1947

CW: Contains themes and/or references to emotional and physical abuse

“Do you even love me anymore?”

The words echo around in my head like screams against cold cave walls. Love? Did I ever love? Have I ever loved? Yes, I have loved–jasmine perfume, auburn hair, laugh like a thousand suns–but that’s definitely not what he is asking. It is certainly not something I can ever say. I shouldn’t even be thinking about it–a yellow polka-dotted dress raised scandalously high–

“Marge, are you even listening to me?”

I blink. Zone back in on the person standing in front of me–broad, strong shoulders leading up into the thick lines of a proud neck, chiseled jaw that’s currently clenched tight with frustration. My eyes snag on the throbbing muscle of his jaw, thundering wildly like a heartbeat. I become painfully aware of the silence. My silence. I open my mouth to break it but he breaks first. He is an explosion of hurt. “Clearly this doesn’t matter to you,” he says, his voice a pitiful, cracked thing. Veins stretch against his proud neck as his arms sweep up, palms raised to the kitchen ceiling as though asking it’s opinion on why his wife stopped loving him.

My lips tremble at the sight but I will not allow myself to cry. I do not deserve to cry.

His eyes well for the both of us. “Clearly I don’t matter to you,” he says and suddenly it is not my husband saying these words but someone else…

“Well clearly I don’t matter to you all that much,” she says, transatlantic accent thick with growing anger.

“Addie, you know that’s not true,” I say.

“Oh really? Then why are you doing this? I already told you I don’t care what any of those backwards townies has to say,” she says. She has her hands placed stubbornly on her hips like she’s gearing up for war. I sigh. Arguing with Addie is like trying to convince a fish it might live out of water–useless and frankly, migraine inducing. A droplet of sweat slips down my cheek. I start twiddling nervously with the chunky ruby ring on my left hand. I haven’t been able to stop touching the stupid thing since Harvey gave it to me last week. Well, “gave” might not be the correct word. “Traded” is probably more accurate.

“It’s more than what people are going to say—,” I begin to say but she cuts me off.

“Is it your parents again? Are we really still on that?”

“I never said—”

“Then what exactly are you saying?” she asks, eyes flashing.

“If you would just give me a minute to explain!”

“Fine!” Her hands sweep out as though clearing space for my words. “Here’s your moment! Explain.”

I open my mouth to speak but find my tongue has grown dry and too large for my mouth. Silence stretches between us, cooling the warmth of the autumn daylight. A breeze sweeps by, rustling against the burnt orange of Addie’s coiffed curls. I inhale, hoping to catch a trace of jasmine but all I can smell is the decaying of leaves. I look to Addie’s face, wishing to drown out my worries in the hazel of her eyes but find myself staring at the purple-blue bruise edging up the curve of her jaw. The mark is startlingly dark against the paleness of her skin. In a week or so the bruise will lighten to a faded, puke green and then to a mottled yellow and, eventually, it will disappear altogether. With time it will be like it had never happened.

“Mags?” Addie’s voice is tentative now, concern threading through the violence of hurt.

I do not hear her.

“Marge?”

Even if I live to see a hundred I would know it happened.

“Mags?”

I know why it happened.

“Marge!”

The illusion shatters.

“I can’t believe this!” someone is shouting. My eyes are unfocused. I desperately try to cling to the pixelating remnants of Addie’s face but she’s slipping fast. My hands are shaking. Perhaps I, too, am slipping. Would it be so bad to fade with her? I wonder. I suck in a steadying breath but find the air too warm–hot even. You’ve already been fading, my brain answers. Six years of fading! At this point it’s a wonder anyone can see you at all.

“I can’t keep making excuses for you when you won’t even listen to me!” the person is still shouting. I inhale another too-hot breath. Drag my brain back from the abyss of memories.

“You haven’t been happy with me for years now,” Harvey says. I anxiously fiddle with the ring on my left hand. Harvey almost never yells–he knows how nervous it makes me–but it seems I have finally pushed him past his limits. He’s pacing around the kitchen like a mad-man, one hand threaded through his hair like he may rip it all out. Tracking his frantic momentum causes my stomach to churn with guilt.

He spins to face me, chest heaving. “Hell!” he yells, “I don’t know if you’ve ever been happy with me!”

“Harvey,” I say softly, but his head turns away like he can no longer bear the sight of me.

“What a sucker,” he mutters to himself.

“I’m sorry,” I say, catching his misery, “I’ll try to be better.”

The sardonic smile he sends my way is a hideous imitation of happiness–all bared teeth and tight lines. My chest constricts. “Try try try,” he sing-songs, marching out the kitchen. “You always say you’ll try.”

