Chapter Seventy-Three Dottie
Chapter Seventy-Three
Dottie
Today Peggy served me breakfast in the dining room as usual.
As soon as she went upstairs to make the beds I scraped my scrambled eggs into a pail and buried them in the back flower bed.
I did the same thing at lunch. I grabbed an apple from the pantry and ate that instead.
I’m starving, but my stomach is better today.
No nausea or diarrhea. And I no longer have a headache.
Three days without eating any food prepared by Dickie or Peggy and I feel almost back to normal. My skin looks better. I have energy again, and best of all, the fuzziness in my brain is gone.
It all makes sense, now that I can think straight again.
Dickie can’t divorce me because the scandal would end all his political ambitions.
And it would turn Daddy against him forever.
He’d be back where he was before he married the boss’s daughter.
Just another salesman at a car dealership, trying to make his quota each month.
Instead he’s living in a big house in a new development, with a new car, lots of money, and big political ambitions.
All because of me. And all of that goes away if I divorce him.
But if they poison me and somehow pretend I died in childbirth, Dickie is a sympathetic widower left to raise his child alone.
Then a few months later he “bumps into” Peggy somewhere and they get married.
She becomes the kindly stepmother. And together they go on to have more children.
He has his political career with Daddy’s money and connections to help him. I’m the only thing standing in the way.
October 5, 1965
Dickie has to be the one behind all this. Peggy isn’t smart enough to think of it by herself. And I wouldn’t have thought her ruthless enough either. But I guess desperate times call for desperate measures, and Peggy is desperate.
Pregnant and unmarried, alone with no money and no prospects. She’s in a bad situation and she knows it. And everything gets better for her, too, if I’m out of the way.
She marries a respected pillar of the community and becomes a wife and mother. This is why she never leaves the house. No one can know she’s here until she returns as Dickie’s new wife and the stepmother of her own child.
So I’ll give them what they want. I’ll get out of their way, but not in the way they think.
I’ve almost got that old clunker running. I just need a little more time. Dickie doesn’t know it, but when he allowed them to tow that beat up Chevy into the garage, he provided the means of my escape.
October 6, 1965
I was out in the garage until midnight. I’m almost there. I got it running, then it conked out again. But now I know what’s wrong, and I can fix it.
I suppose I could just run out the door right now and tell the neighbors everything. About the miscarriage and pregnant Peggy and the casseroles poisoned with food from my own flower bed. I could ask the neighbors to take me to the police.
But I’m afraid.
I’m afraid of Dickie and his ability to charm and manipulate people.
I’m afraid he would convince everyone, even Daddy, that I’m crazy.
I’m afraid he’d have me locked up somewhere.
I’d rather be a prisoner in my own home with someone trying to poison me than drugged and restrained in a mental hospital. And he’d do it. I know he would.
And if people did believe me, it would become a huge scandal. I can see the headlines now. Infertile Car Dealership Heiress Poisoned by Husband’s Pregnant Lover.
That would make it difficult to start a new life. And I don’t want to put Daddy through something like that. He worked so hard to build his business. I can’t do that to him.
I just want to slip out, divorce Dickie, and get on with my life. People will still whisper, but we’ll keep the whole thing quiet. I’m only 19 years old, for Pete’s sake. I have my whole life ahead of me.
I’ve packed a few things. I’ll retrieve my diaries from inside the encyclopedias in the den on the way out, after they’ve gone to sleep.
I’ve been stealing money from Dickie’s wallet at night while they eat dinner. I’ve got almost a hundred dollars now. That’s more than enough for food and motels and gas to get me to Florida.
It’s funny, but I now realize that in less than a year of marriage, Dickie has managed to isolate me from everyone.
All my relatives and friends from high school and the dealership.
He even discouraged me from getting to know the neighbors.
He didn’t even want me spending time with Daddy. And now there’s no one left to help me.
But unfortunately for Dickie, I’m still smart enough to help myself.