The Mill River Recluse (14 page)

“Yes,” came her flat reply. She was in the bedroom standing at the window. Despite the fact that it was past four o’clock, she still wore a rumpled nightgown. “I watched your car coming through town.”

“I sent the letter to the draft board today. Pop feels pretty sure I’ll get to stay here to help implement our new production plans.”

“That’s a relief.” Mary stood with her back to him. Her voice was devoid of emotion.

“Mary, darling, I stopped on the way home and brought you a little surprise.” He reached into his pocket as he approached her. She turned to see him holding out a small, velvet-covered box. “I know I’ve not been home so much recently with work being so busy, and I thought this might cheer you up enough to feel like going riding with me.”

Mary half-smiled and reached for the box. She raised the top to reveal an ivory cameo on a delicate gold chain.

“It’s lovely. But you didn’t have to do this, Patrick.”

“I know, but I wanted my wife to have something as beautiful as she is.” He waited for some response from Mary, but she seemed as distant and distracted as ever. Still, he smiled at her, gently took her by the shoulders. “C’mon, let’s go riding. I came home early, after all.” Despite his best efforts, an expectant edge had crept into his voice.

“Patrick, I love the necklace. Really, I do. But…” Mary turned to look out the window again. “I just don’t feel up to going out.” The room was silent for an instant, a vacuum, before it was filled with Patrick’s white-hot rage.

“It has been
seven
months
! When will you feel up to it? You cannot spend the rest of your life in this house! Look at me!” Patrick grabbed Mary and spun her around to face him. He lowered his voice to a deep hiss. His red face was but two inches from hers, and he spoke slowly, overemphasizing each word. “I’ve tried to be patient. I’ve given you everything I can think of to make you happy and still you’re in this sorry state. As my wife, you have certain obligations. If you can’t, or
won’t
, fulfill them, you are
useless
to me.” He shoved her away from him. She crumpled to the floor like a ragdoll.

Patrick paid no attention to Mary as he changed into his riding clothes and left the bedroom. Still seething, he made his way down to the barn. After leading Monarch out of the pasture and into the barn, he replaced the horse’s halter with a bridle. Patrick retrieved a saddle from the tack room, which he threw over Monarch’s back with a single robotic movement. He cinched the girth with a savage tug. The blood-bay squealed and laid his ears back, but Patrick pulled the girth tighter still. He had turned to grab his riding crop when the horse lunged at him. Patrick, still engulfed by his fury, didn’t see him coming. He yelled in pain as Monarch sunk his teeth into his left upper arm.

With all his strength, Patrick brought his right hand down across the horse’s nose. The blow was enough to gain release from the bite. Instinctively, he looked at his left arm. Blood was soaking through the sleeve of his white shirt.

Patrick looked up at the blood-bay, barely feeling the ache in his arm. Monarch had backed into an area in the barn where horses were cross-tied and groomed. The horse was watching him, showing the whites of his eyes. Patrick walked backward toward the tack room, watching the horse all the while. Once inside, he took down a long leather whip from the wall. He had found it in Mr. Hayes’s barn after the horse farmer had died and had taken it almost as an afterthought. He also took several sugar cubes from a container on a shelf. He was ready.

Slowly, silently, Patrick approached the blood-bay. He laid the whip on the floor just outside the tack room door and walked toward Monarch with a few of the sugar cubes in his outstretched hand. The horse shied back even further and half-whinnied, but Patrick kept moving, talking in a low, soothing voice.

Monarch flared his nostrils and looked at the sugar. Cautiously, the horse stretched out his head and took the cubes from Patrick’s hand. Patrick reached up and took hold of the bridle, still talking, and gently pulled forward. The horse hesitated for a moment before following him. Patrick stopped after only a few steps. Monarch stood between two posts in the grooming area. Secured to each post was a short rope that ended in a metal clasp. Patrick refilled his hand with sugar cubes, and, as soon as the horse accepted them, snapped each clasp to the rings on either side of the bridle. The cross-ties allowed for little movement. Monarch was trapped.

