The End of Always: A Novel

by Randi Davenport

  I stood and walked to the wall switch and pressed the button. The room went dark and the window glass shimmered silver. I crossed to the window and Carl came over and stood next to me. I felt his presence. His kindness like a river. But when he stood next to me, it was as if he stood on the shore of a far distant land. And then I knew that if I felt marked it was not just because the people we passed on the street had stared at me, my swollen head as bulbous as a seedpod on a stem. It was not just because August had so changed me. I wrapped my arms around my waist and my uncle put his arm around me and I leaned against him. Over the horizon the moon rose through pale clouds and the wind moved dark clouds over the brilliant light and we stood together and looked far off into the invisible distance.

  21

  Three weeks later the weather turned cool. I rose and washed my face and hands. I pinned my hair. I opened the wardrobe and shook out my green dress. I moved carefully, like someone who is afraid she is about to fall into pieces. I pictured myself on the floor in bits and parts, where the breakage would be obvious to anyone who came along. Elbow over here. Vertebrae over there. My head split in two.

  Bertha met me at the corner. She paced beneath the street lamp and walked toward me as soon as she saw me. I touched my face nervously and she smiled. “You look fine,” she said. I knew she wanted to comfort me but I wanted to hold my arms out and show her how all my bones had exploded, as if I were a girl made of shattered glass.

  Jared Thompson stood when I came into the room. He told me that this was the time for me to tell my side of things, officially and for the record. He asked me if I was ready. He said that he would take down everything I said and then he would write the whole thing up and take it before the judge. He said that August would have a chance to answer and we would not be able to do anything until we had that answer. He explained that I must be truthful in everything I said. This was my statement and I would be under oath.

  This last part made me squirm. I no longer believed in God and I had also begun to realize that I had never believed in God, at least not a god who set things up so that I would suffer at the hands of men. So I looked Jared Thompson in the eye and said that I would tell the truth, for the truth was all I had, but I could not swear to God to tell the truth because as far as I could tell, God had never done much of anything for me. Jared gave me a funny look and told me that I must swear nevertheless. And I gave up. If this was what it took, I would have to go along. All of these rules belonged to the world that did not belong to me and this particular rule was no different than any of the others. The skinny clerk with the green baize eyeshade came through the door and took a Bible from the drawer. He held it before him like an offering on a plate. “Raise your right hand,” he said.

  Jared Thompson asked me how long I had been a resident of Waukesha and how long a resident of Wisconsin. He asked me when August and I had married. He asked me for the exact date. He asked me to describe the amount of money that August had given me each week and he asked me to name the last time I had been given that amount. He asked if I had been given any other amounts. He asked if I had received money from other sources. He explained that he needed to know if I had a job or if others gave me money to help with my support. I told him that I had been very hungry so I had gotten a loan from Martha but it was really some of the money I had earned at the laundry and the same money that my father had taken from me and kept from me so that I was for all practical purposes destitute in his house. Jared Thompson held his hand up and said, “One thing at a time, Mrs. Bethke.” He wrote furiously on his pad.

  He wrote for a long time and then read what he had written. He struck a line through a sentence in the middle of the page and added a note in the margin. Then he looked up at me and asked me to describe how August had treated me. I told him he knew that. He shook his head and explained again that I needed to tell him this now so that he could write it down in a way that was particular to the law. I explained that ever since our marriage August had treated me in a very hard way. That he had belittled me. That he had struck me again and again. That he had spent all of our money on drink and had come home drunk or had not come home at all. That he had threatened me with his fist and with his razor and with his gun. That he had struck me so violently about the head and face that I had fallen. That he had kicked me until my ribs were broken. That the men who lived near us had to come and pull him off of me or he would have killed me without fail. That the injuries to my face were so severe that my jaw did not work and I could not chew any food. That my neighbor had taken me in to her home and protected me and nursed me until I was well enough to walk again. That August had come at night and stood on the lawn and screamed things at the front of the house. That one day while he was at work my friends had taken the things from our house, a bedstead, some bedding, the kitchen knives, the cups and plates, a washstand, everything they could carry, and placed these things in a wagon and had taken me to live in a room my uncle Carl kept in the city of Milwaukee. That they had done this so that August would not be able to find me. That they had done this because August had told the neighbors he would kill me. That my injuries were terrible. That I was in fear for my life. That I was sure my life was over, and if not my actual life then everything that had passed for my life before this and would never pass for my life again.

  I stopped. This was the moment I had feared, and I waited for Jared Thompson to tell me that he did not believe me or that it was my fault or that this was all normal and to be expected. That I had brought all of this on myself. I waited for all the things I had been told until now to come up and provide the cause for Jared Thompson to put me out of his office, me and my fissured, fragile self, broken into a million homeless shards.

  But he said nothing. He wrote and turned the page and filled another page and then wrote another page. I looked out the window and waited. I could hear his pen on the paper, a scratching like small birds in a yard. I could hear him breathing. I could hear the rolling wheels of carts in the street. I wondered how the operations of court could ever work on my behalf. It did not seem that either law or justice would find me a fit contender. Yet here I was.

