Author's Note: I probably shouldn't do this, but I'm going to go ahead and address something posted in one of the reviews. I prefer letting the story speak for itself, but I just feel the need to clarify this— Isis, Joan's not ditching her friends. I don't think it's unlike her to get wrapped up in someone new, especially someone like Ruthie whom she admires. She was very into Judith at the start of season 2, to the point of kind of overlooking other people, if I remember correctly. Then she lost Judith. And Adam pretty much destroyed their relationship, at least the closeness of it (I don't see how she would feel the need to spend all that much time with him anymore…?). And Grace has Luke. Joan would be searching for someone new to fill those gaps. Plus, Ruthie is Joan's "responsibility" right now (not that that's her only reason for spending time with Ruthie) and Joan is caught up in a huge dilemma. I purposefully kept her apart from Grace somewhat in this story, for reasons of my own, but I didn't do it to stray from reality or the show— I think Joan would be very upset and moody, and Grace happened to be the one that got vented on. I won't say anymore about that though, because it is covered later. Anyway, I spent way more time on this note than I planned. As always, thank you for the reviews!
SUNDAY
Ruthie Snow turned from side to side, scrutinizing her appearance in the full-length mirror across from the bed where her husband was gently snoring. She had already spent thirty minutes preening in front of the bathroom mirror, but that was hair and makeup time. Now it was on to the outfit. God probably didn't put much stock into such things, but it was a habit of hers, dressing up for church, left over from childhood, when her mother had primped and curled and beribboned her as if she were a doll and taken her to every Sunday morning sermon to be fawned upon by the congregation, which was most of the town.
That torch had been passed to June, who could draw a crowd just by wearing lacy socks, though she didn't bask in the attention like Ruthie had. Still, it didn't hurt to look nice.
She was fastening the last of the buttons on her white cashmere jacket, the top half to a smart little suit that included a calf-length pleated skirt, also white, when she noticed how quiet the room had gotten. "Good morning," she said without turning. She could see Donovan's reflection watching her in the smooth, spotless glass.
"Morning," he said, rubbing his eyes. He sat up and glanced at the digital clock, then leaned back against his single pillow, all he ever slept with though Ruthie had two or three she could have spared, and put his hands behind his head, fingers interlocked.
She looked at the clock too, wondering if she should have woken him. But no, he liked to sleep in on Sundays. It was unusual for him to be awake by ten, when she would be shuffling the kids into the car, making sure they didn't get themselves too dirty, and heading for the 10:30 service, let alone by 9:15 A.M.
"You're up early," she said, scooping a pair of sapphire earrings from the jewelry box on the dresser. She listed to one side, letting her hair fall away, first on the left and then on the right, as she placed a tiny stud in each earlobe.
"Uh-huh," he said, yawning. He kept his gaze trained on her every move.
She slipped into her white heels with the robin's egg blue trim and managed to ignore him until their eyes met in the mirror again. She took hold of her skirt in either hand and tugged down slightly, expecting that to be the problem. It didn't matter the length; her skirts were always too short, always too revealing. She had given up wearing anything above the knee. You couldn't hide bruises under a mini skirt anyway.
When that didn't dissuade him, Ruthie finally faced his direction. "What?" she asked, smoothing the pleats on her thighs. She spread her hands and waited: just tell me, please.
"I got time to take a shower?"
She stared at him, confused. "You have somewhere to be?"
"You're going to church, aren't you?"
"Yes?" she said. "Yes."
"Mind if I come?"
Ruthie studied Donovan carefully, the way he had done to her. She tried to read what was going on behind those dark, dark eyes, but it had never worked before and it still wasn't working now.
"It's Baptist," she said, and hated how uncertain and like a child she sounded. Donovan had been raised Catholic and, though he no longer practiced that faith, his disdain for her beliefs seemed limitless. Sure, take the kids, they like fairy stories, he would say. But don't try cramming that shit down my throat.
"That's okay." He tossed the covers aside and stretched, his bare chest extended, stomach puffed out above his plaid boxers. He smiled as he passed her and walked towards the bathroom. "Starts at ten thirty, right? I'll be ready in twenty minutes."
And in twenty minutes, true to his word, Donovan emerged from the bedroom, his sleek hair in thick, wet curlicues that a blow dryer couldn't improve upon. He owned a suit, but he had opted for his dressiest black sweater and trousers, a pair of shiny black loafers on his feet. He looked polished yet casual. Exactly right for church.
June and Charlie gazed at him in wonderment when he peeked into Charlie's bedroom, where Ruthie was crouching by the boy, tucking his shirt into the knickers she loved to dress him in. She stood when Charlie waved his bow tie and said, "Daddy looks pretty like Mama."
"Boys are handsome, not pretty," June corrected, but left it at that, her eyes straying from Ruthie to Donovan and back again.
"You look nice, Donnie," Ruthie said, acknowledging his entrance. And she meant it. If there was one thing he never failed to be, it was good-looking. That had seemed important when she was nineteen years old and all her girlfriends had said she was insane if she didn't say yes to a date with Donovan Snow. Then, of course, they had despised her for winning his favor when he could have had any girl on campus but didn't want them. Just Ruthie. Back then it made her feel lucky, special.
"Pretty Daddy, pretty Daddy," Charlie sang, escaping Ruthie's grasp and charging at Donovan, who caught him with a grunt and flipped him upside down, held at shoulder level, the boy's feet clad only in socks and pedaling wildly in the air.
"The menfolk have to look their best when they've got two such gorgeous girls to escort," Donovan said, jouncing Charlie a bit. "Right, Son?"
Charlie screamed and kicked and laughed.
