But there were occasional biting comments that criticized the way Elizabeth handled things. Small, but pointed, remarks that one really had to pay attention to hear. But she always heard them and took them to heart. And of course there were the fights about money. Always about money. When the kids were not around, Elizabeth and Peter were either bickering about how the household was run or ignoring each other. When she really thought about it, it was almost worse when Peter was home. He loved the kids as best he could, and was great with them, but paid little attention to Elizabeth. It was one thing to sleep alone every night when your husband was away. It was quite another to sleep next to someone who refused to touch you. On the nights he even bothered to come upstairs to share her bed. She could not remember the last time they had had sex.
But Elizabeth didn't know how to define herself outside of the context of wife and mother. She knew she was not happy but could not see herself ever really making a move to leave Peter. She knew she didn't have the guts to do it. After all, in her experience, she was the one who was left, not the one who did the leaving. And her mother had assured her over and over that no one would want a divorced, middle-aged mother of two. She asked Peter to go for counseling in the past. His response was to laugh at her, telling her that she could go if she wanted, but he was perfectly fine the way he was. Agnes' advice on the situation was that Elizabeth should try harder to meet Peter's needs better. That was the job of a wife.
Elizabeth was failing as a wife and probably failing as a mother. She knew she had failed as a daughter, never able to live up to Agnes' high standards. No matter how hard Elizabeth tried, it seemed that she was doing nothing but failing. She tried to hold back the tears that accompanied this realization. The sky was quickly growing dark and sleet had started to fall. Elizabeth was thankful for her GPS, a voice in the darkness, telling her where to go. If only she had a GPS for her life.
It looked as though she had about forty-five minutes left before she would reach her destination. She was in a rather remote area with narrow, winding roads, and the houses were farther and farther apart. Often the houses were not even visible from the road, just dots of light peeking through the trees. The smell of wood burning stoves was permeating through the vents of the mini-van. Elizabeth was praying that a deer would not run out across the road. She had hit a deer when she was first married. Actually, the deer had hit her, but Peter never thought that way. She was so focused on watching out for a deer that she didn't see the very large pothole ahead and struck it square on the front-passenger-side tire.
Within an instant, with the tell-tale thumping from the front wheel well, she could tell that she had a flat tire. "FUCK!" She cursed as she guided the van to the side of the road. The road was very narrow with very little discernible shoulder. The embankment sloped steeply down. Brush speckled the hill. Elizabeth couldn't see the bottom of the hill or how far down it was. She put the van in park and turned the key so that power was left to the vehicle, but the engine was no longer running. "FUCK FUCK FUCK!" she screamed, banging the steering wheel with her fists. Dammit. She had known it was going to be one of those days.
CHAPTER FOUR: October 15, 2010
It was after five now, and it was dark. She turned the dome light on to give her light, and opened the door. The cold air outside assaulted her immediately. She crossed her arms over her chest and walked to the back of the vehicle. She opened the tailgate and pulled out her thin windbreaker. It would offer little warmth, but maybe it would keep her dry from the sleet and freezing rain that was pelting her sharply. She tossed her bag over into the back seat and began pulling up the carpeting to expose the spare tire. She hadn't had to change a tire since drivers' education when she was sixteen. Generally she had a pretty good memory, and she was counting on it not to fail her now. Within a few minutes she had extracted the jack and the spare tire. She placed the spare underneath the side of the car as she remembered Mr. Dillon demonstrating in driver's ed. She had to stop and get back in the car to try and warm-up for a moment or two. Her hands were frozen and she was having trouble bending them without pain.
She picked up her phone to call Susan and tell her she would be late. Susan didn't answer and Elizabeth left her a voice-mail explaining that she was having car trouble, and would either be late or not make it at all. It all depended on how things turned out. When Elizabeth disconnected the call, she realized with chagrin that her phone had not been charging on the way out, and that her battery was almost dead. She swore again. With the pain in her hands somewhat lessened, Elizabeth again got out of her van and attempted to work on changing her tire. It was slow going, but Elizabeth felt triumphant when she was able to remove the hub and then carefully placed the first three lug nuts in the overturned hubcap. She wished she could tell Mr. Dillon right now that she still remembered after all these years. However, as usual, her optimism was short-lived.
The last lug nut was stubborn and didn't want to turn. Elizabeth stood up from her squat and stretched for a moment. She pushed all her weight onto the cross-shaped lug wrench, but the nut did not turn. As she bounced up and down to try and torque the stubborn thing, Elizabeth lost her balance, and fell into the hubcap, knocking the other nuts out all over the ground. Elizabeth screamed, "FUCK!!" and sat down on the ground. The cold wetness immediately began seeping through her jeans, but she did not care. Somehow, this moment, always so amusing in "A Christmas Story" was not nearly as funny in reality. In fact, she could find no amusement at all. She could not feel any more despondent than she already did. She slowly banged her head into the side of the van. She sat there for a moment or two, with her knees pulled up to her chest and sobbed. Elizabeth groaned and could no longer hold back the hot angry tears. She sat like that for a few minutes and realized how cold it was. She would have to do something.
