by Rona Jaffe
Her mother was only forty-four years old and still had the rest of her life to live. And so do I, Kathryn thought. I can’t go on staying here; we’re driving each other crazy. The rules of her mother’s probation in her custody did not stipulate that she had to live with Kathryn, so Kathryn took her two little boys and moved into a place of her own. She knew it would be better for everyone.
The new place was a small apartment much like the one she had lived in before, a twenty-minute drive away from her mother, and she soon was immersed in her own life again. The newspaper stories seemed long ago. Because she was still using her married name people didn’t know who she was, and it would never occur to anyone even to imagine that something so dramatic had happened in her life.
Saturday night was date night, but Friday night was the social night in town, when the week’s work was finally over. When Kathryn could get a good baby-sitter she would go out, too. She liked to drink and spend time with other young people her age, to laugh with her girlfriends and flirt with attractive men. She was still friendly, she still liked people, just as she had at college, before all these things had happened to her: the wrong marriage, the responsibility of babies, the murder and its aftermath. She had no interest in getting married again, and she never made plans for the future, so now she just drifted along enjoying everything.
It was summer. On weekend afternoons people rowed boats on the Charles River, couples walked hand in hand in Boston Common under the trees, or sat at little outdoor sidewalk restaurants. Sometimes on Saturdays Kathryn went to the public library to take out children’s books to read to her kids because she couldn’t afford to buy them. It was stuffy, hot and dusty in the library, but she never stayed long. She was there one day when she noticed, sitting alone at the wooden table bent over a book, the last man in the world she would have expected to see in a library on any day, not just on a beautiful Saturday in summer. He was gorgeous: tall and well built, with the kind of muscular body you never saw on most men, and thick long blondish hair; and the minute she saw him she wanted to know him. Kathryn walked over to him, her books in her arms, and sat down. He glanced up at her and smiled. She smiled back. She pretended to be reading the books she had with her, and then she looked at him again.
“Huckleberry Finn?” she whispered, peering at the book he was reading. “Is it good?”
He seemed embarrassed for an instant. “Yes,” he whispered. “You never read it?”
“This is what I read lately,” Kathryn said. “I have two kids.”
She stroked the books so he could see she was not wearing a wedding ring. She didn’t even know this man, but she was more attracted to him in two minutes than she had ever been to her ex-husband.
He looked surprised. “You have two kids already?” he said.
“I can’t believe it myself.”
“It would be worth your while to buy them those books,” he said. “Kids like to have the same story read to them over and over.”
“Oh, you have children?”
“No, but I have friends who do.”
At the other side of the table, the few people who were wasting this beautiful summer day sitting inside a library reading, glared at them because they were talking.
“I guess we’d better shut up,” Kathryn whispered.
“I could use a cigarette. You?”
“Sure.”
They got up and went outside and sat on a bench. She noticed that he had greenish eyes that narrowed when he lit his cigarette in a way that made him seem worldly and very sexy. “I’m Alastair Uland,” he said.
“Kathryn Hopkins. Where did you get such a nice name?”
“I’m half German and half English.”
Good, she thought, not an Irish ancestor in sight. “And is Mark Twain your favorite author?”
“Actually,” he said, “this is the first time I’ve read him. I was a real truant in school and didn’t learn to read until I was sixteen. I just faked it. It’s only now as an adult that I’m catching up on the books I should have read when I was a boy.”
“And what do you do, Alastair?”
“I’m a construction worker.”
“Brains and brawn,” Kathryn said. He looks like a movie star, she thought.
“Well, if the guys at work knew I was sitting in a library on my day off reading a kid’s book they would laugh me out of town.”
“Their loss,” Kathryn said. “Do you care what they think? I wouldn’t care. I think it’s admirable that you enjoy literature.”
They finished their cigarettes and talked some more, and then they went back inside and Kathryn checked out her children’s books. When she left, he asked her for her phone number, and folded it carefully into his wallet.
He called her the next day and invited her out for Saturday night. When he came to pick her up he was carrying a present for her boys: a brand new copy of Pat the Bunny. Kathryn was touched and impressed at the considerate gesture.
After that they began to see each other on a regular basis and they became a couple. Sometimes they went to the movies or out to dinner, but neither of them had much money so more often he came over to her apartment and they just stayed in for the evening and he read to her kids or watched television and she cooked. She liked being domestic and taking care of him. He took care of her too, and of her kids. They took the kids places together, and on the evenings when Kathryn was working Alastair would come over to baby-sit. He enjoyed her two little boys and they took to him, too, because they missed having a father, especially Jim Daniel.
Kathryn told Alastair she hadn’t gone to bed with Ted before she married him, and she wouldn’t go to bed with him either, and he respected that. She knew by now that men actually preferred it when they couldn’t have you. She and Alastair necked, but that was all. She found him incredibly sexy, but she restrained herself from doing anything she might regret later. She was a “good” girl, and it was the way she wanted it and the way society wanted it and it worked with him.
