by Julie Frayn
Ariel’s footsteps bounded down the stairs. “What, Daddy?” Her old self had eked back in. She could relax in her home, not spend her energy anticipating the next time her father would hurt her, yell at her, or punch her mother.
Ariel’s scream pierced the air. Adrenaline coursed through Mazie’s veins. The plastic bowl fell to the floor and she raced to the living room.
Cullen and Ariel stood in the middle of the room, her arms around his waist, a huge smile on his face.
Mazie stopped short, her chest tight.
“Thank you, Daddy, thank you, thank you, thank you. Can we play?” Ariel looked up at him, adoration for her father back full strength.
Cullen caught Mazie’s eye. “Sure, pumpkin.” He winked at his wife, stood aside and jerked his head toward the television. A new video game console sat on the ottoman. Wires snaked across the floor and into the TV. Packaging debris littered the floor. “It’s a Wii. For Ariel. But we can all play.” He picked up a white remote, stretched his arm to bridge the gap between them, and handed it to her. “You use your body to play. How about bowling, pumpkin?”
“Yes!” Ariel took another remote.
Cullen turned on the television and put a disc in the console. They created their own avatars, Ariel’s with long raven locks and denim capris, Mazie’s with the same hair but long pants, and Cullen’s with long dark hair and a smiling face. Like his old self, he said.
Mazie glanced at him every few seconds.
His old self.
She should have had him arrested years ago.
Cullen showed Ariel how to aim, how to use the remote to simulate the action of tossing the ball down the virtual lane. He did the same for Mazie, stood behind her, held her hand that held the remote, and drew her arm back with his. She knew how to bloody well bowl, she didn’t need guidance or a tutorial. But he smelled of cologne and toothpaste, and the rasp of his afternoon beard sent a shiver down her spine. Was she aroused by him?
For an hour, the sound of fake pins hitting a fake hardwood floor filled the room. Real laughter bounced off the walls.
After Ariel won the bowling tournament, she asked to play tennis.
Cullen glanced at Mazie. “But only two can play that game.”
“It’s all right. I’ll go get us more soda.” Mazie gathered up their empty glasses and filled each with ice and cola.
Cullen and Ariel volleyed the ball back and forth. Or at least they looked pretty silly swinging remotes around while their avatars ran around the virtual court.
Mazie passed behind him carrying a tray laden with full glasses. He pulled his arm back and smacked her in the cheek. A soda tipped. She caught the glass before it hit the floor, but cola sprayed everywhere.
He swung around and stared at her. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it.”
She stared at him.
“Come on, don’t look at me like that, you know it was an accident.” He put his hands on his hips and raised that damn eyebrow.
She stood frozen in place, her gaze quickly shifted to the floor.
“Shit.” He threw the remote at the couch.
Ariel’s eyes filled with tears. “Daddy, please.” Her voice was barely audible.
He turned to his daughter and kneeled on the floor in front of her, held her arms with his hands. He turned back to Mazie. “It was an accident this time. Honest.” His grip on Ariel’s arms was gentle. His gaze filled with regret.
She touched her fingertips to her cheek. “I believe you.” She was surprised to realize that she actually did.
He smiled and nodded once. He jogged into the kitchen and returned with a roll of paper towels and a bottle of all-purpose cleaner.
Mazie held her hands out.
“I’ll do it.” He kneeled on the hardwood and wiped up the sticky spill.
Mazie took the tray to the kitchen. She peered at him out of the corner of her eye, watched him spray the floor and mop up the mess. She smiled, rinsed the tray and wiped the spilled soda from the glasses.
Once Ariel was asleep, Cullen took Mazie’s hand and led her upstairs. He stood at the foot of the bed, brushed hair from her neck and unbuttoned her blouse.
She closed her eyes and willed her hands to stop trembling, her stomach not to refuse dinner and spew it all over his face.
He kissed her neck, her collarbone, her lips. He found a tenderness she thought he’d lost forever, and guided her into bed.
