Smile like you mean it

TW: domestic violence (physical and emotional)

“Ready or not, here I come!”

It was hot and sticky in the chest. It smelled of tar and old lady perfume. 

Jules shrank herself down into the lace. The tacky feel of the polyester rubbed her ear. Grandma's wedding dress wasn't keen on being used as a cushion.

“I'm gonna find you!”

Breath was not under her control. It was needed most inconveniently. It went out impatiently. But holding her breath was worse.

A rattle and a tearing sound above her. Like splinters of wood digging into each other as they snapped and peeled. Was it the dining room parquet, polished and serene, being gouged with the haste of a hungry dog? The table leg he had torn off must be heavy. It was a horrible sound.

A small, hesitant flutter startled her. A small being, so soft and harmless, brought her back into the now. Perhaps it was a baby moth, stirred to wakefulness. Or a fruit fly eating something rotten and yet undiscovered. A ladybug, far from spring?

A brush on her ear and the fluttering sound again. She rubbed at the spot.

He wouldn’t let her leave. Not without teaching her a lesson.

This all could have been prevented. There had been chances. And they had been wasted.

***

They had met as many couples do. A bar, dim, with smoke and the lights from the stage. Too many people in a small space. The patrons were bumper cars on sticky wood floors, no finish line in sight.

He was a hair taller than her last boyfriend. His smile endearingly crooked. He had singled her out across the room. A castle in the mist. 

“I can get that for you.” Those were his first words. He lay a hand on her arm. It was warm. He leaned in close to her ear. The musk of his breath drifted by her nose. Locomotive steam by a crossing.

“Sure,” Jules had said. 

He had stood silently while the large, black-haired, pale lady behind the counter took her time. The woman drifted from bottle to bottle, like a bee collecting pollen. One drink. Rum and coke maybe. A guy grabbed it. Another drink. A margarita, for a girl at the end of the bar, red-headed, all in black. Finally, it was her Bloody Mary. This was her drink of choice to drink alone.

Their conversation was mild yet deep. He had a knack for picking up on the details in her recitation that would require uncomfortable personal truths to explain. As Jules answered, the feeling that he wanted to know her blazed a fire in her brain.

He never shared much about himself. She didn’t care.

They lived together in a one-bedroom apartment. It was a thin building pressed between two fat ones. All brick, maybe 1940s construction. They had two cats and a lizard.

Her friends all liked him. And she had him figured out. Sex and food and obedience. Those were his needs. Straightforward, simple. 

There had been a few moments when Jules had resented his need to command her life. She believed herself to be independent. She didn’t need a man to tell her how to behave, where to go, how to dress. But getting her to do what he wanted seemed necessary to his happiness in the relationship.

He created walls and boundaries. Jules was ashamed to admit that sometimes she actually found security in the constraint. Moats can keep things out, not just in.

She stopped trying to breach them. 

Jules normally knew what would upset him. He didn’t like her to correct him in public. He didn’t like her leaving the house without makeup. He didn’t like her wearing flats out to dinner. He didn’t like her making plans without checking with him.

Her cousin had contacted her that last Saturday night, wanting to meet up right then. Maury was her name. She lived in Kansas City and rarely drove the four hours to St. Louis.

Recently, their Grandma had left her house to Maury’s dad. It was an old farmhouse near the middle of the state. Jules had only been there a handful of times, when she was much younger. It was part of a small farm with barren fields. It lay ten minutes out from a tiny town supposedly graced with the grave of Mark Twain. 

The house had seen better days. It was large, but dingy grey from dirt and time. No central air or heat. No wifi access. Her cousin had no idea what her dad was going to do with it, but it was “cool”. Maury wanted the cousins to take turns having weekends there, cleaning the place, keeping it up.

Her boyfriend had been having a late night at work that Saturday, and Jules hadn’t told him that she was meeting her cousin. Jules was unsure later if she had slipped up on accident, or if it had been on purpose. Had she wanted to push the boundaries, test the waters of rebellion? Her memory was such a haze.

