No River Too Wide (9 page)

“It’s beautiful.”

“I’m glad you like it. Will the room be okay? It’s not huge, but having your own bath is a plus. I’m guessing before too long Maddie’s going to be camping out in hers. I did when I was a teenager.”

Harmony had never been allowed to camp out in their bathroom. She and Buddy had shared the one in the upstairs hallway, and he had often lingered until it was almost time to drive to school, just to point out that a man’s needs always took priority.

“Jan?”

Jan realized Taylor had asked a question. “I’m sorry. I was woolgathering. It will be more than okay. It’s perfect.”

“Good, then. Would you like to share a glass of wine before dinner?”

“I’m sorry I ruined your plans to go out with Harmony tonight.”

“I don’t think she’s a bit sorry you showed up, do you? And Maddie’s thrilled because her friend Edna just called, and she and Vanilla are heading over there to spend the night. I never would have heard the end of it if she’d missed that chance.”

Jan had already been introduced to Vanilla, the grown puppy of Velvet, Harmony’s dog, and the smallish golden doodle had won her heart by offering a paw on introduction. “I can’t remember the last time I had a glass of wine.”

Taylor nodded. “Okay, you don’t drink. I’ll remember that.”

“No. I
didn’t
drink because my husband...” She managed a smile. “I would love a glass of wine.”

“Great. Once you’re settled, come in the kitchen and talk to me while I cook. Harmony warned you I’m a vegetarian, right?”

“Harmony says she’s a vegetarian, too.”

Taylor turned to go. “I hope you didn’t mind not spending the night with her tonight, but it just seemed to make sense to bring you here right away and let you settle in. It gives you a chance to see how you like it, just in case.”

Jan knew that “just in case” meant that if she didn’t like it, she could still leave town in the morning, as planned. That was the compromise they had all come up with. Taylor would have time to consider the safety issues, and Jan would have time to get used to the idea of staying in Asheville.

Of course, it was also clear that if she did decide to leave, she would break her daughter’s heart.

She had brought so little with her that it only took a minute to empty her clothes into a drawer and store her few toiletries on the bathroom counter. Once she’d had time to squeeze Buddy’s scrapbook into the old Scout backpack, it had taken up most of the room. The few other things she had brought were a testament to her desire to leave the past behind. She’d brought no jewelry except her watch, and that only because she’d worried she might need to know the time during her escape. Rex had given her the pretty jewel-encrusted Bulova on her last birthday, and the moment she was sure she no longer needed it, she would donate it to the Salvation Army.

Rex had given her lots of jewelry over the years, and now most likely every bit of it had melted in the fire. Most of the necklaces and bracelets had come with sincere apologies instead of wrapping paper. He hadn’t meant to hit her last night, but she should have known he wouldn’t like A, B or C. He hadn’t meant to take out his bad day on her, but didn’t she know by now that she needed to stay clear of him when things weren’t going well at the office?

She had dutifully worn every bit, faithfully keeping track of each item. Had she not worn a particular piece, he would have been angry all over again, and the cycle would have been eternally perpetuated.

All gone now.

She felt herself smiling a little. “Good riddance,” she said softly.

She combed her hair and wrinkled her nose at her reflection in the mirror. In the past year she hadn’t bothered to visit a salon, a process she hated, anyway. Inevitably Rex would go along, and then he would sit nearby and instruct the stylist on what he wanted her to do. No layers, no bangs, not too short. Plain and simple, like the woman he had married.

“Simpleminded, more likely.” She realized she was talking to herself.

“Which is what happens when you’re the only decent person in the house to talk to,” she said, then clamped her lips shut to cut off the conversational flow and went back into the bedroom.

The room
was
small, but it was comfortable and comforting. There was room for a double bed, a nightstand and a dresser, plus a television stand in the corner with a small flat-screen and DVD player. The walls were a pale sea-green, dotted with impressionistic seascapes and a trio of embroidered samplers from a time when they were a requirement for learning needlework skills. She leaned forward and read the motto on the closest. “‘To thine own self be true,’” she read out loud.

