a lot of kids who went wrong because of that.”

  “Yes,” was all Mrs. White managed to say.

  She put down her knife and reached for the slab of beef she was preparing to cook. She threw it down on a serving plate and watched it slide about on streaks of red.

  All those women, she thought. She wiped her eyes with her hands.

  She carried the serving plate to the oven, opened the broiler door, and slid the steak off the plate and into the broiler.

  “Well, I don’t know,” she heard Paul say. “This weekend will be different.”

  Mrs. White straightened and began to carry the plate back to the counter.

  “This weekend,” said Paul, “we’re going to spend together.” He took a slug of beer. “All weekend,” he repeated. “All together.”

  The next sound Mrs. White heard was the serving plate shattering on the floor.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Paul was ready for anything that night. He wanted to be with his family; he wanted them to do things together. The kids, of course, would have preferred to watch television, but after a lot of moaning and groaning, they settled down to play a game.

  It was one of those fantasy games that Junior liked so much. Everyone pretended to be a warrior or a wizard and traveled through make-believe caverns fighting dragons and such. Junior was the “gamemaster,” a sort of general emcee. Paul was Lord Dark, a powerful wizard. Mrs. White and Mary played together as Lenora, the female warrior.

  They sat in the den, their charts and graphs on their laps. They listened while Lord Dark traversed the dungeons.

  “A shivering blob of luminescent jelly approaches you,” said Junior.

  “Okay, let me see here,” said Paul, consulting his charts. “I’m going to cast a spell of motionlessness on him.”

  He rolled a group of strangely shaped dice.

  “The blob splits in two,” said Junior, “and two goblins armed with swords rush out of it at you.”

  “I draw my dagger,” said Lord Dark.

  Mrs. White sat in the easy chair with Mary on her lap. She stared into the dark screen of the television set. It seemed like a peephole into a tunnel of impenetrable blackness. It seemed to show her the real passageway in which she pretended to be playing: a cavern hall, lined with murky stones, with hands reaching out for her from every direction, with horrors around every corner.

  This is my life, she thought miserably. Every day with this man, for so many, many years.

  And, like the cavern that seemed to stretch out before her, she saw the dark tunnel of the future. Day after day after endless day of living with Paul, and of knowing. Knowing what he did, knowing where he was when he said he was working late. Knowing what he did to all those women.

  “The first goblin swings,” said Junior, rolling the dice. “And misses.”

  “I plunge my dagger into his throat,” said Lord Dark.

  “He’s wounded,” said the gamemaster. “Black blood comes pumping out of his throat.”

  “Ooooh,” said Mary. “Yech.”

  Lord Dark laughed.

  What was odd, Mrs. White thought, was that she did not really feel afraid anymore. How could she feel afraid, sitting here in the bosom of her family, surrounded by her loved ones. She did not really know how she felt, she was so dazed. But her primary emotion—the one that kept rising in her throat whenever she blinked herself into awareness—was disgust.

  She glanced at Paul, her eyes hollow and sad.

  “He stabs him in the belly,” said Lord Dark lightly.

  It was not him so much. How could the sight of her own husband disgust her? It was the thing. The thing that was inside him. The thing that he did to all those women. It was evil. It was as endlessly and darkly evil as the cavern corridor. It was evil—and it had touched her.

  “Blood …” said the gamemaster, somewhere far away.

  “… the knife into his …” said Lord Dark.

  “… blood …”

  It had touched her, and it was inside her, crawling under her flesh like something slimy and evil. It was growing. She could feel it. Getting larger with every passing second as her awareness of the truth grew more distinct.

  “… slashing at his …”

  “… blood …”

  And somehow she felt that it included her, that she was part of it. She was soiled. The feeling made her heavy inside, as if she could not move, as if there was nothing for her to do but live, day after day after day after day, the endless round of cooking and mending and cleaning, while he went out in the world and did the thing.

  It made a terrible sort of sense to her. If a man went out and earned money, didn’t his wife, by virtue of being his helpmate, feel that that money was hers, too, by right? Then if what a man went out and did was evil—was not she evil too?

  It was all inside her, slithering beneath the flesh, soiling her.

  “… Mom …”

  Mrs. White glanced up vaguely.

  “Mom,” said Junior, “it’s Lenora’s turn.”

  For a long moment Mrs. White sat staring at her son. There, at last, was that transformation she had at first expected. As she looked into his clean, young, open face—so much like Paul’s had been—she saw the product of a soiled, ugly union. The spawn of evil was evil too.

  “Mo-om,” said Junior.

  “Yes—yes, I’m sorry,” said Mrs. White. “Um—where shall we go, Mary?”

  The little girl looked up at her, and Mrs. White looked down into her plain, serious little face.

  “Let’s go north,” said the little girl, “away from Daddy.”

