Sheckley, Alyssa - The Better to Hold You.html

by The Better to Hold You (lit)

  Red had gotten scared and run off, and a coyote had appeared and guided me home. That didn't make much more sense, but at least I didn't have to get myself committed in the morning. And wasn't it just like a man to run off the minute you finally decide to let him in?

  And then, sitting on my dark couch in the dark house, came a shower of memories. Me at nineteen, still young enough to believe in the magic of transformations; still young enough to believe the magazines when they said the new hair, a prettier you, thinner thighs, better sex, making him want you. I had met Hunter still naïve enough to believe that I was on the verge of inventing a new, happier, stronger self, that in choosing the right college, the right career path, the right man, I might shed the old skin of my old life.

  But here I was, in a house that was big and old and alien, waiting for someone who didn't really want me anymore to walk in through the door. When he did, it would be time to leave him and face the prospect of life on my own.

  No wonder most people don't leave a marriage without a lover to help them open the door. So comforting, the thought of that lover in the background. Too bad Red couldn't have been a little more convincing in the role.

  I fell asleep without knowing I had done so. I wakened partially when the first rays of daylight hit my face from the living room window, but then I closed my eyes again, too tired to move. Suddenly, there was a crashing sound behind me, and I whirled. My heart lurched into a faster rhythm a full half-second before my brain caught up with the information: Front door slamming open. Husband standing there. Naked. And bloody.

  “Abra.” Hunter looked at me with the strangest expression on his face, a look of rueful embarrassment that did not really go with the deep lacerations on his shoulders and chest.

  “Oh, my God.”

  “I see you're back. Well. That's good.” He brushed his hands off on his thighs, for all the world as if he'd just come back from a day's gardening. “I think I'll just take a shower, then.”

  “Hunter, you're bleeding.”

  He looked down at himself. “Ah. Yes. The thing of it is, I was out looking for you, and—”

  “You're bleeding and you're naked.”

  Something shifted in Hunter's strange expression. “Abra,” he said, and it came out clogged in his throat. His eyes were dark with pain and confusion.

  “What happened to you?” My voice was softer than I thought it would be. I pulled a throw off the back of the couch and carried it over to my husband. “Here.” I wrapped it around his shoulders.

  “I can't remember.” His arms came around me and he slid down my body, his face pressed against my belly, as Red's face had been not so many hours ago. “Abra.”

  “I'm here.”

  “Don't go.”

  “I'm here.”

  His arms convulsed around me, hugging me so tightly that I nearly lost my balance. I stroked his hair, not knowing what to say, guilty and a little repulsed by the sweaty, humid odor of blood and dirt. I couldn't remember Hunter ever going down on his knees before me. His sudden need of me was seductive, and I tried to pull back a little. “Were you—did you drink something?”

  Hunter pulled back. “You smell funny.”

  “I smell funny?”

  “Like …” His brow furrowed. He looked up at me. “Are you leaving me for him?”

  “You have some nerve.” Now I did try to step back, but Hunter prevented me, holding me even as he stood, his arms moving up to grip my arms. “Where have you been all night? With that waitress? And how about all this past summer? Want to tell me again how it wasn't like that with Magda?”

  Hunter inhaled so deeply his nostrils flared. “He didn't come on you,” he said harshly. “Did you come on him?”

  “No! How dare you!” I yanked my wrists from his grip, my voice coming out very calm and precise and overly deliberate, like the computerized voice on the radio warning about the storm. “How dare you go on and on about Red when you—”

  “But it means nothing to me!” His face was flushed with anger, and I realized I'd never seen Hunter lose control before. “Fucking some girl when I'm away from home—that's like scratching an itch to me, Abra. You know that, deep down. That's why you never paid attention when I—”

  “I didn't know!” I was hitting him with my fists, and he caught each blow. “I didn't know, you bastard! I trusted you because you'd already had a thousand stupid bimbos!”

  “And you didn't care!”