  When I could not stand it any longer, I said that I could have no life if I remained bound to August Bethke. No man should be able to do what he had done. I wanted my freedom and I could never go back, because August would kill me. And then I said that some people might think that it was all right for August to kill me, but they would not want August to kill our unborn child and that would be the result if August ever got ahold of me.

  At this, Jared Thompson stopped writing and lay his pen down. “What do you mean?” he said. When I did not reply, he asked again and then told me that I must tell him what I meant and that I must explain how I knew this. He knew that this was a very private thing for a woman. He would respect my privacy. He would ask no questions for which he did not need answers but that this would be important, if true, and it was not something to hide.

  I looked hard at the peeling pine boards of the floor. Surely they had come from up north. Surely they had come from the deep woods. Perhaps they had even had my brother’s hands on them. Willie who had disappeared, gone like he had never existed. That would not be me. Jared Thompson waited and dust turned in the air and then without lifting my gaze from the floor, I said in a very soft voice that I had stopped bleeding and this had been for several months now and when the baby came, I would have to keep it away from August. I felt heat rise to my hairline. There can be nothing more embarrassing than to think that someone has imagined you doing things with your husband in bed. I waited for the questions that I thought must come. How did he touch you, Mrs. Bethke? What exactly did you feel? And I thought that if I had to answer these, I would reveal how much I had wanted August to touch me and how wrong I was to ask for a divorce. How much I was at fault. How little August could be blamed.

  But all Jared Thompson did was ask if I was sure. When I said that I was, he turned the page over and wrote somet
hing on the back. Then he asked me to tell him again about the night that August tried to kill me. He asked me if there were men who had seen this. He asked me their names and he asked me if I remembered their addresses. He asked me to be patient with him because the law required that he collect this information and make certain that all of it was right. Finally he said that he understood that I was an unhappy woman and that my unhappiness had led to my rejecting God but that we would have to set that aside for now. What he needed now was for me to swear again when the documents were all typed up. I would need to swear that I had read the complaint and that the contents were true to my own knowledge except for any matters stated as a consequence of information and belief, and as to those, I would need to swear that I believed all of them to be true. He asked me if I understood. I nodded and he sent me outside to wait in the room with the clerk. He told me that it was all right to wait and not to worry too much about the clerk, whose bark, he said, was worse than his bite.

  I could not deny that Jared Thompson gave me hope. He wrote so meticulously and he spoke so kindly to me that I believed he wanted to help me. I knew that women did not go to court, but I thought Jared Thompson could speak for me and make sure things turned out right. This was America, after all, and no one could be possessed by someone else. The country had fought an entire war over this proposition and the question had been laid to rest. But I also knew that the things that were said about America were often not true where women were concerned.

  I stood on the sidewalk in front of James Pulliam’s place. Dark shade, dark grass, dark windows. The sun would be down soon. Around me the sounds of fall, unseen wagons moving harvest to market on the nearby roads, the racket of geese as they scissored in great waves overhead. There was very little wind, but still nuts and leaves and small dead branches fell onto the grass. Far up in the blue sky a single white cloud turned on a deep spiral of air.

  When I got to the porch, no one answered my knock. I stepped back and looked up at the windows, where the shades were drawn and nothing moved. I wanted to say thank you but Edwin did not appear.

  In the middle of October, I returned to Jared Thompson’s office, where he gave me August’s response. This is how the law works. You make your complaint and the person against whom you have laid your claim has an opportunity to tell his side. August had admitted we were married and admitted to being twenty-one years old and admitted that if there were to be a minor child of our union that he was the father of that child.

  As to every other allegation, matter, or thing described in my statement, August denied each and every one. He said that he had always provided for my comfort and well-being. That he had only treated me with kindness and forbearance. That he had turned over all of his wages to me save for those he needed for his own expenses. That he had even provided for my family by giving my sister Hattie Reehs a place to live. He said that I had become angry when he told Hattie that she must pay for her board or else leave our home and that I had threatened to leave him if Hattie Reehs were compelled to leave the house. He said that I had without warning or notice removed all the household furniture and fixtures and utensils, all of which he said was worth five hundred dollars and had been given to us at our marriage by his generous relatives. He said that I had gone to live with a married sister residing at 746 Clarence Street in the city of Milwaukee and had resided there ever since. He said that he had come to me every night with the sole purpose of persuading me to come back and live with him at our home but that I had refused to do so until Hattie Reehs was permitted to come back and board with us. He said that he had steadfastly refused to allow this without money for board. He said it was my own fault that I had not come home. He said that he was ready and willing to provide for me and our child and eager to do so. He was a carpenter able to earn the sum of two dollars and sixty cents a day but that he had for some time been in ill health and so had lost wages because of an inability to work steadily. He said that he had no money, property, or income whatsoever except such as he was able to earn when he worked. He prayed that my complaint would be dismissed.

  Jared watched me as I read. When I was through, I looked up at him. His gaze was steady and neutral.

