Nine
Lori wove a path through the sparse crowd to Carol’s
side. Carol gripped her arm and held fast in silence. The men continued
to come and go from the house as if they owned the world. Only when they
finally gathered into small groups and climbed into their cars did Carol's
hand drop away. She lowered her head and turned away in tears. Lori
followed her into the house and surveyed the mess the men had made of
things.
Carol paced her tiny living room with clenched
fists. "They were looking for drugs. They were looking for drugs in my
house. They had no right!"
"Carol, he’s trouble. Get rid of him. Please?"
Carol collected herself, looking pale and shaken.
"The Volkswagen will be done tomorrow. I promised I'd get him out of
jail."
"I shouldn't let you have it."
Carol stared off into space. Lori didn't know how
to console her. Carol’s iron will and pragmatic values in life had made
her seem indestructible, the epitome of feminine independence. If outside
forces tore their lives apart so easily, control was just an illusion.
Men ruled the world by virtue of their aggressiveness and their selfish
appetites, and women were powerless before that rule.
"Carol?"
Carol glanced at her, looking closer to sixty than
fifty when stressed so badly.
"You told me once it's important to do what you want
first, then take advice if it doesn't work out."
Carol gave an eager nod of agreement. "If it doesn't
work out, I'll get rid of him. He's not all bad. Maybe after you meet
him..."
A twisted smile was the best Lori could manage. Meet
the man with a glass eye? "I'd rather not, but we'll see."
"I saw you with Trent again."
"He wanted me to deliver a message,” she said
quickly. “He said you don't want to meet Ruben's friends. You really do
need to listen to us."
Wrought with tension, Carol wandered into her bedroom
and closed the door behind her. Lori went home and paced her own house
furiously.
Carol's crisis had rattled her, and she had a
recurring nightmare and an unsettling encounter with Ronnie Bates to add
to that burden. She had overreacted terribly to Ronnie's intrusion. She
had never struck anyone in her entire life with such ferocity. Maybe she
needed to have the dream of the glass eye psychoanalyzed while she still
had Dave's insurance to fall back on. If only that one crisis could be
resolved, the rest she could deal with on her own.
Maybe.
She thought of Dave and their disintegrating marriage
for the balance of the afternoon. Housework kept nervous tension at bay. She mulled over the hardships that
would befall her and the kids should Dave should leave for good as she
worked, almost missing the unexpected crunch of gravel from alongside the house. She
glanced at the clock in the living room, surprised that four o'clock had
rolled around so quickly.
Dave came quietly through the back door with his
lunch pail in hand, behaving much as he had on a day to day basis for the
past fifteen years. He studied the walls and ceiling, taking note of the
pans and buckets strategically placed beneath leaks, some of which still
dripped. "Looks like that storm got inside and made itself at home," he
quipped.
"Next time you visit, bring along a five gallon
bucket of roofing tar and a few shingles."
He took a seat at the seldom used dining room table
and looked up at her hopefully. "Can we talk?"
She sat across from him, thankful that he hadn't
arrived a bit sooner and caught her sitting at Trent's side in the patrol
car. "Is this just a visit?"
"I don't know yet," Dave said. "Sandra thinks it
best that we reconsider our relationship. If you want me to find a place
to stay in town, I will."
Lori thought about it and shook her head. "It’s your
home as long as you're paying the bills."
"Do you want me to tell you about her?"
"After dinner, maybe. The kids will be home soon. I
don't want them to see me upset."
He nodded and looked away. Lori got up to prepare
dinner. Despite her reservations, if there was a chance of things
returning to normal, she'd have to do her part to make it work. The kids
were all that mattered. She could give her own feelings their day in
court at a more leisurely moment.
Dave showered and changed clothes. Leslie came
crashing through the house a few minutes later. Having seen the pick-up
alongside the house, he leaped bawling into Dave's arms. That was as it
should be, at least, a truce between father and son.