  “We weren't married then!” We glared at each other, but I could feel that my rage was burning hotter. He was blocking my fists, but then I started clawing at his already bloody shoulders, and I could feel him flinch. “What about Magda? What about those letters you didn't send? Are you going to tell me she didn't matter?” I stood there, waiting for his answer, before pushing him away and walking over to the window. His hesitation had said it all. “Magda was different, I admit it. But it wasn't what you think, Abs. She was my teacher—”

  I sobbed so loudly it was almost a wail.

  “And for a little while, I thought it was more. I admit it, okay?” He was beside me now, his head bent forward, forehead touching mine. “I thought—she'd changed me, and I was different. I thought you and I wouldn't work together anymore. But I was wrong. You came up here with me. You gave me—you always give me the space I need to figure things out.”

  I couldn't look at him. I hated having him so close, but I couldn't seem to move away. “Then why were you out all night with someone else? What was that—another itch?”

  I could feel his sigh. His hand behind my head felt sweaty, too warm. We were as close as if we were about to have sex, and I felt real nausea building at the back of my throat. “Abra, last night—I started by looking for you. I was mad you'd taken the car. I hitched to Moon-doggie's and started getting drunk, and then—no, it wasn't an itch. It was a fire. Ah, don't cry. Look at me, will you?”

  I looked at him. “I hate you,” I said. “I want out.”

  “You don't mean that. Red's just—”

  “It has nothing to do with Red. Have your waitress. Have them all. I'm going back to the city.”

  “Okay.” He nodded quickly, as if I'd asked for his agreement. “Okay, you go back. Maybe that's best, a little space—”

  “No.” I stood up. “This isn't about me giving you room to be single while still staying married. This is about me. Leaving you.”

  Hunter seemed frozen. “All right,” he said. “All right.” He seemed to have decided that he was going to be reasonable, calm, no matter what.

  “No, it's not all right,” I said, crying harder now, and then the nausea became more than a feeling, and I clapped my hand over my mouth and ran for the bathroom, too late.

  I threw up on the peeling linoleum while Hunter held me from behind, supporting me until all I could bring up was bile. We collapsed on the floor together, me sitting between his legs. Hunter stroked my hair from my face as I watched a trail of vomit trickle down the sloping floor toward the claw-foot tub. My breasts ached from the impact of landing hard on my tailbone, and I tried to remember when I'd had my last period. Last month, I thought. Which could mean that I was due now, except that I was never that regular, and my premenstrual symptoms had never been like this: savage anger roiling inside me, a violent rainstorm of emotions threatening to break down everything in its path.

  “Oh God,” I said. “Oh God. I think I'm pregnant.”

  Hunter's arms tightened around me and he held me without saying a word. The sour smell in the room grew stronger, and still I made no attempt to rise. In between the wood cabinet and the sink, there was a small brown spider sitting on her web. A tiny ant was heading her way. Things you wouldn't notice if you happened to be standing upright, on two legs.

  “How far along?”

  Hunter's question jerked me back into myself. How far along? A minnow, a tadpole, a salamander, a piglet? How far along the evolutionary scale; did it have that downy fetal layer of fur yet, or a vestigial tail�
��no, that came later, along with the fluttering movement of eyelids, the possibility of dreams. “Not far,” I said, thinking of Hunter's long-standing objections to our having a child. His loss of freedom. My loss of independence. The possibility of his mother's schizophrenic genes getting stirred into the fetal pot. Except that it might not be schizophrenia—it might be lycanthropy.

  “Do you want it?” His hand slipped down to my belly as he asked the question, cupping my lower abdomen.

  “Do you?”

  Hunter's thumb moved in a gentle caress. “Oh, yes.” There was something poignant to me about the way he was sitting, naked thighs wrapped around mine, his hand over my womb, holding me safe. “I want my baby in you, Abs. I want it very much.”

