by Joy Fielding
“We’ll take care of it.” Barbara wondered what the hell was going on tonight. Had everyone gone crazy? There wasn’t even a full moon, she thought distractedly as Tracey raced down the stairs with an armload of blue and green blankets that Barbara immediately wrapped around Chris. Dear God, what was she wearing? “Give this jacket back to the cabbie and get some money out of my purse,” Barbara instructed Tracey while leading Chris toward the living room. “And I need some heavy socks,” she called out as Tracey ran upstairs to get her mother’s purse. “I can’t believe you were out in that freezing cold with bare feet. Your poor toes,” she said, massaging them.
“I’ll make some hot tea,” Tracey volunteered minutes later, having returned from paying the cabdriver, assuring him that everything was fine. “Are you all right, Mrs. Malarek?” She watched her mother slip the heavy gray-and-white gym socks over Chris’s blue-tinged feet.
Chris’s body was shaking so hard, it was impossible to know whether the nod she offered was intended or not.
“Are the socks okay?”
“They’re fine, sweetheart,” Barbara told Tracey. “And tea would be great.”
Barbara quickly enveloped her shaking friend in her arms, rocked her gently back and forth, like a baby. She couldn’t believe Chris was actually here, that she was holding her in her arms. How she’d longed to see her. And how beautiful Chris was, despite the passage of time, the horrors she’d undoubtedly endured. Barbara kissed Chris’s icy forehead, her bitterly cold cheek, and watched the years, the pain, melt away. Suddenly, they were back in the sandbox at the far end of Grand Avenue. They were laughing and happy and carefree, like the children playing at their feet. Nothing bad could ever happen to them. Not as long as they had each other. “Can you tell me what happened?”
Chris stared at Barbara with confused, terrified eyes. “Tony and I had a terrible fight.” She trembled, but Barbara couldn’t tell whether it was from the cold or from the memory. “He bought me this.” Chris opened the front of the blankets, stared blankly at the costume she was wearing. “He insisted I put it on. Can you believe it?” she asked in growing disbelief. “I mean, I felt like such an idiot in it, with this stupid fur trim and flowing cape. I couldn’t believe he was really serious.”
Barbara glanced toward the kitchen, heard Tracey at the sink, pouring water into the kettle. “What happened?”
“I tried to make a joke. ‘It’s Supermom,’ I said. I thought maybe he’d laugh, but he got so mad. I’ve never seen him so angry.”
“Did he hit you?”
Chris regarded her curiously, the question taking a long time to sink in, as if it had to penetrate layers of frozen skin to reach her. “No,” she said after a long pause. “Isn’t that strange? He didn’t hit me.”
“Why is that strange?”
“Because he always hits me.”
Barbara felt her cheeks flush with shame. “What happened, Chris? What made you run out of the house without any money, without even getting dressed? Because we can call the police …”
“Please don’t call the police.”
“Why not? If he threatened you—”
“He didn’t threaten me.”
“What did he do?”
“He threw me out.” Chris laughed, a brittle sound that snapped upon contact with the air, like an icicle from an eaves trough.
“He threw you out of the house practically naked?”
“Please don’t call the police.”
“Why not? The man’s a lunatic. You could have frozen to death.”
“He told me I’d never see my children again.”
“Well, he’s full of shit,” Barbara said adamantly. “If anyone won’t see his kids again, it’ll be him.”
Chris tried to smile. “He can’t stop me from seeing my kids, can he, Barbara?”
“Of course not. We’ll call Vicki first thing in the morning. She’ll know who you should talk to.”
“If we call the police, it’ll only make things worse.”
“How could it make things any worse? They’ll arrest the bastard, Chris. Take him to jail.”
“He’ll get out, come back. It’s my word against his. And the children’s,” Chris added softly. “He can’t stop me from seeing my kids, can he?”
Barbara heard the kettle whistling in the kitchen. “No, he can’t stop you from seeing your kids.”
