“What’s the matter with you, Bea? It’s fucking freezing.”
She started doing up the window and I slid back in, my body pressed to the seat, knees to chest, shoes hovering above the leather.
“Christ,” she said, blasting the heat through the vents and up the windshield, the fog that had formed receding in an instant.
When we pulled up to the apartment, I could see Dave through the front window lying on his couch, his face lit television-blue. He looked out toward the street, his gaze holding steady the slowing lights of our car. We were making eye contact but he didn’t know, he wouldn’t have been able to see me through the sloshing dark. He tucked the pillow further under his neck, when our car doors slammed shut and we made a break for the side door, his eyes drifting back to the TV.
He must have known that you could see right in from the street at night. The curtains wouldn’t close all the way on account of the old rad beneath the window, so scenes of their domesticity played out for whoever was passing by. One of them—either he or Kendra—must have noticed at some point, coming home after dark to the other waiting on the living room couch.
I noticed.
I’d see them when I jogged through the neighbourhood, all the way to their street and back home again. It was a good distance, 5k there and back, which was why I used their place as a marker. Sometimes they were both there, stone faces in the shifting TV light, Kendra’s head on his lap as he stroked her hair. Sometimes she’d be curled up like a cat with her legs tucked beneath her while she flipped through a magazine and he played video games, a bottle of beer, a glass of wine on the coffee table before them.
Once, I saw her back glistening in a shaft of street light, the clasp of her bra undone, straps sliding down her arms. Dave’s bare knees pointing out from beneath her on the couch. Her black hair spilling down over both their heads like ink from a pot.
I followed close behind as she ran through puddles in the rutted laneway to the side door, her thin jean jacket pulled partway over her head. She knocked twice before shimmying her key into the lock.
“Remind me to give this back to him tonight.”
“I have a feeling he won’t forget to ask.”
She stepped into the small, dark hallway and shook the rain out of her hair. I pressed in behind her and did a full-body convulsive shiver.
“Dave?” she called up the stairs.
She was about to pull off her jacket when our eyes adjusted to the dim light. Her stuff was stacked high in front of us. Hastily taped-up boxes, garbage bags leaking sweaters, crates overflowing with nonsense: cracked CD cases, waterlogged paperbacks, a used bar of soap embedded with strands of her hair.
I heard the hard clank of a jail cell door. Dave was watching Law & Order. No sign of him getting up from the couch to meet us. Only the cat at the top of the stairs, purring as she rubbed her plump side against the door frame. Kendra bent over and made kissing sounds, but Cat von Kit barely registered her estranged owner and sauntered into the kitchen, where kibble soon cracked between her teeth.
I lifted one of the crates, filled with magazines. Us, People, a couple of Vogue September issues, all of them two years old at least. I exchanged it for a garbage bag of clothes and heaved it over my shoulder. “Come on. Let’s just get this all back to your sister’s and go through it.”
“Dave?” she called again.
“Just leave him.”
“Dave? What is all this shit?”
I waited with her to hear the springy whine of the couch, the underfoot creak of the floorboards, a sigh maybe. Instead there were sirens and screeching tires. The detectives were pulling up to a crime scene. The cat, having finished her dinner, ambled past the doorway once more, back to the living room where her lone master lay waiting. Her curiosity must have been sated because she didn’t turn to look at us this time.
—
I tried to quell the guilt rising up like heartburn. This is just how it goes, I told myself, this is just what people do. There was always something between us.
It was feeling good, for a second.
And then it wasn’t.
Turned around, bent over, the edge of the counter grinding into my hips.
Hey, I said
(I think I said)
when he pushed my head down hard.
He yanked my damp jeans to my knees, shoved his hand up between my thighs. I lifted my head as much as I could. Rain streaking the windowpane. The screen torn and curled. His bike chained to a pole out back with a grocery bag tied around the seat to keep it dry.
He pushed my head back down again. I gripped the edges of the sink, my face too close to the tap.
