Raising The Stakes

Instead Dawn caught the moth and took it outside, feeling the delicate pink wings trembling with terror in her cupped hands. She’d set it free in the stand of scraggly trees between the trailer park and the highway.

“Go on,” she’d whispered, “spread your pretty wings and fly far, far away.”

Her mother slapped her when she went back into the trailer, not very hard because she was already high on what she called her pain pills, but just enough to remind her that she’d been disobedient.

“I tell you to do a thing,” she’d said, “you do it. You got that, girl?”

Dawn got it. Rules were to be obeyed. Still, she’d risked breaking another one the next day. She was supposed to go straight home after school. She had chores to do and stopping off anywhere, especially at the library to poke her nose into books that gave her, Orianna said, fancy ideas, was forbidden. But Dawn wanted to know the name of the beautiful moth whose life she’d saved. She found a picture of it in the encyclopedia. It was a Glover’s silk moth, a thing of rare beauty, and though she’d always hoped to see one again, she never had.

She knew it was silly but tonight she wondered if, by some miracle, the moth on the porch might be the one she’d saved years ago. She paused in her sweeping, watching the moth with delight until, suddenly, she heard the sound of a truck laboring up the mountain.

Her heart leaped into her throat. Was it Harman? So early? That would be good. It would mean he hadn’t stopped for more than a drink or two—but it would be bad, too. She wasn’t done sweeping and just look, she’d somehow gotten a stain on her skirt.

It wasn’t Harman. The sound of the engine died away. Dawn dragged a breath into her lungs and swept the porch until the unpainted boards were spotless. Not that it mattered. If he came home drunk, she could have swept a hundred times over and he’d still find a speck of dirt, a bit of leaf, something, anything, and when he did…

She switched the thought off, just clicked it to silence as if it were a station on a radio because she’d learned there wasn’t any sense, really, in thinking ahead. Whatever happened would happen. Nothing she could do would change it. She could only sweep harder and faster and not do anything stupid, like hurrying back inside the cabin and waking Tommy so he could see the silk moth. Her son loved all the creatures that shared this godforsaken mountain with them, but why take him from his bed to see something that would surely be dead by morning? And it would be dead, drawn by the light Harman insisted must be on so he could be sure she wasn’t in the arms of one of the nonexistent men he was convinced came around whenever he wasn’t there.

Once, exhausted at the end of a day spent cooking and cleaning in hopes of pleasing him, she’d forgotten the light. Harman had come in late and dragged her out of bed, to the front room and the unlit lamp.

“Did you think you could hide in here without my knowin’ what you were up to?” he’d said, and when she’d tried to explain that she hadn’t done anything, that his preoccupation with her leaving on the light didn’t make any sense, he’d called her a liar and a whore. He’d beaten her and then he’d unzipped his jeans, torn off her nightgown and pushed himself inside her.

She never forgot to turn on the light after that.

It was like a beacon, shining there in the blackness of the mountain night, luring the gossamer-winged creatures of the forest to their deaths. The silk moth would meet the same fate. It would beat its delicate wings to pieces in a fruitless attempt to reach a warm, shiny world that was only an illusion. Bad enough she knew that awful truth. Why would she want Tommy to know it, too? Her son had lots of time to learn about the world.

So she’d finished sweeping a floor that didn’t need sweeping and now she lay in the dark, listening to the pathetic slap of the moth’s wings, to the quick thud of her own heart as it grew later and later. At last, she heard the whine of her husband’s pickup truck as it made its way toward the clearing.

Dawn shuddered, held her breath. If she could only feign sleep…

The truck door slammed. Booted feet stomped up the wooden steps and across the porch. The door opened.

Maybe it would be okay. Harman had been good to her, once. When he’d asked her to marry him, when he’d offered to take her away from her mother and the trailer park and the endless stream of men who slept in her mother’s bed, he’d seemed the answer to her prayers.

“Shit!”

Dawn dug her face into the muslin pillow tick. Stay asleep, Tommy, she thought frantically, don’t, oh don’t wake up. Not that Harman would ever hurt their son, she was sure of that, but still…

Another noise. More cursing. The sound of Harman falling, then getting to his feet.

“Goddammit,” he roared. “What the hell is this?”

Oh, God! Had he tripped over something? What? What could she have left on the floor? She’d put the broom away. The dustpan. The chairs were lined up under the table just so, all of them neatly arranged. Tommy’s toys, such as they were, were carefully placed on the shelf in his room…

The red car.

The brand-new red plastic car she’d bought at the supermarket, even though it cost two dollars, because of the way her baby had looked at it, his blue eyes going all round with wonder. He’d played with it all afternoon, rolling it back and forth, back and forth while she folded laundry until, finally, he’d fallen sound asleep right there at her feet, the car clutched in his chubby fist. She’d smiled, scooped him up, carried him to his crib—and kicked the red car, by mistake. It had rolled toward the corner and she’d forgotten it, forgotten to look for it.

The bedroom door shot open. The light flashed on. Don’t move, Dawn thought desperately, don’t open your eyes, don’t blink, don’t stir, don’t breathe…

“Get up!”

She scrambled up against the pillows, clutching the quilt to her chin. Her husband loomed over her, looking as big as the mountain he came from and as mean as the storms that blew across it.

“Harman. Please. I didn’t mean to—”

The first blow caught her across her cheek. The second was better aimed and got her in the jaw. Her head snapped back; the coppery taste of blood was on her tongue.

“Where’d this come from, huh? Where’d it come from?”

He shook his fist under her nose, opened his hand, let her look at what lay in his palm. It was Tommy’s red car.

“Answer me, dammit. Where’d you get this?”

“I bought it. In Queen City.”

He hit her again, this time with the hand that held the toy. Dawn felt the skin split just above her eye.

“Ain’t no toy stores in Queen City, bitch. Try another lie.”

“I didn’t buy it at a toy store.” She was gasping for breath now. Harman was clutching her by the neck. He hoisted her to her knees and his fingers pressed hard into her throat. “Harman? Harman, please. I can’t breathe.”

“Who was here? What man came here and brought this to keep my son silent while you and he rutted in my bed?”

“Nobody. I swear it. Nobody was here. I bought the car. At the supermarket. They sell toys now, and Tommy saw this, and he wanted it so badly that I—”

She cried out as he lifted her from the bed and threw her against the dresser. Pain shot up her spine and into her neck.

“Liar,” he snarled as he bent over her. The stink of his breath choked her.

“It’s the truth. You know I don’t have men here, Harman. Why would I? I love you. Only you. Nobody but—”

He punched her. Dawn’s head jerked back and he hit her again, then curled his hand into the neckline of her nightgown and ripped it down to the hem.

“Whore! Harlot! Only a decent woman knows the meaning of love.”

“Harman. Please. Please, oh sweet Jesus, don’t—”

“Bitches like you ain’t fit to use His name.”

He hit her again. And again. By the time he tossed her on the bed and unzipped his pants, the world had become a gray blur.

“You won’t learn,” he said, as he came down on top of her. “I try and try to teach you to be a good wife but you—just—won’t—”

Dawn moaned as he seated himself deep inside her. She could feel her dry flesh tear as he pounded into her again and again until, finally, she felt the hot spurt of his discharge. He fell against her, his breathing harsh, the reek of him like sewage in her nostrils. She could feel wetness between her legs. Was it from him, or was it blood?

I hate you, she thought, God, I hate you, Harman Kitteridge. I wish you were dead!

No. It was wrong to think such things. This was her husband. She had taken vows that bound her to him. He was the father of her child.