Elizabeth stood up and walked around the back of the van to the driver's side. She opened the door and climbed in again. As she did that, the lights faded. The car battery was dead. Perfect. Just perfect. In addition to the tire, she would now need a jump. She had no idea exactly where she was to call for help. She stared at her phone, wondering if she should dial 9-1-1, but decided this was not actually an emergency. She cursed Peter for canceling the AAA membership trying to save a little money. On the other hand, she didn't know where she was to tell a tow truck driver anyway. With the temperature continuing to drop, Elizabeth knew she couldn't stay in her car all night. She wished again that she had been able to find matching socks this morning, even if they had been quitters. She slid her nearly dead phone into her back pocket and left the car once again. She took one last hopeless look at the van and started walking away.
Elizabeth thought that there must be a house somewhere along the road. She was not even sure where she was since she had not been paying that much attention while driving. Sure, it was a winding mountain road. She was sure that, even if she knew whom to call, she would not have reception up here. Of course, there was the glaring fact that she had no one to call. Her mother was watching her children for the weekend, and was totally mentally incapable of handling any sort of emergency. Agnes would freak out and totally lose it if she knew the predicament her incapable daughter was in. Elizabeth had spent most of her life trying to shield her mother from the unpleasantries in life that she was not prepared to handle. Peter was four states away. Even if he were local, Elizabeth would rather die than ask him for help and listen to him berate her at how irresponsible she was. She could almost hear him yelling, "Jesus Christ Elizabeth! Don't you ever pay attention when you're driving? This is like the time you hit the deer! You don't care, and then I have to pay for it!"
Elizabeth buttoned and zipped up her flimsy windbreaker and pulled the unattractive hood up. She balled up her fists and shoved them into her pockets. And she had no other choice but to walk. Her clothing was no match for the first sign of winter in the mountains, and was doing little against the cold and wet that was seeping into her very bones. She tripped and fell hard to her
knees, and then to her shoulder, when she wasn't able to extract her hands from her pockets quickly enough. Great. Just great. She was lying on the cold, wet ground, her knees stinging and her shoulder throbbing, her hands still stuck in her pockets, pinning her arms underneath her.
At first, she was so mad that she could not even form coherent thoughts in her head. Her mind was just a swirl of red anger. She was angry with Peter for being a controlling bastard of a husband. She was angry with her mother for encouraging her to marry Peter in the first place, because she thought Elizabeth would need to be taken care of. Mostly, she was mad at herself for never standing up for herself, for letting herself be pushed around, for caring what others thought. And as hot as her anger burned, it was not enough to keep her warm. Her hands were burning with cold as were her feet. She wondered if she was developing frostbite. Vaguely, it occurred to her that people died outside in weather like this.
The thought of death should've scared her, but it didn't. It infused a calm of blues and purples in the swirl of red in her mind. The pain her chest, which was her constant these days, abated. If she were dead, she would not have to deal with her useless husband and she would no longer have to worry that their marriage might be over. She would not be poor and destitute if Peter left. It would not matter that she had failed at marriage. It would not matter that she was unlovable. Elizabeth slowly unfolded herself and rolled to her back. A dusting of snow and ice now covered the ground. The cold bit through her body and made her wince. Her knees were now exposed and probably bleeding from the fall. She was shivering uncontrollably, her body struggling to keep warm. Her body was fighting, unaware that her spirit had given up. Elizabeth closed her eyes and relaxed into the snow. The snow was still falling, hitting her gently in the face. The snow fell quietly. Otherwise, there was no sound. Elizabeth was at peace.
Death. In her death, she would not have to worry about packing up her house and moving when Peter officially left her. She would not have to hear the whispers from the other mothers, from Nancy Beemer and the like, talking salaciously about her marriage that had fallen apart. She could just let go and slip away into the darkness and cold, and her mind would eventually stop racing with the thoughts of anxiety and worry. People would think that this was an accident, a terrible one, and no one would realize that she was a coward. There'd be hushed whispers certainly, but no one would speak ill of her. She had never before contemplated suicide. It seemed like such an easy solution. In the past, when she tried to picture the last moments of her life, they certainly had not looked like this. The few fleeting minutes she had considered it, she'd always pictured herself an elderly woman, dying peacefully, surrounded by multiple generations of her family. The graceful matriarch, accomplished, successful and beloved by all. She had not pictured her life ending at the age of thirty-four, alone and freezing to death. A total failure. But this way, she would not have to face her failure. People tended not to speak ill of the dead. Even the nasty mothers would talk about how hard she worked for her kids. And her worry would be gone. She would no longer lie awake worrying about what would happen to her children.
Her children.
