A Shattered Wife (3 page)

Bill turned on his son, bewildered.

William was shaking uncontrollably and sweat ran down his
face and into his eyes, blending with tears.

Bill’s anger knew no bounds as he shouted and cursed at his
son. One final, vicious statement burst from Bill and destroyed their already
deteriorating relationship beyond repair. "You’d better hurry back home,
little boy, and put your dress on."

"William, are you going to drive me to the hospital?"
Martha’s question brought him back to the present with a start.

"Mom, you know I can’t stay here much longer,"
William said as he pushed his heavy glasses back up on his nose with a thin
forefinger and then stretched lazily. He had learned to discard the unhappy
memories quickly.

"I know that," she answered, taking off her apron
and putting on her coat.

"When Dad gets out of the hospital, who’s going to
drive?"

Martha blinked at him through her wire rimmed glasses,
looking so much like an owl that William wanted to laugh.

She hadn’t thought about Bill not being able to drive. He
could do anything, always had, but she realized her son was right. Life was
going to be more different than she imagined. "All we have is the truck
and…"

"And you’re going to learn to drive it," William
told her.

"But I can’t!"

"Oh, yes, you can. You’ve driven before and you’ll do
it again. Lessons start right now." Ignoring her bewildered expression,
William placed the keys in her hand and went outside. Even in his father’s
absence it wasn’t easy for him to take charge, but he knew it had to be done,
for his mother’s own good…and his own.

A week later, Martha was a different woman. Despite her lack
of concern and experience in dealing with financial matters, William soon had
her well informed. Forgotten skills were relearned quickly and Martha, with a
new glow of self-confidence, was dealing with the situation better than she or
anyone else expected. She even enjoyed driving her husband’s bright red pick-up
to and from the hospital.

In the end Bill’s paralysis was permanent. Confined to a
wheelchair for the rest of his life, he considered it a fate worse than death.
He came home with a volatile temper, a booming voice, and a determination to
kill every rodent he saw.

Standing at the kitchen window, Martha dried her hands on a
striped dish towel. She wore a cotton dress that was printed with tiny,
colorful flowers and a crisp white apron. Lovingly she gazed at the land that
was growing greener and richer every day, aided by spring rain and sunshine.
She had come here a blushing bride so long ago, but the changing seasons never
ceased to amaze her. A sudden breeze billowed the brilliant white curtains,
bringing a contented smile to her face.

The sharp crack of a .22 caliber rifle shattered the morning
air like fragile glass. Startled, she dropped the dish towel. Her peaceful
thoughts came to an abrupt end with the firing of the gun, and she gritted her
teeth and winced.

The six months following Bill’s accident had taken their
toll, leaving a barely perceptible weariness in her expression. Friends and
neighbors saw her smile less and less these days. Walking slowly through the
cheerful yellow laundry room, which was really a large pantry just off the
kitchen, she came to the back door. Through the screen, on the opposite end of
the back porch, she could see Bill sitting in his wheelchair. The gun was lying
across his useless legs.

It was times like this that Bill almost forgot his
confinement. His piercing, steel blue eyes that would never need the aid of
glasses lit with a cold smile as he watched the small groundhog kick once and
then collapse in a crumpled heap beside a budding maple tree about 50 yards
away. He rarely missed his target. Sensing rather than hearing his wife at the
door, his smile disappeared and a stony, unreadable mask slid into place.

It was almost like she was looking at a stranger.

She pushed open the screen door and moved out onto the
smooth wide-planked back porch that ran the length of the house. Bill had
wanted to paint the porch, but Martha liked the white wood. The scent of pine
was still discernible, too. It was one of the few arguments she had won.

Since the accident, Bill had made it a point to never look
directly at his wife and today was no exception. He lit a cigarette and studied
the surrounding woods carefully.

"It’s warm for this time of year," Martha said,
and sat down stiffly in an old cane bottom chair, a good distance from her
husband.

"Yes, it is," Bill answered, his tone polite. They
sounded like strangers on a bus.