When her cousin suggested she house-sit the next weekend, Jules had again rebelled. She had said yes without talking to him. The response felt instinctive in the moment. A knee-jerk reaction. Maybe it had been.

And just like that, Jules had made two avoidable errors.

She told him about it after he got off work. Jules was relieved when he didn’t act upset at her. He just quietly asked her questions.

“When did you meet her?”

“Earlier, around 6.”

He was quiet for what seemed like a long time.

“You told her that we could go this weekend? Why?”

“I thought you would like it. I was trying to surprise you.” His face was impassive. Jules started to feel nervous. She hastily added, “If you don’t like the idea, I can tell her no.” 

“You’ve already said yes. I don’t want to go back on what you said.” He was again quiet and still. Then he reached out and grabbed both her arms. He held them in a grip that grew stronger, tighter. Her arms started to hurt.

“Stop,” she said in a hoarse voice. He let go.

Her third avoidable error was actually going to the farm with him. She was used to avoiding warning signs, and in this case the signs been in play for some time.

It went like this: The minute they stepped outside their apartment he was all smiles and genial, that sweet crooked smile fooling everyone. He spoiled her. Treated her royally.

But, within the confines of their apartment, his behavior shifted. Like a fall off a cliff. Like a werewolf shown the moon. There was no one close enough to hear what he was saying. No one to interrupt. No one to see. 

He would store things up while they were out. Then as soon the apartment door shut, the floodgates would open. He would criticize her. He would mock her. He would curse and call her names. He would shame her. 

And this was in an apartment that shared walls with others. Strangers passed the apartment on the street. People lived above them. Given a loud enough sound, there were others to hear. Others who might worry.

Jules hadn’t explored the ramifications of the remoteness of the farmhouse and what that might mean. No amount of self-preservative instinct opened that door in her brain.

The two-hour drive was nice. They listened to 90s rock and left the window down. The Prius had been a gift from her father, and Jules loved the gas mileage. One fill up would do it for the whole trip.

The dry fields slid by. She drove the first hour, him the second. Finally, they were close. Dribbles of the local town passed. Post office, line of shops, cemetery.

Ten minutes later they arrived at a line of trees, wide open fields, and a wrought iron gate. “Bettany House” was written on a plank hanging from two poles by the lane.

The house was amazing. It felt like every old house in every haunted house movie. Old wooden floors, softly reflective. Basement steps with no handrail. Clawfoot tub with no shower. Fireplace on two levels. Built-in library book shelves. Wallpaper on nearly every wall.

It took an hour for the place to heat up. Jules found the master bed was stripped and needed making. She found clean sheets in the closet, along with towels for the bathroom. The fridge was bare. Her AT&T service was at one bar off and on.

That first night they played board games and watched old DVDs on the large wooden box TV with its curved screens. "As Good as it Gets". "Psycho".

The wind crooned past the bedroom windows. He and Jules made love that night. He seemed content.

The next morning, it wasn’t even 9 am before he put his hand through the wall next to the bathroom. Jules had stumbled over a box in the hall and accidentally woken him up. Her attempts to apologize had made him even more angry.

He stopped talking to her around 10 am. First was the accidental waking. Then a bad cup of coffee. The heater breaking was the last straw.

Jules tried to speak to him. He would look at her pointedly and then look away and not respond. 

Finally, around 12, “You want to go into town for lunch?” she asked.

Stare, silence. He walked out the front door. He got into the car and started it. She got in. He drove to the grocery store, not the diner. They got food to take home. The entire shopping trip was in silence.

As Jules was putting the bread and eggs into the fridge, her hair was yanked from behind. She could feel the skin on her scalp stretching. It burned. His voice hissed in her ear:

“What did you bring me out here for?”

The fridge door fell shut. There were tears in her eyes.

“Let me go!” she yelled. He pulled her back again by her hair and then shoved her to the floor.

Jules fell hard against the kitchen table. The table was old and wobbly. One of the legs wasn’t attached very well. This was the leg she hit. It buckled, and the table crumpled in her direction. She scooted out of the way of the fall. The cup of milk on the table, the one he had just poured for himself, hit the floor with a splash.