"You'll have him wound up," Ruthie said gently, Charlie's shoes, like miniature replicas of what a grown man would wear, in her hands. The bow tie was on the floor and would probably stay there, she reckoned.
Donovan stooped forward until Charlie's body bent also, fat feet aimed at the carpet. When Donovan let go, the boy landed like a gymnast dismounting the parallel bars, then dropped onto the cushion of his Pull-Ups. He was extra difficult to potty train, this boy, but Ruthie was making progress. It had been a cinch with June.
"Again!" Charlie cried, and Ruthie was relieved when Donovan overlooked the request and knelt beside her, taking the shoes without yanking on them. He captured one of Charlie's flailing legs and dragged the boy closer, getting both shoes into place and double-knotted in the time it would have taken her to tie one set of laces.
"Again, Daddy."
As if he hadn't heard, Donovan stood and said, "What's for breakfast?"
"We already ate," Ruthie said. "I didn't know you'd be getting up, so..." She glanced at her clean white sleeve and shrugged. "I'll make you something."
"Never mind. I'll have some cereal," he said. He touched her hair, but barely, his fingers just grazing the waves that framed her face. "No sense in you getting those cute little hands dirty."
Whether or not that had been a dig, Ruthie couldn't tell. It probably wasn't. There was no mistaking them when they came. She watched him head for the kitchen, Charlie at his heels, demanding another bout of roughhousing. She and June were alone in the room, a space which left no doubt that it belonged to a boy. Dark blue walls, sports emblems of Donovan's favorite teams, which would unquestionably be Charlie's favorites, and the racecar border Ruthie had put up to match the racecar curtains. And toys galore but nothing too cuddly, other than the teddy bear dressed as a policeman. Stuffed animals were for sissies, after all.
"Why's Daddy coming with us?" June said, looking up from her seat on Charlie's toy chest. Sitting there in her pale pink dress with the full skirt and rosettes on the bodice, her hair in long Shirley Temple curls that bobbed even when she didn't move, she looked like a misplaced china doll. Like something a careless little girl might take from a high shelf without permission and leave behind at her friend's house.
Ruthie held her hand out for June to take. "I don't know, darlin'." She tried to think of a better answer to give her daughter. But she couldn't find one.
The carpeting in the church was red. Not in the foyer, but in the main sanctuary. A broad stretch of crimson red under every pew, straight up to the pulpit, so that wherever you stepped it appeared you were walking on blood. And that was the purpose, Ruthie had learned on her first visit, when, as if he had seen the question in her eyes, even six rows back, the pastor had given a sermon about the blood of Christ and gestured to the floor. An idea of the building's founders, laying that shade where everyone could see. A reminder of the sacrifice He had made.
Ruthie didn't like the carpet. But she liked the church and the people in it, and that had kept her returning for the past three weeks. She was nervous now, with Donovan there. Not of what he would do; he seldom made a scene in public, at least not for others to hear. It was everyone else that concerned her. If the wrong thing was said by the chatty old lady who smiled and patted her hand each Sunday, or if any man or boy over the age of twelve looked at her for too long, too kindly, that would end it. Until she stopped going to church, it would be: What kinda lies you tell her, Ruth Anne? How many times've you screwed him, Ruth Anne? He better than me? Come on, I wanna know.
"God-awful color," Donovan said of the carpet, snapping her into reality. She nodded and led June into the back pew he had selected, giving him the side near the aisle.
"Are you sure you don't want to go to Sunday school?" Ruthie asked June, for the third time. "You had so much fun last week, remember? You made Mama that beautiful rainbow painting, and you and Charlie ate cookies. And I bet the little girl you played with will be there today. What was her name? Dakota? She and Charlie will miss you."
"I don't want to."
It had surprised Ruthie, and pleased her, when June had asked to be dropped off in the nursery the previous week so she could attend Sunday school with her brother. It was a big step for the little girl, who was already missing what would have been her first year of Kindergarten because she had cried and pleaded through an entire month of classes, begging Ruthie not to force her to go, until Ruthie couldn't stand it anymore and asked Donovan if they might postpone school till June turned six, till after the move. She reasoned that June was already smarter than most five-year-olds, and it was true. You'll make her weak, Donovan had said. But he had relented.
"You might get bored just sitting here," Ruthie tried, though she knew the blank sheets of paper and box of Crayolas that June had brought from the car would be enough to entertain the girl for hours. "And you didn't get to show off your pretty dress. Why don't you let me walk you downstairs before the song service starts?"
"Christ, Ruth Anne," Donovan muttered, dropping his hand down on Ruthie's, which covered her knee. "Let it go."
Perhaps it was her surroundings that made her bold—the big cross at the head of the church, the stained-glass windows that cast kaleidoscope colors on Donovan's face when she turned to him. "You're the one who's worried about her being weak," she said, voice low enough that June wouldn't overhear.
He reacted with a brief flick of the eyebrows, a la-di-da expression, as if he was amused. She looked away, focusing on June.
"Maybe next week, Mama," June said sweetly.
Ruthie smiled and used her index finger to bat one of the girl's errant ringlets. "'kay," she said, then reached under the mop of curls and stroked her nails lightly against June's neck, tickling. June giggled soundlessly, scrunching her shoulder up to her ear. She waggled a lavender crayon at Ruthie, pretending to scold.
After the fifth person in a row had come by to greet her, be introduced to her husband, and fuss over her daughter, Ruthie felt the dull beginnings of a headache that pulsed in her temples and deep in her eye sockets, making them throb. Mascara smears were unsightly so she resisted the urge to rub. She wished she had stayed home this morning, even though Donovan's only comment was a tame, rhetorical, "Aren't you popular."