  “I do, too.” I was crying. Hunter moved his hand to my chin, lifting it. I let him kiss me, my tears running into our mouths. His hand cupped my jaw, flooding me with tenderness. Until the next moment, when I felt the beginnings of an erection stir against my lower back, and remembered that he had no clothes on. But the man had good instincts. Just before my awareness of Hunter's arousal shattered the moment, he drew back, his eyes so warm with emotion that I felt almost frightened.

  “I do love you, you know.”

  “I love you, too.” It was nearly too much, this happiness after that rage. I was not equipped for such highs and lows, and I found myself wishing for my old husband back, the one with the faint air of amusement, the one who treated even the most savage emotions as if they were merely big, tame cows.

  “Well, then. Let's get cleaned off.”

  “All right.”

  He offered me his hand to help me up, and after a moment's hesitation, I took it.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The day after the storm hit, the sky was clear and blue and filled with soft white clouds that scudded slowly by with the breeze. It seemed impossible that a little thing like weather could have knocked down so many trees, but there were two down on our road alone. A road crew removed the trees and the deer and by noon we had electricity again. Triple A towed our car to the town's garage and for three days we had a borrowed pickup truck in our driveway. Red called twice, hanging up when the answering machine picked up. The third time he left a message, asking me to call when I had a chance. I deleted the record of his calls, feeling oddly numb, then listened to my own voice on the answering machine, telling Hunter not to worry. After a moment, I erased that, too.

  Hunter and I never did talk and resolve what had happened that night. I was checking the fridge for spoiled food when Hunter surprised me by asking me out to dinner and a movie. He said he was tired of being such a recluse and a bastard. He dropped his chin and looked out from under his floppy dark hair, the dangerous, darkly brooding air he had replaced by something surprisingly boyish and vulnerable.

  I should have gone back to my book on Alpha Males and their instincts: how a dominant leader, when it has subjugated its subordinate mate to the point of rebellion, will turn back to the ploys it used for its initial sexual courtship.

  I ordered grilled mushrooms and pasta at Tooth and Claw, an expensively renovated old farm house. Hunter chose steak tartare and I tried not to wince at the sight of his lips chewing all that raw meat. Instead of seeing a movie, we walked around the village of Rhinebeck, where two of the three little dress shops had the kind of expensive, baggy hippie clothes I like best. Hunter bought me a lavender corduroy jumper and a black-and-white Zuni-patterned scarf. The jumper was one of those roomy one-size-fits-all things that Hunter usually despises, but this time he didn't comment, except to say, “Looks like it might come in handy.” Hunter drove back with only his left hand on the wheel. His right hand held mine.

  “Are you going to take a test, Abs?”

  “What kind of test?”

  Hunter glanced over his shoulder at me.

  “Oh,” I said. “I suppose I should.”

  We stopped at a pharmacy that stayed open late and I bought something that said it was the number one choice of someone or other. At home, I went straight into the bathroom while Hunter fixed hot cocoa.

  “Well? What's the verdict, Abs?”

  I walked out carrying the little plastic disk and showed him the plus sign. It was faint, which I supposed was because I was testing so early on, before I had even missed a period.

  “That's good, isn't it? A plus? That means we did it, right?”

  I looked at him carefully, his handsome Heathcliff face open and excited for once, his dark eyes searching mine for my reaction. I had loved this man for a long time, and now a part of him had taken root in me. It would be an odd moment to close off to him completely.

  “Yes,” I said slowly, making up my mind. “That's the good sign.” The next morning, I made an appointment with a local gynecologist who seemed less certain.

  “Are you having any cramping? Spotting or bleeding?” She was a motherly looking woman with gray curly hair and a wide bosom, and I had liked her immediately.

  “A little,” I admitted. “So I'm not pregnant?” I felt a sense of vertigo, as if I had been spun wildly first in one direction, and now in another.

  “Let's retest you in a few days, and then I can tell you for sure.” She didn't use the word “miscarriage,” but I understood that was what might be happening to me. I put my hand over my stomach and thought, Hang in there, Baby. And then I wondered if that was really what I wanted, after all. But when I returned for my second test, the doctor declared me officially pregnant.

