Breeding Like Rabbits

by Ardyce C. Whalen

  Britt read what she’d written the next morning, trying to determine her dream’s meaning. Is my dream telling me that I’m jealous of Sara for being young and pregnant? And that I want to be young and fertile? But I don’t want to be pregnant. In the dream, I felt hatred when I realized I was pregnant. So that’s not it. It’s just a dream, a meaningless dream. Britt picked up her crochet hook and the ball of green yarn.

  Little Mathieu Carl, Sara decided to spell her baby’s first name the French way to honor Grandma Josette, was born on July 11, 1976, weighing in at six pounds, six ounces. His twenty inches of length was topped with a crop of curly black hair. July 11, being a Sunday, Andy and Britt drove to St. Luke’s Hospital in the little town of Spilde to meet their little grandson. Britt held the sleeping baby, and her heart warmed—her first grandchild. She leaned down and kissed his soft forehead and smelled his sweet baby smell.

  Two weeks later, in the little Catholic church in Spilde, Mathieu received the sacrament of baptism. Britt sat on the old, wooden pew with Andy beside her. She watched the sacramental water trickle down the back of little Mathieu’s head—a joyous occasion, but her thoughts were not joyous and holy. Her thoughts were selfish and secular. I’m definitely a grandma now—no getting around it, but I don’t feel grandmotherly. I’m too young!

  By seven thirty that night, Andy and Britt were home. Britt felt depressed, but the weather was beautiful. She decided to go for a walk. Walking for Britt was therapeutic. If she needed to wake up, she walked; if she needed more energy, a good walk could give it; if she needed to cheer up, a walk would usually put her into a good mood, or at least a better one.

  Britt wore a light jacket, not because she needed the warmth, it was July, but because at this time of night the mosquitoes were out. She walked down Cherry Street, the street that ran by their house, past the high school where she now taught, and continued on until she came to the little brook or “rill,” the little waterway that gave their town its name, “Rillstead.” A bridge for cars and pedestrians had been built across it years ago. It’s impossible to just cross a bridge on foot without stopping to gaze down at the water, especially if it’s flowing, and rains in the last two weeks insured a healthy flow of water. Britt stood at the midpoint of the bridge in the pedestrian pathway and looked down. It was hypnotic and set Britt’s thoughts to wandering. Water is, if you get right down to it, the source of life itself, whether it is physical life or spiritual life, as in today’s baptism of Mathieu. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to paint the flow and color of water—it would be difficult. So far I’ve painted mostly portraits; people’s faces, their expressions, fascinate me. When I retire from teaching, I’d like to try my hand at landscapes. Painting a brook would be a challenge. Would that be a waterscape?

  Britt only saw three people as she walked home. The first one was a blond man playing Frisbee with his dog, and then she saw an older couple, holding hands, walking past the library. The woman wore a scarf, but her gray, curly hair was sticking out the sides, and she wore glasses that were in style some years back. She’d be fun to draw.

  Back on Cherry Street, she approached the Smith house and glanced at her watch. It was 9:10. If Andy was watching a movie, she’d have missed some of it. Better hurry—only about a block and a half to go. She and Andy loved to watch movies, though not always the same kind. Yet that was something they shared.

  A car came down the street toward her. By now Britt was almost in front of the Harrison house on the corner with the streetlight, the streetlight to which Amy and her friends streaked so long ago. The car slowed, lights went out, and it stopped at the curb. Must be the Harrisons coming home. Britt noticed a figure standing at the juncture of the Harrison front walkway and the main sidewalk, but being in a hurry, she didn’t pay much attention.

  Then the figure, a man, was standing at her left side. Britt looked closely at him. I don’t think he’s a former student. The streetlight, about fifteen or so feet away, revealed a stocky Mexican man with short, dark hair, about five foot six (about a couple of inches taller than Britt). He wore a dark jacket and pants, and he was clean-shaven with a short, muscular neck. What Britt noticed most of all were his dark brown and heavy lidded eyes. He asked, “Is this 518?”

  “Five-one-eight of what street?”