She relaxed when the band started to play and the pews filled. For as long as she could remember, music had soothed her. At age eight, when her father had left home and the sound of muffled sobs filtered into her bedroom night after night, Ruthie would creep through the darkness to her mother's room, slip into bed beside the shuddering form, and sing until quiet came. Safe, peaceful, pitch-black quiet. And then later, the first time Donovan had ever hit her, not just shoved or grabbed but really hit her, in the car on the way to dinner at his parents' house, she had discovered that thinking of the words to her favorite songs made the tears dry faster. It didn't do much for the pain. That had to go away on its own.
And now. It wasn't in her to be vindictive or smug, but she stood with the rest of the congregation and felt a little satisfaction when Donovan hesitantly rose to his feet, not looking so tall at that moment. Good as he was at everything else, he couldn't carry a tune to save his life. It embarrassed him. Sometimes, out of the blue, when Ruthie would be setting dishes in the cupboard and humming to herself or drying off from a shower, the best place to sing, he would say to her, "I have a nice speaking voice, don't I? You'd think that would count with singing too." Sure, Donnie, you'd think it would.
Ruthie sang a tad louder than necessary and didn't bother with the hymnal Donovan leafed through frantically. She already knew these songs by heart. She caught him watching her during a soft, worshipful moment when the music hushed and she opened her eyes, her hands raised heavenward. For once, his face was wide open and expressive of something other than anger. It looked like marvel, what she glimpsed right before he returned to the hymn on the page. It snatched her breath away, and she sat down while the pastor was in the middle of his introductory prayer to the sermon. Donovan fidgeted and quickly took his seat also, after the collective "amen."
"Turn with me to Ephesians five, verse twenty-five."
Ruthie reached for her Bible. As she did, having to tug it from between her hip and June's, they were so close together, she noticed the drawing in the little girl's lap. Always fascinated by the creativity her daughter possessed, she studied the picture, taking in the whimsically shaped flowers, the red grass under pink sky, a backdrop to the crooked house by which four oddly proportioned figures, one large and three small, were gathered and being rained upon. Two of the squiggly people were frowning, the arced lines of their mouths extending far outside of their circular heads, which were adorned with a shock of yellow on one, scribbled black on the other—the biggest of the group. The two with brown hair had no faces at all. And when Ruthie looked closer she realized it wasn't raindrops that were pouring from the sky. A fifth figure hovered above the house, sharp flaps like knife blades protruding from its back, a golden oval over its round head, and big blue dots spilling from its doleful eyes, each dot darker than the last and gritty, as if the crayon had been pressed down hard.
Neatening up her supplies, June paused like she sensed the effect her artwork had had. She gazed fearfully at Ruthie, then used a fistful of crayons to scribble thick, manic lines across the entire drawing. Too late.
Ruthie thrust her Bible at Donovan, book, chapter and verse forgotten. She thought she might need to leave, and she almost did. Where she would go didn't matter. Outside, maybe. To the bathroom. Anyplace where she could bawl, scream, kick, vomit, beat the hell out of something with her fists, even if it was a solid brick wall. Anyplace but next to him.
Or better yet. She could stay. Stand up on the pew maybe, and announce to the whole of First Baptist Church of Arcadia, including God, that Donovan Snow was a wife beater. That he punched so hard he created his own stars, more glorious than the ones in the heavens. That he could make things fly, too, picture frames and books and plates and fists, without giving them wings. That he spoke and oceans were formed, full of tears cried by his wife and his son and his daughter. That his presence could knock you flat, put you on your knees, make you beg for mercy. And, oh yes, he would stick you in Hell if you weren't good enough. And you were never good enough.
She could even hike up the hem of her skirt as proof and show the areas that were more colorful than June's drawing, remnants of a swift kick she hadn't anticipated, and show a little too much leg while she was at it, just to piss him off.
She didn't realize she was grinding her teeth until he reached for her, taking her hand as if it belonged to him, another everyday object he would place on the table and pick up later when he needed it, like a set of keys. He didn't just hold it though. He never just held it. He kneaded and worked it, forming it into she didn't know what, tracing the network of veins under the fine skin, his big fingers constantly massaging at the slender bones, always pressing too forcefully, so that a thing that should have felt pleasant ended up feeling highly irritating. He moved on to the knobby part of her wrist, his thumb stroking the underside where the pitchfork veins and cords of tendon looked like they might rip through flesh if the hand bent back too far. When she was younger and had taken gymnastics, she had been afraid to do handstands, the image of those vulnerable patches of skin suddenly tearing and oozing the contents of her arms onto the tumbling mat haunting her mind. She had gotten over it eventually. Then she found Donovan and a whole new set of reasons to worry about breaks and tears and bleeding.
Ruthie wondered what she would find if she plied at his hands as he did hers. She knew the contours of them, the ridge of his knuckles and the viselike fingers, but to touch them and know their fragilities, if there were any, was an experience she had never had.
She could concentrate on nothing else but his grip on her, there against the pages of her Bible, on his thigh, splayed out over Ephesians. When she thought she was about to crumple inside the way Donovan's carelessness scrunched up the sheer white paper in the book, June rescued her. Pad and crayons put aside, the little girl sought Ruthie's free hand, which was balled in her lap, and cupped her own tiny hands around it ever so gently, as though she had happened on a baby bird fallen from its nest, and meant to scoop it up, return it to safety. Ruthie swallowed repeatedly, fighting the burning sensation in her throat. Without gauging Donovan's mood first, without checking what his reaction would be, she pulled away from him and rested her hand over both of June's.
"Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself."
