“Wade pulled up in front of the store in that shitbox of his father’s, and I thought, Well, well, well, here comes today’s problem. I thought it because he headed straight up the stairs to Hettie’s apartment. Sent his kid, the little girl, into the store ahead of him with a dollar bill in her hand.
“She poked around in the cooler, looking for a bottle of tonic. Said she wanted one of those all-natural drinks — and who the hell carries that kind of shit up here? So she got a carton of milk and was standing there by the cookies, studying the goddamned labels. Checking out the ingredients, like a Goody Two-shoes. And though I feel sorry for the kid — what the hell, who wouldn’t? — she still struck me as a whole lot like her mother. Who, if you ask me, is not the most likable person I’ve ever met.
“Meanwhile, Wade must’ve found out that Hettie wasn’t home. Which he could have found out by asking me, of course. But he wouldn’t do that. Although he sure was not making any particular secret out of his checking for her at her apartment upstairs. What with his daughter right there and me knowing who comes and goes up those stairs. Something I’d sometimes just as soon not know, frankly. This being one of those times.
“Then, like he was covering for himself, he came down the stairs and into the store and asked me did I know if Jack Hewitt had got his deer yet. And I said no, Jack Hewitt did not get his deer yet. Which I happened to know was true, since I have to tag every deer shot in this township, my store being the only official tagging station, and Jack would’ve had to bring his deer in for tagging. So, ‘No,’ I said, ‘Jack did not get his deer yet.’
“Then Wade asked me did I happen to know where Jack Hewitt was hunting. Like I was supposed to believe he had stopped off at Hettie’s to find out where Jack was. Sure, you believe that and I’ll tell you another one, I thought to myself.
“So I told him. Not that I knew exactly. But Jack had stopped by early and picked up a box of shells, and we had exchanged a few words. Mostly about his being the new town cop and getting his license back and all. Which frankly I thought was good for the town, knowing what I knew then about Wade Whitehouse and what I know now. Anyhow, Jack had mentioned he was going up to Parker Mountain, where he had spotted a huge buck that we both knew had not been shot yet. Since the biggest buck that had come in so far was only a hundred-and-fifty-pound ten-pointer. Not your monster buck.
“So that’s more or less what I told Wade. ‘Jack’s up on Parker Mountain somewhere,’ I told him. That and nothing more exact than that, because I didn’t know anything more exact than that. And I only told him as much as I did because he asked, and I figured he asked only because he was trying to make it look like he had legitimate business with Hettie. When he did not have legitimate business with Hettie. Actually, it figured that the one person in town Wade would want to avoid would be Jack Hewitt. So I didn’t see anything wrong in telling him where Jack was. Anyhow, he said thanks, and the kid paid me for the milk and left without finding any cookies that met her standards. Not that I particularly gave a damn.”
“I hurried — oh, Lord, I was frantic hurrying trying to get out of there before he came back. I was just tossing my clothes and things every which way into suitcases and plastic bags and boxes and stuffing them into my car trunk and the back seat; I felt guilty — leaving like that, without telling him or explaining anything; of course I felt guilty; but I figured I could explain later, and I also thought that maybe once it was done, once I was gone from the house, he wouldn’t mind so much. It was the actual leaving, doing it in his face, that I figured would bother him the most; I was sure it would make him crazy— crazier, actually, because he was already pretty crazy, you know that; that was why I was leaving in the first place. I don’t think he wanted me around, but I was afraid that he would literally come apart if he thought I was abandoning him, and that’s why I was trying to get out of there before he came back with Jill, which I had learned from Nick, who had called me out at the house as soon as Wade left the restaurant. Well, it’s more complicated than that. But you understand. It had to do with Pop too, I have to admit — or, more accurately, it had to do with the combination of Wade and Pop in that house: they were both getting worse, and so far as I could see, it was because of each other. Pop mostly sat in front of the TV set in the living room watching wrestling; once in a while he opened up a new bottle of booze, which he drank from until he got drunk enough to start talking cracked; and about then Wade usually showed up, or for the first time would start to act like Pop was in the room — having ignored the man up till that point: and then the two of them would go at it hammer and tong. That was no place for a woman. Not with Wade chasing people through the woods and cracking up his boss’s truck like that, it wasn’t. His obsession with that stupid hunting accident of Jack’s: it was like he thought it explained everything, but in order to do so, it had to practically be invented all over from the beginning — by him! And the wildness he was displaying, like the way he pulled his own tooth out with pliers, which practically made me sick when he told me that’s what he had done, although I had already figured it out for myself, thank you, when I found the bloody tooth and pliers on the bathroom sink. Well, you know how he was acting: you were in touch with him then. But you didn’t see it. Except for the day of Ma’s funeral, you were never here to see it and deal with him and Pop up close on a day-to-day basis. I guess I’m saying this because I feel guilty, guilty for leaving him right then, abandoning him, actually, when he had been fired from his job and fired from being the town cop, which was a very important position to him, never mind how he himself described the position; I feel guilty for leaving him alone up there in the house when he was so upset, so beaten down by his life, which he blamed mostly on his father, as you know; I feel guilty because I left him when he was feeling so frustrated by that stupid court case, that custody suit he was trying to bring against Lillian — although I did not at that time know what you told me about that: about how his lawyer had advised him to drop the case, so he still felt dependent on Lillian in order to see his own child — not that I thought he was an especially fit father at that time, believe me.
”So there I was, with most of my stuff packed and my car almost filled to the gills, when Wade drives up with Jill. Too late to hide, I figured, so I just stood there, with the trunk and the car doors wide open, and he drove past, looking out the window at the car full of my stuff, not making any sign of recognition, and drove the truck into the barn and parked it. Then he and Jill came walking back along the driveway from the barn to the front where I was — Jill lagging behind and lugging her little suitcase, looking forlorn — and I thought, Oh, Lord, what that child’s been through; and I forgot all about getting out of there right then and leaving that child alone with those two men, one of them drunk and crazy and the other probably on his way to drunk and crazy — although I did not at that moment think either of them was particularly dangerous, which is why I decided that I should stay at the house for another night and day, or at least as long as Jill was there. So when Wade came up to me and looked over the items I had packed into the car, boxes and suitcases and plastic bags full of my things, and said, ‘Going somewhere, Margie?’ I tried to lie. Not only because I was leaving him right then, but also because I had changed my mind, due to seeing Jill. It was a stupid thing to do, I know: it was obvious what I was up to; but I was suddenly divided in my emotions between wanting to leave and wanting to stay, and I had not anticipated feeling that way, which is really probably the stupid part. But you get caught in these things: you make one small decision, and pretty soon you’re stuck with a bunch of other decisions that you’re not so sure of, and then you act stupid. So I lied to Wade and tried to tell him that I was taking a bunch of things to the church rummage sale and a bunch more to the cleaners and laundromat in Catamount, it being Saturday. And of course it didn’t work; he saw right through me. He said, ‘Don’t lie to me. You’re leaving me, I can see that.’ I tried to change the subject and said for him not to be silly, or something light like that, and said hi to Jill, who smiled — or tried to smile — looking pathetic and miserable in spite of it — or because of it.