Elizabeth's eyes flew open. Her chest constricted. What would happen to her children? Who would raise them? Her mother was not able to do so. She provided a house for Elizabeth to grow in, but it was never really a home. Her mother was ruled by her own paranoia and obsessions, her need for constant micromanagement. She could not handle the kids for more than a few days. Hell, she couldn't even handle them for twenty-four hours. Elizabeth would never want her kids to go through what her mother had put her through. Peter? He was out of the question. And what would it do to the kids, especially Sydney, to lose her? Whether they realized it or not, she was the center of their worlds, the gravity that held them in orbit. Elizabeth knew that she could not succumb to the temptation of peace through death. She could not willingly do that to her children. She would fight her demons, as her mother was never able to do. She would stand up and continue walking for her children. She would be their mother. After all, it was the only thing left that defined her. It was her gravity as well. Elizabeth sighed and slowly rose, her joints and body stiff with cold. Her responsibilities, her burdens were so great that she could not even die.
After walking for an undetermined period of time (to Elizabeth it seemed like hours, but probably wasn't), she thought she saw light ahead. Finally, the house. It was set back from the road, up a steep driveway. Elizabeth was so cold. Everything was frozen, and she was not sure she could make it. In her head, she gave an ironic laugh. Her face was too cold to move. Before, she had been willing to lie in the snow and die. But now that she had made up her mind to stay and fight, she would probably die before she could be saved. Elizabeth tried to shuffle up to the house, noting the smell of a fireplace. She was so cold. She could not feel her hands or feet. As she continued to trudge, Elizabeth became more and more despondent. She could not even shirk her responsibilities to kill herself. She would be relegated to a life of misery to make sure that her children were okay. She doubted she would ever experience happiness again. Maybe, someday, seeing her grown children successful, her sacrifice would be worth it. Maybe.
She fell a few more times walking up to the house, tripping on various things buried in the snow, her Nubuck clogs no competition for hiking up a snow and ice covered mountain. She could not feel her feet and was losing the ability to control her legs, making her even clumsier in the cold. A small part of her brain realized that she was probably injured from falling, but the cold prevailed over all other feelings. She could finally make out the front of a house in the purple pink sky of a snowfall, Elizabeth vaguely recognize that her mother would be appalled at what she was doing. Agnes existed in a world made of fear. She would call Elizabeth crazy for knocking on a stranger's door. Didn't she know that the person inside was probably a rapist? Her mother was fearful of everything. Agnes called Elizabeth every morning to make sure that the children survived the night. Her mother was a worst-case-scenario, glass-half-empty person. It was a wonder that Elizabeth was remotely sane.
But at that moment, her tenuous grip on sanity was slipping. She could practically hear her mother screaming at her even as she listlessly raised her hand to knock on the door. She could not generate enough force to knock hard. She summoned all her energy and knocked again, this time, sagging into the door with her shoulder.
She closed her eyes and prayed that someone would answer, that she would get out of the cold. She was so cold, so numb. She heard a bark and footsteps and summoned all her remaining strength to try to stand up straight. Her face was empty as the faded red wooden door opened up a bit. She saw a face peeking out. A man. That was all Elizabeth was able to register. The briefest of moments passed while he registered himself that it was a small, nearly frozen woman standing on his doorstep.
Elizabeth could barely speak. She managed to croak out, "Flat tire, battery dead." He immediately understood and guided her inside. He started talking. A lot. He seemed to be talking to her and to the dog at the same time. Elizabeth was having difficulty figuring out what exactly he was saying. She heard that there were words coming out of his mouth, but she was unable to process any of it. She just stood there, unable to move, frozen. She knew that there must be warmth in the house. There had to be, but she could smell the fire in the fireplace. She could not feel the warmth. She could not feel anything. She was numb down to her soul.
"Oh my God, Liza? Are you all right?"
Elizabeth just stared into the concerned face looking down at her. How did he know her name? No one called her Liza anymore. She hadn't been Liza since she was in college. She was so confused. She looked down at the chocolate lab who was sniffing and now licking her hand. She knew she should be able to feel it, but she couldn't. Numb.
Elizabeth slowly turned her head from looking down at the dog to looking up at the concerned eyes of the man. She registered they were blue. She felt as if she were moving in slow moti
on. Sound traveled as if she were underwater, muffled and garbled.
"Liza? Are you hurt? You are Liza, aren't you? We need to get you warmed up. How long were you outside for? Liza? Ma'am? You need to warm up. We need to get you out of these wet clothes. Ma'am?"
He set to work, slowly. She just watched him, her eyes huge. He peeled off her soaked coat. The dog continued to lick her hands. A small part of her thought this was the time when she should be afraid. She could already hear her mother screaming at her. Elizabeth let out a small sigh. The man stopped abruptly pulled back, as if she were hot stove.
"Are you okay? I'm sorry, but we've got a get you out of these cold wet clothes and see if you have hypothermia. Can you do it, Ma'am?"
Elizabeth managed to give the tiny shake of her head and closed her eyes. She didn't have the strength to lift her arm, and she wasn't sure that her hands would function enough to make a fist, let alone possess the dexterity to disrobe. She was utterly helpless. He kept talking as he worked, his voice trying to soothe her. He explained, step-by-step, what he was going to do. What he was going to take off next. He bent over and lifted her soaked pant leg, looking for the top of her shoe. He muttered something about no socks under his breath. He had slid his hand down the side of her leg, as one would do with a horse, and she instinctively lifted her foot, steadying herself by placing her hand on his shoulder.
Hold Her Down Page 5