Ruthie sat through the sermon about husbands and wives and the sanctity of marriage. She could have repeated it verbatim to anyone who asked. But she knew what Donovan would recall, the single statement that hadn't gone through one ear and out the other, would be the pastor's sonorous voice quoting, "And the wife see that she reverence her husband."
As they were leaving, Donovan helping her on with her coat, and she in turn helping June and Charlie, who was clutching a star made of blue construction paper and silver glitter that stuck to his and Ruthie's skin, an elderly couple joined them by the rack of empty hangers. "I just wanted to tell you, dear," the old woman said, smiling kindly, her age spotted hand on Ruthie's arm, "you have such a lovely family."
"Thank you," Ruthie said.
While Donovan napped on the living room couch, Ruthie kept the children occupied baking a batch of sugar cookies. Rather, she and June baked them, and Charlie ate the soft, malleable dough, but only after he had squeezed and squeezed at it, gotten it in his hair, and squished it between his fingers like Play-Doh. There was more flour on him than on the countertop. He wore just his training pants and dingy white socks, his refusal to be dressed in anything other than his church clothes inciting Donovan to say, "All right, you're the boss," giving the padded bottom a light whack and sending the boy off to play.
Ruthie had expected to get an earful about the boring service and the nutty Baptists and the lousy music and the stuffy church as she changed her own clothes, Donovan ducking into their bedroom to do the same. Instead, he had sidled up behind her and undone the zipper of her skirt. It mushroomed around her as it fell to the floor and lay deflated beside the pumps she had already stepped out of. "You looked perfect today," was all he said, trifling with the lacy edge of her slip, making her shiver. Then he had put on sweats and an NYPD T-shirt, kissing her neck and guiding her from the room after she donned a pair of brown velour jogging pants and a white T-shirt that had shrunk in the wash and showed off her navel.
This was called the honeymoon phase. Ruthie had read about it in pamphlets with titles like "The Stages of Abuse" or "Ending the Cycle of Violence," surreptitiously dropped into her pocket or her purse by suspicious nurses during late night trips to the emergency room. It took about a year of marriage for her to realize she was living what had been described in those narrow, inconspicuous little booklets. Tension built, explosion came, then it was wine and roses and plenty of affection till next time. How crazy, she had thought, sitting on the rim of the tub in the locked bathroom, barely twenty-one, the water running, reading about how women sometimes provoked their husband's anger just to get it over with before it built to an even more painful climax. Not so crazy ten years later, when you had seen what he could do and knew how far he was willing to go. How stupid, she had thought, to fall for the romancing afterwards. But now she understood that it wasn't falling. You were taking what you could get, savoring it, and hoping it lasted a few days longer, a few hours, a few minutes.
"Mama, Charlie's stuffing it up his nose again," June said wearily, swiping her hands across the too-long apron she had wanted to wear so her Tinker Bell sweatshirt wouldn't get dirty.
"Cut it out, Boo Bear," Ruthie said. She laughed when he turned to her and grinned, his nostrils plugged with two small blobs of dough. He sneezed, and Ruthie and June cried, "Ew! Yuck!" at the sight of sugar cookie chunks going airborne and landing on various parts of his body. His round tummy, his sturdy legs.
"Bwess me," he said, and went back to work, using a toy rolling pin to flatten the mound of flour Ruthie had allowed him.
The cookies were expanding in the oven, their warm, intoxicating smell filling the kitchen like a thick haze, when Charlie discovered that a handful of flour was as fun to throw as it was to pat and swirl. He got June first, her wilted ringlets frosted in white granules that made them resemble carnival food—those powdered funnel cakes. Ruthie bent to check the girl's eyes and became his next victim. She stood and coughed, swatting at the puff of white it produced. June and Charlie waited, devilment in their eyes. And they weren't disappointed.
Ruthie pressed her hands flat on the counter, then raised them, palms out for her children to see, as if she were a magician about to perform some great illusion. When they leaned forward to get a better look, she smeared their cheeks with flour. It didn't alter Charlie's appearance much, but June squealed and cried, "Mama!"
"Yes, my sweet?" Ruthie said, already facing the opposite direction. She glanced over her shoulder at June and pretended to be shocked by the girl's messy face.
Charlie had all the permission he needed. He dug deep into the flour bag and pelted his mother and his sister in unison. They worked as a team, creating a blizzard around the boy, but ended up turning on each other. And then it was both children against Ruthie, who immediately surrendered, to no avail. She escaped to the sink, grabbing the chrome sprayer that was mounted near the faucet and turning it on them. June danced away from the cold water, shrieking, but Charlie let it hit him point-blank, the combination of droplets and his powder-caked skin making him look like he was melting. He spun in circles and hopped the way he had in the summer months when Donovan had set up the sprinklers for him and June to run through.
"Come on, Casper, get in there," Ruthie said to June.
June hesitated, looking scandalized, but finally joined her brother and let herself be hosed down in the middle of the kitchen. There was a wide puddle under their sopping bodies by the time Ruthie finished, and Charlie's teeth chattered when he smiled, asking, "You get wet, Mama? You get wet?"
"Nope, sorry. Mama's gotta get these out so they don't burn."
"No fair," June complained, but she watched eagerly as Ruthie retrieved the cookie sheet, one-handed, using an oven mitt for its intended purpose and another to wave Charlie back from the heat of the oven door.
When the cookies had cooled and Ruthie had soaked up most of the water from the floor, though June and Charlie continued to leave moist footprints wherever they stepped, they busied themselves decorating the shapes of bats and pumpkins and snowmen and reindeer. (Charlie hadn't given up on Halloween yet, and June adored Christmas.)
