For Better or Worse

by Donna Huston Murray

  "I'd like to have it with me," Cissie insisted.

  "Okay. Then everybody follow me." Natalie climbed back into her van and waited while everybody else got belted in. This time Chelsea drove Cissie's car with Caroline and Cissie on board. I trailed along in my own car.

  A few minutes into our drive, a terrifying thought came over me. Mike Swenson. Never mind that I wasn’t certain he’d been tailing me. The truth was I’d been too distracted by everything else to check my surroundings, and the realization made my heart hammer and my palms sweat. The last thing I wanted was expose Cissie, or anybody else, to more danger.

  If I’d started out twitchy nervous, now I was hyper-vigilant. Every plain black sedan potentially belonged to Mike, and the roads were overrun with black sedans. Left, right, front, and back. I saw them by the dozens until I was nearly crazed with concern.

  Natalie’s route led through the close-packed suburbs west of Philadelphia, where shopping centers and strip malls and big box stores were plentiful, and housing just as dense. Only when we reached the countryside and thinner traffic could I feel certain that Swenson/Cotaldi wasn’t along for the ride.

  At last we turned into a long, crushed-stone driveway ending at a sprawling blue farmhouse. Three or four cars were parked around back, but the green van stopped out front.

  While the shelter manager and Chelsea helped Cissie and Caroline, I lagged behind to calm myself and take in the place.

  The curling black roof shingles and peeling paint underscored the organization's lack of funds, while an inviting row of red impatiens in industrial-sized coffee cans bloomed on each porch step. Off to the left, a blonde girl pumped and kicked a tree swing for all it was worth. A barefoot boy of about three sat splay-legged in a sandbox shoveling his way toward China. Their mother supervised from a blanket in the shade, but even in deep shadow the sling on her right arm was plainly visible.

  Distressing enough, but it was the wheelchair ramp leading to the porch that drained the last of my emotional reserve. It reminded me that abuse has no age limit and that even young victims like Cissie might arrive unable to walk.

  Natalie noticed my body language and shot me an understanding glance.

  Embarrassed, I made a show of reaching inside the car for my purse. Only when the others were safely inside would I wipe my eyes and blow my nose. I’d had a short night, a frightening morning in the woods, a difficult lunch with George—all before this episode with Cissie. Add to that my fears about Mike Swenson, and my mood could only be described as grim.

  Natalie emerged from the house and caught me using a tissue.

  "You did good," she said as she sauntered over. "You got her here. That's enough."

  I gestured with the tissue before putting it in my pocket. "The wheelchair ramp got me," I confessed.

  "Hard to fathom, I know."

  "Why do men do it?"

  She’d been leaning against my car but shoved off and began to walk. "That's a long story for another time," she said. "Let's just get Cissie and Caroline settled in, okay?" She held the farmhouse door open with her foot. "There's a fan, but no air-conditioning I'm afraid."

  "But they'll be safe," I remarked over the lump lodged in my throat.

  "Yes," Natalie reassured me. "They'll be safe."

  ...for now, remained unspoken.

  ***

  CISSIE'S TINY, THIRD-FLOOR room in the shelter had been an attic nook in the house's former life. Now it was painted a clean white and contained a single bed, a crib, a floor lamp and a rocking chair. Plastic boxes served as containers for the few possessions the new residents brought with them, perhaps their only possessions now. At the single, screened window ruffled curtains puffed in and out on the breeze.

  Chelsea changed Caroline on a towel on the floor while Cissie curled uncomfortably on the bed. Now that she was safe, the toll of last night's beating and today's tough decision had caught up with her. She stared at the floor as if she were already asleep.

  As soon as Caroline was settled into the crib with her toy bunny and a pacifier, Chelsea and I said our good-byes.

  When we reached the first floor, I stuck my head into Natalie's office. Two other women were there, a mere teenager dusting the bookshelves, another in her fifties dozing in an armchair. I understood. My own lowest points always came when I was alone. It made sense that those with the worst nightmares would be comforted by the company of others.

