19. The Game
It had been one of Bowman's last games, not that they had known it at the time. He was still talked about as the high-school football star although he had missed out on the college scholarship, but no-one really talked about that except behind closed doors because he was still Bo Crowder's son.
They played on the old high-school ground, a show game, a charity game for the miners and their families who didn't qualify for aid and allowances and suchlike. It was strange to be back there, on the same old bleachers with the same old paint flaking off.
She'd always cheered him on at the high-school games; not as part of a squad, though they'd asked her plenty of times but she'd never been the cheerleader type, even if she did look the part. The prettiest girl in the school, in Harlan, and he was the handsome running back with the cute smile.
Later on she'd think about the obviousness of it all, the cliché; and she'd cry with laughter. Or maybe just cry. So young, she had been so, so young.
But at the game, at that game, she sat up in the bleachers and she felt proud.
It was crowded, but not so crowded that Boyd needed to sit as close to her as he did. Not quite touching but almost but he was there and she knew it, felt it, every second. She didn't move away, didn't take the few inches of space to her right that would have taken her just beyond that almost state because that would have been an admission, an acknowledgement of him. If she ignored it, if it looked as though she didn't even notice him then maybe it would stop, he would stop.
She sat forward until he was out of her eye-line, focused on the figures on the field but she was aware, still, of his eyes on her. It was a hot day but it wasn't the heat that raised the prickle of sweat on her skin, that rolled the beads down the back of her neck and the hollow of her spine.
When she would glance back he was always watching the game, following Bowman's steam-roller progress across the field.
Anyone looking at them would have just seen Boyd Crowder sitting next to his sister-in-law, both of them supporting his brother, her husband.
And there was nothing she could say because he had never really done anything, but she knew because it was there in every word and look and gesture.
At the end of the first half the teams went into their huddles, getting their pep talks, or game strategy, or whatever from the coaches and the cheerleaders poured onto the pitch in their cheap costumes and bright smiles and then, after the tight knot of players broke apart in a blood-pounding whoop, Bowman jogged to the edge of the field, pulling off his helmet and grinning up at her, the pads making his shoulders look even wider, stronger, more solid than usual.
It was the perfect excuse- not that she needed one -to move, one that wasn't about him but was about her and her life in which he had no part except tangentially because he was her husband's brother.
She stood and felt the thin cotton dress cleave to her body, picked her way down the stands and met Bowman at the white line drawn against the grass. He smiled at her and kissed her but there was an edge to the smile, a look in his eyes, that she had seen before but never directed at her, not quite, not that bad.
And still she could feel the other pair of eyes watching her from high up in the bleachers.
She had thought, then, that she was running from the danger, that the person she was going to would be her safety.
He kissed her for luck but it wasn't enough: the game had not gone well for Bowman's team and after the break it went worse. They lost and Bowman seemed to take that very personally, as though this defeat was aimed at him, another humiliation designed to ruin him and his dreams and his reputation, along with the indignity of taking a job at the mine, just until his football ambitions worked out.
And there was that look in his eyes and it made him someone she didn't know, except that she did because it had always been there, just beneath the surface, and she had always overlooked it and then that night, when they'd got home-
That had been the first time.
She kicks away the covers, sits on the edge of the bed and her fingers twist into the sheets.
She remembers the game and she remembers Bowman's fist in her face, the shock of it, the explosive pain, but she doesn't really remember the in-between time. That had been the first time but it hadn't, no matter what he had said, been the last time. It had never been the last time, until she had ended it.
Her throat is scratchy and she thinks about going down to the kitchen and a tall glass of ice and water but she hasn't refilled the tray and she doesn't really feel like going all the way down there anyway. She goes out onto the landing and the door of the spare room is edged with light.
She drinks from the bathroom tap, splashes cold water against her face, looks at herself in the mirror and the woman she sees is determined and certain and she wonders how she can look like that when she doesn't feel like that. Not quite.
Back on the landing and the light still shows under his door. Maybe he's reading one of his interminable books, or maybe he's keeping watch in case the Bennet boys decide to pay another visit, or maybe- she stares at the lines of light -maybe the beating was worse than either of them had thought. Maybe it's serious and he's suffering and ill and hurting and unable to call out and needing her; and it would be the right thing to make sure, to open his door, to see-
The light goes off.
She stands for a while, blinking against the increased darkness, then goes back into her room.
The next morning, when he's fizzing with energy, and he tells her to put on something pretty, she puts on the berry-red dress she's been working on and has finally finished. It's even better than she had hoped for and she's proud of it. And when she asks him if it's pretty enough she stands, and turns, and shows it off under his gaze. There's a twitch in the fingers in the hand he keeps at his side, a longing to reach out for something that he dare not allow himself. And for once he has no words.