The Feeder

by Gayle Siebert

  “Oh,” she moans. She puts her fork down suddenly and nearly collapses against the back of her chair. Her face works and she seems to be struggling to keep her composure.

  Is being told other people don’t like her husband that devastating? I’d like to be sympathetic but instead of summoning empathy, her snivelling disgusts me. “I have to use the ladies’ room,” I say; I get up and wend my way through tables to the washroom. On my way back, I stop at the cashier desk and pay the bill.

  I come back to the table, sit down again, and finish my wine in one long swallow. “I have to go,” I tell her. “Stay and finish your lunch. I paid the bill.”

  If I thought she was struggling to keep her composure before, now she looks downright terrified. “No! Oh, no!” She brings her hands up to cover her face and I hear a little squeak as if she’s stifling sobs. People at the next table look over curiously.

  After a moment, I say, “Carly? What’s going on?”

  She takes her hands off her face and looks at me. “You can’t pay the bill. I have to pay the bill.”

  “Why?”

  “Derek told me to pay for lunch.”

  “Well, just tell him I got to it first.”

  “He won’t understand.” She chokes back a sob and wails, “You don’t know! He just won’t understand!”

  Now there are other diners watching. I reach across and take her hand. “Come on, Carly,” I say, “let’s get out of here.”

  I get up and pull her to her feet, then herd her out the door, down the gangway and onto the seawall. It’s raining heavily enough it’s a lousy day for a walk, but there are still a few hardy pedestrians. When two women under umbrellas are past us and there’s no one else close, I ask, “what’s this all about?”

  She just shakes her head and looks at the ground in front of her.

  “What happens if he doesn’t understand?” I press. “What? Does he hurt you?”

  She still can’t make eye contact, but at least she nods.

  I pull her to a stop and put my arms around her. She breaks into full throated sobbing. I wait until she’s calmed, and say, “my god, Carly! I’m so sorry! How long has this been going on?”

  “Th-th-the first time was when Jennifer was about two.” She draws a breath and looks at me, then begins speaking hysterically, as if the floodgates were opened. “She got into his study and used a black sharpie on some papers he had on his desk, as well as on her arms and his leather chair. It was my fault, but kids can be so quick! I only looked away for a couple of minutes. She was playing on the family room floor and when I next looked, she wasn’t. I wasn’t watching her carefully enough, he said. Bad enough she ruined what he had spent a lot of time on as well as the chair, but besides that, she could’ve gotten hurt. He slapped me.”

  “But he slapped you again after that? He’s kept slapping you?”

  “Worse than that,” she sobs. “He’s always sorry after. He always says he lost control and it’ll never happen again.” Her nose is running. I dig a Kleenex out of my purse and hand it to her. She honks into it and stuffs it in her pocket before continuing: “of course it does happen again.”

  “There is help, Carly. You can get help.”

  She stiffens and says sharply, “yeah, I know.” She draws herself up, takes a deep breath, and says, “but there’s nothing they can do that will stop him from taking Jennifer away from me if I leave him.”

  “But there is!”

  “No, there isn’t! She’s big enough now. She would find a way to get with him. She loves him more than me. A lot more. He’s already told me he would take her to his mother’s place in Phoenix and I’d never see her again.”

  “But he moved here to get away from his mother, remember? I don’t think he’d go there. And anyway, he can’t do that. The cops in Phoenix would go and get her. You’d get custody. You’re a good mom, no judge would give him custody…”

  “No!” she says. Her mascara is running down her cheeks in streaks. I can’t tell if it’s because of the rain, which is drenching both of us, or if she’s still crying. “He didn’t come here to get away from his mother, he came here to meet someone he’d been chatting with on line. And then she turned out to be too needy so he dumped her but he liked it here and decided to stay.”

  “Oh, okay, but…”

  “He’d just take her. Jennifer. He wouldn’t wait for some judge to give me custody. And how would the cops find her? I don’t know what his mother’s name is, much less her address.”

  “It’s not Wilton? And in all the time you’ve been married, you’ve never been there?”