She began to relax, to allow herself a moment of enjoyment, an instant of passion and love for a man she’d grown to hate. Was this real change? Was her body responding to his sex with more than just stiff resignation? She wasn’t sure, but she couldn’t look at him. She shut her eyes to the sight of the monster hovering above her, and remembered the Cullen of old. It was like cheating on her husband with a better version of him.
His hand brushed against her throat. Her eyes sprung open. Her body stiffened and she stared into his face.
He was frozen in place, his palm against her neck. He inched it away. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
He pulled away, grabbed his robe and left the room. The sounds of a good, stiff drink clinked up the stairs. An hour later he sneaked back into the room and slipped beneath the covers.
She pretended to be asleep.
~~~~~~~~
“Mr. Reynolds, how do you plead?”
“Guilty, your honour.”
Mazie closed her eyes for a full two seconds and let that admission sink in. He was taking responsibility. Admitting he had hurt her. Not exactly saying it was his fault, but it was the closest he’d ever come.
The judge scanned the papers in front of him. “Mrs. Reynolds, I understand you are willing to take your husband back?”
Mazie stood. “Yes, your honour.”
The judge harrumphed. “Well, Mr. Reynolds, this is your lucky day. Since this is your first offence ...” He eyed Cullen over his glasses. “First official offence ...” He shook his head. “Time served, two years’ probation.” He pointed at Cullen. “If I see your name cross my desk again, there won’t be forgiveness, and there will be no bail, you understand me?”
Cullen’s shoulders tensed and inched toward his earlobes. With his back to her, Mazie could only imagine the look on his face. Defiance. Anger. Fuck you, Judge.
“Yes sir. I understand.”
~~~~~~~~
The next few days passed in relative silence. Life seemed normal — the good kind of normal. Cullen hadn’t tried to have sex with Mazie again. Maybe he knew he couldn’t fuck her without hurting her. That he couldn’t get off without bringing her to the brink of death. That if he did it again, he’d land his ass back in jail.
Mazie remained on edge, walked as if broken glass littered the house but she wasn’t allowed to let her feet bleed. Everything made her jump, every noise, every knock at the door, every ringing phone, every alarm on her cell that warned of his texts. But each one was polite — the Sorry, I’ll be late, Do you mind getting me a pack of smokes kind of polite.
His drinking continued unabated, but he’d found the strength to rein in the terror. To control his emotions. Why couldn’t he have done that all these years? When would the elastic waistband of his emotional big boy pants snap? When would he be fully exposed again, the real him, the only one he knew how to be?
Each day, sharp edges of his anger began to scratch at her. His words started to bite, his displays of affection, as awkward as they’d become, waned. I won’t be home after work. Have dinner waiting started appearing on her phone. Where you at? crept back in.
One night he walked in the door, an hour late for dinner. No text that day. No phone call. No consideration.
She pulled his plate from the fridge and put it in the microwave, punched the EZ-cook button four times, watched the plate spin and the timer count down from two minutes.
He brushed past her, his hair reeking of smoke, the rest of him stinking of bourbon. And perfume.
She pinched her eyes shut. The night he�
�d traipsed in thirteen years ago, three hours after the bars closed, niggled at her. She’d confronted him in the kitchen on her way out the door for work, exhausted from working too many hours at two different jobs. Part of the act was being friendly with the fans, he’d always said. “If they want to give you a hug and get a picture with the gorgeous lead singer,” he jerked his head to flick his hair back, “then you let them. That’s how you make sure they come back.”
“Yeah? So casual hugs here and there with more than one woman, and the result is that you reek of Chanel? Only Chanel?”
“I don’t know what kind of perfume it is.”
“I do. It’s my brand. The one you buy me every Christmas.” She stood with her arms crossed, her cheeks on fire. “And I guarantee you, it’s not mine.”
“Come on, Mazie. It’s just part of the act.” He put his hands on her hips and wiggled them back and forth, his pelvis against hers. “You believe me. Right, baby?”
She turned her face from the stench of his bourbon breath. “I used to.” She pushed him away, grabbed her purse, and bolted out the door. She peeled out from the curb and turned the corner before pulling over and crying against the steering wheel. He’d never admitted to cheating, and she’d never figured out if he had, but the thought that he might sleep with another woman and then come home to her made her gut lurch. The fact that he was a liar stung.
