The Red Hunter(6)

A lot of women don’t remember the event, her doctor told her. And that must be a wonderful mercy. Because Claudia remembered. Every crushing, bruising, airless second from the moment he stepped out of the bedroom in front of her and grabbed her by her hair, pulling her inside and closing and locking the door. Every detail of his face from his dark eyes, to the stubble on his jaw, to the scar on his chin, to the rank of his breath, the black stains on his teeth. He punched her with a closed fist right in the face—so jarring, so brutal, blinding white stars and pain that traveled from her jaw and the bridge of her nose, up over the crown of her head, her neck snapping back.

She struggled for orientation. No, no, this wasn’t happening. Couldn’t be. He pressed his arm over her throat, cutting off air. She couldn’t breathe so she couldn’t scream. Funny how that went. She wouldn’t have thought about that. No air, no sound. She was silent, writhing. Utterly powerless against his far, far superior physical strength. She took kickboxing! She had thick powerful legs, athletic calves that never fit into those sleek high boots she so adored. She was bigger than Ayers—there was no carrying Claudia over the threshold, nothing that would have been pretty. They play wrestled all the time. He was strong, Ayers, but not like this. She couldn’t move. She was as helpless as a child. His eyes. They were blank, totally blank. He didn’t see her; she wasn’t even there. He thrust himself into her, a heinous ripping impact. The violation. It was unspeakable, beyond comprehension, and the pain. A horrible, tearing, burning. One, two, three. He shuddered, eyes closing—release, not pleasure—and it was done. He hit her again.

Stop looking at me! A hard crack against her cheekbone.

She fell back, and he kicked her brutally in the ribs. She threw up on the floor and managed to be humiliated about it even though he was already gone, out that window that offered such a pretty view of Mrs. Swanson’s garden and the graveyard. She lost herself then. Went somewhere else. The next thing she remembered was the door crashing in. Not Ayers but a uniformed cop. Why not Ayers? Why wasn’t he the first person through that door?

“Oh Jesus,” the young cop said. Claudia wanted to apologize about the vomit. Crazy, wasn’t that? Then she was out again.

It was two weeks later that she knew she was pregnant. No AIDS, no other sexually transmitted diseases. It was possible to determine paternity in vitro, but the test was invasive and caused risk to the fetus. They both decided. She thought that they both decided (though Ayers would later claim that it was all about Claudia, that he was just doing what he thought she needed) that they didn’t want to know. A baby was a gift, no matter how it was delivered. Wasn’t it? They would love the child. They would never seek to discover the true paternity. No matter what, they’d raise the baby as their own.

Don’t do this, Martha had begged. You don’t know how you’re going to feel. It’s not fair to the child.

So it’s fair to—terminate the pregnancy?

Claudia was shocked at how unanimous was the sentiment that she should have an abortion. What a horrible word: the brutal end of something before it began. Even her doctor seemed to assume. Do you want to schedule the D&C? No, said Claudia. I don’t know.

Life at any cost, then? Martha asked.

This baby is proof that even out of the most horrific possible moment, in your darkest hour, something wonderful is possible, Claudia had countered.

Martha, who was fifteen years older than Claudia, just shook her head, looked off into the middle distance as if she were the long-suffering knower of all things, just waiting for her little sister to catch up.

Ayers and I were together that night. It is equally possible that it is his child.

And if it isn’t?

It won’t matter. We’re enough—strong enough, in love enough. It’s possible. I’ve done the research.

Claudia remembered gazing out at the vista from their new apartment in a luxury Chelsea high-rise with windows that couldn’t be opened and a doorman who looked like a professional wrestler (they’d moved within two weeks of the attack) hoping—praying that she was right. She wasn’t right, not by a long shot. Not about that. Not about anything, it seemed, since that.

? ? ?

CLAUDIA PULLED UP THE LONG drive to their farmhouse. Twenty acres, most of them wooded, in a dot on the map called Lost Valley, New Jersey. Lost Valley? Raven had raged. Are you kidding? You’re moving us from Manhattan to a place with a name like that? It’s like something out of a horror movie. This land had been in her family for decades, bought with cash on one of her father’s real estate whims—one of many. He got it for a song—$15,000 for twenty acres in the seventies, the barn and old house falling to pieces. He’d never set foot on it in all the years he owned it, then left it to Claudia when he died.

Claudia never set foot on the farmhouse property either, until one day she got it in her head that she’d renovate the buildings and start a blog about it. Single city mom moves to the country and renovates two historic properties. She’d take pictures. Eventually it would become a book—poignant, moving, inspiring. It wasn’t just about the property. It was about rebuilding in the spiritual sense. Never mind that she wasn’t really a writer or a photographer, or that she didn’t have any experience with home renovation. And she liked the name of the town. It was romantic, wasn’t it? A secret place, a hidden gem, a place where magic was still possible.