Had she paid attention to that saying earlier, she would be either happily divorced or dead. She wasn’t taking bets on which way things would have gone.

She headed toward the kitchen.

She liked the open-floor plan, which made the smallish house seem larger. Only a granite counter separated the kitchen and living area, although an Oriental carpet in muted tones, and plush sofas and chairs, broke up the long expanse of cherry flooring. Taylor was setting two wine bottles on the counter when Jan approached. Jan saw she had changed into leggings and a long green T-shirt that said “Namaste” on the front under what might be a lotus blossom, but thankfully, since she had nothing clean to change into herself, the theme was casual.

“White or red?” Taylor asked. “I’ll warn you, I’m no connoisseur. I buy good wine on sale, but then you have to ask yourself why the store is trying to get rid of it.”

“I’m less of one than you are.” Rex had been against drinking, holidays, dancing. She had often wondered if he was afraid alcohol or just plain fun might dull the pain of her life with him.

“I’m having red,” Taylor said.

Jan realized that again she hadn’t answered a question. “Perfect.”

Taylor poured two glasses and motioned for Jan to take her pick. “I’m a vegetarian, not a vegan, so I’ve got cheese and crackers. Are you hungry?”

“I’m not sure I’ll ever be hungry again,” Jan said, before she realized how that sounded. “I mean...” She couldn’t find a way to explain.

“You mean you’ve been through hell and that puts a dent in your appetite,” Taylor said. “At the worst times in my life I’ve stopped eating, too. I’m not sure which is worse for us, stuffing ourselves over every trauma or forgetting that skipping meals makes us susceptible to worse depression and every little germ in the hemisphere.”

“Put like that, cheese and crackers sounds like a plan.”

Taylor smiled, and the room seemed to glow. She was an attractive young woman, but her brown eyes were luminous, and when she smiled, she approached beauty. “As Maddie moves toward puberty I get better and better at instilling guilt in those around me,” she said.

Jan heard herself laugh and hardly recognized the sound. “It’s called developing parenting skills.”

“Did you have to do that with Harmony?”

“It was more my job to make her outlook on life as guilt free as possible. I wanted her to look beyond what was going on at home and believe in herself.”

“I’m sorry you’ve had such a rough time.” Taylor returned from the refrigerator with a block of cheese and set it on a cutting board. “Will you slice this for us?”

Jan sawed away, and as she did she realized she was growing hungry, which might have been Taylor’s plan. “I promise I’m not going to bore you with stories from our past. I owe you more than that for offering your house to me for a while.”

“That’s fair enough, but—”

Jan’s cell phone rang. She looked up. “I’m sorry, I need to get this.”

“Go ahead. I’ll start dinner.”

Jan answered and took the phone into the living area, where she hoped she wouldn’t disturb Taylor.

“Bea?” she asked.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine, but, well, there’s been a change of plans.” Briefly Jan outlined what she, Harmony and Taylor had come up with. Then she waited, expecting Bea to protest.

“That’s as good as any idea the rest of us had,” Bea said instead. “I like it.”

“Really?”

“Nothing sacred about New Hampshire, woman. That was just one place to store you for a while. I might be worried if you were staying right there with your girl, but it sounds like you’ll be far enough away to make a difference. Nothing beats being with friends who’ll watch out for you, either.”

“I’m worried if Rex finds me, he might hurt my hostess or her daughter.”

“You need to remember something. We’ve done this more than fifty times. We never had nobody traced. So he’s not going to find you, and if he does, Rex won’t hurt nobody but you. He’s not on drugs. He don’t even drink, so he keeps his head more than some and calculates. He thinks he’s a big man in the community, so he’s not going to risk that. Your friends will be safe, and I think you will be, too. You just be careful, and if you get too worried, we’ll move you again. Get yourself a better phone for everyday use, only use cash, no credit, and don’t give them any info. Keep this phone just to call me, add minutes here and there and I’ll know who’s calling when I see the number.”

“Do you know if anybody’s seen him yet?”

“Nobody’s sighted the man, so they’re still sifting the ashes, and far as I know the authorities aren’t looking anyplace else for him. Not yet.”