After uncinching the saddle and slipping it off the colt’s back, Patrick gathered the whip up off the floor and turned to face the horse. He made a mental note to himself to fire the stable help, to make sure that no one interfered with his plans for the blood-bay. He snapped the supple leather against the barn floor, against a stall, and against the floor again, this time right in front of the horse. The
crack
of the lash startled the horse, but when he tried to rear, he was held down by the straps attached to his bridle. With calm green eyes and a vicious grin, Patrick swung the coiled leather snake and advanced on Monarch.

In her bedroom in the quiet marble house, Mary still lay on the floor, weeping, and heard nothing.

~~~

Friday, June 5, 1942, was a miserable day.

Patrick began the unusually stifling day as he had taken to beginning most of his days over the past few weeks--recovering from a night of drinking with his cousins in Rutland. The heat only aggravated his headache while the sun nearly blinded him, and he sat in his office with the shades drawn. Despite the wedding band he wore on his left ring finger, he thought of himself as a bachelor of sorts. Mary gave him nothing he needed, so he sought to fulfill his needs elsewhere. His wife didn’t seem to care. On the rare occasions when he slept in his own home, instead of his parents’ or cousins’ houses or in some other place with a pretty young thing he had seduced, she remained isolated in a world all her own. He ignored her, and she scarcely noticed his presence.

Patrick had downed his third mug of black coffee when one of the secretaries knocked on the door. Immediately, he jumped up and threw it open.

“Damn it, Louise, I told you I didn’t want to see anyone--” he scolded, but stopped when he saw the letter that the secretary held out to him.

Louise was a mousy little woman with brown eyes and a long nose that spoiled her otherwise pretty face. She quivered and looked up at Patrick. “I know, Mr. McAllister, but this looked important.”

Patrick seized the letter and slammed the door in her face.

The letter was from the Rutland County draft board. He ripped open the envelope and began to read.
June 4, 1942

Dear Mr. McAllister:

We have reviewed the request in your letter of May 12. While McAllister Marbleworks’s contribution to the war effort is indeed significant, we have come
to the conclusion that Messrs. Conor and Stephen McAllister bear the most substantial proportion of management duties. In the Board’s opinion, your abilities would be better put to use serving in our Nation’s armed forces. Your education and experience would most surely enable you to enter Officer Candidate Training School, and we intend to provide notice of your exceptional qualifications to the appropriate induction personnel.

Therefore, please consider this a notice to report for induction into the United States Army not later than June 12, 1942. Sincerely,

H. Wallace Boyd, Chairman,

Rutland County Draft Board

Patrick’s fingers tightened around the edge of the paper as he read the letter a second time, then a third. His eyes focused and refocused on the words on the page, and finally, they began to register in his brain. He folded the paper and stormed out of his office.

Conor McAllister looked irritated when his grandson burst into his office in the middle of an important call, but the panic on Patrick’s face softened Conor’s initial expression.

“Look, Jack, something’s come up that requires my attention. Can I ring you later this afternoon to finish this? You’re a good man, Jack. Sure, about three o’clock.”

He hung up the phone and looked at his grandson, but Patrick began talking before Conor could say anything.

“Grandpop, they’re going to take me.” He waved the letter from the draft board wildly as he spoke. “You’ve got to help me. June 12, that’s only a week from now. You know these people. They’ll listen to you.” He finally shoved the letter in front of his grandfather and began pacing.

Conor put on his reading glasses and read the letter. Finally, he removed his glasses, sighed, and looked up at his grandson.

“I’ve already tried, Patrick. I spoke with Wally Boyd yesterday afternoon.”

“What? And you said nothing to me about it?” Patrick said.

“What’s going on here?” Stephen asked as he entered Conor’s office. He shut the door quickly behind him. “Son, people can hear you all the way down the hall.”

“This is what’s going on,” Patrick snapped, snatching the letter from his grandfather’s desk and handing it to him. “And Grandpop knew about it!”

Stephen skimmed the letter, gave it back to Patrick, and looked at Conor.

“Pop, you knew this was coming?”

“Look, let me explain it to you,” Conor said. “Wally Boyd called me yesterday afternoon right before the board was to meet to make a decision about Patrick. He didn’t know for certain what the decision would be, but he had a good idea that the board was leaning toward drafting him.” Conor looked at Stephen. “He wanted to know if there was anything that Patrick would be doing at the Marbleworks that you or I couldn’t handle ourselves. I told him there wasn’t.”

“Pop, how could you do that?
You
sealed their decision!” Stephen shouted. “
You
did.”

“I could be killed,” Patrick said. His rasping whisper did nothing to hide the accusatory tone in which he spoke.

Conor rose up behind his desk, and his green eyes blazed.

“I’ve known Wally for over forty years. I was not about to lie to the man,” he said. “But neither did I intend to let my grandson be placed in jeopardy. I did express my grave concern that if Patrick were taken from us, he might not return. Wally assured me that Patrick is prime officer material, that whether he voluntarily enlists or is drafted, he’ll be sent to officer school for specialized training. If the war isn’t over by the time he’s ready to be deployed, he’ll be far behind the front lines, if he’s anywhere near action at all.”

Patrick looked from his father to his grandfather. “I don’t believe it. Haven’t you seen the papers? Every day, there are lists of the names of men who’ve been killed! Lots of them are officers! Lots of them! And God knows what’ll happen when the Allies invade Europe! It
will
happen--it’s the only way the war will ever end, one way or the other!

“We’ve still got a few days,” Stephen said. “We’ll appeal the decision. I’ll make some calls--” He stopped in mid-sentence as Conor shook his head.

“Son, I can’t. The decision of the draft board is final.”

“Then you’ve got to call Wally, Grandpop, get him to set up another meeting of the board,” Patrick said. “He’ll do it if you ask. I know he will.”

“He won’t, Patrick. Wally may be chairman, but he is only one man on the board. And contrary to what both of you may believe, I don’t have any special influence over the board members. They are simply men trying to do a difficult job as best they can. I can’t force them to make any particular decision. We’ve all got to make the best of this situation, and it could be much worse for you, Patrick. You could be one of those poor chaps without any education, destined for the front lines as part of an infantry unit. But you won’t be, Patrick. You’re smart and confident. You’ll be an officer, and a good one at that.”

Stephen opened his mouth to reply to Conor’s lecture, but Patrick beat him to it.

“I most certainly will not,” Patrick said, tearing the letter into four pieces. “All my life, I’ve tried to be what you expect me to be. The best education, the best acquaintances, the best marriage. Now you want me to throw it all away? Well, I’ll be damned if I ever do that. I’ve worked too hard. But I’ll tell you one thing. I’m through with trying to please you, both of you.” He threw the bits of paper at his grandfather’s desk and turned to leave.

“Let him go,” Conor said as Stephen started after him. The two older McAllisters watched the youngest disappear out the door.