  “She remarried. And no, I haven’t been there. He thought it was important to reconnect with his mother so he’s taken Jennifer to visit a few times. But I’ve never gone with them.”

  “He took Jennifer and left you at home?”

  “He said it was for my own good. It would be awkward because his mother wouldn’t like me but Jennifer should get to know her grandmother. It’s better if I’d stay home to take care of things.”

  “I don’t know about that, but why wouldn’t she like you?”

  “Well, she was a yoga instructor.”

  “That doesn’t explain why his mother wouldn’t like you.”

  She shrugs and mumbles, “I’m too fat.”

  I seriously doubt Carly being Rubenesque would be something Derek’s mother couldn’t overlook for a weekend! What would she do, anyway? Refuse to let her in the house? Make fun of her? That’s crazy. But Derek comments on her weight so often he’s got Carly convinced she’s fat. Why did he marry her? It’s not like she was skinny when they met. And it’s a lame excuse. But I don’t belabour the point.

  “You’re not fat, Carly, you’ve just got curves in the right places. And you used to go to yoga. You’d have something in common with his mother. But it doesn’t matter.” I feel rain running down my face and wipe my hand across my forehead to clear it. “But you—he’s going to be mad at you? Hurt you because Nullah’s company isn’t going to use him?”

  She nods.

  “What if that changed?”

  “There would be something else,” she says, and exhales loudly. “Maybe not for a while, but there’s always something else.”

  “But it would keep you safe for long enough for you to see a lawyer, or pack a few things and move out, to safety. You have to do something before he really hurts you. You could move into my condo! I’m living with Nullah now, you know, my condo’s empty anyway. I’ll give you the key.” I dig into my purse, get my key ring, and start to work the condo key off. “This is for the back door, you know, around the side…”

  “Never mind, Lita. I can’t go there. He knows where you live, he’d be sure and check it out and he’d find me. I know you mean well. But I shouldn’t have told you. Please don’t let on that I told you. Please, please, please don’t tell anyone! It would only make it worse. This is my problem. My problem. Even if Nullah puts him on retainer, something else will come along. I realize that now.” She turns back and hurries away.

  “Carly, wait!” I call after her. “Come to Nullah’s instead, then! We’ll help you! We’ll go and pick up Jennifer and we can make sure he can’t get her!”

  But she doesn’t stop, just lifts a hand in a kind of wave and walks faster, heading for the cab stand at the Harbour Air office.

  “Call me! Anytime!” I yell this loudly enough that people going up the steps up to Front Street turn around to look.

  I hurry back under the canopy on the gangway to get out of the rain, pull out my phone and call Nullah. Carly asked me not to tell anyone about the abuse, but I tell Nullah anyway. He agrees to call Derek and tell him they won’t be hiring a local lawyer after all because they’ve decided to go with someone in-house. He’ll also phone the managing partner and sing Derek’s praises, assuring him it was a tough decision. They were impressed with Derek and would’ve retained Jackson, Lambert & Duffy if they hadn’t decided to add another lawyer to their in-house t
eam instead, and so on.

  “Tell the senior partner to be sure he lets Derek Fucking Wilton know how much you and Finn liked him. I know it’s asking a lot but maybe you can find something positive to say about him. You like his shoes, or something.”

  “I’ll try,” Nullah agrees. I almost grin imagining Nullah telling the senior partner he liked a lawyer because of his nice shoes. It might be funny if it wasn’t so serious.

  Hopefully that will save Carly a beating. I don’t know what else to do. I realize it was a big step, her telling me about it. If it keeps her safe for the time being—if she has a little more time—maybe she’ll find the strength to do something about it.

  Eighteen

  Carly

  AS SOON AS I get home I return the key to the Altoids box in Derek’s desk. I look at his laptop, and wonder if I can use it to get on the internet. If there isn’t a password, maybe. Would he know if I did? What if there’s was a record of what I did, the sites I went to? I’m so ignorant of computers, I don’t know if there is. Do I dare? It would have to be just for a second, because Jennifer is due home soon. I stroke it, then quickly open it. The screen flashes on. There’s no password request.