  “All right,” said Mrs. White. Her voice was nearly a whisper. As she looked at her daughter, a new surge of feeling swept over her.

  She did not believe it. No matter how logical it seemed, she could not believe that little Mary or Paul Jr. were evil too. And if she herself was soiled …

  “Mo-om,” said Junior.

  “I’m sorry?” said Mrs. White.

  “You find yourself in a black, black corridor,” said the gamemaster. “You hear something slithering in the dark ahead of you. You smell something rancid.”

  If she herself was soiled, maybe—possibly—she could be redeemed by saving, rescuing whatever she had produced that was still innocent, still good.

  “I move forward,” Mrs. White said softly.

  Slowly, as if it were an old rusty door, Mrs. White felt her loyalty, her unity with her hus
band, swinging away, shifting. She stared at Junior with damp eyes. These were her children—her children. Hers. And somehow—somehow she had to get through this terrible weekend, this vast endless corridor of days in which there was no Cornell, no neighbors, no one, no one who could help her. Somehow she had to make her brain work—alone, all alone—and figure out what she could do to save whatever was left of the good.

  “Suddenly,” said the gamemaster, “a huge, hairy spider scrambles out at you from the dark. It’s eight feet tall, and its fangs are dripping with slimy poison …”

  Mrs. White bit down hard, trying to keep the tears back. She was not disgusted anymore. She did not feel soiled. She was only scared.

  “I raise my sword,” she said softly.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  “Well,” Paul said, “guess it’s time for bed.”

  A pang of terror went through Mrs. White. She and Paul were alone in the room.

  She must not have been paying attention. The game had ended without her even noticing. The children had gone to bed. Trembling, she felt her cheek for the memory of their kiss good night, but remembered nothing. She sat there, touching her own face lightly, as if needing to caress anything that still was soft and gentle. Bed.

  “I’m tired,” Paul said.

  Her hand dropped away from her face. There was nothing gentle or soft left in the room, left anywhere. There was only Paul sitting in the dark before her. There was only the idea now—one she had forgotten about, one she had never considered—of going to bed with him.

  The prospect made her close her eyes, horrified and sickened. How could she do such a thing? She opened her eyes again. Paul was hunched forward in his chair, his arms down at his side. How could she sleep beside such a thing as that?

  “You coming?”

  Paul stood up. Her gaze followed him, and in the dark he loomed above her, enormous, like a monster. How could she ever rest beside it?

  “In a minute,” she choked out faintly.

  She turned away from him. Then Paul clomped slowly by her, covering her for a second in his shadow.

  She walked very slowly down the hall. She took each step with the greatest care.

  Finally, too soon, she reached the end. She saw the rectangle of light that was her bedroom. She looked at the two dark spaces that were her children’s rooms.

  She watched the carpet beneath her feet as she trudged the final distance. At last the light from her bedroom spilled onto her feet.

  “Joan?” Paul whispered from within.

  She stood in the doorway now, squinting against the light. When her eyes adjusted, she saw what shape was swimming there. Paul was in his T-shirt, his muscles flexed, his work shirt balled up in his fists.

  “How’d you like the game?” he said. “I really did. Junior gets a real kick out of it.”

  Mrs. White only shrugged. She managed a tiny smile. Shaking, her heart beating loudly, she walked an endless distance toward him. When at last she reached him, he seemed not to have moved. He was still mashing the shirt in his big hands.

  “You look really pretty, honey,” he said.

  Mrs. White’s weak smile flashed again. It would take only a few steps to pass him; to get to her closet for her nightgown. Then she could go to the bathroom, close herself behind the bathroom door.

  Breathing quickly, she took one step, then another. She had the nightgown in her hand. She forced herself to move again, past him, back to the door. One step. Another.

  Then Paul had her.

  He pulled her to him. His powerful arms went around her, holding her; his hard, five-o’clock-shadowed face was close to hers.

  “Joan,” he said.

  His lips, big and wet, were on her neck. His teeth were biting her. His smell was on her. She was clasped, tied up in his arms. She moved her head back from his, as if for air.

  “It’s not too late,” he whispered. “It’s still early.”

  Staring at the ceiling, at the flakes of plaster cracking from it, she sighed.

  “Oh, but …” she began, “I … please … I … don’t feel well.”

  There was a second. Then his hold of her relaxed.

  “Oh,” he said quietly. “Well … you sure, honey?”

  Mrs. White, her face still lifted, her eyes still averted, only nodded.

  “Oh, well … okay.”

  The fingers in her skin, the arms around her arms loosened. She was free. She smiled once more, quickly, into his steely eyes. Then she escaped.

  She watched the white carpet under her feet move rapidly toward her and behind her. Then she saw just the tiles of the bathroom. She felt the wood and glass of the mirrored door at her back. She felt the cold steel of the lock move and jiggle in her hands.