~~~

As Patrick arrived at a tavern to drink himself into a stupor, Mary stood in front of a bathroom mirror in the marble home. She didn’t recognize herself. Her hair was matted and stringy and her puffy eyes had deep circles beneath them. Under the light from the small fixture on the ceiling, the skin stretched across her high cheekbones was ashen, almost cadaverous.

Mary opened the medicine cabinet and removed one of Patrick’s razors. With trembling fingers, she pulled out the thin blade. The straight edge cast a scant shimmer against the mirror. Slowly, holding the razor blade lightly against her skin, she traced the length of the vein running down her wrist. She feared the pain, but reminded herself that it would last only a little while.
Do it
, said a voice inside her head,
do it now
. She pressed a corner of the blade into her wrist at the base of her hand, barely enough to break the skin, and stopped.

A small bead of red appeared at the tiny incision, grew larger, and stretched into a thin ribbon that ran down her arm. Mary dropped the razor blade into the sink and sank to her knees. Her arm rubbed against the porcelain basin as she lowered herself against the pedestal, leaving behind an insignificant stripe of crimson.

There was no escape. She lived in pain and yet could not inflict on herself the hurt that would bring her freedom. Her tears, like the droplets of blood from the wound on her wrist, flowed quickly at first before slowing and stopping altogether.