Ravenous (7 page)

Ever since then, they had been getting together in empty houses. They had gone to a hotel over in Seaside a couple of times, but mostly they used the houses.

The bathroom door opened and Emily stood in the doorway a moment, clutching the robe together in front. Her hair was wet, her face clean, although her left eye was swollen and bruised. She came into the bedroom and went to her dresser, opened a drawer, and pulled something out. She took off the robe, tossed it onto a chair, and quickly put on a pair of flannel pajamas she hadn't worn in ages—they covered her from neck to ankle. Then she came over and got into bed.

Usually, Emily slept in the nude, like Hugh.

He reached over and touched her shoulder and said, “How are you feel—”

She jerked her shoulder away and her entire body stiffened under the covers.

“Okay, okay,” he said, pulling his hand back, “I'm sorry.”

After saying nothing for a long moment, she said, “Where are the Valium the doctor prescribed?”

Hugh said, “On your night stand.” He got out of bed and went to the bathroom and returned a moment later with a glass of water, which he handed to her. She took one of the pills and drank it down. She thought about it a moment, then drank down a second pill.

“Look, I'll call into work tomorrow and tell them I can't come in. I can get the kids off to school in the morning. Okay? You can stay in bed as long as you want.”

She stared at the television and said nothing for awhile. Then she nodded jerkily and said, “Okay. Thank you.”

“Maybe tomorrow you'd like to call the counselor who came in to see you tonight, Diane Conniver.”

She nodded once and whispered, “Maybe.”

He offered her the television remote and said, “Here, you can watch whatever you want.”

She shook her head. “No, I don't care. Really.”

He nodded, turned off the TV. “Well, maybe we should both get some sleep, huh? It's late.”

She reached over and turned off the lamp on her side of the bed, punched her pillow once, and lay down on her left side, with her back to Hugh. She usually went to sleep on her back.

Hugh reached over and turned off his lamp, plunging the room into darkness. He yawned as he lay back and shifted around in the bed, trying to get comfortable. He wondered what this was going to do to Emily. Would she need therapy? Would she never let him touch her again? Would she gain
more
weight? As he thought about that possibility, he sighed and tried to think about something else, because he realized he did not really care anymore.

 

 

 

4

 

Morning in Big Rock

 

 

Wednesday

 

The coastal town of Big Rock, California, was named after the enormous boulder around which it was built. The boulder jutted from the earth in a conical shape, standing a full twenty-five feet high and about sixty feet across at the base, a mottled grey, speckled with bird droppings and spotted with dark-green moss. It stood in the middle of Hallwell Park, which was in the center of town. The park was named after Nathaniel Hallwell, founder of Big Rock. A bronze statue of Hallwell stood at the entrance to the park, but it was not nearly as impressive as the big rock.

Big Rock was the Pine County seat. It was the smallest county in the state of California, encompassing Big Rock, Seaside, and a few little villages including Borden and Raven's Port. None of these towns and villages had their own police department and all were served by the County Sheriff's Department.

On that Wednesday morning in January—the morning after the rape of Emily Crane and the evisceration of Deputy Billy Garrett—the rain stopped, a fog rolled in before dawn, and blanketed the town in a color very similar to that of the big rock itself. The sun rose over the mountains in the east, but no one saw it through the soupy mist. The low fog would dissipate later in the morning, leaving behind a steel-grey sky thick with clouds. The weatherman on the radio predicted more rain for the rest of the week, with no sunshine in sight.

 

* * * *

 

Hugh Crane's digital clock-radio turned on and a newscaster began to talk loudly about more troops in Iraq killed by a car bomb, and the most recent drug binge by a young, rich, air-head celebrity. Without lifting his head from the pillow, Hugh reached over and slapped the clock-radio a few times before hitting the right button and turning it off. He sat up and yawned and rubbed his eyes, smacked his lips a few times.

He looked down at Emily, and the previous night came back to him in a rush. She'd said the man reeked, that he was filthy. Something about him being like an animal. Hugh shuddered at the thought. He felt a sudden urge to reach out and touch her comfortingly, but he did not want to wake her.

He got out of bed, took a shower, and got dressed. He shuffled down the hall, stopping at the kids' rooms to wake them. He went downstairs to the kitchen.