In the next minute, Tracey appeared with two mugs of steaming tea. “It’s herbal.” She pushed several magazines out of the way as she deposited the mugs on the coffee table in front of the sofa. “Strawberry-kiwi. It’s new.”
“Thank you.” Chris leaned forward, warmed her hands over the rising steam.
The comforting smell of exotic fruit filled the air. “Thank you, sweetheart,” Barbara said, feeling a tremendous sense of pride in her only child. Let Ron produce baby after baby with his young bride. She’d already gotten the best of his seed. “Why don’t you go back to bed now, darling? You have school in the morning.”
“Can I get you anything else, Mrs. Malarek? Some cookies, maybe?”
“No, thank you, Tracey. You’re very sweet.”
Tracey lingered, shifting from one bare foot to the other, as if trying to imagine what it would be like to have snow between her toes, ice clinging to her heels. “Good night, Mrs. Malarek. Good night, Mom. I’ll be in my room, if you need anything.” She kissed her mother’s cheek, disappeared upstairs.
Barbara lifted one of the mugs from the table, held it close to Chris’s lips, watched Chris slowly suck at the air, coaxing the hot liquid inside her mouth.
“It’s good,” Chris said, taking the mug from Barbara’s hand, surrounding it with her own.
“So, he just threw you out into the street,” Barbara prodded, needing to put the facts into context, to hear the details that would make the story make sense. Had Chris run to her neighbors? Had they refused to take her in? How had she found a cab to take her to Mariemont at almost one o’clock in the morning, looking like some mad escapee from a horror movie?
“I didn’t know what to do.” Chris’s eyes darted back and forth, as if looking for answers. “I couldn’t believe what was happening, that Tony had thrown me out of the house practically naked, that I was really standing outside in the freezing cold with no coat and no shoes and no money, and he wouldn’t let me back inside. I banged on the door. I ran around to the back. I even thought of breaking one of the windows. But I was afraid if I did that, he’d get even angrier. And then I thought … oh God, this is terrible because my kids are still there … I thought, no, I don’t want to go back inside that house. I’m out. I’m actually out. He’s not standing over me. He’s not breathing down my neck. He’s not forcing his way inside me.”
“Oh, God.”
“I’m free.” Chris looked around Barbara’s living room in grateful disbelief. “I’m out.”
Tears filled Barbara’s eyes. “Yes, you are. You never have to go back there.”
“But my kids …”
“We’ll get your kids out of there. No court in the land would give that monster custody.”
Chris nodded, took another long sip of her tea. “I thought of going to the neighbors,” she continued, picking up the thread of her narrative. “But it was almost midnight. Everyone’s house was dark. I knew they’d all be asleep. I couldn’t wake people up, people I barely know, let them see me this way. So I just started running.”
“You ran? Where? How?”
“I don’t know. In circles. I slipped, fell a few times, finally found myself on a main street. Some cars went by and honked, but nobody stopped. I think I probably scared them. And then suddenly, there was this cab. And it pulled over, and the driver didn’t speak much English, but he knew I was in trouble, and he said he’d take me to the hospital or to the police, but I said, no, take me to Mariemont, to my friend Barbara, that you’d pay him when we got here. And then he took off his jacket and wrapped it around me.” Her voice trailed off. She look
ed toward the front door.
“It’s been taken care of,” Barbara reminded her.
“Yes. Thank you.” Chris finished the rest of her tea, returned the mug to the table.
Immediately Barbara put the second of the hot mugs into Chris’s hands. “Did the kids hear anything of what went on?” Barbara was thinking of Tracey listening at the top of the stairs during her earlier confrontation with Ron. Say what you will about the SOB, Barbara thought now, at least he wasn’t Tony.
“The boys were asleep.”
“And Montana?”
Chris shook her head, as if she didn’t know. Tears began falling the length of her cheeks.
“You’ll be all right. You’re safe now. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
“He has my kids.”