"That's good, Mama," June said, inspecting the heart Ruthie had slathered with pink icing and jimmies, "but maybe you should use the colored sprinkles. I think that would be prettier."
Ruthie tapped the end of June's small, shapely nose, a duplicate of her own. "You are mighty clever," she said, and used the colored sprinkles on her next cookie.
"So are you." June beamed and went back to humming as she placed red cinnamon candies in a vertical line, buttons for her snowman. Charlie tried to hum too, but he didn't know the song.
Ruthie watched them and thought about how much she loved them. More than life itself. Donovan was the furthest thing from her mind, despite the snores that could still be heard from the living room, heavy sleeper that he was.
"Can Joan come over and make cookies with us sometime?" June asked as she helped fill a Tupperware bowl when the treats were finished.
"We'll see." Ruthie focused on positioning a reindeer without breaking its antlers. They snapped off anyway.
Neither June nor Charlie had said a word to Donovan about spending Saturday at the Girardi house while she and Helen shopped. The kids were good about that, withholding certain things from their father, as if they had an innate sense of what was acceptable and what wasn't. And according to Donovan, Ruthie spending time with the Girardis was unacceptable outside of school or his supervision. He had listed reasons why: "Helen's too spacey. She just rubs me wrong. Stay away from her," "That cripple's a jerk-off. Stared at your tits the whole time," "Poor Girardi. His youngest kid's a fag." He disliked Joan most of all. "Don't ever let that smart aleck little bitch in my house again," he said, getting into bed the night of Joan's latte and doughnuts visit. "You hear me, Ruth Anne?"
She always heard. But she wasn't giving up Joan and Helen. They were hers.
June sighed. "That means no."
Ruthie didn't disagree.
"Is it because Daddy doesn't like her?" June asked quietly.
Unable to look into her daughter's solemn face and lie, Ruthie nodded.
"But we like her. Right?"
"Yes, darlin'," Ruthie said, fondling June's damp, scraggly hair, "we like her very much."
"Yup. She's my favorite person after you, Mama." June set another cookie in the bowl. "And Daddy and Charlie."
No questions were asked when Ruthie suddenly gathered June off the step stool and into a fierce hug. The little girl wrapped her arms around Ruthie's neck, clinging, face buried in a thicket of blond hair chalky with flour. Both of them were at Charlie's level, June's feet on the floor, Ruthie on her knees. The boy nuzzled into them, doing his best to stretch his stubby arms wide and pat their backs, his small fingers like the tickling wings of a butterfly.
"Happy and you know it, clap your hands," he said, his high voice a singsong, but a quiet one. He waited for someone to respond.
Ruthie caught him in the hug, too, and squeezed.
"What in the hell happened in here?" Donovan said, awake from his nap, wandering into the kitchen and staring at the mess on the floor, the counters, the cupboards, the kids, and his wife. He still had the splotchy red imprint of the couch's armrest on his cheek. It made him look like a burn victim.
"We baked," Ruthie said, and offered him a cookie from the Tupperware she hadn't put a lid on yet. Most of the flour was washed off of her face. She had gone to the sink after hugging June and Charlie, her back to them as she ran water on a paper towel and scrubbed so they wouldn't see the tearstains.
Donovan picked the pink heart with the jimmies, eyeing it. He took a bite. "With who? Lucille Ball?"
"Me and Charlie are going to help Mama clean," June said.
"Well," Donovan said, drawing a line through the dust on the refrigerator door and holding up his finger for Ruthie to see, "I hope you had fun."
"We did," Ruthie said, but checked herself there. No sense stirring things up when the day had been going fairly well. "Maybe next time you can join us," she added lightly.
"Maybe." He drifted towards her and leaned against the counter, facing out so he could observe her and the kids. When she looked at him he held his last bite of cookie in front of her, placing it between her parted lips. A priest giving Communion. His hand lowered and the tips of his fingers swept across her exposed belly, where her shirt rode up. She sucked her stomach in. He grinned.
Ruthie's suggestion that June and Charlie take a bath was meant to get the three of them out of Donovan's way, or him from theirs, but it became a family affair. "I'll help," he offered, "since I missed out on the cookies." Charlie hooked under one arm and June under the other, he followed Ruthie down the hall, lurching from side to side to make the kids giggle. They talked happily and splashed in the bathtub, getting the adults equally wet, which made Ruthie peel at her clothes and grimace, saying, "I think I'm turning to paste."
Washed and dried, their warm bodies so soft, so sweet-smelling that Ruthie took her time dressing them, a caress here, a kiss there, as she had done when they were infants, June and Charlie made the unanimous decision to wear pajamas. It was only six o'clock in the evening, but Donovan didn't squawk, so pajamas it was. He laughed appreciatively at Ruthie's comment that Charlie looked like an Oompa Loompa in his snug orange sleeper, and June responded by singing, "Oompa Loompa doopity dee" while twirling, Strawberry Shortcake nightgown billowing around her.
"Can we watch Willy Wonka, Mama?" she asked, spinning until she lost her balance and fell into Ruthie. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was one of June's favorites. Charlie's movie, she sometimes called it, because of the main boy whose name was also Charlie.
"Why don't you ask Daddy? Mama needs to take a shower."
"Can we, Daddy?"
Donovan looked up from detangling Charlie's hair, but he spoke to Ruthie, not June. "Daddy was thinking he might join Mama."
"You showered this morning," Ruthie reminded him, working at a knot in her daughter's hair. She ran the comb through the dark ends and up, up, slowly, until she could smooth it through from root to tip without any snags.
"So?"
"Somebody should be with the kids."
"They'll just sit and watch the movie. They'll be fine."