  Natalie was talking on the phone, guilting a grocery store manager into donating food. "You can? Thanks, Mr. Grater," she said finally. "I'll be there this afternoon. Right. Two on the dot. I don't suppose you could throw in a box of diapers? Okay. We're glad for anything you can spare." She hung up and switched her attention to Chelsea and me.

  "You need food?" I inquired.

  She nodded. “Getting enough to eat at home is a problem for some of these women, so I try to keep our pantry full. One less thing for them to worry about. But yes, we need everything—always."

  Humbled and awed by the young woman’s dedication, I thanked her for being there for Cissie. “I hope she decides to stay longer.”

  “I hope so, too. But be careful not to pressure her. Her husband is all about control, so we can’t be.”

  “Of course,” I assured her, but it was timely advice. I’d already begun to compile the many reasons why Cissie should stay here.

  "Caroline's going to wake up soon," Chelsea mentioned, "and Cissie’s due for more pain pills at three."

  "Debbie, you got that?" Natalie asked of the teenager with the dust rag.

  "Baby, check. Pills three o'clock," the girl repeated.

  Natalie extended her hand for me to shake. "Watch your back," she urged both Chelsea and me. "Ronald may have spies in the neighborhood. If he thinks you had anything to do with Cissie leaving, it could get nasty."

  "We will," I replied, but I was tired and didn't absorb the advice completely.

  Natalie's brows lowered. "I'm not kidding," she warned. "Some batterers will do anything to keep what they believe is rightfully theirs."

  "Anything," the teenager echoed, and I finally took the warning to heart. These women would know.

  Chapter 41

  BOBBY WAS ALREADY HOME when I dropped off my daughter.

  “Stay for dinner?” he offered as he and Chelsea embraced. They both looked exhausted; I knew I was.

  “Thanks, but I better get going.” I lusted for a mushroom omelet, some junk TV, and an early bedtime.

  The languid pace of the early evening traffic forced me to relax, and by the time I turned onto Beech Tree Lane a pastel twilight softened the Eastern seaboard. Nestled in among summer-fat bushes, the modest red rancher Rip and I had loved at first sight looked more beautiful to me than the Taj Mahal.

  Yet after I parked by the front walk and switched off the engine, the events of the day conspired to make me uneasy. I scoured my surroundings as best I could yet noticed nothing amiss. Still I was loathe to leave the car.

  "Chicken," I scolded myself as I climbed out. I was a woman living alone; I’d had moments like this before and would surely experience more.

  I locked the car with the clicker on my key chain, but, to mollify my jangled nerves, threaded the keys between my fingers like pointy brass knuckles. If I was being silly, nobody would ever know.

  "Hey!" yelled an angry voice that shot my pulse into the stratosphere. "Stop right there!"

  Still wearing the dirt-crusted jeans and heavy boots from work, Ronald Voight had emerged from the pickup truck in front of my next-door neighbor’s. Slamming the door behind him, he overtook me before I'd run five paces. Grabbed my arm. Blocked my way.

  "Where is my wife?" Nostrils flaring, he crowded so close I smelled his sweat, saw the veins pounding in his temples.

  “I...I don’t know.”

  “Liar! Where...is...my...wife?"

  Stepping even closer, he grabbed my shoulders and shook.

  Inside the house Fideaux frantically growled and barked
. A shame I couldn’t open the door to let him vent his fury—and mine.

  "Tell the truth, bitch, or so help me..." He raised his fist.

  "Let her go," a male voice commanded. "The police are on their way."

  Voight spun to direct fresh rage at the newcomer. "Why you..."

  I tried to run.

  Voight grabbed my hair.

  I raked his arm with my keys. He let go, but I was off-balance and landed on my butt.

  With a last piercing glare Ronald turned toward the balding, older man, whom I now recognized as the census-taker. Backing up, he raised his clipboard as if to protect his head, but Ronald plowed him down and kept going. Climbed into his pickup. Roared away.

  Pen poised for action, my rescuer scurried into the street, but just as quickly returned.

  "Didn't get the license."

  "Doesn't matter," I assured him as I dusted myself off. "The guy lives next door to my daughter."

