2

When Cary started having trouble seeing, she wondered if Mitch’s hitting her or smacking her head against the wall caused it. Blackness nibbled at the edges of her vision until she saw through a narrow tunnel. Reading, her favorite thing in all the world, the thing that got her through the day, the thing she would absolutely die without, got more and more difficult. Book close to her face, she was forced to move it around to make out the words. When the tunnel started closing in, she decided to leave him, even though he’d told her he’d kill her if she ever tried.

The first time he hit her was about scrambled eggs. And not exactly a hit, just a slap really, inspired by Cary’s inability to realize how grueling his job was—and how hard could it be to have breakfast made when he got off after working all night? He apologized with red roses and kisses, swore he loved her and promised it would never happen again. And it didn’t.

For a whole month. The second slap occurred because she had the audacity to read the crisply folded newspaper before he got a chance to look at it.

But it wasn’t until he switched to working days, and started having a few drinks after his shift, that she discovered there were worse things than getting slapped. On a filthy day, stormy and wild, downed power lines, flooded streets, and broken tree branches, she was out talking with their neighbor, Dave Cates, when Mitch got home. Dave was asking if she was all right, if she needed anything, and she waved at Mitch as he drove into the garage, told Dave everything was okay, and trotted home.

With the power out, it was pitch black inside the house. She rummaged for candles in a kitchen drawer and lit one. “Mitch?”

She found him sitting in his chair in the living room, still wearing his wet coat. “Mitch, honey? You okay?”

She stuck the candle in the holder on the mantle, knelt to untie one of his wet shoes and pull it off. He raised his other foot, put it on her bent head and sent her sprawling backward. She gasped for a breath, not understanding what happened. He kicked her in the side. Disbelief mixed with pain.

Grabbing her hair, he banged her head against the coffee table. “What’s going on with you and Dave?”

“What?”

“Think I’m so stupid I don’t know what you’re up to?”

“Dave? I don’t—”

He kicked her in the stomach, muttering she was a slut, and stomped off for the bedroom. Clenching her teeth against the pain, she dug her fingers into the gray carpet and stared at the underside of the coffee table, the first item of furniture they’d bought when they got the house. She’d laughed and asked him if he didn’t think they needed a bed first. Remembering that carefree day made her feel sick. She rolled onto hands and knees and, in shaky fashion, got to her feet.

The slapping and hitting, the kicking, the slamming her head against the wall, were awful, really bad, but even more awful, more terrible, was the begging afterward. The pleading, the tenderness and the kisses, the saying he was sorry, it would never happen again, he loved her. But the worst, most awful, most terrible thing was that she believed him.

Tuesday evening she went to bed early, hoping to fend off a migraine. He sat up drinking and watching television. When he stumbled to bed, she pretended to be asleep.

“Hey, baby.” He shook her and kissed her hard. “You’ve been reading too much. That’s why you get these headaches all the time.”

She lay like a dumb cow, waiting for whatever came next.

“You need to stop it.”

Her heart jumped a beat and her breath caught.

“And stop going to that exercise place. That friend of yours? That Arlette bitch?”

Breathe. Pull air in, push air out. Don’t say anything to set him off.

“You shouldn’t see her any more. She puts ideas in your head.” Hand on her throat, he squeezed. She couldn’t breathe, started to panic. Just when a rushing sound began to fill her mind, he eased his grip.

“Okay?” He stroked her throat, barely touching with his fingertips.

She swallowed, swallowed again.

“Okay?” he repeated and squeezed gently.

The next day she ran into Arlette at Sylvia’s. Mitch, furious when Cary’s mother had given her a membership as a birthday present, told her she couldn’t go. She’d pleaded and wheedled and emphasized it was only for women, no men allowed, pointed out he’d said she was getting fat and this would help her lose a few pounds.

“What’s with you?” Arlette said. “Why are you hobbling around like an invalid?”

Cary tightened up her face in a rueful smile. “Just a little sore. I fell down the back steps running in to answer the phone. Two big bags of groceries. Everything all over the place.”

A hot pit of shame formed in her stomach. Lying was foreign to her. She wasn’t good at it and she hated the way the lie made her feel. Sticky and slimy, like some nightmare creature wading through thick ooze.

Her whole life was a lie, and she piled lies on top of lies every time she deliberately tripped or bumped into a chair to prove how clumsy she was and give herself a reason for the bruises. How are you? How’s Mitch? How’s everything going? Good. Good. Good. Lies lies lies. And the fake smiles that went along with them.

Arlette shot her a sharp look. They were longtime friends and Cary worried about those looks. She was quick, Arlette, an attorney with the firm where Cary had been bookkeeper until Mitch convinced her to quit. Smart dresser, straight, sleek dark hair and brown eyes, Arlette was a take-charge kind of person. Unlike Cary.