Kathryn was in love with him, though, and it was obvious that Alastair was crazy about her. She had never been introspective, but this time she thought carefully about taking the risk of becoming attached to the wrong man. She was aware that extraordinary good looks often filled in for whatever else was unknown or missing, so a man with great beauty seemed smarter, nicer, more perceptive, funnier than other people, and when he did have any of these qualities they seemed a wonderful plus. She could find no fault with him, however. His best quality was that he was so kind. Ted had been kind, too, but she just hadn’t been in love with him. She figured she had a knack for finding men who were good to her.
After Kathryn and Alastair had been going together for six months he asked her to marry him. It was the natural progression of the way their relationship had been evolving, and she said yes. She knew they would be happy. This time around she was going to marry a man she really knew, not some stranger.
They were so eager to be together that they eloped, avoiding all the fuss of a wedding, and that night at last, after waiting so long, they consummated their union in his apartment, three times. Kathryn found him irresistible, and the act she had dutifully performed with Ted was suddenly magical. Alastair was her first real love, her first sexual passion.
The next day they left the babies with her mother and drove to Vermont to a ski chalet to play in the snow and sit by a roaring fire, and best of all, to be alone together. Alastair taught her to ski. What a wonderful, multitalented man he was, Kathryn thought, as she watched him skimming down the slopes; and so full of surprises.
It was a lovely, miraculous honeymoon. Yet she worried about her children, even though she called her mother every day. She had never left them with her mother for so long a time. On their way home, when she and Alastair stopped for gas, Alastair went into the restroom and Kathryn, impatient to be on the road again, began filling up th
e tank. He came out, and suddenly, oddly, he was in a rage.
“Why couldn’t you wait for me to do that?” he yelled.
“What’s the big deal?”
“You’re my wife. I take care of you. Are you trying to make me look stupid?” The cords on his big neck were standing out and his face was red. What a temper he had—she hadn’t suspected it, nor had she thought he would be such a protective husband. She was very surprised, but not afraid. He was probably coming down from his honeymoon euphoria, as she was; and was depressed to be going back to the real world.
“I’m sorry,” Kathryn said. He seemed to calm down then. She was sure he would be fine as soon as they got back to her—no, their—apartment and christened the bed.
He was better at home, but not the way he used to be. The few times they went out—with the kids, or to the supermarket together, once to a restaurant—men glanced at Kathryn admiringly, and whenever they did, Alastair glowered at them like a dog watching over a bone. He had never seemed to notice other men’s glances before, or perhaps he had even liked it. But now he was jealous, Kathryn realized. But what did he expect? Men had always looked at her, and she didn’t really pay attention to it anymore and neither should he. She was a pretty, curvy redhead, and it wasn’t as if Alastair had just discovered that. It was one of the reasons he had fallen in love with her. If he didn’t want men to look at his new wife, he should have married someone ugly.
After they had been home for two weeks, she decided to have their next-door neighbors over to play canasta. They were a nice couple, Sally and Lou, about Alastair’s age, and they had two little kids of their own. Kathryn served beer and pretzels and cheese, and coffee and cake. They laughed and joked, and Lou flirted with her a little, but certainly not in any way that was offensive, since Sally didn’t mind. It was a very pleasant evening, and when their guests were leaving, Sally and Kathryn hugged and promised that the next time they would all have dinner together.
As soon as their guests had left, Alastair turned on her with a look of rage.
“Why were you flirting with Lou?” he demanded.
“I wasn’t flirting,” Kathryn said. “He was being his idea of charming and I was just being friendly. You know I’m friendly.”
“You’re too friendly.”
“If I wasn’t friendly,” she pointed out, “you would never have met me.”
“Don’t think I don’t remember that.” His tone was angry, accusatory.
“What’s eating you tonight, anyway?”
Without warning he punched her in the jaw. Kathryn fell on the floor. She was so stunned she didn’t realize how badly he had hurt her until a moment or two later. She touched her jaw where it was beginning to swell, and then she got up slowly, warily, watching to see what he would do. She knew he wasn’t drunk; he’d had only one beer all night. He was a social drinker at most, which was one of the things she had liked about him. She almost couldn’t believe he had hit her, but she also felt that she could handle him. He was not her father, and she pushed the nightmare of that experience out of her mind.
“Don’t ever hit me again,” Kathryn said. “I mean that. You touch me again and I’ll be out the door and you’ll be married all of three weeks.”
As she spoke, she heard herself slurring the words and realized her jaw was getting stiff. He noticed it, too.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
His green eyes were sad and embarrassed and full of love and regret. Kathryn felt herself wavering. She had only just discovered he was a jealous man, so maybe she should have been cold to Lou; but that would have been rude and this was a free country and Alastair should know by now that she was ebullient and gregarious. She had been that way before they were married.
But she hadn’t belonged to him then. Now that they were married, he thought that she did.
He helped her into a chair. “Stay here,” he said. “I’m going to get ice. I’ll be right back.”