  Mrs. White leaned forward against the sink. But the face in the mirror—pale, sunken, bleary—made her turn away. Cold water from the silver faucet hit and then warmed in her hands. She splashed it onto her face again and again. She washed away her makeup. Then she turned the water off.

  She pulled off her dress. She undid her bra and shimmied out of her slip and her underwear. Then she worked her way into her nightgown.

  She ran a brush once, twice, three times, through her hair. Then she combed it back over her ears with her fingers. She yanked a piece of toilet paper off the roll and blew her nose. She sniffled. Then she sighed.

  Mrs. White turned slowly and unlocked the door. She returned to the bedroom. It was darker now. Only one light, beside the bed, was lit.

  Paul stood next to the bed wearing only his blue pajama top. He was stepping into the bottoms. Quickly, she looked away from him. She only heard him say,

  “How do you feel?”

  “Okay,” she heard herself reply. “I mean … there’s still a little headache.”

  “Oh, gee, well, that’s too bad.”

  There was no more talk now. Mrs. White walked past him to the bed and pulled the cover and sheets down. Then she got under them. Lying there, she stared up at the ceiling. Then she felt the bed beside her move.

  She heard Paul lie down and pull the cover over him. She heard him reach over and snap off the light. Then she heard him lean up on one massive arm.

  “I can make you feel better,” he whispered.

  A chill went down Mrs. White’s back. “No. I mean … it’s okay.”

  “I used to make your headaches go away. Remember?”

  Mrs. White swallowed slowly. “Not tonight. Please. Okay?”

  She thought she could hear Paul smile. “I used to like your headaches.”

  There was quiet. Then, slowly, she heard Paul fall softly onto his back.

  Mrs. White sighed. She thought about the past. She thought of how she had indeed liked his roughness, which had never hurt her but only threatened—excitingly. She thought about the boy—the boy Paul White—she had married. Then she caught her breath.

  It was as if a light had gone on in the room. She was able to see something now, but faintly, as if she had been too long in the dark. Without stopping long enough to think about her fear, she said suddenly, “Do you ever think about us? About back then?”

  Paul paused. “Sure. Sometimes.”

  She hesitated now. She did not know how far she could push, how many questions she could ask. One false move, one wrong area entered into, and Paul would suspect. Finally, taking a deep breath, cautiously, she continued.

  “Do you … do you ever think of Mike?”

  He paused again. “Sure.”

  She tried to make her voice sound natural. She did not wish him to think she was baiting him, leading him on. She tried to sound dreamy and nostalgic.

  “I do sometimes.”

  “Yeah, Mike. He was okay.” Paul sounded sleepy. “When he died, I … I was angry.”

  Mrs. White’s breath caught. Why had Paul made that mistake?

  “Mike’s not dead.”

  “What? Of course not. What did I say?”

  Mrs. White shut her eyes and opened them
. She took the final step. She made the crucial connection. Her voice went dead.

  “You must have been talking about your father.”

  Paul shrugged. “Yeah, well … tired.”

  There was another, longer pause as Mrs. White’s tension grew. Her breath came faster. She had to ask it, had to know.

  “Do you remember … that time … that time you went hunting with him? With Mike, I mean.”

  Paul seemed to think for a second. Then he turned roughly away from Mrs. White. His voice was weary.

  “I can’t remember stuff like that,” he said.

  Mrs. White watched Paul’s huge body under the soft gold cover, slowly heaving into sleep. She let him go. She would not go any further. She had come flat up against the terrifying darkness that had altered her life. But to go any further inside it was forbidden her. Paul was there by himself.

  Mrs. White lay beside him, her eyes wide. She heard her husband breathing heavily. She felt the warmth of his body. She watched him as if waiting for him to move.

  All night long.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  The next day was a beautiful spring Saturday. Mrs. White and Mary were baking bread in the kitchen. Paul and Paul Jr. were tossing a baseball on the lawn. Everything seemed to be as it should be.

  Paul, wearing his baseball cap, was smiling as he tossed and caught the ball. He thought it was good to be outside, alone with his son. Junior was getting bigger, it seemed, before his eyes. There was not all that much time to get to know him.

  The boy certainly had a powerful throw. The ball whacked into Paul’s mitt hard enough to sting his palm.

  He’s probably just doing it to impress me, Paul thought. It pleased him that the boy would want to do that.

  “Easy,” he said, grinning, “you’ll break my fingers. I’ll be out of a job.”

  “Sorry,” Junior said, but he could barely restrain a smile.

  Well, he’s no baby anymore, that’s for sure, Paul thought. Almost a man, really. They should talk about things, probably. Paul glanced at the kitchen window and saw his wife. She was watching them carefully.