Mrs. White

by Margaret Tracy

  “How’s school?” he said then, chucking the ball.

  Junior caught it. “Okay.”

  “You learning much?”

  Junior shrugged. “Nah,” he said. “Teachers are pretty dumb, I think.”

  Paul tried to keep from laughing at that. The ball sank into his mitt. “What else you like to do better?”

  “Play ball.”

  “Sure.”

  “Hang around with the guys,” said Junior.

  “Yeah.” Paul sent him a pop fly. “And the girls, too, I bet.”

  Junior got under it, nabbed it in the pocket of his glove. He was still trying not to smile. Uh-oh, he thought, here it comes. A heart-to-heart talk. Good old Dad.

  “Yeah, girls are okay.”

  “Just okay, huh?”

  Paul Jr. sent the ball back, flying over his father’s head. “Well, they’re pretty neat. If they’re not stuck-up or anything.”

  Paul dropped back for the throw. He snagged it with a short leap and snapped it back. “You get a lot of them like that?”

  Paul Jr. got the ball easily. He thought his father’s questions were pretty funny. He’s a little late though, he thought. It had been months since they saw that filmstrip in class. And even that was old hat. He thought his old man ought to hear how he and his friends talked—that would really give him a jolt.

  “Some,” he said, giving the baseball an easy hurl. “Snobs, you know?”

  Paul nodded. But as the ball came floating back to him, he felt that small pressure reoccur in his gut. “Sure. I know,” he said. He reached for the ball, but it went right past him. He felt a little dizzy suddenly. He stooped for the ball, lobbed it back. The pressure made him breathless, but he knew what it was. He knew it would go away in a moment—and for the moment.

  “Girls shouldn’t act like they’re special,” said Junior. He caught the ball, flipped it back. “They should sort of be—regular, you know.”

  Paul watched the ball coming. It seemed to weave in the air, and when he reached for it, it went by him. He closed his eyes and tried to take a deep breath. The pressure in his stomach throbbed.

  Wincing, he went to retrieve the ball, trying to avoid his wife’s gaze from the window.

  “Getting too rough for you, huh, Dad?” Junior called.

  Paul knelt in the grass to pick up the baseball. He paused there to take a few more breaths. It was going away now, the pressure, but he knew it would return, stronger and stronger and stronger, until he had to make it stop.

  “Yeah, you’ve worn me out,” he called to his son. “What say we wrap this up?”

  Paul Jr. pounded his fist into his glove. Watching his father’s tall figure stand up out of the grass, he felt pretty proud of the old man. He was old, of course, but he was still a pretty cool guy all in all.

  Paul saluted his son with his glove.

  “Later, champ,” he said.

  Junior saluted back. He watched his dad move to the door.

  A pretty cool guy, he thought.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Mrs. White watched the game from the kitchen window. Against the clear spring sky she saw the ball fly from the man to the boy. She saw Paul and Paul Jr. speaking to each other. She could not hear what they said.

  Mrs. White turned. Behind her, Mary sat on a stool. Dressed in a little apron, she was rolling a small square of dough with a toy rolling pin. Not a trace of doubt or trouble was in the girl’s small face. She was engrossed in the task at hand.

  Everything seemed so normal, Mrs. White thought. How could it? Why hadn’t their attitudes, their activities, the very air around them, changed? Why wasn’t the world a different place now that she knew what she knew?

  At least Mary had not yet been affected. She touched the girl’s head. A normal, happy child. But girls of her age were always the mother’s property. They played with the mother, imitated her, did what the mother did. It was the boy she had to worry about.

  Mrs. White went back to the window. She gazed again out at the lawn. The resemblance between her husband and her son was striking; and she shuddered at the similarity. Boys, Mrs. White thought, belong to their fathers.

  Twelve was such an impressionable age. It was the time when boys started growing into men. At twelve they had questions to ask. They ask their fathers. And they believed the answers. Twelve was a turning point.