  “Front Street.”

  “You’ve got the wrong street; this is Cherry Street.”

  He swiveled around to face Britt and grabbed her upper left arm with his right hand. “Get in the car or I’m going to kill you.”

  This can’t be happening! Britt froze. Then she felt his left hand poking something into her right side. No way am I getting into that car.

  “No!” Britt screamed and swung at his face with her right fist. She saw him brace his feet, the left foot further toward Britt than the right. With a twist of his wrist, the “something poking” entered her left side. I’ve been stabbed! Britt bent her right arm in front of her face, and he stabbed her elbow.

  He turned and walked swiftly back to the passenger side of the car. Britt started to run. I should get his license plate number; isn’t that what you’re always supposed to do? She bent down in the intersection, trying to read the number. I can’t read it—it’s too far away, but if he sees me bending down trying to read it, maybe he’ll think I did and get out of town—the farther the better. Britt straightened and ran home. Entering the back door of her house, she unzipped her jacket and saw blood, wet and sticky. It had soaked her jacket and her ripped blouse. She felt no pain, but she was angry, so angry that what she wanted first of all was for her attacker to be caught. Britt ran to the kitchen wall phone and shakily dialed the police.

  “I’m Britt Hughes, Andy’s wife. I’ve been attacked.” Upon hearing this, Andy, who had been watching TV, rushed to her side.

  “What! Where?” She saw shock and disbelief on his face as he looked at her bloody clothes.

  Andy grabbed the phone. “Hurry, she’s bleeding. We live at 335 Cherry Street.”

  Within five minutes, Patrolmen Cliff Bradley and Robert Moreno were banging on the door. They immediately took Britt to the hospital, and Andy followed them by car.

  Britt doesn’t remember much about the ride to the hospital. She does remember that her clothes disappeared in favor of a hospital gown, and she never saw them again. Her ripped, bloodstained jacket and her favorite blouse were now torn and bloody evidence, locked up for good.

  Andy watched as the emergency room doctor sewed Britt up. Turned out, Britt was lucky. The stab wound in her upper abdomen wasn’t serious. It missed all vital organs. She thinks her jacket had something to do with that by making her look wider than she really was. The knife wound on her elbow missed any nerves and only needed a few stitches.

  Lying in the hospital bed, Britt tried to relax; she still couldn’t quite comprehend what had happened—it all seemed so bizarre. Reality hit when Sara and Zack, the parents of little Mathieu whose baptism day it still was for ten more minutes, entered her hospital room.

  “Mom! Are you all right? Can I hug you?”

  Britt didn’t cry when she saw Sara, but it was a struggle not to. They hugged, being careful of her sore spots. “I’m fine, Sara, I really am. My guardian angel must have been on the alert.”

  The next morning, a police lieutenant took Britt’s statement, a police sergeant serving as witness. After he’d asked the standard questions—name, address, birth date—he asked Britt to describe the circumstances of the assault and to describe her assailant. She was also asked to describe the car. All she could remember was that it was midsize and dark colored—either dark blue or dark green. He asked Britt the year, and she said maybe 1970s, but she didn’t know.

  “Can you describe to me the type of voice he used? Was it a gruff voice, loud voice, soft voice?”

  “It was low and firm,” said Britt, looking down and fiddling with the top sheet.

 
“Did he have an accent?”

  “No.”

  “What nationality would you say he is?”

  “Uh. Spanish American.”

  Those were the main questions. After Britt’s statement was taken, seven mug shots were lined up on the hospital’s bedside table. The lieutenant asked her if she could identify the person who had assaulted her. Was he one of the men pictured? Britt wouldn’t choose because she wasn’t sure. Later that day, eleven photos were lined up on the bedside table. Again Britt was asked to try to pick out her assailant. A couple of pictures looked similar to the man who had attacked her, but again, she wouldn’t choose. She was still upset, and her elbow hurt. She needed quiet time to think.