Another warm breeze sprang up and caressed Martha’s
silver-streaked hair, which she wore in a loose bun high on her head. Most
signs of winter were gone and the deep, green woods surrounding their house
loomed before her like a prison wall. A thick, heavy silence settled over them
and she let her wrinkled, discolored hands smoothed her apron over her knees.
She hated the silence almost as much as she hated the courteous, superficial
conversations they shared.

"It won’t be long until corn can be planted," she
observed. "I heard a whippoorwill last night." The words came out as
a croak, threatening to choke her. If they didn’t talk more, Martha was afraid
she might forget how.

Again, without a glance in her direction and using that
formal tone, Bill said, "Yes."

To Martha, it seemed as if he was growing colder and more
distant every day. Now, he brought his binoculars to his face and studied
something in the distance. These days, he did all of his hunting from this
porch.

Earlier that day, in the cool, misty dawn, Martha had
watched rabbits playing and a doe and her two fawns nibbling tender grass at
the end of the yard. She had been watching the animals for years, and her soft
reassuring voice and gifts of food eased their fears enough to bring them
closer to the house. Not much, of course, but at least they let her observe. No
one knew how much she missed gathering eggs from cackling hens and hearing milk
from the cows hissing noisily into a shiny aluminum pail. Even the hound she
raised from a pup was dead. Wild animals were all that remained on what had
once been a lively farm.

As she sat smoothing her unwrinkled apron, wondering what to
say next, two robins flew about, calling to one another from time to time and
gathering materials for the nest they were building in the sugar maple where
the groundhog had died. They were the only visible visitors to the area and
seemed in a hurry to get away.

"We could use some rain, too," Martha said
finally.

Bill nodded and shifted his position slightly to get a
better view of the small plot of ground that was Martha’s garden. From this end
of the porch, he had often tossed stones across the narrow, high banked creek
that separated the yard and garden to scare away rabbits. He no longer used a
stone and he was no longer interested in just scaring them.

A single cloud scuttled quickly across the crisp blue sky.

Unlike Martha and the animals, the plant life was oblivious
to any sense of danger. Clean, once-productive hay fields were filling quickly
with young trees and the seemingly indestructible multi-flora rose. When she
and Bill planted the trees and shrubs surrounding their house more than 30
years ago, they were to serve as a protective cocoon. Now, an army of thick
green leaves and undergrowth advanced closer every day, hiding them from the
outside world. With the onslaught of spring growth, Martha’s protection
smothered her. She longed for the black, barren trees of winter that at least
allowed her to see more of the sky.

She continued smoothing her apron over her lap, her
liver-spotted hands continuously fluttering. She was torn between needing
Bill’s attention and an unexplainable fear of him that caused her emotions to
flip-flop. He never looked at her and his big hands were either wrapped around
a gun or balled into tight, angry fists. If their eyes met, would she see her
love reflected there or something else - something that fed the uneasiness that
had been growing inside her since the accident?

Out of the corner of her eye, Martha studied her husband.
Even in the wheelchair he sat ramrod straight and held his shoulders square.
There was a little more silver in his auburn hair but nothing had dimmed the
blue of those eyes. She called them 'gunslinger eyes' and they could still
make her heart leap into her throat.

He had worked hard and made a good life for them. How could
all their years together add up to this polite, guarded discussion about the
weather? That hunting accident had taken her Bill away and left this bitterly
angry stranger in his place, a stranger that destroyed animals senselessly.

That familiar, sharp crack so close to her ear jerked Martha
back to the present.

"Damn, I missed that one!" Bill snarled and spat
angrily into the tender spring grass growing at the edge of the porch.

Martha was glad and sent up a silent thank you. The animals
needed all the help they could get with him around.

The sudden, insistent shrilling of the telephone brought her
to her feet. Bill’s deliberately rude behavior had alienated all of the friends
and neighbors that had helped during his illness. Now, no one came to visit.
Rarely did the phone ring. Hurrying through the kitchen and into the living
room, she answered it breathlessly.

