Chapter Thirty-Eight #2
“It was one night,” she continues. “I was sick as a dog. I’d been in bed, a washcloth on my forehead, vomiting every twenty minutes.
Henry was out. He’d been out for the past few nights.
It had got to the point where I didn’t even ask where he’d been.
He got so tetchy when I did, so I’d stopped mentioning it.
I remember checking the clock and it was ten past three in the morning.
I went to the kitchen to get a glass of water.
I didn’t switch on the light. The moon was out, and I didn’t want to wake Benjamin.
So I went to the sink, poured myself a glass. ”
Elsie shifts her tongue in her mouth. She feels as if she is there in the kitchen with Bev, gulping down the cool water.
“That’s when I saw headlights, and a car pulled into the driveway—Henry’s car, our car.
I ducked—I still don’t know why I didn’t want him to see me there in the window—but I peered just over the counter, through the glass, watched as he parked.
I could have flicked on the light, greeted him at the door, but I didn’t.
I just watched as he got out and stood there in the driveway.
Just…staring at his hands.” She lifts her own palms to her face.
“He was turning them over, this way and that, inspecting the nails. Then he looked around him, like he was checking to see if anyone was watching him, and he just pulled off his shirt, right there, in the driveway. Then he unbuttoned his belt and took his pants off, too. It crossed my mind that he must have been with another woman, that he smelled of her and he wanted to hide it. I remember gripping the edge of the sink. I felt even more sick at the thought of him with someone else. Isn’t that pathetic?
Then he crossed the street in his underwear and work boots and tossed his clothes in the trash can outside our neighbor’s house. ”
“What did you say to him when he came in?”
“I didn’t.” Beverley shakes her head, her fingers flickering at her temples.
“I hid. I held my belly and I ran up the stairs and slid into bed, waiting for his key in the lock. About a half hour later he crawled under the sheets. I rolled over, pretended to be asleep, and he draped his arm over me. I was sure that I could smell something—someone—on him.”
“You still thought he was having an affair…”
“I reasoned that I could cope with an affair,” Beverley scoffs.
“When I felt so awful every day, with the baby coming and with a two-year-old to look after, I told myself that an affair was manageable, understandable, even. He’d get over it.
He’d stop sneaking around at some point, and we’d settle into being a family again. ”
“But there was no other woman?”
“I went out first thing in the morning to check the trash can.” Beverley bites her lip, nods.
“It was barely light, but it was already hot. I remember, there was a coyote halfway down the street, watching me. No one else was awake. Henry was still in bed, and the clothes were still there, right at the top of the trash can, not even hidden. I pulled out Henry’s shirt and his pants and—”
She pauses.
“There was…blood. All over them. I dropped them and threw the lid back on. He must have got into a fight. That’s what I thought at first. He must have got into a fight at a bar and been too drunk or too embarrassed to tell me.
He always had a rotten temper. It wouldn’t have been the first time.
The blood could have been from the other guy.
I’ve seen people smashed in the face with glass—y’know, on TV?
Maybe that’s what happened, a really, really bad fight. ”
“You convinced yourself of it, huh?” Elsie feels leaden. She knows what it’s like when your brain tries to convince you of something your body knows is untrue.
“I was pregnant. I had a young child. I couldn’t let my mind go anywhere else,” Beverley says.
“So I let myself believe that. I didn’t even ask him about it.
I never brought it up. But if I’d thought—if I’d really thought—about it, about everything else he’d been doing, the way he was behaving, I could have stopped him. ”
Elsie starts to shake her head.
“He killed two more women after that, Elsie.” Beverley’s eyes are wide with panic.
“I could have saved them. If I hadn’t wanted to think that it was an affair, or late-night drinking, or fights, because that was easier for me to deal with, I could have stopped him.
So actually it was my fault. Just like this. Just like now. It is my fault.”
“Beverley? No.” Elsie’s voice hardens. “You have to stop this, for Christ’s sake.”
Bev crumples. She looks wounded, so completely exhausted.
Elsie moves closer to her, softens her tone. “Look.” She touches Bev on the shoulder. “We have to make our peace with being a little bit in agony for the rest of our lives. That’s what’s going to happen, okay? And we need to get used to that.”
Beverley lets out a slow, defeated sigh.
“We’re never going to get answers to our questions. Why did he do it? What could I have done to stop it? How can I stop it from happening to someone else?” She leans against her friend. Beverley is so good at giving advice to others, yet so terrible at taking it herself.
“If you let the questions take over, if you let them become everything, you’ll drown.
Do you hear me, Bev? You’ll drown. It will be the end of you.
And I’m not going to let that happen. Not to me, not to you, not to Margot.
We did a good job looking into Hank, okay?
Getting the word out there. Putting the pressure on the cops.
I know that had an impact. I know we made a difference. I know they’ll find who did this.”
“Well, what do we do now?” asks Beverley, her voice thin. “We’re not going to give up, are we?”
“No, we’re not going to give up,” Elsie says, eyes cutting to the window and the shadows slanting across the backyard, cast by the lowering sun.
She leans back, making herself comfortable on the couch.
“Not when women here are still in danger.” She clasps her hands together.
“We’re going to take a breath. We’re going to reset. Then we’re going to outsmart him.”