  “Although I have to admit, some of your hormone levels are a little unusual. Do you have any rare genetic conditions in your family?”

  No, I said, thinking: But my husband's a lycanthrope. I took a prescription for prenatal vitamins, made an appointment to return, and e-mailed my old teacher. I wasn't sure whether or not Malachy had kept the same e-mail address, but I figured it was worth a try. A sweet and motherly gynecologist, I realized, might not be the specialist my condition required.

  To: Madmal@optonline.net:

  From: Abra79@yahoo.com:

  Need your professional advice, for wolf-hybrid Pia—and for myself. I'm pregnant and living two hours from city, in Northside.

  He wrote back immediately.

  To: Abra79@yahoo.com:

  From: Madmal@optonline.net:

  So you and Pia are in the same town? Send your contact info and I will attempt the trip. My health a little uncertain at the moment, but I hope to be better in a few days.

  Given the circumstances, I decided to accept the inevitable and embrace my fate. That is to say, I agreed to work for my mother. After the first few days, during which I felt uncomfortably like an adolescent impostor, I settled in, and by mid-November I had a routine going. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays I went over to Beast Castle to assist with the sick animals and new arrivals. My mother was so happy with the arrangement that she actually treated me like a veterinarian, writing down my instructions, calling me for medical advice. Not to mention paying me money.

  Meanwhile, Pimpernell the Chihuahua had stopped eating and Grania found herself unable to pay attention to her classes. She had formed a special attachment to the little dog, and kept cooking it delicacies to tempt its appetite—fried calves' liver, filet mignon, lamb chops. I discovered an abscessed tooth in that tiny yawn of a mouth and drained the pus off, which cured the problem. After that Grania became my staunchest ally.

  I was so buoyed by this turn of events that I waited three weeks before telling my mother that I was pregnant.

  “You're sure? And you're keeping it? Well, I'll look at the bright side. At least this means your marriage won't last long. Once you have a baby you'll see just what that husband of yours is made of.” She made plans to come for Thanksgiving with Grania, then canceled them because she didn't want a seasonal feast, she was on a diet. Instead, my mother said, she was going to take a trip to Antigua, where she could snorkel and lose weight in the sun.

  When I told him the news, my father hesitated, then asked if
I was happy. He said he'd love to see me—he meant us—over the Christmas vacation.

  I got sick in the evenings, but felt amazingly well during the first part of the day. So well that I was a bit surprised, actually—I'd never seen my hair look so thick and glossy, and my sense of smell seemed to have become particularly acute. This was more or less typical, according to my gynecologist. Less common was the new acuity of my hearing, although my eyesight hadn't improved.

  Possibly because canids are myopic, I thought, and e-mailed Malachy again: When are you coming? This time, there was no reply.

  My old friend, insomnia, still kept me up till three or four most nights, but now I nodded off in the late afternoons for an hour or so, and that little bit of extra sleep made me feel more alert all day long.

  With less attention paid to it, my marriage seemed to be doing better. Hunter still disappeared up to the attic to work, but at mealtimes he joined me and made plans for the early summer, when the baby was due. We argued about names and whether or not it was safe for me to ski. We spooned each other in bed, but Hunter no longer wanted to play slave girl games with me. One morning, waking to a feeling of animal plea sure in the drowsy warmth of his body, I turned to Hunter and ran my hand down his thigh.

  “Let's just cuddle,” he said, stopping my hand, and I rested my head on his shoulder, letting him pet my hair until I fell back asleep.

  The hair under my arms and on my legs grew so thick and dark that I became embarrassed. Usually I just shave under the armpits, the hair on my calves and thighs being rather sparse and downy. But now I looked like some kind of yeti, and my curved little lady's razor was not up to the job. I borrowed Hunter's cherished English razor, a really lovely bone-handled affair, and his shaving cream, too. Unfortunately, my foamy fur was impossible to rinse out of the blades, and I wound up feeling like Bluebeard's wife, hiding the bloodied key to the forbidden chamber.