  It’s not a legal document or any kind of work thing, though, it’s a video. I click the start arrow and gasp when I realize what I’m looking at: a bruised and bloodied woman, naked, shackled to a pipe in a dingy basement. There’s a man with his back to the camera, viewed from shoulders to knees, a folded belt in his hand. As he raises it, I slam the laptop shut and race out of the study, making sure to lock the door behind me.

  When my new duplicate key is safely concealed with the detective’s card behind the lining in my jewelry box, I come back to the kitchen and put the money on the counter where Derek will see it as soon as he comes in.

  Jennifer comes home and dumps her wet backpack on the floor. “Don’t leave that there,” I tell her.

  “I won’t,” she agrees, and goes to the pantry, shuffles through the cookies and granola bars and comes out with one of each before heading up to her room. She likely won’t be down again before Derek comes home, and the backpack on the floor will be in the way when he comes in. I go and hang it in the mudroom.

  I’m making pork chops for dinner and get the frying pan out. Derek will be home before I know it. I’m planning to brown the chops and pour a can of mushroom soup over them to simmer in the gravy. That’s tasty, but a little slap-dash. I decide to pound them flat and bread them instead. No longer pork chops, but pork schnitzel, definitely up a couple of notches. Derek loves schnitzel. I hope it makes up for my failed Lita lunch.

  As I work, that few seconds of video I saw keeps replaying in my brain. I try to stop it, but can’t. I try to quit worrying about how Derek will react when he learns I didn’t pay for lunch, and can’t do that either. He’s never used his belt on me. Will today be the fist time? Maybe he’ll be satisfied if I explain she paid without me knowing it. Or better, that she said Nullah wanted her to pay. A gesture of respect?

  I cut the meat off the bone, dig the meat tenderizer hammer out of the drawer and start to work on the first chop. Before I realize it, I’m hitting it harder, faster, and screaming as I do it, then stop, dissolving into tears and collapsing to the floor. Did I actually scream? Did Jennifer hear me?

  I lean back against the cabinets, collect myself, and wipe my eyes on my sleeve as I study the little hammer. Smooth on one side of the head, a grid pattern of sharp bumps, bits of meat still clinging to them, on the other. Funny, although I’ve had it for years I’ve never realized what a nice heft it has in my hand.

  I remind myself time is passing, and besides, I don’t want Jennifer to come down and find me like this. I stand up and get back to work on the chops. The one I was pounding before my little meltdown resembles ground pork and has a hole the size of a quarter. Even the cutting board underneath has holes in it. I start crying again, then tell myself to smarten up. Derek will be home soon. Crying is enough to send him off the deep end any time and he’ll be mad I didn’t pay for lunch, so I don’t want him to find me blubbering like a baby on top of that. I close the hole in the schnitzel by squishing it back together. It’ll be fine once it’s floured, egged and breaded. I set it on the plate next to the bowl of panko crumbs, and start on the next one.

  As I pound, I get a fleeting mind image of the little hammer smashing into Derek’s head. My god! Where did that come from? I should be disgusted at the thought, but it’s oddly satisfying. I fantasize Derek coming into the kitchen, seeing the money, and winding up to punch me in the stomach. I yell: she paid before we even got the bill! And I swing the hammer. It connects with his head with a meaty thunk as if it’s a pork cutlet. He topples over. I’m appalled I would even have such a fantasy, and hiss, “stop it Carly!”

  But the fantasy comes right back, different this time. Now he has thrown a dish of Cherries Jubilee off the dining room table and is telling me to clean it up. Thunk! The meat tenderizer connects with his forehead. Why was the little hammer in the dining room? It must have been in my pocket. No, my yoga pants don’t have pockets. Am I in jeans? Not likely. Anyway, I wouldn’t put the hammer in my pocket even if I had one. I had time to run out to the kitchen and get it, come running back in brandishing it over my head and yell clean it up yourself! Thunk! He’s on the floor and I’m leaning over him, unmoved by the mind picture of his eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling and blood running from the neat pattern of holes in his forehead. Is that his skull showing through? Blood runs off his face and drips onto the carpet. I should’ve used the smooth side. Like Maxwell’s Silver Hammer. The Beatles’ song floods my brain as I try to push the image out of my head. It keeps coming back, along with what I remember of the lyrics. Like Maxwell, I’ll make sure he is dead.