“Hey,” I said. I know I said. “Hey, wait.”
He grabbed my hair and pulled. He took my breath away.
—
A few weeks earlier, we’d been in the alley behind the bar Dave owned, where all three of us worked.
“You’re not into dudes, are you, Bea?” Dave said as he passed me the joint. He started to laugh, which made him cough on the smoke in his lungs, and he waved a hand in front of his face to compose himself. “What? Don’t act like you don’t know what I mean.”
I took a tiny pull and passed it on to Kendra. “You’re fucked, Dave,” I said. “That’s a pretty inappropriate question coming from management. Could call the labour board on your ass.”
“So you admit it, then.”
“I could see this,” Kendra said on a deep inhale, gesturing back and forth between Dave and me. “You two would make a cute couple. Always bickering and shit.” She shrieked as he buried his face in her hair and bit at her ear.
“You’re both fucked,” I said, taking the joint back from Kendra.
Dave kissed her hard on the mouth, then held out his hand. “All right, that’s enough. Pass it over. You girls have work to do.” He shook his head like a disappointed school principal. “Standing out here, smoking drugs on the job.”
He licked his thumb and forefinger, squeezed the tip of the joint to put it out. “I mean it,” he said, heaving open the steel door we’d propped open with an empty wine bottle. “Big party coming in tonight. All hands on deck, shipshape and the rest of it.” He looked at his wrist to consult a watch that wasn’t there and went back inside.
I lit one last cigarette.
“Give me a drag of that,” Kendra said.
“You don’t smoke.”
“I do when I’m stressed. C’mon, before he comes back.”
“No way. He’ll burn me alive. Can’t afford to lose this job. Economy and all that.”
“He’s not going to fire you, freak. Just give me a drag. One drag. I’ve got gum and body spray, he’ll never know.” She snatched the cigarette and took a long, elegant inhale.
She wasn’t going to give it back. I reached into my pocket to light another.
“I’m late, Bea,” she said, exhaling. “Like, by, a week and a half or something.”
“Well, you better finish that smoke, then. I hear it’s good for fetal development.”
“I’m not kidding,” she said. “I took a test. It wasn’t negative.” She took another long, nervous drag.
I swatted the cigarette out of her hand and snuffed it out with the tip of my sneaker. “Jesus, Kendra. No wonder Dave’s all giddy-up and shit.”
“Dave? Are you crazy? He doesn’t know. And you’re not going to tell him either.” She looked away. “I’ve already made the appointment. I need you to take me there. Next Thursday.”
“What do you mean, Thursday? What do you mean, he doesn’t know?” I dropped my voice, even though it was impossible for Dave to hear. “What’s wrong with you? I mean, yes, I’ll take you. Of course I can take you, but you have to tell him. That’s how this shit is supposed to go down. You guys crying, coming to some kind of understanding. He’s not a rapist. It’s his and yours and you have some kind of duty to say something.”
She turned her eyes to the sky. A star up there now. Or a planet. Or just
a satellite.
She got quieter, almost whispery. “Yeah, well. I don’t know if it is.”
—
Hey Bea. It’s me. Did you get a chance to swing by Dave’s? No huge rush. It’s just that I went looking for a sweater and realized most of my winter stuff is in those boxes. Shitty, eh? Heh heh. Probably should have thought of that when we went over there, huh? Aaaanyway. You’re probably in the shower or something. Just give me a call when you can.
My phone ringing as he took me by the wrist from the counter to the couch without a word. The bossa nova ringtone, the one she’d picked for herself on a dead night at the bar so I’d always know it was her.
Ringing as I stumbled behind, as he kicked his jeans off his ankles. Ringing as I told myself he was just intense, that soon he’d twirl me around and smile and kiss me, even as his grip tightened. Ringing as he shoved me down on the flattened couch cushions, as he clicked off the TV, as the springs whined and shrunk with his weight behind me.
