Chapter Six Judy
Chapter Six
Judy
I almost miss my flight to Miami.
The day I’m supposed to leave, Henry comes down with a wretched cold and stays home from work. I’d planned to call a cab, get to the train station, and make my way to the airport in Philadelphia. But now that he’s here, it’s thrown a wrench in my ability to get away.
My suitcase is packed, and hidden in the attic. Every day for the past month, I’d taken one thing from our closet and put it away. I’d spread out the remaining clothes on their hangers, hoping that my husband didn’t notice how sparse it was becoming. If he asked, I’d tell him that I was donating them to charity, though I’m sure his response would be that he didn’t work long hours just so that I could give my things away. But it was better than the alternative—telling him I was leaving.
Additionally, I’d put aside some of the cash he gives me for groceries and gasoline, skimping where I can on dented cans, lesser cuts of meat, and anything that will add a few more dollars to my pocket.
I’ve never had an infant, but I’ve heard it said that men act like babies when they are sick. And I can attest to my husband’s incessant neediness. Ever since I woke up this morning, I’ve been frantic attending to his every wish.
He wanted chicken broth—the homemade kind where I’d boil a carcass in water and vinegar. He wanted lemonade with honey in it. Fresh lemons, of course. Not the powdered mix. His pillows had to be fluffed just right.
I did it all.
I am spent.
But if I don’t leave now, the plane will take off without me.
My salvation comes from a phone call. The pharmacist rings and says that Henry’s medicine is ready, and I am quick on my feet to tell my husband that we’ll save the dollar-fifty delivery fee if I pick it up myself.
He agrees and gives me the car keys and tells me to get a bottle of Coke while I’m there. Ice cold. None of that stuff sitting on a shelf like a goddamn freeloader . Whatever that is supposed to mean.
This is my chance. The flight is in three hours, and the drive to Philadelphia will take up two of them. I’ve already missed the train. So it’s now or never.
I close the bedroom door behind me and lean against it to gather strength. My palm is sweaty as it rests against the chipped brass doorknob. My heart is beating as if it will leap out of my chest, but I have to keep my wits about me if I am to pull this off.
I look up at the attic and wish I’d chosen a different spot to hide my things. It would be a noisy endeavor to pull the ladder in from the garage and climb up to the ceiling. I’d been doing it while he was at work, worried that my suitcase would be found if it wasn’t well hidden. But now he is home. Should I risk it? Will Henry come running from the bedroom when he hears the clatter and catch me pulling my luggage down?
And how long would it take?
I decide to abandon it. All the sentimental items I’d stashed away—a photograph of my parents on their honeymoon to Niagara Falls, the Frank Sinatra album from my father, the map, the copy of James Michener’s Hawaii that I intended to start reading, plus all my essentials. These things will have to be left behind.
Because all that matters is leaving. Now.
Determined, I grab a macramé market bag from a hook in the pantry and stuff it with whatever I can grab in a hurry, hoping that nothing falls through its holes. I take my purse from the hook near the front door and feel around for the envelope of money I’ve stashed there. Relieved when I find it. I would be lost without that.
My hand is shaking, a palsy conspiring to try to stop me. I grasp the handrail and struggle to breathe, panic tearing through my lungs like serrated knives. I set the bag on the sidewalk and bend over, trying to pull together the courage to take the steps to walk to the car, turn on the ignition, and drive away. My body feels like lead as I stand up again and force my feet forward.
The wind flows from the west, carrying with it the distinct and putrid odor of the paper mill in Spring Grove. It smells like death, and in a way, it is. Tall trees reduced to pulp. There is something that feels symbolic about it.
This marriage almost killed me.
When Henry and I met, I was two years into taking classes at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster. Pursuing a major in English. Hoping to save enough money to finish up in a bigger city. Philadelphia. Or Boston. Or New York. I always had dreams that spanned beyond the limitations of my geography.
I worked as a cashier at the historic Central Market on weekends, the coppery brick edifice of it and its origins dating to its charter by King George II in the early eighteenth century. Being there made me feel connected to something old, something bigger than myself, and it always put me in a good mood. So I was in a romantic frame of mind when a handsome man not much older than myself came up to the counter and bought a package of Amish noodles and baked apples. And asked if he could make dinner for me the following evening.
Henry was funny and charming and claimed that he wanted to travel as much as I did. In all the time we dated, he never had more than an occasional beer. Never said a cross word. Told me he loved me on a daily basis. Brought me flowers as soon as the last batch he’d brought had browned.
All my dreams had not particularly figured a man into them, but how could I say no when such a gift had been placed in front of me?
My mother had been hesitant. She told me that she had a bad feeling about him, though there was no evidence to justify her usually reliable intuition. She even thought he might be rushing a wedding to avoid getting drafted. Though nothing imminent was on the horizon, there were stirrings that the conflicts in Vietnam might involve the United States in the future.
I made the mistake of telling Henry about her concerns, and he used what I later learned was his cunning way with words to convince me that she was jealous. My father had died only a year before, so wasn’t it possible that she wanted me to be as alone as she was? To stay single so as to be hers for as long as possible?
Love is blind may be a well-worn phrase, but only because women often look into the dazzling brilliance of infatuation and allow it to eclipse the wisdom of the women who came before them.
I told my mother not to come to the wedding, parroting the sentiments that Henry had fed to me. I didn’t want her there if she didn’t embrace my choice of husband. So like any other conscientious objector, she fled to Canada. My father’s country. Where she’d spent happier days.
It was only after we were married that a different Henry was revealed—the true Henry that she’d warned me about. The one who’d captured me and didn’t need to try anymore.
It wasn’t immediate. His approach was subtle. A comment about how my hair looked better when I didn’t wear it back. How my cooking needed improvement. How my dresses were too revealing. How we couldn’t afford for me to continue college.
How we couldn’t afford to travel. Even to Rehoboth Beach for a weekend.
A thorough, incremental, strategic dismantling of the independent woman I’d once been and a fashioning of what he wanted me to be: a helpless girl who needed his approval at every turn.
And then he took up drinking. Or maybe resumed it.
I was too embarrassed to return my mother’s calls. And then she stopped calling. Because an icy car accident after a late-night shift at the hospital took her from me forever.
My tears over not being able to afford to go to Toronto for her funeral prompted the first time that Henry squeezed my arm hard enough to leave a bruise. At first, I thought it was an accident.
The first time he hit me, he made me believe that I deserved it. I don’t even remember the cause. It became too commonplace an occurrence to recall.
But no longer, thanks to Ronelle. A maternal stand-in, though she is not much older than me.
Ronelle has shown me a way out.
I wipe tears from my eyes with the itchy wool sleeve of my sweater and place the key into the car’s keyhole. The pink sweater with yellow flowers is the last one my mother crocheted for me before she left Red Lion, and if I’d put it in the attic with my suitcase, I would have had to leave it behind. It will be my only memento from my previous life. I wear it like it’s a hug.
I look up toward Ronelle’s house and see the curtains to her living room pulled back. She is standing there, silhouetted by the two lamps on either side of her, but I can imagine that her face is filled with relief and maybe tears that match my own. She waves and I wave back.
I don’t know when we’ll see each other again.