Eliza wasn’t worried about computer clicks. But if she complained to the prison officials, that would be another set of people who knew definitively who she was and where she was. Why should she trust them? Better to ignore Walter, although she knew that Walter was most unpredictable when someone dared to ignore him. Only not where he was now, locked away. And usually not to her. The One Who Got Away, to borrow the hideous chapter heading from that nasty little book. As if she were a girl in a jazz ballad, a romantic fixation. The One Who Got Away. The one who was, as the book said repeatedly, “only raped, allegedly.” Only. Allegedly.
Only a man who had never been raped could have written that phrase.
“Let’s wait him out,” she told Peter. “He’ll either drop this, or he won’t. As he said, he doesn’t have long. And he’s not being put to death for what he did to me.”
THAT NIGHT, IN BED, she surprised Peter by initiating sex, quite good sex, with those little extras that long-married couples tend to forgo. It was, by necessity, silent sex, and she had to clap her hand over Peter’s mouth at one point, fearful that the children would hear him. But it was important to remind herself tonight that her body belonged to her, that this was sex, this was love. She deserved her life. She had created it, through sheer will and not a little help from Peter and her family. She had every right to protect it.
But as she fell asleep, spooned by her husband, the other girls came to her as they sometimes did. Maude and Holly, followed by all the faceless girls, the ones that Walter was suspected of killing, although nothing had ever been proven. Two, four, six, eight-the estimates climbed into the teens. They were, all things considered, remarkably kind and forgiving little ghosts. Tonight, however, they were mournful in their insistence that she was not alone in this, that they must be factored into any decision she made about Walter. Holly, forever the spokeswoman, reminded Eliza that her life was theirs, in a sense. Polite even to her phantoms, Eliza did not argue.
Eventually the others slipped away one by one, but Holly lingered in Eliza’s thoughts, keen on some private business. “I was the last girl,” she said. “They shouldn’t have called you that. I was the last girl, and he’s going to die for what he did to me.”
“Oh, Holly, what does it matter? Last or next-to-last? Ultimate or penultimate? They’re just words. Who cares?”
“I do,” Holly said. “And you know why, even if you always pretend that you don’t. Ha-ha!”
4
1985
POINT OF ROCKS. He had always liked that name, seen it on signs for years, but somehow never managed to visit. Now that he had-well, it wasn’t that much different from any of the towns along the Potomac. From his own town, in fact, back in West Virginia. Almost heaven, the license plate said, and Walter agreed. Still, he liked to drive, wished he could see more of the world.
When he was a child, no more than four or five, his father took him to a spot in Maryland, Friendsville, where it was possible to see three states- Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania. He had been disappointed that the area wasn’t marked, like a map or a quilt, that one state was indistinguishable from another. He told his father he wished they could go out west, stand in the four corners, which he had heard about from his older sister.
“If wishes were Mustangs,” his father said. It was one of his favorite sayings. He didn’t believe in vacations. Years later, Walter felt a bit betrayed when he started working at his father’s repair shop and found out just how steady the business was. They could have taken trips, known a few more luxuries. Maybe not all the way west, but to that big amusement park in Ohio, the one with the tallest roller coaster in the world. Or his father could have sent Walter, his mother, and his sister on a vacation if he really felt he couldn’t close up for seven days, or leave the place under the care of one of his employees. The only trip Walter ever took was to Ocean City, Maryland, after high school graduation, and it felt like he spent more time on the bus than in the town itself.
Now that Walter worked for his father, he didn’t get vacations, just Sundays and Wednesdays off. What could he do with that mismatched pairing of days? Today was a Sunday, and he was thinking about turning back, going home. There was no law that a man had to do anything with his day off, no rule that said he wasn’t allowed to spend the afternoon watching television, then enjoy Sunday-night supper with his family. Lately, his mother seemed to be dropping hints that he might want to get his own place, move out and on, but he was ignoring her for now. He didn’t want to move out until it was to move in with someone, set up his own household. But, wait-maybe that was the problem? Maybe the reason he had trouble meeting women was because he didn’t have a place to take them? There were all those jokes about men who lived with their parents, but he didn’t think that applied to him. He worked in his father’s business. Why shouldn’t he stay at home until he could afford a proper house, not one of those cinder block motel rooms that people rented by the week, making do with hot plates and mini fridges. Living that way, in a single room, wasn’t living at all. He’d wait for the real thing. Real love, real house, a partnership in his father’s business. Already he had asked his father why they couldn’t change Bowman’s Garage to Bowman and Son’s Garage. His sister, now married but living on the same street, said it didn’t sound right, and his father said he didn’t want to pay to change all the signs and stationery, and when Walter had said the sign would be enough-wait, was that a girl?
It was, a tall, shapely girl brushed with gold, her hair and skin almost blending with the cornfields on either side of the road. She had a funny walk, kind of a lope, but she was otherwise lovely and her body was magnificent, like a movie star’s. He slowed down.
“You want a ride?”
She looked confused, on the verge of tears. “ One-oh-three Apple Court, Point of Rocks. One-oh-three Apple Court, Point of Rocks.”
“Sure I can take you there, just tell me-”
She shook her head, kept repeating her address. She looked to be at least eighteen, but she was acting like she was six. Oh.
“Calm down, calm down, I’ll get you home. We’ll have to find someone who can tell me the way, but I’ll get you there, okay?”
She climbed into his truck. Gosh, she was pretty. Too bad she was slow, or retarded, or whatever it was called now.
“You got lost?”
She nodded, still hiccuping from her tears. Eventually she gulped out that she had been in a store with her mother and she had gotten thirsty, gone to find a water fountain in the store, but when she came back, she couldn’t find her mother, so she had decided to walk home.
“You still thirsty? You want something to drink? A soda or something?”
“Home,” she said. “ One-oh-three Apple Court, Point of Rocks.”
“I’ll take you home,” he said. “But I have to stop anyway, to ask directions. If you want a drink or a snack, you just let me know.”
He pulled over at the next convenience store he saw, a Sheetz. His father loved to say that name, drawing out the vowel sound to the t. Sheeeeeeeeeeeet-then waiting a split second before adding the z. And his mother laughed every time, as if it were new. That’s all Walter wanted. A wife, a world of private jokes. It shouldn’t be so hard.
He parked at the far end of the parking lot, where his truck wouldn’t be in view of the cash register. Inside he bought two sodas and some candy. He did not ask directions, at least not to 103 Apple Court. Instead, he asked if there were any good fishing spots nearby.