"Hey, it’s Milly. Got any mail going out?" Her
chewing gum popped loudly.

This was not an unusual phone call from their rural mail
carrier and Martha smiled at the sound of the woman’s raspy voice. "No,
none today."

"Well, there’s none for you, so I’ll just save myself
the trip."

Martha heard Bill fire the gun again. Her grip on the
telephone receiver tightened and she squeezed her eyes shut. "See you
tomorrow, then," she said when she regained her composure. Her voice
sounded more cheerful than she felt. At least when Milly brought mail, even
junk mail, she had some link with the outside world. Still, it was silly for
her to make the trip for nothing.

"Who was that?" Bill asked as Martha replaced the
receiver.

The tiny woman jumped and put a shaking hand to her heart.
He had wheeled into the living room to his place by the front window and she
hadn’t even heard him. "Milly. No mail today," Martha answered.

Had he been eavesdropping?

Bill switched on the television before she finished
speaking. He made no sign that he heard her and she watched him scowling darkly
at the screen, his huge hands rolled into angry fists.

Martha stared at his broad back and longed to put comforting
arms around him. With only a few adjustments to their home, the fiercely
independent man in a wheelchair bathed, shaved and dressed himself every
morning without wanting or needing help from anyone. She still needed him,
though. After a few minutes, her longing grew less intense and she relaxed.
Being pushed away from him was a painful experience that she had endured more
than once.

"Well," she said finally, "Paul will be here
soon. I’d better start lunch.

Bill didn't even acknowledge that his wife had spoken.

Dr. Paul Newsome steered his battered yellow VW expertly
around potholes in the narrow gravel road that led to the Landry farm. He took
a deep breath of clean spring air, exhaled and began whistling a tuneless song.
For the first time in many years, he was content with his life.

Every Wednesday afternoon, while other doctors from the
hospital in Roanoke played golf, Paul visited Bill and Martha Landry. When Bill
was discharged from the hospital, he refused to come back in for checkups or
therapy. It seemed only natural for Dr. Newsome to make an exception in this
case and make house calls on his stubborn patient. As Paul’s fondness for the
elderly couple grew, his professional visits soon turned into a weekly luncheon
date. The formalities were gone. He referred to them as Bill and Martha and
they, in turn, called him Paul. After sharing a late lunch, they would usually
sit on the porch or by the fireplace, depending on the weather, and talk. Paul,
a gun collector and hunting enthusiast, shared his interest with Bill and that
was almost always the main topic of conversation. They rarely discussed Bill’s
condition, yet Paul found out what he needed to know.

He knew why he was growing so close the elderly couple. His
own parents had brought him into the world, given him an excellent
education…and little else. Martha was gentle, warm and loving - so very unlike
his own mother, who lived in California in a huge house with servants. Bill was
strong in body and spirit. Just the opposite of his own father. Bill and Martha
Landry, Paul decided, would make perfect foster parents. He could almost
picture himself calling them "Mom and Dad".

When he rounded the bend in the road, he caught a glimpse of
the Landry’s neat white farmhouse. It was nestled into a hollow, almost
entirely blocked from view by tall pines, sugar maples and sycamores, their
leafy branches stretching greedily toward the sun. His whistling turned into a
happy grin.

A few minutes later, he turned into the wide, gravel
driveway that curved toward the back of the house. A neat border of newly
budding peonies and rhododendrons edged the drive, and from here it could be
seen that the house was not alone. The lot contained several outbuildings, all
whitewashed and in excellent repair despite their evident age. Once in a while,
Paul went for solitary walks into the woods that surrounded their home. He was
able to gather his thoughts and find a little peace there.

Unfolding his long, lanky frame and climbing out of the car,
he crossed a narrow foot bridge that led directly into the back yard. Bill was
in his usual spot on the end of the back porch, binoculars around his neck and
his .22 within easy reach. Martha was inside, probably preparing lunch. The
young doctor smiled happily. He was home.