DEATH OF A MAYFLY - Chapter 6

Warning: This chapter contains triggers for sexual assault. If you would like to read a gentler version of Chapter 6 without the triggers, you can do so here.

If that was it, I would have happily spent the rest of my life as just a destitute single mother of a bastard child, a lot easier than the way things actually turned out. If I’d had enough chutzpah I might’ve run away, caught the train out of Havre and headed east to a city where people didn’t know or care about me. But like an idiot I stayed, either because I was too afraid or loved my mom too much to leave her behind. I did think about it, with enough money saved up in my sock drawer for a one-way ticket in coach, not to a tropical island somewhere, but a place where at least I didn’t exist.

But I did exist. I existed in isolation and on display. I had no one to talk to, as Mom came up to sit on my bed less and less under Daddy’s watchful eye. And every night before I went to sleep I’d looked down into the alley to see him standing there under the light, crushing cigarettes under the toe of his boot. He never missed, never skipped, waiting to see me up in the window in every kind of weather. I watched him shiver against the pole, his gloveless hands red and raw. And if the wind picked up he’d pull his collar high around his face and just wait. Minutes. Hours. Didn’t he have family? Didn’t he have anywhere else to be? I didn’t feel sorry for him; quite the opposite. But now that I wasn’t completely terrified by his presence, I was annoyed.

I tried shutting the blinds and ignoring him. But when the snow was deep enough to dampen all the sounds, I could hear him out there coughing, stomping his feet to stay warm. Go home, you idiot. It’s freezing. But I didn’t allow for any sympathy. Sympathy was something you earned. I didn’t owe him anything.

Once or twice I peeked between the blinds, thinking he’d gone home. But he never gave up. His hand shot up in a quick wave, and I saw his lips move, whispering something. He’d stand up straighter, shaking off the cold, encouraged to wait it out a little while longer. Why, I didn’t know. But he smiled, and as I hid low against the window it didn’t fade like it should, frozen to his chilly face. So strange.

I never knew when he went home each night, but it was hard to sleep knowing he was so close. I wrapped the old quilt tight around my chin, rocking back and forth against the headboard to shut out the sounds of his boots in the snow.

December 10

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I’d spent most of the last few weeks in a dull pattern of sleeping and waking for a couple hours at a time, reaching for smuggled goods under the mattress—a book, a magazine, something sweet—and pretending this could all blow over. I even forgot about the baby once in a while and things felt survivable; denial is funny that way.

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As I waited for the plate of cold liver and onions to come sliding under my door, I drew 88 miniature piano keys on the back of a postcard with a picture of Tunisia on the front. I stared at the keys, remembering the signature, pressing my fingertips into my belly, Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. I shut my eyes and played each note clear and beautiful in my mind as I nodded to the time: left hand octaves, right hand triplet, triplet, triplet, triplet. I had my father’s hands, and an octave plus two, or three, or four, I could do it with no problem. He called them “man-hands” and “lobster claws,” but at the piano a good stretch meant everything. Triplet, triplet, triplet, triplet, an easy ninth and back to the melody. Almost nothing could pull me away from the piano, real or imagined, and being shut in my bedroom for so long allowed my mind to slip and wander as long as I liked. I hadn’t written in months, but this quiet escape gave me just enough freedom to survive the long hours alone.

I’d nearly finished the first movement when I heard a quiet knock at the front door, pausing my fingers to listen. Daddy answered, his voice low, and I could hear him talking to a man on the porch, probably one of his friends from the VFW. I lay back on the pillow, listening to the cadence of their voices, peppered with questions, and wondered why it took so long for Daddy to invite him in. The long pauses made me feel uneasy, but then they’d pick back up and I could hear Daddy laughing now as the man’s voice entered our front room. Daddy asked a question, and without a beat the man answered, confident and talkative. Then another question, and another. A missionary maybe—Daddy did love a good Mormon challenge. Mom’s cooking wafted up the stairs and I hoped whoever it was would go away so I could eat, the only thing I really looked forward to these days.