  “Do you want to tell me where you live?” he said.

  I had read August’s words as if they were claims made by a stranger. He told his story so earnestly that it sounded like it was true. He seemed reasonable and calm. He was only worried about an extra mouth to feed. He was only concerned about the welfare of the household. About my welfare. The welfare of our child. He had done everything he could.

  I realized this was not the first time August had told a tall tale. If I had been paying attention, I would have known that I had heard it all before, and would just keep hearing it, again and again. I wanted to punch the wall. “I live in a room kept by my uncle,” I said, my tone defiant, as if I dared Jared Thompson to take August’s side.

  “The address?”

  “I do not know. I just know where it is.”

  “No number? No street sign?”

  I shook my head. No one told me when I started that August would be able to tell lies about me. I thought he would come to court and tell the truth and I would tell the truth and it would be as simple as that.

  “And your married sister? Where does she live?”

  “I do not have a married sister,” I snapped. “I have two sisters who live with my father. And I live in my uncle’s room.”

  “If I asked you to, would you be able to take me there?”

  I nodded.

  “And your sister? Hattie Reese?” He said her last name the way an American would, hard and long, as if in the speaking he had spelled it differently and changed her. “Where does she reside?”

  “With my father.”

  “Has she ever resided with you and your husband?”

  “No.”

  “Mrs. Bethke.”

  “No,” I said. “Never.”

  “So these are just lies?”

  “Yes,” I said firmly. “All lies.”

  22

  It rained all night the night before the trial. Carl came at six and we sat at the table and ate. He told me that he had been back in Waukesha on an errand for his employer. He had seen Edwin in the woods walking quickly away from the streets. He had called to him but Edwin had not turned and had not looked back. He had moved on and disappeared into the trees. I nodded and said nothing. Carl set out an apple pie that he bought at the bakery because this was a special occasion. He smiled when he cut into the pie and said that some parts of this country were very sweet. He slid a plate across the table to me. “If not for you, then for the baby,” he said, and nodded at my round lap. I had not said anything to him but it was easy to see. When he left, I lay down and watched the light of the fire fade behind the door of the stove and the rain spill down the sides of the building across the street.

  In the morning I saw yellow leaves flat like hands against the windowpanes. Downstairs, the street was cold and gray. I rode the interurban back to Waukesha across gloomy fields, the trees in the distance a dark blur, the river when we came upon it a dark slash, the bluffs dark shapes against the dark gray sky. So this is what comes of love, I thought, and felt that everything I had known could be held in a cup marked with that word and the cup itself was something horrible to behold. I saw August as soon as I started up the stairs to the courthouse. I wanted to be strong but my breath caught and my heart leapt. He was still August, after all, hatless, with the wind blowing his hair into his eyes. When he saw me, he stepped toward me. Our eyes met. I started to raise my hand. I do not know what I thought. That we would touch? My arm seemed to have a life of its own and it seemed something outside of me was driving me toward him.

  But before he could speak, a man took August by the elbow and headed him toward the door. August pulled away and turned back toward me. He took a match from the box and struck it and then tossed the match in my direction, the flame a brief blue butterfly that v
anished in the morning air. I stepped back. He laughed.

  We all stood when the judge entered the courtroom. Once I saw August say something to the man next to him. Once I saw him turn and look at me. Jared touched my arm and leaned close to me. He told me to look away. He told me that August would try any number of tricks to unnerve me. I turned damp-eyed to the backs of the heads of the men seated with their hats on their knees in the row in front of us.

  I was the only woman in the courtroom. Carl and Bertha had wanted to come, and Bertha had sent word that Hattie had wanted to come, but I said that a courtroom was no place for a child. I told Carl and Bertha that I had to do this by myself. But when I looked at the back of August’s head, or thought of the match he sent sailing at me through the air, I wished I could take it back.

  We heard cases of disorderly conduct and cases of petty theft and a case involving a land dispute. This last took a great deal of time because men will fight hard over the ground they think they own. When they finally said it was our turn, I stood and followed Jared Thompson to the table behind a wooden balustrade that stood between the courtroom and the judge’s bench. He pulled a chair out and held it for me. He faced the judge and explained why we were there. Then the attorney for August stood up and explained why they were there. Each story entirely different and August’s story only a set of pieces strung together and in none of those pieces did I find anything true.

  When I took the stand the men who had been coughing and clearing their throats and shifting in their seats and whispering among themselves went still. I stood up and came across the room in front of the judge and felt the quiet of the courtroom rise behind me, as if I had slid underwater. Then the rosy-cheeked bailiff brought the Bible to me and I hesitated and my cheeks went hot. But I remembered what Jared Thompson had instructed me to do and put my palm flat on the book and swore whatever it was the bailiff wanted me to swear. I took a step up and sat in the wooden chair and forced myself to ignore the men gathered on the benches like vultures. I looked for Jared, who walked up to me and asked me to tell him my name and where I lived and how long I had lived there and then as best as I could recollect, and no more than that, what had happened on the night August tried to kill me.