Silence as I turned to look at him. His face sagging, gaze cold. Shadows in the dark. He slapped my leg. Again. And again with pain, without rhythm. Silence as he yanked my hips toward him.
Double-beep. Voicemail.
He pulled my hair again, jerked my head back. He locked his hands around my throat like a vise. Tighter. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t make sounds. I tried. I tried to say stop. I arched my back and scratched at his hands. He banged harder until he finally let go with a whimper.
—
A week earlier, she’d called and said, “Can you come meet me somewhere?”
Wind blew into the receiver, harsh static. I hadn’t seen her since the appointment.
“What the hell time is it?” I sat up on the couch in my basement apartment, disoriented, the only light from the muted TV.
“I don’t know, two or three, maybe?” She sounded drunk and like she’d been crying. “Dave and I—wait, there’s a cab. Hey!” She whistled through her fingers. A car door opened and slammed shut. The wind-static stopped. She gave someone my address. “I’m coming over, okay? Dave kicked me out.”
“Shit.” I got up, wrapped the crocheted blanket around me and went to the kitchenette. “What happened?”
The fluorescent light flickered overhead, my arm in strobe as I turned on the kettle.
“He found out. He went through the history on the computer and saw all the clinic searches. First I said it was for you but he started grilling me and I totally broke down—I just couldn’t hold it in anymore, you know? And he was, like, so mad he started screaming and shaking. Fucking whipped a beer bottle across the room and smashed it on the wall. Called me a lying cunt.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah. So then I just let it all out. I finally felt like I was saying something real, you know? I said I didn’t regret it and maybe it happened because it was supposed to happen. Maybe deep down I wanted to be with other people or something, you know?”
I switched phone ears and made my tea. “So what did he say?”
She started crying again, her sobs broken by a pause in the connection, someone calling on her other line.
“It’s my sister,” she said. “I just tried calling her. Hold on.”
I went up the stairs to unlock the side door. My tea was half done when she clicked back.
“You still there?”
“Yeah, I’m here. Door’s open so just let yourself in.”
“Oh. Yeah, thanks, but I’m going to my sister’s now. I’m sure Jimmy will be thrilled when he finds out I’m crashing at their place.” She sniffled a laugh. “Anyway, you were right from the start, I totally had to talk to Dave. I think this is the best thing. Don’t you?”
I sat down on the stairs and watched the mute television through the ornate wooden spindles. The tea I’d drunk would keep me up for hours. “Sure. I’m sorry you had such a rough night.”
“Yeah,” she sniffed again. “Me too.”
—
He dressed in the kitchen, belt buckle jingling. Something tender in his voice as he mumbled to the cat.
My face felt flushed, wet and puffy. My wrist, neck, everything hurt. I avoided the street light that bled through the curtains, fastened my bra under my sweaty T-shirt.
He emerged, backlit by fluorescent light, his silhouette handing me the wadded-up ball of my underwear and jeans while he drank a glass of water. A loud series of gulps, a gasp. With nowhere else to go, I bent over to put on the rest of my clothes, fast as I could as he watched me.
He said I could fit the rest of Kendra’s stuff in my car in one go. “No need to come back,” he said.
I scanned the room for my bag. My keys were in the front pocket. I unstuck strands of hair from the corner of my mouth.
He told me to park in the laneway and went back into the kitchen to take a pull of his joint. He came back with an apple and my bag.
He said “Head’s up” with apple in his mouth and threw the bag at me. I caught it, awkwardly, my keys falling out and chinking to the floor. I scooped them up fast, not waiting to find out if he’d reach for them too, patches of black starring my sight as I stood again on weak legs. He took another big bite, chomping the juicy mess with an open mouth. Air, spit, breath, pulp.
I tried to keep my voice still, tried to set it at a normal volume and said, “Maybe it would be faster if you gave me a hand?”