I follow him out. He’s hunched over a bundle of fabric laid out on a sitting chair. “I know but–” I start but stop once I see him balling up wads of clothing.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m leaving,” he says, shoving the wads of clothes into an open knapsack.

Something in my stomach plummets.

“Leaving? Leaving for how long?”

He doesn’t bother looking at me. “I don’t know.”

My heart is thumping now. I can feel it pounding at the base of my wrist. “Where will you go?” I say, trying to keep to keep my voice steady.

He whirls on me, pointer finger aimed at my chest. “Do you even remember the last time we had sex?” he asks.

The question takes me aback–not because it embarrasses me but because I don’t remember. My thumb presses against the sharp ridges of the ruby on my hand as I try to file back in my memory to no avail. I look at him, caught, like a deer in headlights. Feel the blood roaring in my ears as I slowly shake my head no.

He barks a rueful laugh.

“That’s what I thought,” he says, meeting my eyes with his own as he clips the bag close. His eyes bore into me, anger making the laugh lines at the corners appear more severe.

Harvey clips the bag close. Turns to head for the door. “It was my birthday,” he says over his shoulder. He opens the door. “Last September,” he says and leaves, slamming the door behind him.

As if on cue, I get a whiff of hydrangeas on the air. Harvey had brought a handful of the flowers in from our garden a couple days ago. I catch a glimpse of them sitting in a crystal vase on our dining room table. Such pretty flowers, freshly in bloom. Vivid blue and purple. My eyes fixate on them until the colors whirl together to paint an entirely different image…

“Addie, you know why we have to end this,” I say. My hand reaches out to brush the tender bruise on her chin. I linger there, savoring the feel of her velvet-soft skin. Addie’s hand reaches up to grip my wrist, slim fingers driving deep into the skin as though she thinks I may attempt to pry her off.

“This?” she says, voice choked, “this is nothing.”

I keep my eyes trained on hers as my hand drops to the hem of her dress. I slide the fabric up to expose the pale skin of her thigh. More blue and purple. I push the fabric higher still until I reveal her navel. There is a lump the size of a baseball protruding from her abdomen–so purple it’s nearly black. My fingers skim around the peak of it where crimson lacerations criss-cross in angry, jagged lines. “Is this nothing?” I ask. Addie’s breath comes out in a sharp hiss. Her eyes are all fire as she shoves my fingers away with one hand and yanks her dress back down with the other.

“So what?” she says, “we just let them win?”

“They beat you, Addie. Who knows how far they would have taken it if your sister hadn’t found out.” A vivid image of Addie’s beaten and lifeless form washing up on the shore of the Savannah flashes across my mind. I suck in a deep breath. Close my eyes against the violence of the image. When I speak again my voice is hoarse and tears have gathered in my eyes. “They could have killed you, Addie. They could’ve killed you and it would’ve been all my fault.” The tears are flowing now, my vision growing hazy with them.

“Like hell it would!” she spits, venomously.

“But it would, Addie. Don’t you see? They did this to you because of me. Because of us.” Because I can’t stay away from you, I think.

Her eyes flicker back and forth rapidly, unseeing, like she’s trying to discern the answer to a particularly hard riddle. “Well then,” she says, “we just lay low then. We lay low and wait until they forget.”

I force back a humorless laugh. “And if they forget? Then what?”

“And then we be together! Like we always talked about!” she explodes.

As I think of a response my hands have come up to knead rough circles into my temples. I want so badly to go along with what she’s saying. I want so badly the future that we’ve always wished for–but. But. That’s it. There will always be a “but”. Because there is no place on this damned continent where we can be together as we are. There is no place where we can be together and be safe. My mouth opens before my mind has truly made itself up.

“I’m marrying Harvey,” I say, raising the hand where the ruby ring sits so she can fully see it in all its glory.

Addie’s whole being stills at my words. Her eyes, too bright, find the ring. Hone in on it’s gleaming surface like a moth to flame. She stares at it as though it were her very worst nightmare come to pass. “When?” The question comes out like a sigh.

“He asked me last Thursday,” I say.

“When were you going to tell me?” she questions but there is little bite to her words.

My stomach turns but I make sure my voice is steady when I speak.

“I’m telling you now.”

“So that’s it,” she says and it looks like all of her soul has been extinguished in one fell blow.

I swallow. Force myself to choke back sobs.

“That’s it,” I say.

She looks at me for one long moment and I can hear my heart thundering in my ears. I have to wrangle my hands against my body to keep myself from reaching out to her. Keep myself from begging her to forgive me. Then she gives me one curt nod and turns, walking away. I watch her as she goes, fighting against the urge to chase after her.

Just before she’s out of sight she turns and asks, “Do you love him?”

“You know I don’t," I answer.