On the evening Billington was hanged, my husband climbed into bed and spoke of the colony’s business. A cow had died that morning due to tainted corn. More loss of profit befell us. I thought it must have been heavy on his conscience—what responsibility the colony had now to care for Eleanor Billington, the widow. But I was not exactly correct.
We’ll have to scrub the blood off his land, William said.
Clean it? I asked, like a child.
Remove them.
Excise them from the colony?
He was agitated.
Remove Billingtons as landholders. Put the care to someone else.
I sat up taller.
But where will Eleanor live? And Francis?
William moved away from me.
I’ve extended my duty as governor far beyond what other governors view is most charitable.
My husband quoted Psalm 7:15. Good Wife, he hath made a pit and digged it, and is fallen into the pit he made.
Prithee, reconsider, I said, in a voice too firm, I see that now.
There was a silence, a long silence, though hardly any time passed until what happened next. I did not see the hand move with force through the air, but I felt it on my cheek. My head knocked back against the wall and my body, too. I was the one flung against the wall this time, not some ill-bred neighbor. What would the newcomers think? I hoped the children, too, were sleeping deeply.
William the younger called for me.
John asked, from across the room, All right?
Fine, I said. Just dropped something.
It was plain that was not what had happened.
William leaned in close to me and whispered, It seems, Good Wife, you wish to be the husband.
I had misstepped. I first thought, I shall not do that again.
I second thought, Did Dorothy know this William, too?
In the silence, Mercy screamed.
Before I went to her I said to William, I am sorry. I trust in you.
When I returned to bed, William was kneeling on the floor, his head and hands in prayer. It was a silent prayer. I lay there. When he was through he did not reach for me.
But I woke in the night to William’s touch. As sweetly as he had ever been, with softness and the kindest hands he cupped my cheek and looked me in the eyes. There was apology there.
He kissed me.
You do not understand the weight upon me, William said.
So recent in fear of him, but he was correct, I did not understand fully, and I wanted to give him this, my understanding.
I lifted his linen. He lifted up my night dress. Our chests bare to one another, then pressed warm against the evening chill. We fell asleep warmed in this way. But in the morning I woke to the cold metal of his gun betwixt us.