  "He does?"

  "Yes."

  Both still jacked on adrenaline, we gravitated toward the house, where Fideaux was still sounding off.

  Inserting the proper key, I warned my rescuer to brace himself. "...uh, what’s your name again?"

  "John. John Butler."

  "Ginger Barnes." Shaking his pillowy hand, I clasped my left over his right for emphasis. "Thank you for saving me, John Butler. You couldn't have come at a better time."

  When we stepped inside, Fideaux twirled and leapt with joy. The man who scared his person was gone. He was free to rudely sniff the stranger and step on his shoes.

  I asked whether the police were actually coming.

  "I'm afraid there wasn't time,” Butler admitted. “Shall we call them now?"

  I gestured us into the living room. "That's up to you. I just fell down trying to scratch the bastard. You're the one who got shoved."

  "Assault. I see it on my list every day, but I never thought it would happen to me."

  "What list is that?"

  "I'm conducting a crime survey. We follow up every six months for two years by phone, but the initial interview has to be in person. That's why I'm here. You're one of my random subjects."

  "And I've been a pain in the ass, haven't I? Sorry. I thought you were a regular census-taker, and I didn't think it was time for that."

  "We wrote you a letter.”

  My eyes strayed to a large basket of unopened mail, mostly junk, but apparently not all.

  John Butler strolled over, rummaged through the heap, selected an envelope, and presented it to me.

  "Sorry," I apologized again. "It looked a little like it was from Publishers Clearinghouse."

  "Under the circumstances, I'm glad you were so cautious about a man on your doorstep. Does this sort of thing happen to you often?" He tilted his chin toward the front yard.

  "No. Is that a question from your survey, or are you just asking?"

  "Just me," he answered. "For now."

  I settled onto the chair at the right of the empty fireplace. My guest took the other. He was cute when he smiled, even had a dimple in his left cheek. I was relieved to notice he wore a wedding band.

  "You said you knew the man?"

  I described my recent acquaintance with Voight's wife and how Chelsea and I had helped get her to the shelter.

  Chelsea!

  "Mind if I take a minute to call my daughter?”

  “Of course not.”

  Bobby answered, which was probably best. He could warn Chelsea about their hot-headed neighbor without sounding like a mother.

  I sketched in the details.

  "Omigod, are you alright?" Bobby exclaimed, then peppered me with questions like, "How did Ronald even know where you live?"

  It took me a moment to think. "I may have told him myself the day we met."

  "Your address?"

  "No, the town. But I'm in the phone book." I would be correcting that ASAP.

  "Did you report the incident? You should, you know."

  That I had thought about already. Since I wasn’t hurt, and since Ronald believed the census man had already called it in, I worried that making a formal complaint might provoke Cissie’s husband even more. “...Of course, if Mr. Butler wants to report his assault, I'll back him up."

  He waved his head no.

  "Please be really careful, okay?" I urged my son-in-law. “Both of you, please.”

  "You, too, uh, Gin," he responded, cementing both my mother-in-law name and our mutual bond.

  When I returned to my seat, John Butler wore a cat-ate-the-canary smile.

  "What?" I asked bluntly. This was the end of a very long day.

  Pen in hand, clipboard resting on his lap, the census-taker got down to business. “Mrs. Barnes,” he opened with a bemused tilt to his chin. “During the past six months, have you been the victim of a crime?"

  Chapter 42

  NATALIE PHONED me from the women’s shelter the next morning. Cissie had had an especially rough night and clearly needed more time to heal. “I think I’ve talked her into staying a little longer, but she needs a few more things from home, one thing in particular. Any chance you can drop them off?”

  I said, “Of course!” and Natalie recited a list.

  As soon as we hung up, I realized why my gut felt clenched. Invading Ronald territory was not a good idea. Especially not alone.

  Eric answered my call with a hangover groan. Yesterday hadn’t exactly been a walk in the park for him either.

  I explained my assignment, adding, “If you’re willing, a little backup would be greatly appreciated.”

  Eric took a moment to rub his whiskers and clear his throat.