"They need someone to fast forward through the boat scene. It scares them."
"Ow," said Charlie. "Owwie ow." He wriggled free from Donovan and went to Ruthie, who had finished with June. He pointed to the comb, to his hair. His turn.
Swishing her nightgown to and fro, June tiptoed towards Donovan and smiled beguilingly. She tilted her head to one side. "I want you to watch Willy Wonka with me, Daddy. It's funny when you do, 'cause you know the words and make the silly voices. Please, pretty please?"
"I've seen it a million times."
"Please, please, please, please, please, please," June said, and didn't stop till he held his hands up, surrendering.
"Okay. Enough. I give. You win."
Ruthie could tell his annoyance was feigned. He liked to be charmed and beseeched. She used to be able to get away with it too. "Don't let them watch the boat scene," she called when he and the kids padded into the living room.
She felt shamed by the privacy she had in the shower, earned for her by the cunning mind of a five-year-old girl.
Ruthie selected her green satin chemise with the pink floral pattern and matching lace around hem and straps. It was a feminine number, silky and delicious against her clean skin, though a bit skimpy, as Donovan would call it, for around the house. She took care of that by bundling up in a soft cotton robe, pure white and ending just above her ankles. "I've never seen anyone pay so much damn attention to color before," Donovan would say. "What the hell does it matter how it feels when you wear it?" After the ugly shades of blue and purple she had seen sprout on any given area of her body, after all the unpleasant sensations that had burned and tingled and ached beneath her skin, it mattered a whole hell of a lot.
Hair scrunched and left to dry naturally, she headed for the living room and the scent of popcorn that wafted from it. There was an underlying odor too, a sour, pungent one that Ruthie recognized before she dropped down on the couch and saw the Coors in Donovan's hand.
"Violet! You're turning violet, Violet!" exclaimed the actor playing father to the gum-smacking girl on the television screen. June dumped her handful of popcorn back into the microwaveable bag she and Charlie were munching from, and clapped. She repeated the line, her favorite from the movie, then anchored herself in Ruthie's lap, whispering, "You smell yummy, Mama."
By the time the end credits were rolling, it was 7:30 P.M. and June and Charlie had an hour to go before bedtime. Ruthie and Donovan suffered through an episode of Spongebob Squarepants that was airing on Nickelodeon, but the beginning of a second installment prompted Donovan to get up and roam the house, stopping by the fridge for another beer, and finally stretching out on the floor to do his nightly set of push-ups. Charlie lost interest next and climbed onto his father's back, adding a greater degree of difficulty to the exercise. Donovan accepted the challenge. "Come on, June Bug," he said, sweat beading on his forehead, "you too."
It didn't surprise Ruthie when he complained of a kink in his back a half hour later, the kids tucked in bed, the TV spouting advertisements to an empty couch. He groaned and massaged the sore spot, twisting his shoulders one way and then the other, waiting for bones to pop. "You should see a chiropractor," she told him as he placed his third beer on the kitchen counter and writhed against the waist-high ledge, his legs extended, his upper body and neck arced. His Adam's apple was a thick, rippled mass in his throat, the big veins bulging on either side of his neck as he strained.
"Nah," he said. "I'll get it."
Oh yeah, what a man.
Ruthie polished off the banana she had taken from the bowl on the table. She fiddled with the peel, holding it by the end that wasn't split and dangling it like a pendulum, to and fro.
Unfortunately, the kitchen hadn't cleaned itself and still looked as if it were the set to a summer blockbuster about the aftermath of a volcano eruption. She was tired and didn't want to wipe down cupboards and the floor, but prepared to do it anyway.
"What're you doing?" Donovan asked.
It seemed obvious, what with the damp rag she was using to buff the countertop. She picked his Coors up and handed it to him, swiping at the rings of moisture underneath. "Cleaning," she said.
"Leave it. Let's watch a movie."
"We just watched one."
"Not that kiddie crap. Besides, you missed most of it. Let's watch a real movie, just you and me. How about it?" he said, the beer bottle wedged in the crook of his index and middle fingers. He took a sip and added, "Baby Ruth." That was the nickname he had given her when they were younger: Baby Ruth. Like the candy bar. His sweet treat.
She gazed at the messy kitchen, the imploring look on his face. He so seldom looked at her that way, and the idea of relaxing on the couch was appealing. "Okay. What do you wanna watch?"
After perusing the movie collection that belonged mostly to him, Donovan chose The Ring, a horror flick Ruthie had never seen and didn't care to. In high school she had followed the example of her classmates and went to the latest slasher films with a boy or two, sitting in the final row, playing the frightened girlfriend who hid behind her date's coat sleeve when things got too intense, too macabre. Only, she wasn't pretending. From the moment the chilling music and dimly lit scenery commenced, she would be filled with an overwhelming sense of dread that made her heart palpitate and feel too warm in her chest and the light dusting of hair on her arms stand on end. The boys laughed when she latched onto them, repulsed or upset that a character she liked had just been slaughtered. "It's because you're pure of heart, darlin'," was her mother's explanation for the aversion Ruthie had to the carnage, "That's why it bothers you so. You know evil when you see it."
"It's not gory, I swear," Donovan said, stooping to insert the disc in the DVD player that was situated between VCR and satellite box on the entertainment center. "There's a few parts that are kinda gross, that's all. Don't worry, I'll cover your eyes."
"Is it really scary? I mean, are there ghosts and stuff? Dead people?" Ruthie said skeptically. "You know dead people freak me out." She noticed a twinkle in his eye, but it wasn't malevolent. He was being a rascal, boyish, as if he enjoyed her company and the flighty chatter her misgivings brought on. Some of it was the alcohol, which, in limited quantities, mellowed him, then had the opposite effect when he drank too much, but she hoped that wasn't all of it. She tried to recall if he was on his third beer or his fourth. Had there been others while she was in the shower?