“Where could he be?”

“The minute we know, we’ll be watching him. You just go on and start your new life. Be careful, but not so careful you’re not happy.”

“You’ve been so wonderful. How can I repay you?”

“Just help somebody else when you can.”

Jan said goodbye and put the phone back in her pocket before she turned.

Taylor, at the counter, didn’t pretend she hadn’t heard the conversation. “Just so you know, while you were unpacking I called the friend I mentioned and asked her opinion on whether it’s too much of a risk to have you here. She’s a nurse with some experience with domestic violence. She said the first two years after you leave a situation like yours are the most dangerous, and you’ll have to be careful, but putting distance between you was important and positive, the best thing you could have done.”

“That’s what I’ve been told.”

“There aren’t any guarantees, Jan, but after I told her how careful you were getting away, she said if we observe security precautions here, if you’re careful to vary your routine, get your mail somewhere else, use a different name, then we’ll most likely be safe. If he does show up, then we go to the police. They take stalking seriously, and under some circumstances it’s a felony. Harmony witnessed your husband’s abuse. The police won’t be able to blow this off.”

“I didn’t think...” Jan’s voice trailed off.

“What?”

“
Everyone
seems to think it’s okay to stay here, even the people who brought me this far.”

“That’s who you were talking to.” It was more of a statement than a question.

“She wished me well, and she told me to call her directly if I need help.”

Taylor motioned to a stool in front of the counter. “Come have your wine and something to munch on.”

Jan did as she was told, something she was particularly good at. She ate a cracker with a slice of cheese and waited for her stomach to reject it. But instead the food made her hungrier. She took a second, then a sip of the wine.

“I only poured you a little,” Taylor said. “On an empty stomach it’s twice as powerful. But let me know if you’d like more.”

“Less is better, I think.”

“If I were you right now, I would need to relax, and maybe a little wine will help.”

“It’s hard. For months I’ve been gearing up to go one place, and now I’m in another. I never intended to come to Asheville at all. It seemed too dangerous. But after the fire? I just knew Harmony would find out somehow, and she would be sure I was dead. I couldn’t let that happen.”

“I’m so glad you came.”

Jan still wasn’t sure. All this well-meant reassurance didn’t take into account the will or the whims of the man she had been married to.

“Did you have a place to go?” Taylor asked. “I mean a house, a job, a life somewhere else?”

“We were working on it. Then Rex didn’t come home from work, and I knew I had to leave right away while I had that chance.”

“But you were able to get things in place quickly.”

Jan wanted to tell Taylor more, but sharing her life, even a little piece of it, was a luxury she hadn’t experienced in years.

“Not quickly,” she said. “Last New Year’s I met a woman at a party. I didn’t go to many parties, but this one was, well, it was required for my husband’s job, so I had to go along and look happy.”

“I’m guessing over the years you’ve learned to be a good actress.” Taylor set a salad on the counter and turned to do something at the stove.

“I like to cook,” Jan said, while she decided how to respond to that. “I could cook for you while I’m here, take some of that off your shoulders, anyway.”

“Great. We’ll work that out.”

Jan took another sip to steady herself. “At that party? There was a woman who knew my husband. I’d met her a couple of times over the years. She got me off to one side when he was talking business with some men. And she said she worried about the way he treated me. She told me to call her if I needed help, that she was part of a group of women who helped other women who had trouble at home.”

“How did she know that just from seeing you at a party?”

“Later she told me her first husband nearly killed her before she got out of the marriage. She recognized a fellow sufferer from the fear in my eyes. And she knew Rex well enough to suspect he could be mean.”

Taylor whistled softly. “It was that obvious?”

“I had bruises on my wrist. She paid attention. And she said I needed to get out while I still could.”

“You said she was part of a group of women who do this?”

“More like a network all over the country.” Jan hesitated, but there was no reason to do so. Taylor wasn’t going to turn anybody in. “Lady truckers. They call themselves Moving On. My husband sells insurance for trucks, and that’s why we were all at that party together.”

“That’s rich. Who better?”