The microwave beeped. She opened her eyes but didn’t move.
“Hey, wake up.” His voice grated in her ear. “It’s done.”
She pulled out the hot plate and dropped it on the table, a fork and knife clanged against the wood where she tossed them.
“What the hell?” He raised that damn eyebrow like he was all innocent and shit and she was the bloody problem.
She glared at him. “I’m going to bed.”
She turned and walked away. She’d lost the will to give a damn. He could fuck whomever he wanted. Choke them for shits and giggles. As long as he left her the hell alone, what did it matter?
~~~~~~~~
Mazie pushed peas around her plate then poked at her pork chop. She glanced up at Cullen. His plate was nearly empty, three fingers of Jack over ice already gone from his tumbler.
She cleared her throat. “Are you taking time off when Ariel starts summer break?”
“Thought I’d go fishing. Get away for a bit.”
She nodded.
He glared at her. “What? You want to come, right? Damn it Mazie, it’s the only time I get to myself!” He pitched his fork onto his plate and grabbed the bottle of bourbon. Another three fingers went down in one gulp.
Ariel sat next to her father, frozen in place, staring at her plate.
Mazie reached across the table and patted her hand. “No, me and Ariel don’t need to come.” Trapped in the woods in a shitty one-room cabin with no phone, no television. No escape. No, she wouldn’t do that again.
“Oh.” He nodded and picked up the fork, shoved the last of his mashed potatoes in his mouth. “Good,” he said through the food.
“I was thinking I could take Ariel to see my mother.”
“Do whatever you want. As long as I don’t have to see the old bat. She can’t die soon enough. Bitch hates me.”
Ariel peered at her. “Is Grandma going to die?” she whispered.
“Not yet, sweetheart.” She plastered a fake smile on her face to hide the clenching of her jaw. “But she is sick and we can’t visit her often.” She cleared the plates and stacked them next to the sink. Rachel’s daughter rode her bike past the front of the house. “Ariel, why don’t you go out and play? Polly’s out there.”
“Can I, Daddy?”
“Sure, pumpkin. Whatever you want.”
Ariel’s face lit up. “Thanks, Daddy.” She ran to the entry, slipped on her runners, and bolted out the front door.
Mazie stood at the window and watched Polly jump from her bike and hug Ariel. The joy on her daughter’s face melted Mazie’s heart. She closed her eyes and tried to conjure the face of her childhood best friend, but Sherry’s memory had become another bit of blurry flotsam in the emotional turbulence that churned in the wake of her life. She opened her eyes to find that the Johnsons’ twin sons had joined the girls. The four of them stood on the manicured front lawn beside the spirea bush still waiting for its white flowers to bloom. Sunshine caught the gold A of Ariel’s pendant and flashed a glint of light into Mazie’s eyes.
She blinked, ran the water, squirted the dish soap into the stream, and slid the dirty dishes under the surface.
Cullen shuffled around the room, ice cubes clinked into a tumbler, bourbon glugged from the bottle.
His footfalls neared until he stood beside her, a cigarette in one hand, bourbon in the other. He stared out at the children and sucked on the cigarette until a long ash dropped onto the counter. He flicked it into her dishwater, held the butt under the suds, the hiss of its dying heat just another fuck you.
He rested one hand on her shoulder. “Look at our little Ariel.”
Mazie glanced at him and caught herself smiling. Bathed in the yellow light of a spring sunset, he almost looked his old handsome self. His long, soft, chocolate hair was now clipped above the ears and peppered with grey. His tanned face bore evidence of the passing years, the smile lines and soft skin now weathered by years of hard labour in the hot sun and cold wind, the rain, the snow. The deep furrows between his brows and frown lines that cut alongside his drawn lips proof of the transition from easy-going and loving partner to taskmaster with a heart filled with contempt.