The automatic coffee maker was already brewing coffee. He called his boss at Champion Realty at home, a chipper woman named Natalie Rayburn, and explained what had happened the night before. He told her he wouldn't be in for the next couple days because he wanted to give Emily time to get back on her feet. She expressed concern, and told him to give Emily her best.

The kids shuffled into the kitchen one at a time as Hugh cooked a breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon.

“Where's Mommy?” Jeannie said.

“Mommy's not feeling well,” Hugh said. “She's going to stay in bed for awhile.”

“Is she gonna be okay?” Donald said.

“I think so. But maybe not for awhile. Listen. Remember last night, when I told you Mom was attacked by a strange man?”

The children fell silent and stared at him with big eyes. They slowly nodded, one after another.

“Well, to save herself,” Hugh went on, “she had to ... to hurt the man who was attacking her, hurt him very badly. It's a terrible thing to have to do that to someone, no matter what the reason. But he beat her up pretty bad, and he would've hurt her a lot worse if she hadn't. So we're all going to have to be very understanding with Mom, okay? That means we might all have to pitch in and do some housework. Can you do that for Mom?”

Again, they all nodded, their eyes wide.

They ate quietly after that.

When breakfast was over, he got the kids dressed. He drove Donald and Annie to school. On the way back, he sang songs with Jeannie.

Back at the house, he went upstairs to the bedroom and checked on Emily. She snored gently as she slept.

On his way back downstairs, he thought of Vanessa and wished he could see her that day. He was bothered that she was doing something else, with
someone
else. And he was bothered that it bothered him so much.

 

 

 

5

 

Andrea and Jimmy

 

 

Andrea Norton made breakfast for her husband as the baby, Marnie, sat in her high chair and flapped her arms, slapping the tray before her, smiling at nothing in particular. Andrea looked over at Marnie and she smiled, too. She was hit hard with an overwhelming feeling of love for the baby. It happened every time she smiled like that. Or winked at Andrea, or giggled or ...
anything
, really, it would just hit her so hard all of a sudden, an almost physical punch in the stomach, only it didn't hurt, it felt
so good
—to be able to feel such love about something that hardly had begun to form yet. She was such a happy baby, so well-behaved. Andrea had never before seen a baby smile so much, and each time, that sudden gut-punch of enormous affection hit her.

Jenny, Andrea's four-year-old, sat at the table on a couple of phonebooks and ate a bowl of cereal. The footstool she used to mount the phonebooks stood beside the chair. She was a tiny girl, but Andrea had been tiny at first, too, then she'd sprouted at puberty—Andrea expected the same thing to happen to Jenny.

“How do you like the cereal, sweetheart?” Andrea asked. It was a new cereal they'd never tried before—Jenny had loved the television commercial that advertised it, and had insisted on trying it.

Jenny looked at her mother and screwed her face up tightly. “It's too
fwooty
!”

“Too fruity, huh? Well, you knew it was going to be fruity. It's called Fruit Sparkles. Right?”

Jenny looked very deep in thought as she scooped another spoonful into her mouth. She chewed slowly, then turned to Andrea again. “But ... this is
too
fwooty!”

Andrea laughed quietly as Marnie suddenly released a happy squeal, high and shrill and long. The baby's cry made Andrea cringe, and she looked over her shoulder to see if Jimmy had come into the kitchen yet.

“Shhh, honey,” Andrea said, “be quiet now.” As a couple of pancakes cooked, Andrea took a bottle of baby food and a little spoon from the counter and went to the high chair. She pulled a chair away from the table, sat down, and fed Marnie some Gerber's mashed peaches. She whispered, “You know how Daddy likes it quiet in the morning, baby, right? Right, sweetie?” She smiled at Marnie, and the baby smiled back as she chewed her food, letting some of the mashed peaches dribble down onto her chin. Her chubby cheeks were as rosy as if they'd been rouged. She had Andrea's dark, gold-streaked blonde hair, and Jimmy's big blue eyes, but the smile was all her own.