  I couldn’t fault him for stalling. If the neighborhood spy alerted Ronald someone was in his home and Ronald happened to be working nearby...

  “Yeah, sure. What the hell,” Eric agreed anyway.

  We would simply have to get the job done before anything awful could happen.

  “Aspirin?” I suggested to see if I was right about the hangover.

  “Oh yeah.”

  ***

  WHEN I ARRIVED at Chelsea’s forty minutes later, my daughter was emptying the dishwasher. Sipping black coffee at the kitchen counter, Eric flinched when two pots she was putting away clanked.

  “Sorry,” Chelsea told him.

  “De nada, Coach.”

  To complement his stage-fright therapy, Will Miller had advised the singer to secure a voice coach. "No point in being mentally ready if your instrument isn't tuned!" was how he put it. Already invested in Eric’s success, Chelsea was also convenient, and affordable. She made certain of it. Seeing the two of them interact so comfortably confirmed that the arrangement was working out well.

  Yet I fell silent and clenched my teeth anyway. Exactly why I could not say. Nobody could prove Eric had done anything wrong, but I still felt uneasy around him.

  So the problem was probably me. Now and then I tend to be overly suspicious. And maybe I haven’t quite shed my lioness instincts when it comes to my cubs. Logic insisted that Eric had no earthly reason to shove either Chelsea or me down a flight of stairs, and I was a logical person. Right? Up to me to give him the benefit of a doubt.

  “Shall we go?” he suggested, resting his empty mug on the counter.

  “Why not?”

  The most inconspicuous route to the Voight’s backdoor was a gap in the hedge. After we squeezed through, I retrieved the key I’d been told was on a nail inside the gardening shed while Eric surveyed our surroundings.

  He halted just inside the kitchen door. “What’s that smell?”

  I hadn’t noticed anything different from the day before, but now that he mentioned it...I lifted the lid of the trash can at the end of the counter.

  “Roses.” About a dozen battered red ones mingled with the kitchen garbage. Also, a nearly empty Gordons gin bottle sat on the table where it hadn’t been before.

  Eric had moved on. “What’re we looking for?” he wondered as he regarded the me
ss.

  “Diapers, breast pump, stuff like that.” I didn’t mention the special item. Don’t know why.

  “Sorry I asked.”

  He held one of the trash bags I’d brought along as I gathered a fuzzy blue elephant from the Pack N Play, a couple of light baby blankets, pacifiers, Cissie’s phone charger. The living room had been righted somewhat—the glass swept off the floor, the lamps set out of the way—yet the broken coffee table remained, and the stuffed chair and other items were still displaced enough to give the room a disturbing vibe. When I mentioned that most of what I needed was upstairs,” Eric said, “Thank goodness.”

  Heated by the summer sun, Baby Caroline’s room was thick with odors, stale air, used diapers, the cloying fragrance of lotion. I ransacked the dresser we’d brought up from the basement with the haste of a thief.

  Eric rocked on his heels and overlooked the street. “The spy left,” he remarked with a lift of his eyebrow.

  “Do you think he saw us?”

  A resigned shrug. “Dunno. His wife went, too.”

  “Doesn’t mean he didn’t warn Ronald.”

  Another careless shrug. “So speed it up.”

  I collected an envelope Cissie had hidden under the diaper pail, the primary reason I was here rather than at Kmart buying inexpensive replacements for whatever Cissie needed. Along with a small stash of cash, the envelope contained Cissie’s mother’s diamond engagement ring, which Natalie agreed Cissie would never see again if Ronald was clever enough to find it. I surmised that it represented her only keepsake and perhaps her only financial asset, too.

  I tucked the envelope inside my waistband under my shirt.

  Next, clothes for Cissie.

  Her side of the joint closet was surprisingly sparse, making me wonder whether Ronald's control over his wife included a bare-minimum budget. Disliking the man more and more, I grabbed shorts and t-shirts as fast as my hands allowed and tossed them to my accomplice.

  Eric reverently placed each item in the second bag. If Ronald was on his way, Eric didn’t seem to care. Indeed, he seemed consumed by enough dark thoughts to fill a cave.