We avoided each other’s swinging limbs, avoided each other’s eyes, slipped into a rhythm as we loaded my car with Kendra’s things. Him in the house, me at the car. Me in the house, him at the car. He started to whistle.
I saw only his untied runners, the worn carpet, puddles in the laneway until there were no more boxes, crates or bags.
I said Okay, thanks! or something like it and slammed the car door shut behind me. I glanced in the rear-view as I drove away, just as it began to pour. He was already back inside.
The wipers on full speed still not fast enough to keep up with the rain, the road a smear of lights. Blurry, clear, blurry, clear, my heart beating in time. I pulled over on a side street and lit a cigarette.
I jumped when the phone rang. Her picture on the screen: a red-lipped kissy-face shot she’d taken of herself. I opened the door in time to puke on the wet street, the rain washing it away in strands of stringy beige. I wanted to say something, so badly I wanted to say something, but didn’t know how or what. I couldn’t say Help because I’d let it happen. I couldn’t say anything because he had been hers and I let it happen. I never said no.
I threw the phone in the back seat.
—
At some point I must have shifted into drive, must have pulled away from the curb, because here, now, is a passing slick of lights, the rumble of the street beneath me. My window open, my head out to take in big breaths of wet air. I know where I am headed.
The black awning, the high front windows he’d copied from a magazine. The sign, the name I’d thought was so cool. There, across the intersection.
My foot on the gas pedal, pressing down, hands clutching the wheel as they would the grips of guns. The clanging fantasy of what I want: to smash through the glass, the wood, the brick. To hear the shattering, the splintering, the crumble. Tables and chair legs cracking like bones as my car plows through the driftwood bar and destroys his wall of vinyl. The antiseptic tang of spilt vodka, rye, gin purifying the quiet that follows. It would look like an accident to everyone but him (the rain, my worn tires). It would be saying something. It would fuck him up.
But I can’t.
There is rent to pay on Tuesday and no food in my fridge. There is not enough money to cover it all if I don’t work this weekend, and there is no one to call for help.
I ease off the gas and tell myself that I’ll make it through till Sunday. I’ll keep my head down. I’ll find a new gig next week.
But now I am skimming, weightless,
out of control.
I can’t brake, I can’t stop. There is no road for my tires to grip: only water,
only rain, and I’m headed for the wall. I yank the wheel hard to the left to swerve away. Spinning, I brace for impact.
Rain on the roof, the windows.
Tap. Tap-tap-tap.
“Hey! Hey! You okay in there?”
A figure outside, knuckle-knocking, pulling at the door handle.
“Can you hear me? You all right, lady? Need me to call an ambulance?”
I roll my window down enough to talk. “No. Yes. I’m okay. I’m sorry. I just—I’m fine.”
“You sure?” the man says, blinking against the rain. “You really spun out there. Didn’t hit your head or nothin’, did you?”
I will cry if I say more so I look down and shake my head no.
He lingers, glancing over at his running car, then back at me. “You sure you’re all right, hon?” Sweetly. Ah, so sweetly.
I nod and turn up my lips in a brief smile, start my car again. I don’t know where I’m pointed. He pats my window with his thick hand. Light sparks off puddles as he trots away.
I light a trembling cigarette and reach back for my phone.
Omw, I text. On my way! it auto-corrects, joyously. It sends before I can change it.
A set of headlights, now and then, as I go to her. Unseeable ghosts, unspeakable things, behind black windshields and frantic wipers.
She is under the shelter of her sister’s porch, her arms wrapped around her for warmth. She releases a quick hand for a wave.
“Hey,” she yells when I finally step out. “I called like twenty times!”
“Yeah,” I say. “Sorry, I…I almost got in an accident.”
“You what?” Holding her hand to her ear.
“An accident,” I yell.
“An accident?”
“Yeah.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
I carry one of the boxes up the steps to her. She takes it inside. I head back to the car for more, running to the porch and back again without cover. She comes out in a hooded parka to help.
The Dead Husband Project Page 11