“Not for long. We’ll call Vicki first thing in the morning. She’ll know what to do. In the meantime, you’re going to stay here with me. And as soon as we get your kids, they’ll stay here too, at least until everything gets sorted out. Which it will, I promise. Now, let’s go upstairs. You’re going to get out of those ridiculous clothes and I’m going to pour you a nice hot bath, and you’re going to get a good night’s sleep. How does that sound?”
Chris smiled. “Too good to be true.”
Barbara sat on the side of the tub, watching the water gush from the tap, occasionally stretching her hand toward the flow, checking and adjusting the temperature. Hot, but not too hot. Not so hot Chris wouldn’t be able to sit down comfortably. No way she wanted to add to her injuries. Dear God, what had the woman been through? Clearly, the things she’d told Barbara tonight were just the tip of the iceberg. Although why should that surprise her? Hadn’t Tony been abusing Chris for years? Hadn’t he hacked off her hair, for God’s sake? And hadn’t she sat back—hadn’t they all sat back—and done absolutely nothing?
The Grand Dames. Friends for life.
Some friends.
Barbara closed her eyes in shame and regret. It was too easy to conclude there was nothing anyone could have done. Too easy to put the responsibility squarely on Chris’s shaking shoulders and Tony’s brutal fists. They were all responsible.
And yet, what could she have done?
“It’s not your fault,” Chris said suddenly, coming into the bathroom, sitting down beside Barbara on the edge of the tub. She was wrapped in Barbara’s voluminous white terry-cloth bathrobe, and her hair, grown back to shoulder length, was pushed behind her ears.
The ponytail was gone forever, Barbara thought, realizing how much she missed it. “I should have been there for you,” she whispered. “At the very least, I should have been there for you.”
“You were.” Chris reached over, took Barbara’s hand inside her own.
“No. I stopped trying to find you.”
“What choice did you have?”
“I thought about you all the time.”
“I know.”
“We all did. Grand Avenue was never the same without you.”
“How are the others?” Chris asked, her eyes suddenly hungry for information. “Vicki and Susan? Owen and Jeremy? The kids?”
“Everyone’s fine.”
“Still together? Still well?”
“Still together. Still well.”
“I’m so glad. And you, how are you?”
Barbara smiled. “Better now that you’re here.” She stroked Chris’s beautiful face, as if to convince herself she was really there and not just a figment of her lonely imagination. “Please tell me you’ll never go back to him,” she said, almost afraid to say the words out loud for fear of what Chris might say in return.
“I’ll never go back to him.” Chris’s voice was surprisingly strong.
“No matter what he says or does.”
“I’ll never go back,” Chris said again, even more forcefully the second time.
“You promise?”
Chris nodded. “I promise.”
Barbara pushed herself off the side of the tub. “Take your bath.”
Chris undid the belt at her waist, shedding the oversize terry-cloth robe, like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, Barbara thought, averting her eyes, about to leave the room when Chris’s voice stopped her. “Don’t go.”
Barbara said nothing. Instead she lowered the lid of the toilet seat, sitting down and watching as Chris slipped naked into the tub, her body quickly submerging beneath the hot water. Had she always been so thin, so terribly fragile? Barbara wondered, wincing at the sight of the myriad bruises that stained Chris’s body, dusty yellow blotches along the insides of her arms, neon purple circles on her thighs, flat blue shadows everywhere. There were other marks as well, Barbara realized, unable to turn away. Scratches on Chris’s neck and around her ribs, what appeared to be several bite marks on her left shoulder and breast, just above the small, earth-brown nipple. “How’s the water? Too hot? Too cold?” Barbara realized she was talking strictly for the sake of hearing her own voice, that she was afraid if she didn’t talk, she might start crying and never stop.
“It’s perfect.”
“You must be exhausted.”
“I was thinking the same thing about you.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Barbara said.
“Don’t worry about me.”
The two women nodded silent understanding. “Would you like me to wash your back?” Barbara asked after a pause of several minutes.
