The-Hummingbird-s-Cage(14)

“Bottle of Jose Cuervo,” she said. “Five staples to close. Concussion.”

“Did you go to the police?”

“Now, now, Jo. You’re smarter than that. Even back then, he was the police. And he had a police buddy who said he’d swear I was whoring on Bernalillo Road, resisted arrest, assaulted an officer, got what I had coming.”

I gasped. “Frank.”

“I see you’ve met. Anyway, a split scalp—I got off easy, all things considered. I left town and never looked back.”

“You were afraid he’d kill you.”

She snorted. “Honey, I was afraid I’d kill him. I grew up on the rez. I’ve butchered enough game and livestock to know where the knife goes. So I guess you could say he got off easy, too. He just doesn’t know it.”

The prospect made my heart leap. If only she’d stayed in Wheeler, if only she hadn’t left, had put her hunting knife to good use . . . “I wish you had killed him.”

She shrugged. “That’s the bruises talking.”

Her indifference stung—clearly she had no idea.

Finally I asked, “Did you meet him here, or in Utah?”

“Utah? Did he tell you he was from Utah? Honey, he’s from Tucumcari. The way I hear it, they ran the whole family out of town. He’s never been very clear about parents, siblings, that sort of thing. I think he’s pure self-invention by now.” She shrugged. “Nothing wrong with that, necessarily. We’re all entitled to second chances, right? But I always did wonder what he did with his first one. We were only together a few months, but that was enough. I’ve always been a sucker for a handsome devil—only, between us girls, I prefer them more handsome than devil. Jim was a helluva wild man then. Not so much family oriented. Did he tell you about the time he shot up a motel room?”

“Why on earth?”

“Why on earth not? That’s just the way he was. Half the men in uniform back then should have been behind bars at one time or another.” She gave me a sidelong glance. “I hear Jim finally made it inside a jail cell a few months ago. I only regret I wasn’t here to take a picture. I would have framed it.”

“A picture?” I spat the words out.

Her laughter stopped short. “Sorry. I shouldn’t take pleasure in that bastard’s misery, when I know damn well he takes plenty of company with him. Honey, the stories I could tell you . . .”

Her voice trailed off bitterly; her dark eyes grew darker.

I didn’t know what she expected when she came knocking on my door—checking up on a batterer’s wife, an hour of tea and sympathy. Penitence for poking a rattlesnake that was sleeping in someone else’s lap. And I wasn’t sure what I could expect of her.

But, for the first time ever, there was someone sitting right in front of me who knew Jim—the real Jim, not the affable doppelg?nger he presented to everyone else. She knew him—if not to all his dark depths, then at least to his capacity for them. She had loved him, too. Once. And he’d made her bleed. Even her.

“The stories—” I stuttered. “The stories I could tell . . .”

And the next thing I knew, I was telling her—the dark things, the forbidden things, the things I’d never told anyone, could never tell anyone, especially when they pressed and prodded and tried to wring it out of me for my own good. The bruises, the bones, the burns, the scars—these are just the tangibles they can check off on any medical report. How do you quantify the words that cut as deep? The bottomless, wretched fear of more of the same?

The dam cracked; the truth gushed out. I told her about my tea tin, the groceries, the gas. The fishbowl isolation. The suffocating prison of this tin-roofed house.

The steady erosion of my own sanity. The no way out. The gut-churning horror of being forced to live every day with a monster.

I took a deep breath and braced and told her about Tinkerbell. About the grave he made me dig, the limp body, the spear-headed shovel.

About Laurel, and how hard it is to pretend to your clever child that everything’s all right, that Daddy loves her, that Daddy’s a good man, that Daddy would never, ever turn on her one day.

Bernadette was staring at me, expressionless. I searched her face for traces of disgust, for judgment, for compassion, for absolution. I couldn’t stop myself.

I took another shuddering breath and told her what I hadn’t even allowed myself to think too much about, for fear of making it real. Making it true. About the night Jim returned home from his jail stint, just after New Year’s. The welcoming meal I’d prepared—pot roast, potatoes, coconut cake. Laurel had dressed pretty for her daddy in a crimson velvet dress with bows. We’d sat down as a family, and Jim seemed happy to be home, kissing Laurel good night, even tucking her in. When she was finally asleep, as I was washing the dinner dishes, Jim called for me from outside. He was in the backyard near the woodshed. He was wearing gloves, and I thought he was restacking the cordwood, but it wasn’t that. As I got close, I could see his face in the lantern light, and it was twisted with the old familiar rage. My stomach heaved. He grabbed my hair and pulled me inside, yanking out hunks till I gasped. He dragged me across the shed, pulled me upright, and with his other hand grabbed an object hanging on the wall. He held it close to my face so I could make it out. It was a machete.