They walked into the living room, Gregory carefully closing the door behind them.
He slapped her.
It was a hard slap, straight across the face, and Julia was almost knocked off her feet by the force of it. Blood started pouring out of her nose, and she held a hand up to it to stem the flow, tilting her head back.
Gregory punched her in the stomach.
She went down.
She had never really been in a fight before—even as a child, she had avoided physical altercations—and though she’d seen plenty of them in movies and on television, she did not really know how to defend herself and did not seem to be able to think fast enough to keep up with the action. Gregory kicked her in the breast, and by the time she thought to roll away, out of his reach, he was grabbing her arm, yanking her back up, kneeing her in the crotch.
The pain was unbearable. She felt like vomiting, could not catch her breath. The sharp flashes of agony that accompanied each of his blows spiked deep into her body. It felt as though bones were breaking, organs were rupturing, and as he continued to pummel her, she wondered if he was going to kill her, if she was going to die.
And then he stopped.
He’d said nothing the entire time, and he was still silent now as he let go of her arms and allowed her to fall back onto the floor. Her first instinct, a purely animal reaction, was to curl up and protect herself, but he had stopped attacking, at least for now, and she tried to stand, couldn’t. He stood above her, arms folded, staring blankly, and though the pain was tremendous and each slight movement brought fresh tears to her eyes, she managed to crawl to the stairs and start the slow, arduous trip up, one hand on the posts of the banister, the other supporting her weight on the steps.
He followed her, stood directly behind her. She kept waiting for another kick, kept waiting for him to throw her back down the stairs, but he did nothing, just stared.
After what seemed like an hour, she reached the top and managed to crawl into the bedroom. She was barely able to close and lock the door. Crying from the pain and the effort and the emotional toll, she pulled herself onto the bed and lay there, grateful for the soft blankets and mattress.
He was smart, she thought. Aside from that first slap, he hadn’t hit her in the face, hadn’t hit her where it would show. It was what she’d heard about chronic wife beaters, the way they hid their violence from friends and family, and it was this bit of circumspection that most frightened her. It meant that this might go on for a while. It meant that he intended to do this again without letting anyone know.
It meant that he intended to stay.
He intended to stay.
That lay at the heart of her fear. For it was as if this entire situation had been specifically arranged in order to keep her here: the scene with Paul, Gregory’s discovery of them, the beating. She remembered the fogginess in her mind at the café, the blank expression on his face as he attacked her, and she wondered if that was not exactly what had happened. It was too convenient, she thought. Gregory had been played like a puppet, used by whatever lived in this house to make sure that she and the kids did not leave town.
There was a loud smack against the door, and Julia jumped, her ribs hurting. “You stay in there!” he ordered. “You come out and you’re going to get the beating of your life, you fucking slut! And I hear you say one word of this to Mother or the kids, and you won’t be the only one punished!”
Julia held her breath, did not reply, terrified that he would break down the door and come after her again, but he did not. Soon she heard him walk away, heard his footsteps head down the hall.
There was an unfamiliar series of loud noises after that—clatterings and slammings—then she heard him upstairs, in the attic, rummaging around.
She listened to the noises until she fell asleep.
Sometime later, the kids came home from school. He was back downstairs again, and though the sounds were muffled, she could just make out their voices. She heard him lie, heard him tell the kids that she was sick and needed her rest and couldn’t be disturbed, but one of them, Teo probably, tried the knob anyway a little while later, and she was grateful for that stubborn spirit of disbelief. She said nothing, however, gave no indication that she was awake, believing Gregory fully, knowing that he would make good on his threats. She didn’t want anything to happen to the kids.
You won’t be the only one punished!
His mother came home soon after, and he fed her the same line, but Julia could tell that Agafia didn’t believe it. Their conversation was polite, but there was a stiltedness to it, an undercurrent of formality, an obvious discomfort on both their parts. Gregory’s mother seemed afraid of him, and Julia thought that the old woman was her last best hope. Agafia could obviously sense that something was wrong, that there was something amiss here, and she said nothing to her son about Julia’s plan to take the kids and get out of town.
Agafia would figure something out, she knew. The old woman would find some way to help her, to get them all out of this.
She fell asleep thinking of plans for escape.
In the morning there was a knock at the bedroom door, and then he walked in. “I need clothes,” he said shortly.
She’d locked the door. She knew she had. But Gregory had somehow opened it anyway, striding in, ignoring her and taking a pair of jeans from the closet and an old Yes T-shirt from the dresser. He threw off his dirty clothes, tossing them in the direction of the hamper, and put on the clean ones.
He looked at her disgustedly. “Get your lazy ass out of bed,” he said. “Your children need breakfast. Do something useful for once in your miserable life.”
It was an order, not an observation, and he stared at her as if he meant to be obeyed. Julia rose painfully. She had not changed out of yesterday’s clothes, and now she left her jeans on—it hurt too much to try to take them off—but she removed the blood-spattered blouse and replaced it with a loose-fitting red shirt.
“Wash your face off,” he said. “Then get downstairs.”
He left the room, and she shuffled slowly across the carpeted floor into the bathroom. Her face was indeed a mess, smeared with dried blood, but it looked worse than it was and after two minutes with the washcloth she looked almost normal.
This was her chance. If Agafia was downstairs and Gregory left them alone for even a minute, they could talk, figure something out, formulate some sort of plan.
The stairs were difficult, and Julia held tightly to the banister, walking down one step at a time, stopping on each, like someone handicapped. Once on the first floor, she hobbled to the door of the kitchen that opened onto the hallway, and her heart sank as she saw the kids seated in the breakfast nook, Gregory pouring himself a cup of coffee at the counter next to the sink—and no sign of her mother-in-law.
The Gregory from upstairs was gone, and in his place was a falsely cheerful Stepford husband. “Mother already left for church,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. He smiled brightly at her. “Feeling better, dear?”
Adam and Teo both looked worried, and she wondered how much they knew, how much they suspected.