Finally the front door closed, followed by silence, and I knew whoever it was had left. I heard footsteps coming upstairs, but it wasn’t Mom bringing me dinner. The old house moaned under Daddy’s weight as he heaved himself up the steps, pausing every few seconds to catch his breath. He pushed the door open and stood silhouetted against the hallway light.

“Get dressed,” he sniffed, “you’re coming downstairs.” I stared at him—I hadn’t gone downstairs in almost a month. “Now.” He slammed the door. I ripped off my pajamas before I hit the floor, swapping them for a large green turtleneck and a pair of leggings, one of a handful of things that still fit. I yanked a comb through my several days’ worth of unbrushed hair, pulling it back into a ponytail and splashing cold water on my face from the wash-bucket. Outside my room I could smell hot food, fresh and plated. Nothing I’d eaten over the past few weeks had had any smell at all, and was usually stale and cold by the time Mom or Daddy slipped it under the door. But tonight I’d eat with them at the table.

I jumped down the stairs, taking two at a time, and hurried around the corner into the dining room. I stopped. The guest hadn’t left, and was sitting next to Daddy at the table with Mom seated at the other end. An empty chair sat directly across from him: mine.

“Come sit down, please.” Daddy emphasized the word like he said it all the time. I stood frozen, my feet planted to the floor. “Don’t be rude,” he said, “we have a guest.” He tilted his head toward the stranger with a twitch that meant I’d do it, and I inched over to the table and sat down, staring hard at the silverware next to my plate. Because it was him, him-him—from the Garage, the church, the alley, from around every corner—sitting across from me preparing to eat my mother’s cooking, and I had no idea why.

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“Where are your manners?” Daddy hissed. “Say hello.”

“Hello,” I whispered, eyes glued to the butter knife.

“Hi there.” His voice sounded fake, a different octave than I’d ever heard. I looked up for a split second to see Daddy, delighted, bowing low in prayer and giving thanks for the “many things with which we are blessed.” In that moment I could think of none, feeling like I might throw up. I didn’t want hot, fresh food anymore; I wanted to hurl my plate at his head and go back to my room.

“This is Otis,” Daddy said, passing the dishes of food around the table like we ate like this all the time. “He works at Mitty’s and has been coming to church with us, asking lots of good questions.”

“Yes, sir,” Otis said, in his best Beaver Cleaver. His name was Otis; I’d never known. “God is making me a better man one day at a time, and ‘I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me,’” he quoted, shutting his eyes for a moment of quiet reflection. He looked exactly like the first time I’d seen him in the back row, slicked hair, starched shirt, his hands almost clean except for the grease under his fingernails. If I hadn’t known any better I’d have thought him handsome. But staring at him this close across the table I saw the age around his eyes, little lines that deepened when he smiled.

Daddy looked immensely pleased. “That’s right, son, that’s right.”

“And whom do I have the pleasure?” Otis reached across the table and I leaned back, hands clasped tightly in my lap.

“This is Fe,” Daddy twitched again, kicking me under the table.

“Phoebe,” I whispered.

“Nice to meet you, Phoebe,” he grinned again, his crooked teeth stained with tobacco. “Your father tells me you play the piano.”

Yes, you sick pervert. You’ve watched me, in the church where you raped me. I just nodded.

“I hope you’ll play for me sometime. I can’t play the piano myself, but I do so love singing the hymns.” He was really good at this.

Daddy eagerly chatted up the new stranger, laughing at his jokes and putting on the act of the loveable patriarch. And Otis fooled Daddy, too—the kind stranger, eager to hear more about God and our family. Lots of “oh yes,” and “absolutely, sir, I couldn’t agree more.” He had rapid-fire ready-to-go verses, vague and applicable to almost anything Daddy asked, a worn pocket Bible on the table in front of him that he never opened. Mom watched the two men, trying to catch on and giving me quizzical side-glances, my face expressionless and thus giving everything away. She knew Daddy could put on a good show when we had guests at the house, and generally she liked having people over because he acted so normal, friendly and engaging. But something felt off.

At some point I excused myself to go to the bathroom and I saw Daddy’s eye flicker sideways. Otis shifted in his chair.