  Britt got that time at home. It took her almost a week of thinking and trying hard to remember what the man looked like. Sunday night, a week after the assault, she sat down and drew, but she just couldn’t get it right. Monday morning, she got up at six thirty and started drawing again. This time she could see in her mind his heavy-lidded eyes looking at her as he asked about a house number. The streetlight highlighted the left side of his face. Britt finished the drawing, put it on the dining room table, and called the police lieutenant who had questioned her in the hospital. No answer. All that day, whenever she passed the dining room table, she looked at the picture, and each time Britt felt fear. This is the man that hurt me.

  She ended up personally delivering the drawing to the police station. The lieutenant and other officers recognized the likeness as being that of Juan Youcha, a repeat sex-crime offender.

  With the drawing done, Britt began to relax, and her thoughts drifted to the dream she’d had a short time before she was assaulted. She remembered her anger, or was it despair? In the dream, she was pregnant. What else was in that dream? I remember trying to go down a grassy hill in heels. I stumbled. Someone fell or jumped on top of me—a man. Now that I think of it, I’d seen a dark figure out of the corner of my eye as I started going down the hill. The weather was awful, lightning and thunder, and it was getting dark. I heard a sound; I thought it was thunder, but it must have been a gunshot. The man on top of me stopped what he was doing when someone pulled him off me and threw him to the ground. Impregnated by a rapist—I wish I’d been shot and killed too.

  Silly dream—or was it so silly? Had that dream been a warning? Was that dream the root cause of her hitting and screaming? Britt knew that when he said, “Get in the car or I’ll kill you,” she would choose death rather than get in that car. The dream knew how to push her buttons—knew that she feared pregnancy. The dream, in effect, scared her into acting—made her fight. Britt believed this but knew others would think she was crazy.

  Our culture puts little stock in dreams, unlike the Old Testament, especially the story of Joseph, Hannah’s favorite. Joseph was sold by his brothers into Egypt to be a slave. Word got around, however, about his ability to interpret dreams. The Pharaoh dreamed a strange, disturbing dream about seven fat cows grazing and seven skinny cows then joining them and eating up the fat cows. The Pharaoh sent for Joseph to tell him what it meant. Joseph said that the seven fat cows meant seven years of good harvests, but they’d be followed by seven years of famine, and they’d better stockpile food for the bad years. And that’s exactly what happened, but because of Joseph, Egypt was prepared. Some dreams may be silly, but not all are.

  July 11, a Sunday, a most memorable day, began with the morning baptism of a new grandchild, water trickling down the back of his head, ushering him into spiritual life. It ended with a Sunday evening assault on Britt’s body, blood trickling out and staining her clothes, a baptism of blood that could have ended her physical life. She had been sitting in church a few hours earlier that day, bemoaning the fact that she was a grandma. When she mulled over the events of the day, she thought, How shallow. I’m alive! I’m strong! And I embrace grandmotherhood.

  There was a trial, of course, the State of Minnesota, plaintiff, versus Juan Youcha, defendant. Britt, witness for the state, remembers very little about it, but she does know that Andy was not with her because he had to work. His shop was a one-chair shop, he being the one barber. Daniel, attending the university, was able to be with Britt through most of it. His presence was a great comfort. The trial ended with a guilty verdict, and the judge sentenced Mr. Youcha to thirty years in prison.

  Britt’s mother never asked her about that night or about the trial, and Britt never brought the subject up. She once asked her mother what “rape” was; she’d just read the word in the daily newspaper. Her mother said, “It’s nothing you need to know, but I need to know what you plan to do for your 4-H project next year.” Britt got the message. Many people consider sex crimes, even potential sex crimes, to be just too horrible or too shameful to talk about; her mother was one of those people.

  CHAPTER

  29

  Britt set the patio lounger’s back to a comfortable angle. She put a folded quilt on top of the vinyl strapping—she didn’t want strap marks on her back. She then ran into the house and grabbed the big butcher knife and inserted it between the folds of quilt, within easy reach of her right hand. Britt was determined to catch some rays before school started. She was tired of looking fish-belly white. Shorts, tank top, sunglasses, water, a good book, and the knife for protection—yes, she had everything she needed to relax and soak up some sun.