Andrea gasped when she remembered the pancake. She stood and stepped over to the stove, flipped the pancake with a spatula. “Oh, damn,” she whispered. The pancake was a little darker than Jimmy preferred. Maybe if she put it in the middle of the stack, he wouldn't notice.

She wore grey sweatpants and a black T-shirt. She was slender, five feet, six inches tall. She had gained only a little weight both times she was pregnant, and she'd lost even that little bit quickly, because Jimmy hated overweight women. He hated overweight people, period. He said it was a sign of laziness and lack of self control. Her brown hair fell to her shoulders and framed a face that was pretty, even without makeup, but that appeared strained and tired.

Jimmy came into the kitchen, dressed in jeans and a long-sleeve plaid shirt and carrying the newspaper, which he'd gotten from the porch. He silently hung his down jacket on the back of the chair, sat down at the table. Jimmy worked at Marx's Brickyard, where he operated the heavy equipment used to move piles of rocks and gravel and stacks of bricks. He was five-eight, with a mop of black hair and a mustache, a narrow face and a wiry, taut body.

Andrea served him his breakfast, then went back to feeding Marnie. She cooed at the baby and made her smile as she ate. Marnie suddenly sprayed a mouthful of mashed peaches all over Andrea's hand, and Andrea laughed in spite of the mess. She got up and went to the counter, tore off a couple of paper towels and wiped up the baby food, then continued feeding the baby.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Jimmy stand up at the table, and she wondered if he'd finished his breakfast so soon.

An explosion of breaking glass nearly knocked Andrea out of her chair, and she dropped the spoon with which she'd been feeding Marnie—it clattered onto the high-chair's tray—and shot to her feet. Jimmy had thrown his breakfast across the kitchen. The plate had shattered against the cupboards over the counter. One of the syrupy pancakes stuck to the cupboard, while the rest of Jimmy's breakfast fell to the countertop and floor, and shards of the shattered plate scattered everywhere. Andrea's mouth and eyes were open wide in shock, but that passed quickly. She closed her eyes and bowed her head a moment before turning to face Jimmy.

“How many Goddamned times do I have to
tell
you?” he shouted as he came around the table toward her.

Andrea tensed, anticipating the blow.

He slapped her face hard once and she made a high, sharp sound of shock mingled with pain. Then his arm swung back and he backhanded her, his knuckles slamming against her cheekbone. He kept slapping her as he went on shouting, his arm sweeping back and forth, back and forth.

“I told you, I don't like my fucking pancakes burnt!” he shouted. “One of ‘em's too fucking dark, goddammit! Is it just that you're so fucking stupid or do you do it on
purpose
?”

Marnie screamed, and her scream dissolved into wracking baby-sobs.

“Shut that fucking little rat up!” Jimmy shouted. He snatched his jacket off the chair, put it on, and said, “I'll have to stop somewhere and
buy
my fucking breakfast, because it seems—” He picked up his glass of orange juice and threw it at the cupboards. The glass shattered with an explosion of liquid orange. “—you don't know how to fucking cook!”

Marnie wailed as Jimmy left the kitchen.

Andrea tasted blood. The inside of her lower lip had been cut against her teeth. Her face burned as if her cheeks were in flames, and it felt like the right one was beginning to swell a little under her eye, where his knuckles had hit her repeatedly.

Jimmy slammed the front door on his way out.

It did not matter how many times it happened—it was always as shocking as the first time. Andrea never knew what would cause it, and she was never prepared for it.

 

* * * *

 

Jimmy Norton ordered a hearty breakfast at the counter of Tess's Diner on Beakman Street. He liked a big breakfast. He seldom ate much for lunch, so he was hungry when he got home at the end of the day, and Andrea always had a hot dinner waiting for him when he arrived, which was as it should be as far as Jimmy was concerned. She knew what would happen if she didn't, or was late.

When Jimmy and Andrea had married, she'd wanted to remove the words “to honor and obey” from the vows. Jimmy's father had predicted this would happen back when Jimmy was thirteen. His father had given him a long lecture about how to “handle” women as he got older, and he'd said that when Jimmy married, his bride probably would want to remove those words, and he'd told Jimmy to resist it. That, Dad had said, was how it was supposed to be—the wife was
supposed
to “honor and obey” her husband.