I spent as long as I could behind the locked door, washing my hands and splashing more cold water on my face, willing him to just go home. But from behind the door I heard him clear his throat and knew he was waiting for me. With a long breath into the towel, I did my best to pray away the panic that crept up my chest like spiders, and opened door.

“Uh, hi.” It surprised me how nervous he looked. “I need to talk to you.”

“No.” I tried to brush past him but he caught my shoulder, pulling me back. He squinted apologetically, carefully patting the corner of my shirt. “Sorry. I just - it’s really important. I know you’re mad at me.”

Mad? He really was an idiot.

“Look, I just want to make things right. I know - I know you’re in trouble. And I can help, I think. I mean, I know I can. I can make it right if you let me.” The puppy again.

I stared at him, God-knows-what expression on my face, and grit my teeth. “I just want you to leave me alone.”

The flicker again, that change in the light of his eyes.

“I can’t do that.”

“You have to,” and with a pulse of bravery I pushed him to the side. “My dinner is getting cold.”

Back at table the two men talked about work, the future of the railroad in the Hi-Line, and shared a few tasteful, un-funny jokes, guffawing and slapping each other on the back like old friends. Daddy played the role of the preacher, Otis the devout young parishioner, eager to find a mentor and grow in his faith. Daddy offered Otis a drink, who accepted “by all means,” and they launched into a conversation about football, playoff picks or something about standings, while Mom and I cleared the table.

“Well, goodnight,” I said, anxious to go back upstairs and sit in my wash bucket, scrubbing off everything I’d just witnessed with a Brillo pad. Otis nodded, side-eyeing Daddy over the top of his drink. I started to go upstairs and heard Daddy’s heavy breathing behind me, slowly following one step at a time; this wasn’t over. Maybe if I got into bed and turned off the light he’d go back downstairs, but he stood there leaning on the doorway, his red face expressionless as he tried to catch his breath.

“Stand up,” he gasped. I stood. “He’s here to take you.” Take me? Take me where? Daddy stared at me coldly. “He has a job. He has a place to live. He goes to church. And he knows your...situation.” He seemed to have trouble getting out the last word, and it took me a minute to realize what he was saying.

“Daddy, I can’t...” I choked, my throat suddenly very dry. He walked slowly into my bedroom, cornering me between the bed and the wall. “I don’t know him.” He lifted his hand and I winced, but he hovered there, waiting for me to continue. “I’m not old enough. I don’t want to go, please.” I was begging now, my hands clasped in front of my face. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than leaving with the very person who’d attacked me and left me bleeding on the floor, and given the opportunity I know would do it again.

“I don’t care what you want,” Daddy sneered. “You were old enough to screw around, old enough to make a bastard. And the State of Montana says you’re old enough to get married.” He turned and opened my closet, pulling the only clothes I had left off their hangers and throwing them onto the bed. “Pack up, you’re leaving tonight.”

“Tonight? Daddy, please.” This time he did slap me, shoving me back onto the bed. Then he stared at me for a minute, a queer look on his sweaty face.

“Tonight.” He turned to go back downstairs. I couldn’t hear anything as I pulled socks and underwear from the bureau, grabbed my toothbrush and a comb, and stuffed everything into my pillowcase. Then reaching under the mattress I slid out the stack of postcards, blurry and colorful as I wiped my eyes on the backs of my sleeves. They’d been just out of reach for so long, real places that I could see and touch if I tried hard enough. But not anymore, now just fairy tales and infinitely farther away than I could ever imagine. With a last look I slipped the cards back under the mattress. I had nothing else to bring, and I knew they were all waiting for me downstairs. Underneath my feet the floorboards creaked one last time, the mourning doves cooing in the cottonwoods outside my window. I looked around at the bare room that had been both my prison and my solace.

“Goodbye,” I whispered to the walls, the peeling paper on the ceiling, my old friends. I grabbed the pillowcase and shut the door.

Daddy married us right there in the living room, two half-drunk glasses of gin leaving rings on the table next to his easy chair. I looked at Otis only once and saw the power behind his eyes, like a wild animal ready to spring. He looked so happy, or at least pretended to be, vowing emphatically to love me “for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.” I whispered mine, staring past his left ear at my mom, so solemn next to the fireplace. She tried to smile, to encourage me, but there was no hiding the pain.