  Britt had always thought that Rillstead was a safe town with friendly people. Now she knew nothing was 100 percent safe. She remembered her youngest daughter, Laura, saying, “You have to expect the unexpected, Mom.” At the time, she nodded, not wanting to fight about a statement that didn’t seem to make much sense, but Laura was right.

  Getting ready for bed that first night home from the hospital, she wondered if Andy would treat her as usual, or would he not even touch her, thinking she was fragile—she did have stitches. Their conversation that night was burned into her brain:

  “Andy.” Britt sat on the edge of the bed and waited for him to look at her. “Would you still love me even if I’d been raped?”

  “Sure, you’re the mother of my children, but I wouldn’t make love to you. I’d close my eyes and see him with you, and that would shut everything down.”

  “I could have been killed! Would you rather have me dead than have your space violated by another man?”

  “Stop it. You’re getting too emotional. You didn’t get killed, and you didn’t get raped. You fought and got away—I’m proud of you.”

  “I saved what you consider your special place in me. Is that what really matters to you?” She could see him in her mind. His shoulders slumped, and he threw out his arms, bent at the elbows with his palms up, after she said that.

  He sighed and said, “It’s late. I’ve got to be at work early tomorrow.” He climbed into bed.

  Britt had removed her earrings and joined him. They had held hands and said the Lord’s Prayer together as they’d done every night they’d slept together for over twenty years. They had been careful to make sure that only their hands touched until it came to the good night kiss, which was just a chicken peck. No sleeping like two spoons in a drawer that night.

  Britt had tossed and turned. She had been too keyed up to sleep—happy to be at home in her own bed, safe and sound, but she’d not been happy with how things stood between her and Andy.

  I could have been killed. It, the whole thing—the attack with a knife and the trial—made me realize how fragile life is. It is not something to be taken for granted. Fate, or a supreme force, has been trying to teach me this for a long time: when a snowplow hit us from a side road and the impact rolled our car into a ditch, when the garbage truck backed over eighteen-month-old Sara, and now the knife attack on my body. I’ve been one slow learner.

  Our life together has become shabby, in the sense of being neglected and not maintained, and it is getting shabbier. This has to stop. The children and our struggle to provid
e for them, to be there for them, have long been the be-all and the end-all of our world—the thing we’ve shared, our one togetherness. Now that is changing.

  Sara started it when she married, and the other four will follow one by one. What will Andy and I do then? Be lonely together or lonely apart? We have a history together, a history that has created a strong bond of trust. Love may have waned, but trust has grown, and that’s not a small thing. Can we get the love, the caring, back? That is something we need to find out.

  Once they were best friends. Could they be so again? Or had they grown so far apart that they couldn’t even like each other anymore? They had to find out, but Britt couldn’t leave now—school was starting in a couple of weeks. Maybe the first part of October would be possible, after she’d got her students squared away and provided that the school administration would allow her to take a couple of weeks off.

  Britt turned in detailed lesson plans to the office so her substitute would know what to do when she was gone—if she could be gone. She asked for two weeks off and got it. The two weeks off started the first of October. Andy didn’t need permission. He was his own boss, but the first part of October worked for him too. Harvest was in full swing. Farmers just didn’t have time to come into town for a haircut, and he’d be home in plenty of time for the Thanksgiving haircuts. Ingrid, Britt’s mother, was happy to be asked to come and live in their house and supervise the comings and goings of Amy and Laura, the only children at home now.

  This could be their second—or was it third?—honeymoon. A snowplow had put the kibosh on the first one, so it probably shouldn’t count. They had called the month before Andy’s ship sailed away on a six-month cruise a honeymoon because they’d had such a good time seeing all that Newport had to offer. Second honeymoon, that’s what this vacation would be.

  Andy and Britt decided to make it a camping trip for just the two of them—they’d have to interact. They bought a new, smaller tent than the one they had when the children were small and two sleeping bags that zipped together to make one double bed. Their old camp kitchen and the Coleman stove were taken out of storage. They then set out to find adventure and each other.