Chapter Forty-five

Monday, October 30, 2:12 p.m.

Free went up to her room and lay down on the bed, her belly rising before her. She stroked it absentmindedly. Her thoughts were so jumbled she couldn’t follow one of them for long. She thought she had known everything she needed to know about Lydia, but Lydia had lied to her. Lydia had presented Free with the face Free had wanted to see. By now, Free had told enough tall tales of her own that maybe she shouldn’t be surprised that other people shaped the truth until it reflected what they wanted rather than what was.

Had Lydia lied about other things? Were her parents really dead? Where had she really been going? To a lover who even now wondered where she was, unable to call her husband and ask? Or to a lawyer, as she had said, but to a divorce lawyer?

Free shook her head. How could it be the way Craig said? Lydia’s voice had gone all soft when she talked about her husband. Free shook out the contents of Lydia’s purse, which she now used for her own, onto the bed. She had never removed the little cloth-covered photo album though, and now she slowly paged through it until she came to the wedding day picture of Lydia and her husband. In the picture, Lydia’s face was glowing. There was no hint that one day her husband would beat her and she would lie about it through swollen lips. And what about the husband? What had Craig said his name was? Roy? In the beginning, Roy must have loved Lydia. There must have been love there, and maybe there had even been love right up to the last – or else why had Lydia refused over and over gain to press charge?

Now Roy must be frantic, wondering where his wife was. Was it fair that he might go through the rest of his life thinking he saw Lydia on every street corner?

When she picked up the purse to put everything back, it still felt oddly heavy. When she shook it, something rattled. Holding it toward the light, Free opened the purse wide. The bottom was made out of a separate piece of leather. She pressed on it and found that it was firm on one side and gave on the other. The bottom, she realized, had been separated from the bag and moved up. What had Lydia been hiding? Despite her square appearance, had she been smuggling drugs like Jamie?

With her fingernails, Free managed to lift up one side, revealing a flat hidden object. Whatever she had thought she would find, it wasn’t this. A little book, bound in black cloth, about three inches by two inches and a half-inch thick. The cover was stamped with the word “Addresses,” but when she opened it up the pages were filled edge to edge with a tiny cursive handwriting. The letters were so small and crowded together that Free at first thought it was all in code.

Then a phrase leaped up at her. “He hit me again today. For nothing.”

Jamie had looked like a college kid, but in real life he had been a drug dealer. Lydia had said she mourned a dead husband, good and kind, but instead she had been fleeing him. And Free herself had turned into someone other than who she really was.

She began to page through the diary, reading an entry here and there. The entries were undated.

In public, he kisses and hugs me. People like to be around him, because he is funny. Whenever we go out, I don’t want to come home, because I want him to stay the nice Roy, the sweet Roy, the Roy he was when we first started dating. No one knows what is happening and they probably wouldn’t believe it. He accuses me of having a lover when I was a virgin when I met him! My stomach hurts all the time. I would be so ashamed if people knew the truth.

#

My life will end if I call the police. I know that. They make it sound so easy in the women’s magazines. Press charges. Teach him a lesson. But even if they could keep me safe for a while, he would probably get out on bail. And even if he went to jail, he would still eventually get out. And then what? I know Roy. He has the patience of Job when it comes to doing what he wants to do.

#

I have to get out of here or I will end up dead. Even though I am afraid that if I leave he might still kill me anyway.

But how can I go? I don’t have any money of my own. Just the money he gives me for groceries, and I have to account for every penny of that. He is the only one who can sign checks or withdraw money from savings.

#

I thought of it today. Or really, two things. Bottle return money and coupons! They’re the only things he hasn’t figured in. I can get maybe two dollars every week from his beer and pop cans and bottles. And today I asked the cashier to ring the coupons up separate, after she had already totaled it. I told her it was so I could see exactly how much I saved, but really, I just tore the slip off after that first total. Roy doesn’t know that with coupons and bottle money, today I got $2.60 back. I hid it in my shoe. Even though he took off all my clothes when I got home, I knew he would only check my underwear. My shoes he doesn’t care about.

I feel happy today for the first time in months.

#

The diary ended there. Free sat back, surprised to notice the wetness of tears on her face. Now she understood the crumpled ones in Lydia’s purse. How many weeks of saving had those thirty-two dollars represented? How many times of being forced to take off her clothes while her husband sought proof of an imaginary lover?