“I can’t do this,” I mouthed, leaning into Otis’ shoulder so he wouldn’t see. He mistook it for affection, putting a hand on my hip and smelling my hair.

“We’ll be fine,” Mom mouthed back, but neither of us believed it. I shut my eyes, thinking I might be sick, and from far away I heard Daddy say, “You may kiss your bride.” And for the first time since being raped on the floor of the First Baptist Church, Otis kissed me hard on the lips, forcing his tongue into my mouth past gritted teeth. He pulled away, grinning, he and Daddy shaking hands and pouring another drink. Daddy looked thrilled—the “bastard” and I were no longer his problem--and he quickly grabbed my coat and began pushing me toward the door.

“Daddy, please. Wait.” With a dramatic sigh he let go, indicating that I could say good-bye to my mother. And for one quick moment nothing else mattered, and I’d never loved her more. I hugged her with all my might, taking in the last smells of her hair and powder, listening to the soft awkward breaths of her trying to hold it together deep in my shoulder.

“She needs to go,” Daddy said, leaning in so Mom would see, and physically trying to separate us with his massive hands. She reached over top, cupping my cheeks and mouthing, “I love you,” her sweet mangled voice as clear as day.

“I love you, too.”

Otis lifted me into his old pickup truck that smelled like cigarettes and stale beer, ever the gentleman while Mom and Daddy watched from the tall front windows. An empty beer can rolled around on the floor mat and I kicked it out of the way as I turned to look at the old brown A-frame one more time, wondering if Mom would be okay without me. Otis hopped into the driver’s seat and the engine roared to life. He reached over top of me to grab his cigarettes from the glove box.

“Well, that was something, huh?” he said, chuckling, lighting the cigarette with one hand and tossing the match out the window. I didn’t answer. How had this happened? Two hours ago I was in my room waiting for a cold dinner, and now I was leaving home forever as someone’s wife. I didn’t look over but felt him lean back into the bench seat, relaxed, as he drove out onto the highway past the gas station and the car dealerships, inching slowly up and over the railroad tracks. He took a right and pulled in front of the depot, puffing on his cigarette with the windows closed.

“You’re not easy to catch,” he said quietly, tapping the ash on the steering wheel. He looked over at me, still silent. “Okay, you don’t have to talk. I can do the talking.” That smirk. He took a long drag and shook his head like he remembered something funny. “I wasn’t going to give up on you, you know. I mean, I know things got complicated”—he looked down at my stomach—“but I would’ve liked you anyway. You didn’t need to play so damn hard-to-get all the time.” He reached over and slid his hand down between my thighs, smiling, but his eyes were cold. Again, the change of the light. I pressed backwards against the door. “Come on, you’re my wife now.” He clicked his tongue like he was calling a dog and pushed his hand farther up between my legs. I reached for the door handle behind my back, but he grabbed me by my hips and slid me across the bench seat, tossing the cigarette down onto the floor. Then he unzipped my coat, reaching his hands up under my shirt and rubbing my stomach and around my breasts, pinching my nipples between his fingers.

“You’re sweating,” he said playfully. “Don’t worry, I don’t mind.” He looked up at me, his hands still cupping my breasts. His eyes didn’t match his words. “And this,” he said, sliding back down to my abdomen, “this is going to make us a family.” He leaned down and I felt his lips brush against my skin, his mustache scratching the still sensitive stretch marks that radiated out from my belly button. He pulled off my coat, then lifted my shirt and bra slowly over my head and sat there staring at me. “Mm-hm,” he shook his head, pausing to take it all in. Me. “I remember this.” I do, too, I thought, shivering against the cold window. He leaned in again and very gently kissed my neck, and I stared out the windshield, focusing on the towering grain elevators that lined the railyard and pretending to be anywhere but here. I wanted to be invisible, untouchable. But he touched me, caressed me, squeezed, pulled, pushed, and grabbed me, doing everything he’d done before, but with permission this time. Not mine, but everyone else’s. Because I was his wife now, his property, a toy for him to play with whenever he wanted. And he played long and hard with me, though not as painfully as the last time. Whatever he’d taken from me before was gone.