  Mrs. White shut her eyes. What kind of lessons was Paul teaching his son?

  When she opened her eyes again, the answers that filled her were horrifying. Her lip trembled and her hand clenched into a fist at her side.

  Junior was her child too. She had to protect him. She would protect him. Somehow. Even if it meant fighting Paul. Even it it meant destroying Paul, leaving him, handing him over to the police …

  Mrs. White pulled in a short, sharp breath.

  It was the first time she had considered the police.

  In the endless hours since she had found out about her husband, it was the first time she had thought about it at all. She had been thinking, instead, like a drunkard’s wife, or an adulterer’s—as if this were some sort of domestic problem she could solve on her own.

  Slowly, it was dawning on her: Whatever this was, it wasn’t a domestic problem. It was a problem for the law, for the police. Paul was not a drunk or an adulterer. He was something much, much worse. He was—the cliché came to her—a menace to society. There were laws to protect people from him.

  She could call the police for help.

  “Mommy?” Mary called.

  Mrs. White was smiling slightly as she turned to answer.

  “Yes, sweetheart,” she said.

  She was not alone. She could call the police.

  Mrs. White thought about it all through the day. The police.

  In the afternoon they played miniature golf at a nearby course. All the while Mrs. White thought about it: the police.

  She watched Paul take a sharp, hard putt. It sent the red golf ball over the rail, onto the grass. He turned to her and made a funny face. She shivered.

  I am not alone, she thought. Not alone.

  She watched as Paul Jr. stepped to the tee. He imitated his father’s overstrong swing. His ball bounced off the back rail with a loud thump and rolled close to the hole. And when Paul put his arm around his son’s shoulder, Mrs. White watched them together. She thought about the police.

  Turning away, Mrs. White watched cars driving by on the highway. There was a police car among them. She smiled. She almost waved at them.

  Then she stopped smiling.

  Paul was helping Mary swing now. He stood behind her with his long arms draped over her tiny shoulders. His wide hands were on her hands, covering them.

  The sight made Mrs. White feel ill. She glanced back at the highway. The patrol car had continued up the highway, disappearing into the distance. Then it was gone.

  Later that evening she went up the hill to Jonathan Cornell’s house to feed the cats. When she was done, she sat in his living room for a long time, staring at the phone. The police seemed less real to her now. More real was the image of Paul with his arms around little Mary. More real was the danger of his hurting her or Junior.

  With a hollow feeling of depression, she knew she had to wait. She had to wait until Monday when Paul was at work and the children in school. Then she would do it; then she would call for help.

  It was only one more night, then another day, then another night. How slowly could it go by?

  The children went to bed early, tired from their play. Paul tucked them in.

  Mrs. White lay in her bed while he did it. The idea of sleeping beside him was less terrible to her now. It was just for tonight and tomorrow night. She could make it. Her new hope would see her through until the morning.

  She lay in the bed now, thinking of her escape, imagining the police calling her to tell her it had all been taken care of. She closed her eyes when she heard Paul come in. She pretended to be asleep.

  Sh
e listened as he approached the bed. She heard the swish and tug of his clothes coming off. She would bear it. She had to be able to bear it. She had to lie beside him only twice more. She would survive.

  Paul slid in next to her. She felt him drawing close.

  This is the worst of it, she thought. This is the worst of it.

  Then Paul whispered: “How’s that headache?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  She opened her mouth to speak, to protest, to resist. She closed it silently.

  Everything had to be normal. Everything had to be as it always was. She knew she had been acting strangely all weekend, but she could not risk it now. Not now, when there was hope. The police.

  Paul took her in his arms, his face hovering over hers. His hands clasped her shoulders through her nightgown. Her body was tight and stiff. She peered up at him, into his eyes. He was smiling.

  How many times have I made love to him? she thought. Once more. I can do it once more.