He returned with ice cubes, which he wrapped in a towel and held on her face until her swollen jaw felt a little better. He knows exactly what to do, Kathryn thought resentfully. I wonder how many women he’s hit before? Or maybe it’s only me.
“I won’t do it again,” he said.
She waited for a few moments and then she nodded. “Okay.”
They made love slowly and then they slept in each other’s arms, comforting each other, and she thought it was over. But the next day Alastair was jumpy and unhappy again as if he couldn’t get the harmless little flirting incident out of his mind, and whenever they went out in public, he continued to be as jealous as ever. She realized that she would have to watch every little thing she did. This was not the way she had ever dreamed she would spend her married life, and she wondered how she could recapture the kind, gallant man who had won her heart and then had turned into this angry stranger.
They had settled into their married routine now: working, taking care of the kids, being a family. They had decided to live in her apartment for a year, because it was bigger than his, and for now it was good enough. Later, they thought, when they had saved enough money, they would put the down payment on a house. She got a new job, as a secretary, working for Morgan Life in an office building downtown. This would give her all her evenings free to be with him and the kids. The lovemaking between her and Alastair continued to be electric. Whenever Sally tried to make a date for the four of them to get together again, Kathryn made some excuse. She just didn’t know how else to handle it.
It only took three weeks before Alastair hit her again anyway. This time he punched her several times, accusing her of being unfaithful to him while she was at the office.
What am I doing here? she thought. I am not my mother.
“I’m sorry,” he said afterward.
“You’re always sorry. Sorry isn’t good enough.”
That night she packed, took her babies, and went to stay with her mother, which was the lesser of two evils, until she could figure out what to do. But before Kathryn even had time to breathe and sort out who she was and what her life had become, Alastair was knocking on her door with flowers in one hand and teddy bears in the other, pleading.
“Give me another chance.”
“I’m not a punching bag. If you have a problem, talk about it.”
“I know. I’m not so good at talking about feelings.”
Why had she not ever noticed that before?
But he was so gorgeous and appealing and sexy, and she loved him passionately, and he obviously loved her, too, in spite of everything he had done, so she let him come over to spend a few evenings with her, although she wouldn’t move back in. And then it was just spending the weekend with him in their apartment. And finally she moved back in with the kids after all. Just to give him another chance. . . .
But there was no safety anymore. He was jealous of everything she did, and things he only imagined she did. He was breaking dishes, throwing furniture. It was all too familiar. The next time he punched her and knocked her down, she made up her mind to leave for good.
Kathryn had a girlfriend at work, Norma Jones, who was divorced and had a little girl. Norma lived with her widowed mother, and when Kathryn confided that she was looking for a place to stay with her own little kids, Norma quickly offered that she move in with them and share the rent. “My mother will baby-sit,” Norma said. “We could use the extra money and you’ll have your own room.” So that very day before Alastair came home, Kathryn and the children had moved in with Norma’s family, without even leaving a note to say goodbye.
It wasn’t as clean a house as Kathryn had hoped for, and her room was tiny, with just enough room for a crib, which her two boys shared, and a single bed for her. Sometimes at night the boys cried to get into her bed, so she let them sleep with her. They had both been toilet trained very early, but now her older one, Jim Daniel, had taken to wetting the
bed. She put him into diapers at night and told him not to worry; she knew he was just scared to be living in this strange place, and he probably missed Alastair.
Then one day Kathryn came home from the office to find Jim Daniel sitting on his potty in the living room and Norma’s mother bending over him yelling in his face. “Stupid!” Norma’s mother was saying. “Bad boy! Stupid boy! Make peepee in the pot, not in the pants.” Jim Daniel was not crying, but he was looking baffled and forlorn, and this hurt Kathryn more than his tears would have.
“Don’t yell at him,” Kathryn said.
“How do you expect him to learn?”
“Nobody ever yells at him,” Kathryn said, “and you’re not going to start now.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Norma’s mother said. “You obviously can’t raise a child.”
Kathryn held her temper in, but she was enraged and distressed and wondered if she should go to stay with her own mother. It couldn’t be worse than this. When it happened again, she protested to Norma.
“Don’t fight with my mother,” Norma said.
Kathryn managed to stay there for ten days. She was always arguing with Norma’s mother and she had no idea what the woman was doing to her kids when she wasn’t there to see it. She knew that once again she had to figure out what to do—and quickly.
That night Alastair appeared at the front door with flowers. “I’m glad your friend called me,” he said in a meek little voice. So that was how he had been able to track her down. Kathryn did not know how she felt. Part of her wanted to be away from him, but another part as strongly wanted him to bring her back. “Give me another chance,” he begged. “Please. I’ll be different. You’ll see.”
She went home with him.
But of course he was not different, and the violence continued. She knew she would never have stayed with him if she hadn’t loved him so much. Somehow the more abusive he became, the more she was attracted to him. She didn’t understand why her heart led her into such a wild and lonely place, why her body betrayed her by wanting the man she most feared.