When She Was Good (40 page)

But there was no one on the street, no one between herself and downtown.

Then her legs were shooting out from under her. Her elbows struck the icy ground a second before her chin; a sick sensation
went through her, but she was instantly to her feet and across the street, heading toward Broadway. There was an inch of fresh snow over the cleared walks, and patches of ice underfoot, and she knew that if she fell again she would be overtaken, but she ran as fast as she was able to in coat and galoshes, for she had to get to the police station before they could stop her. Daddy Will was already out on the porch; she saw him there in the moment she took to look back. Then a car was pulling up before the house, and Daddy Will was headed down the stairs in his shirtsleeves. Dr. Eglund! They were going to come after her in the car! The car would be alongside her in seconds! Then people would be at their windows, doors would fly open, others would come running out of their houses to give aid to the two old men—to prevent her from ever getting justice done!

Quickly she turned up a driveway, slid between a car and a house, and plunged across the thick white crust of someone’s yard. A dog barked, and she went sprawling, her foot caught upon a low wire fence buried in a drift. Then she was up, running again. There was a bluish light over everything, and the only noise was the packing sound that rose as her galoshes hammered into the snow and she ran, ran for the ravine.

But they would be waiting when she arrived! Once they had lost sight of her, they would go directly to the station house. Two old men, thoroughly confused about what actually was going on, without the slightest sense of all that was at stake, would tell the police that she was on her way. And what would the police do? Telephone Roy! By the time she had made her way across town to the ravine, and then up to Broadway by way of the river, her husband would be at the station house, waiting. And Julian! And Lloyd Bassart! And she would arrive last, her coat thick with snow, her face red and wet, breathless and exhausted, looking like some runaway child—
which was how she would be treated
. Of course! They would have so distorted the facts that instead of the police instantly coming to her aid, they would turn her over to her grandfather, to the doctor …

But would those others settle for that now? A man like Julian Sowerby knew only one thing—to have his ugly way. His own wife knew, his daughter knew, what he was
everybody
knew, but as long as he continued to pay everybody off, what did they care? She could hear him, hear them all, promising this, promising that, begging forgiveness, and then going right on being just what they always had been. Because they simply will not reform! They simply will not change! All they will do is get worse and worse! Why were they against a mother and a child? Why were they against a family, and a home, and love? Why were they against a beautiful life, and for an ugly one? Why did they fight her and mistreat her and deny her, when all she wanted was what was right!

But where to now? Because she knew what it would mean to continue on to the police station, she knew what Julian Sowerby would try to do; she knew the use to which such a man would put this opportunity, how he would seize it to destroy her, once and for all. Yes, because she knew right from wrong, because she saw her duty and did it, because she knew the truth and spoke it, because she would not sit by and endure treachery and betrayal, because she would not let them steal her little boy, and coddle a grown-up man, and scrape out of her body the new life beginning to grow there—they would try to make it seem that
she
was the guilty party, that
she
was the criminal!

… Where then? To turn back made no sense at all; there was no
back
. But to run straight into the arms of her enemies—straight into their lies and treachery! She turned and rushed back up the driveway from which she had emerged; she turned this way, the other way, toward Broadway, away from Broadway, and back out to the street again. She scuttled around corners; she withdrew against walls; she stepped deep into drifts. Powder came down into her face. She pressed her head to a drainpipe encased in ice. She fell. Her skin burned. A window flew up; she ran. The blue light became gray. She began to come upon the footprints she had left in the snow minutes earlier.

Then she was looking up into the kitchen window at the rear of Blanshard Muller’s house. With one shoulder she pushed open the garage door, slipped inside and closed the door behind her. Gripping her side, she leaned across the trunk of the car, lowered her head and closed her eyes. Colors swam. She tried not to think.
Why should he hate me like poison? He doesn’t! He can’t! That’s Roy’s lie!

With tremulous breaths she filled her lungs, and the sensation that all sound was being pushed outward from the inside of her head diminished. She began to be swept with chills, then grew strangely calm at the sight of the objects arranged against the side wall of the garage: a coil of garden hose, a shovel, half a bag of cement, a deflated tire tube, a pair of hip boots.

She tried the door of the car. If she could just have a moment to rest, to think; no, not to think …

The noise was sharp and clattering. She jumped around; there was nothing. Through the garage window she could see into the kitchen; she was able to discern on the walls the cabinets her mother had chosen for Mr. Muller. Again she heard a crash, and this time saw the ice sliding down off the roof into the yard. She stepped into the car.

And now what? Morning had come … If a light went on in the kitchen, how quickly could she be out of the garage? Suppose he had seen her already and was sneaking around by way of the front door? How could she explain herself? What story would he believe? What would she be able to tell him, other than the truth?