Chris smiled, grabbed the bar of soap from its container, handed it to Barbara. Then she raised her knees and leaned forward over them, hugging her thighs to her chest, as Barbara soaked a washcloth in the water and began rubbing it across her back. Chris moaned, twisted her head from one side to the other, closed her eyes.
“Too hard?”
“Feels great. Feels perfect.”
Barbara rubbed soap into the washcloth, letting the cloth glide across Chris’s back and neck, the gentle ablutions hypnotizing both of them. “Promise me you’ll never go back to him,” Barbara said, as she had said earlier.
And again Chris promised, “I’ll never go back.”
Only later, with Chris safely back inside Barbara’s white terry-cloth bathrobe, her wet hair securely tucked inside a thick, white towel, both women sitting on the side of Barbara’s bed, did Barbara notice Chris looking at her with newly inquisitive eyes, as if seeing her for the first time. “What is it?”
“Your face.” Chris lifted her hand to Barbara’s cheek. “Something’s different.”
Barbara patted her hairline with self-conscious fingers. “I had a little surgery a while back.”
“Surgery?”
“Just a few little nips and tucks. A girl’s got to stay beautiful.”
“You always look beautiful.”
Barbara felt her eyes sting with tears.
“You are beautiful.” Chris gently wiped the tears from Barbara’s face.
“Thank you.” Barbara folded one lip inside the other to prevent a sob from escaping.
“I’ve missed you so much.”
“I’ve missed you,” Barbara hugged the other woman to her, both women crying freely.
At the same moment, each pulled back, began drying the other’s tears. “I love you,” Chris said.
“I love you too.”
And suddenly Chris leaned forward, pressed her lips against Barbara’s, so tenderly Barbara wasn’t sure they were really there at all.
My God, what’s going on? Barbara asked herself, trying to pretend what was happening was a dream, that this whole crazy night was a dream, except she knew it wasn’t. What she didn’t know was how to respond. What she didn’t know was what to do next. She loved Chris. Loved her with her entire being, her heart and her soul. But she’d never thought of Chris in any sexual sense, never so much as fantasized anything like this happening between them. And Chris was frightened and vulnerable and confused. She’d just escaped from a crazy man. She was grateful and relieved and desperate for warmth. For affection. For love.
That’s al
l it was.
One lost soul reaching out to another.
And then they heard the noise, and the women quickly pulled apart. “What was that?” Chris asked, fear instantly returning to her eyes as they shot from the bedroom window to the hall, then back to the window.
Barbara ran to the window, peeked under the heavy curtains toward the backyard. She peered into the darkness, trying to catch sight of anything, anyone. But all she saw was a silent wintry tableau—a postage-sized yard liberally sprinkled with snow, the ice-encrusted branches of the small trees swaying precariously in the cold wind. Had one of the branches snapped off, fallen to the ground? Had someone thrown a pebble at the window? Barbara checked the ground for debris, the window for scratches, saw nothing out of the ordinary. Had Tony figured out where Chris had gone? Was he out there now, waiting in the dark, watching the house?
“Stay here,” Barbara instructed, heading for the hall. Or was it possible that Ron had returned, was even now ransacking the house for items he’d forgotten the first time around?
“Where are you going?”
“I’ll be right back.”
Barbara crossed the hall, opened the door to Tracey’s room, looked toward the bed. Tracey might have gotten up to use the bathroom. Maybe that was the noise they’d heard. Except that Tracey was sound asleep in her bed, her breathing steady and rhythmic. “Sleep well, my sweet girl,” Barbara said, kissing Tracey’s warm forehead, securing the blankets around her shoulders, tiptoeing from the room.
She approached the stairs, her fingers trailing across the wall as she inched her way down the steps in the dark, bracing herself for the sudden touch of unfriendly hands on her shoulders. But there was nothing. No unwelcome guests lurked inside. No sinister ghosts lingered. Both the front and side doors were securely locked. Again, Barbara peeked outside, saw no one. “Go away, whoever you are,” Barbara said to the ominous silence. “Stay away.”
“Barbara?” Chris’s voice wobbled toward Barbara from the top of the stairs.