He should have sold a million records by now. Won a Grammy or two. Not foundered on the bottom rung of a too-tall ladder, with more talented, more driven, more connected musicians stepping on him as they clamoured past on their way to the top. His hatred for her was borne of his own bitter disappointment in himself. Mazie knew it. But she could never make it any better. He wouldn’t allow her to.
“She’s starting to look like you,” his voice rasped in her ear.
He set his tumbler on the counter and slid behind her, brushed her hair from the nape of her neck and leaned over her shoulder, his cheek touching hers. “You know, when you were younger. When you were pretty.” He pressed into her back.
Mazie froze. It was the only thing she knew to do. The lump of his erection rested between her ass cheeks.
“She’s so tall. Must have got that from me. But the tits, those are all you, Mazie Baby. All you.” He reached his left arm around her, slipped his hand under her shirt and bra, and massaged her breast. His right hand bounced against the seat of her skirt.
Mazie forced back a lump of bile that rose in her throat and gripped the sink’s edge with both hands while he masturbated against her.
“Look at her hair, Mazie. Black like yours, shiny and thick like it used to be.” His hand left her breast and lifted her skirt, then yanked her underpants down.
She swallowed hard. “Not here, not in the kitchen.” He didn’t mean it. He couldn’t be thinking about their daughter that way. “The kids might see.”
“Yeah, they might.” He rested his chin on her shoulder and held her hip. With each stroke, he slapped himself against her bare flesh and grunted in her ear. “I’m almost done with you, Mazie. Bored in fact.” His breath was laboured and his words were punctuated by the wheeze of too many cigarettes. “Time to move on, right? To someone younger. Someone prettier. Like you used to be.”
His breath was sweet with syrupy bourbon. She shut her eyes and steadied her breath, tried to prevent the convulsions that were threatening to explode her dinner all over the kitchen window. “Cullen, no. You wouldn’t.”
“Oh, yes.”
Mazie opened her eyes. Ariel spun in circles on the lawn. She stopped and staggered about. Laughter lit up her face.
He groaned. The warmth of his climax hit her lower back and dripped into the crack of her ass.
She grit her teeth. “She’s just a little girl for God’s sake! Your own daug
hter, Cullen!”
One hand covered the back of her head and pushed her face into the dishwater. Her arms flailed and knocked something off the counter. The muffled sound of shattering glass broke through the splashing and her silent screams. Her legs went numb and her mind blanked. Familiar glints of bright light flickered behind closed eyelids. And then nothing.
~~~~~~~~
“Breathe, Mazie Baby. Breathe.”
The chrome bar was cold in her hand. Her screams filled the room.
Cullen stroked her sweaty head and bent forward, his lips pursed, eyes wide. He puffed air at her to show her how to breathe, just like the Lamaze instructor had taught him.
The contraction eased. Giddy from nitrous oxide, she laughed into the mask on her face. “You look like a constipated monkey.”
A glint of anger flashed across his eyes. Then he broke out in a loud laugh.
It had been a long, hard day. And one of the best in their marriage.
Two hours later, there was Ariel, squirming atop Mazie’s stomach, still tethered to her mother by the umbilical cord.
Cullen ran his thumb over their baby’s head, gross and sticky with placental fluid, blood, and white chunks like so much spilled cottage cheese. He rested his chin on the edge of the bed and stroked Ariel’s hair, stared at her eyes, not yet open, not yet aware of her parents’ faces.
And he cried. Not sad or angry or resentful tears. Just streams of water dripping down his cheeks. Like he was being cleansed from the inside out.
The doctor handed him scissors and held the umbilical cord.
Cullen hesitated. He looked so helpless and afraid. “Will it hurt her?”
The doctor smiled. “No, neither of them will feel any pain.”
Cullen kissed Mazie’s knuckles, then hacked through the tough cord tissue until mother and daughter were no longer one.
For months he was happy. And mostly sober. He smelled of soap and freshly brushed teeth. Of cologne and promise and hope. He bounced out of bed to pick up the baby when she cried in the night. He stared at mother and daughter during feedings, desperate to be part of a bonding that no man could ever experience. Ever understand. He changed diapers and fetched fresh onesies.