And then? She would tell him everything, what they had already done, what they planned to do; and then? He would push open the garage door, back the car out the driveway, he would take her to The Grove himself. He would ring the Sowerby bell and wait beside her on the front porch, and then he would make it clear to Irene Sowerby why he and Lucy were there … But if he were to come upon her unexpectedly, discover her kneeling, hiding, in the back seat of his car—he would jump to the conclusion that she was in the wrong! She
must go immediately around to the back door then—no, the front door—and ring, say that she was sorry to be bothering him so early in the morning, that she understood this was totally out of the ordinary, but that she was in desperate need of … But would he even believe her? It was so monstrous, what they were doing, would he even believe that it could be? Might he not listen, thinking to himself all the while, “Of course, that’s only her side of the story.” Or suppose he listened, and then telephoned her mother to check on the story. What was Lucy Bassart to him, anyway? Nothing! Her mother and her father had seen to that. “Sorry,” he would say, “but don’t see that it’s my affair.” Of course! Why would he come to her aid, when even those closest to her had turned against her? No, there was only one person she would rely upon; it was now as it had always been—the one to save her was herself.

She must hide; she must find some hideaway nearby, and then when the moment was right, she would swoop down, make off with Edward, and the two of them would disappear.

To
where?
Oh, to some place where they would never be found! Some place where she would have her second child, and where the three of them could begin a new life. And then never again would she be so foolish and gullible and dreamy as to place the welfare of herself or of her offspring in any hands but her own. She would be mother and father to them both, and so the three of them—herself, her little boy, and soon her little girl too—would live without cruelty, without treachery, without betrayal; yes, without men.

But if Edward would not come? If she called and he ran the other way? “
Your face is all black! Go away!
”

In her glove she was still carrying the letter she had taken from her mother’s bed. She had sunk to her waist in drifts of snow; she had tripped and fallen over backyard fences; she had pushed open the door of the garage, climbed into the back seat of the car—and still the letter addressed to her mother was clutched in her glove.

She should be on her way now. The moment was right. By now they were all at the police station. Soon they would
disperse and begin the search. There was not a second to waste, not on something so ridiculous as a letter from him. She had barely permitted him to enter her thoughts since the day of Edward’s birth; she had driven him from their lives, then from her mind. There was clearly nothing to do with this letter but destroy it. And how appropriate that would be. To burn this letter, to scatter the ashes to the wind—that would be a most fitting ceremony indeed. Yes, goodbye, goodbye, brave and stalwart men. Goodbye, protectors and defenders, heroes and saviors. You are no longer needed, you are no longer wanted—alas, you have been revealed for what you are. Farewell, farewell, philanderers and frauds, cowards and weaklings, cheaters and liars. Fathers and husbands, farewell!

The letter consisted of one long sheet of writing paper. There were spaces to be filled out at the top, and then his message below. The page was closely covered with writing on both sides, and lined in blue, so that the prisoner’s handwriting ran evenly from one end to the other.

She forced it back into its envelope. At any minute Blanshard Muller would be out of bed, down the stairs, out of the house—she would be discovered! And turned over to them—her enemies! So go!

But where? To a place where no one will think to look … to some place close enough for her to descend quickly upon the Sowerby house … in the afternoon, when he is at play in the yard … no, at night, when they are asleep … yes, in the night, while he sleeps too, bundle him off—“
Your face is poison! Your face is black! Put me down!
”

No! No! She must not weaken now. She must not weaken before their filthy lies. Whatever strength was required, she must find. Whatever daring, whatever boldness …

She removed the letter from the envelope once again. She would read it, and destroy it—and then be off. Of course, she would read what he had written, and in his words find that which would harden her against the trials to come … the lying in wait … the kidnap … the flight … Oh, she did not know
what
was to come, but she must not be afraid! Against the cold and the dark, in her solitude, while she waited
to free her child from his captors—“
Mamma, where have you been?
”—while she waited to rescue him—“
Oh, Mamma, take me away!
”—to flee with him to a better world, to a better life, all she would have to sustain her would be the power of her hatred, her loathing, her abhorrence of those monsters who so cruelly destroy the lives of innocent women and innocent children. Oh yes, read then, and remember the horror inflicted upon you and yours, the cruelty and the meanness inflicted willingly and without end. Yes, read what he has written, and in the face of hardship you will have the courage. Whatever the wretchedness, the desolation, you will be implacable. Because you must be! Because there is only you to save your son from just such men as this—to save your helpless, innocent daughter-to-be. Oh, yes, draw them down, these words of his, inscribe them on your heart, and then fearlessly set forth. Fearlessly, Lucy! Against all odds, but fearlessly nonetheless! For they are wrong, and you are right, and there is no choice: the good must triumph in the end! The good and the just and the true
must
—