Serial

35

Hogart, 1991

“You’re what?” Roy Brannigan asked his wife. He jumped out of his chair as if lightning had struck nearby.

It was a warm summer night. The sky was still a faint purple, and dusk had sent its advance scout shadows among the trees. Crickets were chirping. Beth and Roy were on the porch. Beth had thought this would be a good time and place to tell him. Good as any, that is. She was pretending to sip ice water, and Roy had just finished drinking his second beer. Beth thought two beers might make him mellow enough that he wouldn’t turn mean when she… surprised him. She sure didn’t want to wait and take her chances with five or six beers.

She said the word again, realizing it was like dropping a stone into a calm pond: “Pregnant.”

Roy paced three steps this way and that on the plank porch, a man walking nowhere, banging his heels so they made a lot of noise. “For the love of Jesus, Beth!”

She remained seated in her rocking chair, knowing that if she stood it might escalate whatever was going to happen.

“Roy, please! It’s not like it’s my fault.”

He stopped pacing to face her with his fists propped on his hips. “How were you dressed? What were you doing taking a shortcut I told you over and over not to take? And at night! What were you carrying under your arm? How’d you just happen to cross paths with that Vincent Salas?”

“How do you know-”

“That it isn’t mine?” He turned his head to the side and spat. “I haven’t touched you since you became unclean in the eyes of the Lord. I hadn’t touched you the month before the… thing with Salas.”

You never touched me enough, she thought, and was immediately ashamed of herself.

“You got inside you a child with the mark of the beast,” Roy said.

“Don’t talk like that, Roy. I need you.”

“Oh, you got what you need. Dressed like a whore, with alcoholic drinks on display, and wandering through the dark woods. What did you think might happen? What did you want to happen?”

“Not what happened, Roy! I swear it.”

“You got nothin’ left to swear to,” Roy said, and hurled his empty beer can far out into the night.

“When you get raped,” Beth said, remembering the ER nurse’s words, “it’s something that happens to you. You have no control over it.”

“Like you got no control over lots of things once you start tempting fate and the devil.”

“But I didn’t start-”

He stomped inside the house and slammed the door after him. It made a sound like a gunshot. An execution.

She looked in through a front window a few minutes later and saw him seated at the desk reading his Bible. The hand that wasn’t turning pages was clenched in a fist.

The devil was very real to Roy.

They exchanged no more words before going to bed and lying with their backs turned to each other. Beth couldn’t stop crying and lay with tears tracking down her face and making her pillow damp. Outside the house, insects buzzed loudly and seemed to be accusing her, as if they knew what she was and disapproved. As if all of nature disapproved of her.

When she awoke in bright morning light, only seconds passed before dark dread began smothering her again, tightening her throat and making her sick to her stomach.

The baby…!

She felt with her right hand what might already be a swelling of her abdomen.

Too early. Too early for that.

A slight noise made her raise her head and look around. She was alone in the bed. Roy was fully dressed and standing over by his dresser. He had a suitcase propped on a chair and was stuffing clothes from the dresser drawer into it.

“What’re you doing, Roy?”

“Just what it looks like.”

“You’re packing.”

“That’s what I’m doing,” he said, not bothering to glance her way. “I’m packing.”

Within five minutes she heard the front door slam, and then the car door outside like a belated echo.

The car’s engine kicked over and immediately roared. Tires crunched on gravel and spun faster, casting rock and dirt as if sowing seed.

When the sound of the car had subsided, Beth climbed out of bed and plodded into the living room. The house was silent and felt empty, as if even she weren’t there.

Absently dragging her fingertips over furniture, reassuring herself as to its substance, she wandered across the room to the desk and opened the top drawer.

The Bible, King James Version, with its worn red leather cover, wasn’t in its usual place, tucked in the front right corner of the drawer.

She slid open a bottom drawer. There was no sign of the plain yellow envelopes containing Roy’s pornography collection.

Roy was gone.

She was alone.