Chapter Fifty-Six. Betty, 1964
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
—The News-Times (Danbury, CT)
“Sweetheart, are you napping?”
Betty leapt to her feet at the sound of Douglas’s voice. “No, no, just resting my eyes for a moment.”
She looked around for something to do to prove she wasn’t being idle, but the ground beneath her swayed and she collapsed back onto the couch.
Douglas’s face came closer to hers, looking peculiar, as if reflected in a carnival mirror. “Can I get you a drink?”
She rubbed her eyes and tried to think. Her nerves were frayed. A drink might help her settle down, which would be good for the baby. She had to tell Douglas about it soon. Would he know she’d deceived him and thrown out her pills? Would he turn on her, like her friends had?
Helen’s betrayal cut the deepest, but all the girls had forsaken her.
They’d voted for her to endure the agonizingly long Ganzfeld experiment without so much as an apology.
Betty shuddered, remembering being tied down while she heard a wild animal growling, then saw awful visions of Douglas and the pretty new volunteer together, laughing and kissing.
She’d thrashed from side to side, trying to dislodge her eye and ear coverings.
She didn’t discover until the experiment was over that she’d wet herself, leaving her underclothes and the back of her white dress soaked.
She bore the humiliation, holding on to Dr. Trimble’s arm as he wrinkled his nose and led her to the bathroom.
“Clean yourself up quickly,” he’d said, shaking his arm free of her grasp. She prayed he would never tell Douglas how she’d disgraced herself.
The ride back home in Dr. Trimble’s car was just awful. None of the girls spoke a single word. The energy filling the car—rage, pain, resentment—pressed in on Betty, making it hard to breathe.
“Betty?” Douglas prompted.
She tried to smile. “You must be hungry, darling, I was just about to start dinner.”
His face came close to hers again. He pressed a hand to her forehead and his palm felt so cool and gentle it brought tears to her eyes.
“We had dinner an hour ago. If you’re not back to yourself tomorrow, I’ll call the doctor. You don’t seem to have a fever, but you don’t look well.”
He stepped away for a moment. When he came back, he tucked a glass of brandy in her hand and she obediently swallowed it, feeling it warm her throat and chest.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and began to sob. He encircled her in his arms and she cried harder. She didn’t deserve his kindness, not after the way she’d deceived him.
“Whatever for?” he asked. “You haven’t done anything wrong. I’m the one who has been acting poorly. But when you were gone, I realized how much I missed you. I could never live without you, Betty.”
She couldn’t get enough air to reply. Great sobs racked her body. She wept until she finally fell asleep, and when she awoke in the middle of the night, it was to the sound of a woman screaming. It was her.