  She tried not to think. His lips pressed against her cheek. She stared up at the side of his face. He pulled back, then he came down upon her and his mouth covered hers, his tongue pushed against her lips. She pressed her lips together in a reflex. Paul’s tongue probed. With a small whimper she forced her lips to relax. His tongue broke through them and into her mouth.

  She tried and tried not to think. But a malicious voice—her own voice—kept whispering in her ear: These hands on my shoulders, holding me, these are the hands that held them, tied them. These eyes, watching me, these are the eyes that saw them squirming. These lips, kissing me, smiled as they bled and bled. Those ears heard them try to scream through their gags. Those hands tied the gag. Those hands.

  Paul’s hands were running over her now. Pulling her nightgown up and off, traveling roughly over her belly and up to her breasts. He caressed her breasts. She felt the flesh of her own body, pliable under his hands. So soft, it seemed that it would envelop his fingers, take him into herself until she would become him, and they would be one, she filled with all the terrible things her husband did.

  Paul’s rough, strong fingers went down between her legs. They toyed with her. She wanted to be dry. She wanted to be dry and tight so he could not come into her. She prayed to be dry. She asked Jesus to make her dry so he could not come into her. She prayed to be able to keep him out.

  She was not dry. His hand went up inside of her and he was kissing her breasts wetly and she shook her head back and forth on the pillow because her body had taken in the hand that had tied the women, that had gagged them, that had held the knife.…

  Paul White climbed on top of his wife. Her legs spread open. She felt utterly helpless. She felt his erection press up against her for a moment.

  It’s just Paul, she told herself. It’s just Paul. It can’t be so terrible.

  He plunged inside her and it was terrible.

  Because it was Paul, it was he as he had always been. It was he, who knew how to make her feel good. It was he whose presence inside of her was not just a moment, but twenty years of moments remembered.

  And he was there. And every time he withdrew and plunged again, opened her body and entered it as if he were its sole proprietor, she felt more than helpless; she felt the horrible openness of herself, the horrible accessibility that couldn’t distinguish between the innocent and the evil.

  He was inside her and he was a man who murdered women and tortured them. And she was filled with him and breathless with him, and he was black and savage and ugly, and so was she.

  It isn’t fair, it isn’t fair, it isn’t fair, she thought. She shook her head back and forth on the pillow. It isn’t fair of God. To make me like this. To make me open to him. I don’t want it, I don’t want it, I don’t want it.

  He was staring down at her now. He was ready to finish. He was waiting for her, waiting for her to give him the signal.

  And she knew that this was the worst of it, and that it would be every bit as dreadful as she feared.

  But she had to react, she had to pretend, she had to do something to make it end.

  She began to make noises, to pant and cry. She felt with a real physical yearning the urge to have the space between her legs seal up forever, to become inviolate and secure. She felt it was no more than she deserved: to be a human being, to be unto herself, and not to be filled with this—with anything but this.…

  She went through the motions as Paul’s motions increased. He slapped and thudded against her, and she pretended to react.

  Then, suddenly, she was not pretending. It came up inside her like the blossoming of a black, eely vine. It seemed to explode, as Paul thrust against her for the last time, and release its slimy, evil seed all over the inside of her, until every inch of her was coated with it, dripping with it, part of it.

  Paul lay on top of her panting, and sucking weakly at her breast. She half feared her own milk would come up through her, and feed him and make him strong again.

  He rolled off her and away from her and lay on his side. He murmured something to her. Then he was sleeping.

  Mrs. Paul White rolled over, her eyes open, staring blankly. She fought down nausea. She lifted a fist over the side of the bed and brought it to her mouth. Then she started weeping.

  The sobs racked her body, but she kept them silent somehow. She wept and wept as if she would never stop. She wept because she had nothing left. Because her life had been yanked inside out like a glove, and under its quiet everyday pleasures had been degradation and shame. She wept because she had been in a daze for so long, it seemed, ever since she knew, and it had ended with this, with him inside her when she was too weak and mad to prevent it. She wept because she didn’t know whether, at her strongest, she would have been able to prevent it anyway.

