The Best American Mystery Stories 2006

Sometimes he tried to hide the morning drinking from me. Sometimes not.

“It won’t bring Reed back, honey. What you’re doing to yourself.” (Did I say these words? These are words you say, believe me.) Pitman sneered like he was just discovering he’d married a mental defective. “This ain’t for Reed, baby. This is for me.”

Sometimes hearing just the intake of my breath, Pitman reacted quick as an animal defending itself. Shoving me aside, hard. “Get away! Don’t touch.”

And he’s out the door, and gone.

It was a cold season, I wore long sleeves to hide the bruises.

Scarves tied around my neck. Makeup layered on my thin pale face and lipstick so cheery you’d expect me to burst into song.

Never said a word to Andrea. Certainly not to Mom.

Nor to Daddy who it seemed was watching me, waiting.

By this time, four years into the marriage and still living in the four-room bungalow off the Hunter Road, I understood that Daddy had forgiven me. Daddy had not a thing to say about my marriage. So much time had passed, maybe he was impressed I had not once asked him for money. In fact, Daddy had offered Pitman and me money at Christmas to buy a new car replacing the ‘88 Chevy Malibu but Pitman had his pride just as Daddy did, I knew to say Oh, thanks, Daddy! But no.

During the day Mom frequently called. A ringing phone and RAYBURN on caller ID meant my mother. Sometimes I picked up eager as a lonely child. Sometimes I backed off, sneering.

Oh, Mom was cheerful! Though cautious. An intelligent woman aware of mother-in-law jokes. She knew not to press too far with her questions. Asking how is Pitman and I told her Pitman is fine, you know Pitman. And I’m fine, Mom. What about you and Daddy.

Like a tick beneath the skin the idiot word fine had snagged in my vocabulary. Itchy as hell, hard to dislodge. There was always a beat, a moment when I might have told Mom more. And maybe Mom knew more. Probably yes she knew more. Au Sable Forks is a small town, word travels fast.

Mornings, afternoons! The slow slide into evening.

It was, as Pitman said, a shitty spring. Pelting rain, so much mud people laid down planks to walk on.

Cloudbursts, and a leaking roof. Like an animated cartoon figure I set out pots, pans, baking trays to catch the drips. Then the sky opened, there came blinding sunbursts. Truly, your brain is sliced open. In rubber boots I went tramping along Hunter Road, along farmers’ lanes and into fields. I hiked beside Au Sable Creek where the mud-colored water rushed like a speeding vehicle. This is a part of New York State, where the sky draws your attention. Not the mountains that are mostly covered in trees, but the sky forces your eyes to lift. Always there is the anticipation of seeing something in the sky you can’t name except to know you won’t see it anywhere else.

This was the season I sent away for catalogues from Cornell, St. Lawrence University, McGill University in Montreal. Hiding them in the closet beneath towels, bed linens where Pitman would never look.

Cornell was where I’d been planning on going. Before I fell in love with Pitman. Except maybe this wasn’t so. Maybe I’d fallen in love with him that day on the Hunter Road. The rest was just waiting.

You never think you will get old. Or even your face.

The happiest time of your life. Oh, Lucretia...

Mom was weepy, nagging. My senior year at Au Sable Forks High. That year I’d quit most of my “activities.” Cut classes. A blur in my memory as if I’d been riding in a drunken speeding vehicle. The landscape is beautiful but moving too swiftly past to be seen.

Think what you are giving up. For that man. It’s your body, Lucretia. Wanting to have babies.

I hit her then. I hit my mother. I saw my hand shoot out, I saw my mother wince, I never told anyone not even Pitman.

Didn’t want Pitman to know the meanness in my heart. His blond princess.

Daddy had ceased interfering. Daddy kept his distance, a gentlemanly distance, those final months. While I was still his daughter, living at home. Could not trust himself to speak to me.

Goddamn I’d vowed I would not cry. Neither of my parents could make me cry. I wasn’t their virgin-daughter, I was Pitman’s girl. I would be Pitman’s wife. You want to know if he fucks me, yes he fucks me. I fuck him, the way he’s taught me. I don’t cry for you now, I cry for Pitman. Of all the world only Pitman has that power.

The one thing Mom did, with Pitman in agreement, was arrange for a church wedding. An actual church wedding. Very small, and hurriedly arranged. Daddy threatened to stay away but was finally the gentleman, of course he came. Though stony-faced, force-smiling. Having to see how at the very altar Luke Pitman nudged his daughter in her silken white side and cast her a sidelong winking bad-boy grin.

I was repainting the bathroom, a better quality paint this time.