"I don't remember. There might be a couple dead people," he said, grinning. But he winced when he straightened, and his face contorted as he sat down next to her on the couch, remote control at the ready. "Goddammit," he muttered, rubbing his side. None of his attempts at unkinking had worked.
"Is it that bad?"
"Yeah."
"Want me to crack it?"
Donovan snorted. "You?"
Ruthie took the remote and put it aside, motioning for him to stand. He gazed at her quizzically and finally said, "What the hell. This oughta be good." When she led him a safe distance from the couch and pointed to the floor, instructing him to lie flat on his stomach, his eyebrows went up even further. He moaned and swore but submitted, lowering himself onto the Oriental rug, a vast ivory and blue island with leafy rosebud designs and yards of fringe, in the middle of the room.
"Aren't you supposed to be wearing stilettos?" he teased as Ruthie placed her bare foot on his back, testing for sturdiness. She ignored him and extended her arms to balance herself as she ascended him like a stair, her entire ninety-four pound frame perched atop his one hundred eighty-seven. She hadn't done this for anyone else but her father, whose laborious factory job had caused him chronic aches and pains, most of which resided in his back and shoulders. "Need you to walk on me again, Ruthie Sue," he would say, chuckling as he sprawled out and waited for her to step on, scolding, "Ruthie Anne, Daddy." Of course, that had been years and years ago when she was a child and considerably lighter.
"Sweet Jesus," Donovan rasped, "you trying to kill me?"
"Quit whining."
"What?" He lifted his head abruptly, twisting it, his gaze slanted up at her.
"Nothing. I said keep still." Ruthie prodded between his shoulder blades with the ball of her foot, then took two cautious steps in that direction.
"It's lower."
She backtracked, bringing her heel down where his middle met the slope of his rear, and applied pressure till she heard a blunt pop. Donovan exhaled loudly.
"Shit," he said, sounding impressed. "You got it. Where'd you learn to do that?" When he turned, he turned too far and too quickly, not giving her the time she needed to shift her weight from the foot on his back to the one on the rug. She teetered for a moment, steadied, and fell anyway, her breath leaving her before it could be knocked out by the heavy landing on Donovan's side and his upraised elbow in her ribs. The impact crunched his knuckles against the floor.
It was quiet as they both tried to comprehend what had happened. Donovan recovered first, his pain and his fury in a neck and neck race to reach the surface. "Son of a-" he began, but cut himself off. He raised his hand and shook it as if hurt was like water and could be flicked from your fingers. He used his other hand to roll himself away from Ruthie, flopping her onto the rug, and sat up. "Christ, Ruth Anne," he spat, combining the names like they were one. "What is wrong with you? You're so stupid!"
Distracted by the sensation that a firecracker had just gone off in her rib cage, Ruthie barely registered his voice. She missed nothing she hadn't heard a hundred times before. "Ow," she whimpered, unable to think of any other word but the one Charlie used for his boo-boos. Owwie ow. "Ow," she said again, and untied the belt to her robe, scooting until her back was against the couch frame and any oncoming blows would be at an angle she could see, not from behind. She held her side, the flimsy material of her nightgown slippery to the touch.
"Hey," Donovan said.
She clenched her teeth.
"Hey," he repeated.
Ruthie flinched when he neared her and put forth his hand. She hated herself for doing the same thing she had once seen a neighbor's dog do while its owner, a burly old man who had despised animals as much as he despised thirteen-year-old girls living next door, reached to stroke its fur with coarse, unmerciful fingers. She had pitied that dog and cried for it, pestering her mother to call an animal shelter. Or the police. The police did nothing. Nothing except knock on her front door and ask questions when the dog went missing, to the outrage of the old man. He swore wholeheartedly that Ruthie was responsible for the mutt's disappearance. And he had been right, though no one had ever proven she took the creature from its pen, coaxed it along on a leash for nine miles during a midnight bike ride, and set it loose in a field that spread endlessly away from the harsh calls of its master.
But Donovan didn't hit her. He stood there with his hand outstretched. When she didn't take it, he squatted beside her and said, "Are you okay?"
She focused on breathing.
"Answer me, Ruth Anne. Did you break something?"
If she kept him waiting much longer, Ruthie knew his observing would turn into inspecting. And the whole left half of her body ached too much to be poked and prodded at. "No," she said wanly, "I don't think so." Pretty damn close, though.
"More than I can say for my hand," he said, furling and unfurling his fingers and shaking them again. His tone was odd for the situation, a mix of humor and irony. "I might be ruined for life."
"Sorry," Ruthie muttered. She forced herself to let go of her side and put her disheveled robe in order, closing it, but not tying the belt. Her insides felt like gelatin.
"You're bleeding."
That's what the familiar taste was. Ruthie ran her tongue along her bottom lip and found the sensitive area at the corner of her mouth, the source of the blood. "I guess I bit it," she said.
"Wait here."
Donovan returned bearing a damp washcloth and electric heating pad, the latter of which he tossed onto the couch, its cord unraveling in a spiral, the forked plug snagging in the decorative afghan that was an anniversary gift from his grandmother. "Damn," he whispered, freeing the plug from its snare and putting it in the nearest jack. He fiddled with the power settings, turning the heat to high. Then he caught Ruthie under the arms and lifted, easing her off the floor and onto the couch cushion. She wasn't able to look him in the eye as he swabbed the blood from her lip. It was disconcerting, how gently he worked. His touch was strange when it was soft.