Wendy came in later and ran to her room to sulk. She
sat staring at her plate at dinner and refused to eat. Dave shook his
head with exasperation and grinned nervously. "Women," he said with mock
exasperation. "Can't live with them. Can't live without them."
Lori stared at him in disbelief that he could be so
blind to the effect his behavior was having on his children. She had
sided with Dave in his bemused tolerance of his maturing daughter and her
indecipherable moods in the past. Now she could only commiserate with
Wendy's bitterness.
Dave watched the news and drank two beers, then
announced at six in the evening that the lawn needed trimming before the
squirrels grew stripes and stalked buffalo. Lori paused at the kitchen
sink in sudden alarm as he went out the back way. It would take only
seconds for him to notice the…
"Where's the goddamn Volkswagen!"
Lori wiped her hands dry in time to confront him as
he bounded back into the kitchen. "It's at the garage getting fixed," she
said evenly. "Carol's paying for the repairs. We needed something to
drive, seeing as I burned up her car chasing you through Clayton last
week."
"Like hell! That bitch has no claim on my property!"
"My property!" Lori yelled back at him. "My car,
Dave! My piece of junk that you won't fix so that you can keep me pinned
down in this godforsaken town! That car is in my name, and I'll damned
well do with it what I please!"
He stared at her in surprise. "Damn, but you're
getting mouthy."
"Yeah, well I guess I get that way when I don't have
you around to knock the shit out of me when I need it!"
Dave turned beet red. Lori would have retracted the
statement, given the opportunity. Few of his friends knew of his
upbringing as the browbeaten son of a fire-and-brimstone Baptist
minister.
"I'll not have you talking that way in front of the
kids," he murmured.
"Not that it matters that your kids are hearing all
over town how you're off screwing some red-headed hussy," Lori countered,
aware with sudden dismay that her anger was out of control. "Or are you
taking for granted that they flunked their sex education classes?"
Dave reached out and grabbed her arm. She tried to
shake free, but his grip was like steel. He backed her against the table
glaring anger as intense and uncontrollable as her own. "You keep your
foul mouth shut." He shook her hard enough to rattle her teeth. "You do
a better job of taking care of this house, and being a mother to your
children."
"And their father?" she spat at him. "What role does
their father play in this cozy little scheme of yours?"
He gave her a quick and brutal push. Her momentum
shoved the table against the refrigerator before she managed to catch her
balance. Wendy appeared in the doorway to her room, her dark eyes wide
with horror. Leslie came running from the dining room, dumbfounded. Dave
looked each of the children in turn, then turned and left the house,
slamming the storm door hard enough to crack the top pane of glass.
Lori's anger drained away slowly. Her hands were
tingling, and there would be bruises on her arms. She put the table back
in place and straightened the chairs, feeling humiliated and helpless.
Wendy shut herself back in her room. Leslie shuffled
closer, and then lunged forward to clutch at her legs. She pulled a chair
around and comforted the boy for a time. Outside, the lawnmower rattled
to life and began a systematic circuit of the yard.
Lori lay awake on the couch for most of the night.
Things were never going to return to normal. Separate beds would drive
them apart in the end. Dave had never been a gentle or considerate
lover. Now that their marriage was spiritually, if not legally dead, she
couldn't stand the thought of being pinned beneath the two hundred and
twenty pounds of him ever again.
Life returned to its familiar routine during the next
two days despite the undercurrent of tension. Carol parked the Volkswagen
back alongside the shed on a Thursday afternoon. Dave ignored it. Friday
morning, Ruben's white Cadillac convertible, an expensive restored classic
from the fifties, reappeared across the street.
Dave failed to return home from work Friday evening.
Lori exchanged knowing looks with Wendy at dinner. "Here we go again."
"Good riddance," the girl muttered unhappily.
And at dusk, the phone rang. "Lori, it's horrible!"
Karen's voice rang with full-blown hysteria. "Come over right away!"
Lori gave herself a moment to switch gears.
"Hang tight,” she said, her voice sounding weak and
exhausted. “I'm on my way."