  Is it really that easy to kill someone?

  I get a queasy little jiggle in my insides when I think how I broke into Derek’s study. That was quite a feat for a fat woman, and I realize I’m proud I could do it. And getting that duplicate key cut! And sneaking a look at Derek’s laptop, much as I regret seeing what I saw.

  I’ve had quite a day. It’s a brand new Carly. No, not new, just someone who died and has come back to life. A resurrection.

  Why did discovering Derek has been in his study, not working as he always says he is but watching violent porn, have such an impact on me? I know guys like porn a lot more than women do and according to a magazine article I once read, just because they watch it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with their real life relationship. But watching a helpless woman being brutalized is beyond what might be considered healthy, isn’t it? I would never in a million years have dreamed Derek would watch porn at all, let alone something that hideous. Then I wonder why I’m surprised.

  I wish I hadn’t turned into a blubbering mess at lunch, though. What must Lita think of me? She’s probably disgusted. No way would she ever put up with a man beating on her! But I did have the courage to stand up to her. Tell her it’s my problem and I don’t need her help. I don’t need anyone’s help. And at least she didn’t say I told you so.

  Oddly, admitting what was going on in my life—that I was wrong about Derek—wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. Maybe because Lita has been a friend for so long. We knew all each other’s secrets back then. I’m beginning to feel kind of proud that I told her.

  Jennifer comes downstairs and into the kitchen. “I’m hungry,” she says.

  “You know we don’t eat until your father gets home.”

  “I can’t wait that long.”

  “You had a snack, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, a granola bar. But I’m still hungry. I’ll have my French fries now.”

  “Don’t be silly, Jennifer, I’m not going to make them now. You’re a big girl. Your father will be home in an hour or so. Go do your homework. You can wait.” I count as a small victory the expression of surprise that flickers across her face before the frown returns.

  �
��You’re mean!” she shrieks. “I’ll be glad when you’re gone!”

  “I’m not going anywhere and you watch your mouth, little girl, or you won’t get any dinner at all!”

  I hear her thumping up the stairs and then her door slams. She’s probably going to pout and I’ll have to coax her to come down for dinner. Then I realize: she can stay there. I’m done coaxing her to do anything. Today, I broke two cardinal rules: I broke into the Forbidden Study and told Lita about being abused. It’s just the beginning.

  I’m a young Miss Marple! No. Miss Marple wasn’t married. More like Alex Morrow. She has a husband and kids. Alex Morrow wouldn’t put up with her kids treating her like Jennifer treats me and I’m not going to put up with that any longer, either. My god! I stood up to a ten-year-old. Whoop-de-do.

  Then I think about what she said: I’ll be glad when you’re gone. What ten-year-old thinks like that? Where would she even get the idea? Is it something Derek said to her? Surely she doesn’t talk to her father about me being gone.

  New resolve floods through me. I’m not going anywhere, at least not without her, and she can stay up there all night if she wants to. I won’t beg her to come down. I find myself smiling as I peel potatoes, cut them into fries, and let them soak in ice water in the sink. When Derek gets home I’ll pat them dry, ready for the deep fryer.

  I’m putting the peels in the compost bin when I realize it was when I emptied it that I saw the study window slightly open and got the idea of going through it. And that I forgot about putting the screen back up. If Derek sees that—! I dry my hands and hurry out the back door, but before I get around the corner, Derek drives in and parks. He’s home early. Will he notice the screen?

  He slides out of the driver’s seat, shuts the door, and comes around the back of the vehicle. “Hey,” he says, “you were supposed to phone me right after lunch.”

  “My phone died.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you, you need to be better about making sure you charge it? I don’t like calling repeatedly and getting nothing.”