“What the hell is your problem?” he shouted. He looked darkly at Jules as he knelt down. He pulled at the table leg, twisting it and trying to pry it off. He had the presence of a feral dog. Jules had never seen him this physically aggressive before.

A voice in her head started small, then grew louder. It told her to hide. 

Jules stood up and ran.

The house, at first so large, felt increasingly tinier as she tried to find a hiding spot.

The door to the basement was on the other side of the house from the kitchen. Jules ran to it, her stocking feet making soft thumps on the wood floor. His voice carried after her.

“Where are you going, Jules?” It was a growl. There was a ferocity in it.

She found a large, wooden chest and climbed inside. It would buy her time, but it wouldn’t be enough.

***

“I know you’re here,” he said. He was on the basement steps now.

Jules felt a sneeze coming on. She mushed her mouth with both hands, trying to put the sneeze back in. 

“I just want to talk. Really,” he said. She heard a sharp thud of wood on wood. Had he dropped the table leg? “I’m just feeling crazy, okay? I just want to talk.” She imagined his arms up in false surrender.

Just then there was a clatter, a thump, then the sound of multiple heavy feet. They were right above her.

A muffled call, loud where it came from. Hard to hear from inside the chest. 

“This is the police. Is there anyone here?”

She heard a shout, and a number of percussive bumps.

“Get your hands up. Arms behind your back.”

“What is this?” It was HIS voice this time.

“We got a report of a domestic disturbance at this address. Lucky for you, we were already nearby. You have a girl here with you? Where is she?”

“I have no idea,” he said.

Jules felt her heart beating like drums in a marching band. Her breath sped up. She didn’t want make another mistake. She opened the chest. 

As soon as she saw the officers, Jules became mentally paralyzed. She couldn’t stand up. The officer closest to her was a large, heavy-set man. Bearded, with wrinkles and icy blue eyes. She meant to say something to him, but nothing came out. Her vision began to swim. 

Then his hands were under her arm pits, lifting her up and out of the chest. Her grandmother’s wedding dress was stuck to her pants and came out with her, ending up halfway on the floor. That was how she found it later, when she came back.

***

The police told Jules that a neighbor had seen an unfamiliar car in front of the house while walking their dog. Coming closer, the man had heard yelling from inside. He had called the police. In a stroke of luck, the unit, one of only a few in this small town, had been only three minutes away busting a meth lab.

Jules’ boyfriend spent a night in jail. Jules didn’t press charges against him. It felt too hard. She didn’t want to think about what had happened. She just wanted to move on. Jules drove back to St. Louis without him. She got her friend to help her pack up all his personal things so she could kick him out.

The next day, his bro, Mark, drove to get him from the jail and bring him back. 

She was going to the bathroom when he walked into the apartment without knocking. She came out of the bathroom to him already in the living room. He had a dozen roses, and an antique book wrapped in pink and polka-dotted tissue paper.

He said he was very sorry. There were tears in his eyes. He told her that he was going to go to an anger management class. He showed her the website for it on his phone. He told her that she had every right to break up with him, but that he really wanted to try to make it up to her.

He gave her a crooked smile and held her hand. Something stirred in her. He was so cute. She could tell how sorry he was. She let him kiss her neck. 

Half an hour later she allowed him back into her bed. 

Three hours later he had unpacked his stuff. 

Jules knew others would judge her. No one would understand why she had stayed. 

Beneath all the chaos and the pain, she had a need to be seen. She had a need to be desired. If she left him, would anyone else see her? Would anyone else desire her? Even in the worst of it, at least she wasn’t alone.

***

The roses took a whole week to die. They lasted longer than Jules had expected.

When she threw them in the outside bin, one of the thorns cut her palm. She sucked the blood away and walked back into her confinement.

Jules wasn’t sure that a key to her cage even existed anymore. And that was fine, really. There was good stuff here too.

A neighbor walked by and waved and smiled. Jules smiled back the broad, genuine grin of a happy woman and closed the door.