  She wept because on Monday she would call the police and they would come and take her husband away from her. Because her children, no matter what she did, would be somehow damaged by it. Because her world was filled with powerful monsters, and children who needed her help when she couldn’t help them, when she was too weak.

  She wept because it wasn’t fair.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Mrs. White awoke in the bed alone.

  It required a great effort for her to come around. Her eyelids seemed weighted with lead. When at least she managed to lift them, she did not recognize her surroundings. It was some shabby room somewhere, badly lighted, sparsely furnished. There was a sound like rain coming from beyond it. The bed beneath her felt very hard.

  Mrs. White lifted her stinging eyes to the ceiling. A piece of plaster was ready to crack off. The paint was chipped. Lines ran along it, as if scraped there by a nail.

  Where was she?

  The rain stopped. A door from down a hall creaked open. A man’s voice was calling her.

  “Joan! Honey, better hurry!”

  The voice sent a chill snaking up her legs and between them. She knew who it was.

  “Joan! You up? We’ll be late.”

  It was Paul. She knew who it was. Paul. She knew what he was.

  “Church is in an hour!”

  It was Sunday.

  He came in then. He was wearing his short blue terry-cloth robe. His big feet were bare. The hair on his legs was wet. He was rolling a tan towel around his head.

  “You were sure out cold,” he said. “I thought I’d let you sleep a few minutes. Better get up now, get in that shower.”

  He put the towel behind his neck and rubbed vigorously.

  “Better get yourself clean,” he said.

  She remembered everything.

  “Honey?” said Paul. “You all right?”

  The hot water hit Mrs. White’s face with a slap. The shower slapped her all over. It pattered against her white body. She stared at the tiles on the wall for a long moment. Then she looked down.

  Her body had too much flesh on it, too much flesh everywhere. The flesh was full of bumps and lumps and bruises. It was so ugly.

  The water
swirled down the drain. Mrs. White wished she could follow it. She wished to see her aging, flabby form flow down and down until it disappeared.

  Wash me down, she thought, like dirt.

  Her face in the dresser mirror was ugly too. Homely. It had jowls and blemishes.

  Mrs. White looked at the makeup pencil in her hand. She wished to put it to her skin and draw a new face over the old.

  So no one knows me. So I don’t know myself.

  “I’m starved,” Paul said behind her. “I hope the sermon’s not too long.”

  She heard the swish, flap, and pull of the tie around his neck.

  Dressing up, Mrs. White thought, hiding.

  “Maybe I’ll get a piece of toast before we go,” he said.

  Mrs. White picked up her lipstick.

  I will draw a smile on my face, she thought. How else can I make it through the day?

  In the car, cool wind blew onto her face. She sat beside Paul. His steering arm poked her.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  Mrs. White smiled thinly.

  “Hey, you two, cut it out back there,” Paul said.

  The children were fighting. Mary was on the verge of tears. Mrs. White felt the wind in her face again. She did not turn around.

  Through the windshield, a building came into view. It was a dark, imposing place, with a shiny white object at the top. It was a soothing sight: a church, her church. She remembered her mother singing:

  There is no place for gloom or fear,

  When faith and hope and love are near.

  She could hear it like a voice singing very far away.

  In church, she sat in the middle of a crowded pew. It was hot. People wiggled to get comfortable. Children fought.

  “I told you two to cut it out,” Paul hissed.

  The service progressed slowly. Prayers were said, hymns were sung. Mrs. White stared at the cross hanging on the wall above the pulpit. Then Reverend Allen was standing there, ready to read the text for his sermon. Mrs. White watched him carefully, almost hopefully.

  “‘And the Pharisees came to him and asked him—asked Jesus,’” said Reverend Allen, “‘“Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife?” tempting him.