She felt relief when Arlette glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to run. Got a client. Meet me at the Donut Shop at three-thirty.”

“Oh gosh, I really can’t. I have too much to do.”

“One cup of coffee. Be there. Or I’ll come and get you.” Arlette strode off toward her car.

“I’m going to the library,” Cary said.

“I’ll pick you up. Look up books on battered women.”

Cary looked around, horrified that someone might have heard, but no one was paying the slightest bit of attention.

Early on, Mitch tried to stop her from going to the library, but for the only time in their miserable marriage she’d stood up to him, told him she would go and he couldn’t stop her. As soon as she got inside the building with all the books, she felt ease seep into her soul and smooth out the wrinkles. Glancing over the new fiction, she pulled out any that looked interesting, two biographies, a book on dogs and the phenomenal things they could be trained to do, then sat down at one of the tables to soak in an hour of peace.

Trying to read with her small circle of vision soon had her feeling the streaky beginnings of a migraine. Was his beating her causing the trouble? Detached retina? Did optic nerves get swollen, like everything else when they were smacked around?

Tears washed up and, before she could stop them, trickled down her face. She plunged through her bag until she found a tissue and mopped her face. Reading was something she’d always done excessively. If staying with Mitch would take that away, then she was ready to run. She wouldn’t let him take away the books.

Carrying an armload, she stumbled fast down the stairs, staggered and fell. Books tumbled, her bag went flying, and the contents scattered.

“Cary? You okay?” Arlette crouched beside her, put a hand on her shoulder, and bent down to look directly into her face.

“Told you I was clumsy.” Hands over her face, Cary started crying again, hard enough that people stared at her.

“Come on. My car’s right here.” Arm around her shoulder, Arlette nudged Cary toward the car and tossed the books in the rear.

Cary slid in, a puddle of embarrassment with tears running down her face. Arlette ripped tissues from a box on the console between the seats and offered her a handful. Cary pressed one against her eyes, then blew her nose.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” She crushed the soggy tissue in her fist.

“It’s not hard to figure out, babe. Your husband beats the crap out of you. That’s enough to make anybody cry.” Arlette drove to the Donut Shop, parked in front, and herded Cary inside to a small, round table in the rear.

“Sit,” Arlette said. “I’ll get coffee.”

She came back minutes later with two tall lattes, handed one to Cary, and sat down across from her. “You have to report him, Cary. If you don’t he’s going to seriously injure you.”

“It gets harder and harder. He’s taking that away, too. You’re right, Arlette, he’ll just keep beating me. I’m leaving him.”

“Good. I’m glad. What gets harder and harder? The thought of leaving?”

Cary nodded, her head bobbing up and down like a tulip in a strong wind. “Worse.” The word came out on a hiccup.

“What’s worse?”

“Not being able to read.” Even more horrible than her believing his lies about how he loved her and it would never happen again. “If I can’t read I have nothing.” Cary told Arlette about her sight and about wondering if Mitch had injured some nerves when he’d hit her in the face. “He hardly ever does, because bruises on my face would show, but sometimes he just gets so mad.”

“Oh, Cary.” Arlette took her hand. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

“I just kept hoping it would get better.”

“You have to get help. Call one of those numbers I gave you and get into a shelter.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. I’ll go with you if you like.”

Cary looked at her. “Arlette … he’s a cop. You think a cop can’t get the address of shelters?”

“If you don’t leave him, he’ll end up killing you.”

“He’ll kill me if I leave.”

Arlette took in a long breath, which meant she wanted to scream or shake Cary for being so stubborn, but Cary knew Mitch. He’d find some way to get the information he needed.

“I know I have to leave him,” she whispered. Just saying the words out loud made her heart flutter like crazy. As though he were all-powerful and could hear any hint of defection.

Arlette took a sip of coffee, probably to cover her surprise that Cary was finally wising up. “You have to do it soon.”

Cary looked down in her lap, at her fingers twisted together. That’s the way they were, she and Mitch, twisted together somehow.

Arlette took in a long breath and let it out slowly. “All right, I know someone who might help. And you need to see an ophthalmologist. Immediately. Maybe you should be taking antibiotics or eyedrops or something.”

*   *   *

Arlette took her to the doctor’s office and sat in the waiting room while she went in to see him. When Cary came out, she didn’t say anything. Not while they walked to the parking garage, not when they got in the car, not when Arlette drove them to Hs Lordship’s at the marina.

Not until they were seated at a booth and Cary was staring out at the bay did Arlette ask “What did the doctor say?”

“It’s not Mitch’s fault.” She turned to look at Arlette.

“Well, what is it? What’s the problem?”

“Retinitis pigmentosa.”

“What’s the treatment?”

“There is none. I’m going blind.”