I couldn’t see the railroad anymore, gone behind the condensation that blossomed across the windshield, freezing in flowers and stars that spread in every direction. His noises made me sick to my stomach, the way he smelled and bared his teeth like an animal every time he thrust himself deeper into the passenger seat. I could only shut my eyes and disappear, trying hard to remember the first few measures of the sonata.

Triplet, triplet, triplet, triplet.

And then he was done, scooting back over the stick-shift and gasping for air against the driver’s seat, his pale privates flopped to one side. I even thought he was asleep, but after a few seconds he sat up and grabbed my coat, using it to wipe down the windshield and then himself. He jumped out of the truck, his pants still half-down, and lit another cigarette as the steam radiated off his ass into the night. He walked out onto the tracks and balanced along one of the rails like a child, laughing and waving, then crossed over to the other side to piss at the bottom of the bluffs. But I saw nothing through the ice, shaking damply in the freezing truck.

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We drove out of town past the cemetery and the airport, taking a left onto a long dirt road at the end of which sat a dilapidated green trailer with a sagging front porch. “Home sweet home,” he said, whistling. He pulled alongside the house and jumped out, opening my door in a sudden show of chivalry. “M’lady.” I grabbed the pillowcase and my coat and climbed out, stepping carefully onto the rotting porch that groaned under our feet. He gave the porch light a smack, and with a buzz it came to life and I could see hundreds of dead flies inside the upside-down mason jar. He unlocked the front door, reaching in to turn on the lights.

The inside of the trailer smelled exactly like the inside of his truck, and on the table I could see what looked like a month’s worth of newspapers, mail, several empty packs of cigarettes, and behind it a sink full of molding food and unwashed dishes that had likely sat there for weeks. I could see my breath, wishing he hadn’t cleaned himself with my coat as I stood there shivering in the doorway. He sat me down on a threadbare couch and wrapped a green army blanket around my shoulders.

“Stay there,” he said, and in a minute he had a roaring fire in the rusty potbelly stove. He tossed in the newspapers and a handful of mail, then a dry log from a stack next to the couch, and I allowed myself to feel better. Then came a mug of hot black coffee and a bowl of pretzels, and I wondered if he had any other food in the house. The coffee smelled funny, but I said thank you and used it to warm my hands while he did his best to tidy up.

After I minute I stood up, deciding to explore the “back” of the house, really just one room and a small bathroom painted in urine, with a tub so stained with pink mildew and soap scum that I wasn’t sure of the original color. All the faucets in the house dripped in unison, and he hadn’t changed the sheets in probably a year, if not longer. I thought of Mom’s clean house, dishes stacked neatly in the cupboards, silverware sorted in the drawer, her freshly-washed apron always hanging on its hook. I smelled sweat, and body parts, and booze, and rotten food.

I tossed the pillowcase onto the bed, pulling out a few pairs of socks and wondering where everything was supposed to go. He had one small dresser in the corner, a dirty pile of laundry next to it on the floor. I reached in again and found Mom’s Bible and a little leatherbound book and pencil. It smelled like a new pair of shoes; when had she had time to slip it in? I untied the strap and opened it to the first page, filled with her beautiful handwriting, already smudged by the damp.

Dear Phoebe,

I know how hard it is to write when things are difficult. But this is the time when we must keep going. Don’t wait for a better day that may not come. Write it all down, and don’t be afraid to imagine everything you want. Be truthful if for no one other than yourself.

Above all, write like no one will ever read it.

You deserve the moon. I love you deeply. Mom

That night I slept beside Otis for the first time as he snored into his stained pillows. His sheets smelled and I thought about what might be crawling in them, my legs already itching. Above me on the ceiling was a small square door that led to the attic, and I tried not to imagine the vermin and squalor that haunted this place. I lay there shivering for a long time until I finally fell asleep. I wasn’t cold.

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

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Ellie is an author, editor, and owner of Red Pencil Transcripts, and works with filmmakers, podcasts, and journalists all over the world. She lives with her family just outside of New York City.