"Maybe I'll just go to bed," she tried.
"It's nine o'clock. We haven't even started the movie yet," he said, his breath warm and rancid on her face as he removed the washcloth and looked at the red stains in the nubby fabric. He flipped it over and put the clean side to her mouth.
"I'm tired, Donnie. You go on and watch it."
Donovan sighed dejectedly. "Fine. Do whatever you want." He let the washcloth drop into her lap and reached for the remote and his beer.
What Ruthie wanted was time alone to sort through her emotions and the pain that had coiled itself around her bones, already making her joints stiff in places that weren't related to the fall. Her body was a scoreboard keeping track of every injury and flashing the total in bold, relentless numbers whenever another point was earned. Donovan, infinity; Ruthie, 0. But she didn't have the energy for his resentment or the walk to their bedroom, so she stayed. Fifteen minutes into the movie, after one chilling death scene had already passed, his frigidness disappeared and he offered her a nip from his Coors. He rolled his eyes when she didn't take it, but he drew her close, helping her situate herself against him and wrangle the heating pad cord along with her. As promised, he shielded her during the gruesome moments, which were most of the film.
Ruthie let exhaustion and the twinge in her ribs overshadow her fear. She didn't care that Naomi Watts and her creepy pretend son were being terrorized by an evil dead girl, and she dozed off with her cheek on Donovan's brawny chest while another victim's life was being claimed.
"You missed Samara crawling out of the TV," Donovan said when he roused her, the cast list scrolling the television screen.
"Darn."
"This help?" He slipped his fingers beneath a gap in her robe and touched the heating pad that was wrapped around her middle.
"Yeah," she lied.
Donovan aimed the remote at the television and switched it off. "It's eleven. Ready for bed?"
Ruthie nodded sleepily. Sitting up took effort, and getting to her feet was a daunting task, so she stalled. She gave the heating pad cord a few lame tugs, but it didn't budge.
"Here." Donovan yanked on the cord. The plug disconnected from its socket, sparking. He smiled at her as if he had just performed a nifty trick, and he stood before she did, curving one arm around her back and one under her knees. He hoisted her as he would June or Charlie, like it required no exertion on his part, like he was lifting air or a pile of laundry.
Before Donovan, when she was still Ruth Anne Sullivan, smallest cheerleader on the high school squad, and the lithest, her guy friends had enjoyed toting her around. "C'mere, Ruthie, let Grady see how light you are," one would say. And Grady or Buddy or whoever else had yet to test his strength would grin and bounce her in his arms, showing off how utterly masculine he could be. "Nah, she don't weigh nothin'." Giggling coyly, Ruthie had soaked up the attention and lavished praise, sometimes to the point of making the boys blush. At seventeen it seemed romantic and flattering, guys carting her wherever she pleased. But cradled by her husband, she felt demeaned, childish. "I can walk," she said.
He continued on and fiddled with the light switches. The hallway brightened as the living room darkened. Empty liquor bottle, heating pad and bloody washcloth were left in plain view.
"We should clean up," Ruthie said. "I didn't finish the kitchen."
"Tomorrow."
Donovan reached for her that night—after she had hurried through brushing her teeth and traded the warmth of her robe for that of the rumpled white sheets and comforter. Stripped to his boxers, he hadn't been far behind. She knew how to fake sleep, each intake of air shallow at first, then deeper and rhythmic, eyelids relaxed with the tiniest of slits, ditto for the mouth, and hand curled just so on a jumble of hair. But convincing as she was, he reached for her. She yelped when her unresponsiveness made him squeeze at her tender ribs.
"Not tonight, Donnie. Please?"
"Why?" He stroked the length of her arm, kissed it.
At least he was asking instead of going ahead and taking. "Because it hurts," she said of her side. He didn't need a clearer explanation. He knew.
Donovan found the bottom of her silky chemise and inched it up her thigh, her hip, and so on. "It hurts?" His tone was sympathetic, the way he talked to June when she fell and scraped her knees. "Poor Ruthie." More kisses grazed her bare skin. His lips flirted with the plum-colored bruise. Her shucked off nightie lay on the floor. "God. You're so fucking beautiful," he murmured, turning her towards him and pinning her shoulder to the pillow.
"No, I'm not," Ruthie said, before his mouth came down hard on hers. She tasted blood again, and beer. Priss, he often called her, because she didn't drink.
It was over by the time nausea replaced the feeling that she was being sliced into quarters with a dull blade, at the waist and lengthwise. She counted herself lucky. If he had held both wrists above her head instead of just the right, she might have thrown up on him. Blowing air out through his teeth as though he was about to whistle, he dropped back on his pillow and slapped his supposedly injured hand against his chest. Ruthie rolled away from him, onto the side of her body that wasn't screaming quite as loudly as the other, and made herself small and invisible under the covers, though she couldn't draw her knees up like she wanted—moving that way was too painful. She had learned not to ask why or how could you, don't you care about me, what's wrong with you. It was never he who was in the wrong, anyway. You're the one who hurt yourself, Ruth Anne. You're the one who wore that to bed, you're the one who asked for it. And maybe that was right. Maybe she had been less cautious today and tested him. It was a stupid, useless dream, she knew, but some deep down part of her that Donovan couldn't touch with his severe hands still hoped he might one day change his mind and love her. Just love her.
"Christ sakes, here comes the pity party," he said when he heard her sniffle. "I was careful. What more do you want?"
"It's not that."
"Then what?"
"Nothing, Donnie."
Weeks later the pain was gone, the bruise healed. And Ruthie discovered she was pregnant.