Disappearances (29 page)

She was too good for him. He wished he’d met her first.

Ahh … no, he was too young.

But … Mark …

“Okay, God, I don’t know for sure if you’ll hear me, but you need to watch that Mark.”

With that, he climbed into bed.

Sadie swiped viciously at the table top. Now what?

Well, she had had enough. Being submissive was one thing, but Mark was simply acting terribly toward her, and enough was enough. He could be so friendly, the life of the evening when Dat and Mam were around. But the minute they left, he continued his dark mood, which had been hanging around for days now, while she scuttled around like a scared rabbit trying to make his life better. This scenario was not working out.

It was going to take courage, but this would have to be dealt with.

Instead of heading for the bathroom and a long, hot shower she hung up the dishcloth, straightened the mug rack, and almost tripped over the rug as premature fears blinded her. Quickly she swiped at them before kneeling beside Mark’s chair, reaching out and taking his magazine away, firmly placing it in the oversized crock with the others.

Mark looked up, surprised.

“Okay. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“You know there is.”

“Just go away. Leave me alone. I don’t want to talk.”

“No, Mark.”

“What?”

“This is not what I bargained for when I married you. There are no instructions for your husband treating you with complete disdain. I think it goes beyond what the minister called a rainy day. It’s more like a monsoon with hurricane-force winds.”

No answer. A log fell in the stove, the sparks pinging against the glass front.

“What did I do wrong now?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why do you hate me?”

The word
hate
got his attention. It was a strong word, one he would never have chosen to describe his feelings toward his wife.

“I don’t hate you.”

What had happened? How had it come to this? That day when Nevaeh lay sick and dying in the snow, the jays screaming in the treetops, hadn’t her knees gone weak with … what? His perfect mouth, that cat-like grace with which he jumped down from the cattle truck. Could she ever remember that feeling? Here was this same person, the perfect mouth in a pout of self-pity, slumped dejectedly in his lair, that same recliner he always slouched in when he was in a bad mood.

Was love meant to be this way? Was it truly all her fault? She knew firsthand what it felt like to be heartsick. She was shaken when Mark sat up quite suddenly, slapped down the footrest of the recliner, grabbed the armrests but stayed seated. His face changed color as he spoke. Why did she remember the color of his anger when the words pelted painfully in a hailstorm of hurt?

“It’s all about you, Sadie! You and Paris. You and Tim. You and Anna. That’s all you care about. I mean tomato soup one evening, Cheerios the next. You don’t care how my day went, you don’t even ask. Tonight, when you talked to Tim, you were happier than you’ve been with me in weeks! You don’t care that I come home from work with my back aching from shoeing horses, you’re too worried about Paris or Anna or Tim. You don’t love me; you never did.”

Somehow Sadie could picture her spirit being hit by a flying object, blown off course, righting itself, and continuing.

“Mark, that is simply not true. How am I supposed to smile and talk animatedly at length with a person who is always blind to anything or anyone other than himself? You walk around the house like an angry wolf, and in plain words, I’m scared of you. All right, I confess. I have spent too much time with Paris, and I do worry about Anna. But … ”

Suddenly she burst out. “How in the world would you ever cope if we had a baby? Babies take much more time than Paris ever did.”

“Maybe that’s why we don’t have one. You don’t want a baby as long as you have Paris.”

Sadie’s mouth literally fell open in disbelief.

“Mark! Are you … jealous of Paris?”

There was no answer as he wrestled visibly with his pride. Sadie sat back, watched Mark’s face. When he lowered it into his hands, she held her breath. Muffled now, his words came from beneath his fingers.

“Sadie, I’m jealous of everything and everybody around you.”

His words tumbled over each other then, dark muddy waters that crashed around rocks, assaulting her ears. Pain of his past. A mother who chose to leave with a stranger rather than care for her children. Always, he searched for her love. If he found a tiny morsel, it evaporated the minute she left him alone with five hungry siblings, the responsibility a life-sucking parasite he could never get rid of.

Now, if he loved Sadie and she did not return it, the only thing that kept the monster of failure at bay was his anger. Anger slashed through failure and disappointment. It made people do what you wanted them to. If he got no respect or attention, if Sadie didn’t act the way he thought she should, anger brought her around. It made her submit. So he lifted his dagger of anger and everyone straightened up, including himself. He didn’t have to be afraid of responsibility. Of feeling unloved.

Through his volley of words, Sadie shook her head repeatedly, completely incredulous. How could she explain? She understood, then, a vital part of living with Mark. He did not have the solid foundation of two parents’ love for a child. Instead he’d been left alone in a cold, filthy house with his needy, hungry brothers and sisters, watching his mother leave, succumbing to the terror of responsibility and never being enough. Having to put cherry Jell-o in Tim’s bottle instead of good, wholesome milk that a loving mother warmed in a saucepan.

When Sadie talked and cared for others around her, he felt left out and wrestled with falling down a deep dark hole of discrepancy. The Cheerios. Cherry Jell-o. How could she be so blind to his unending sense of loss and inadequacy?

But he had been okay with it. Said he wasn’t hungry. He had even smiled. She had offered a grilled cheese sandwich. He waved her away, and she was glad, ran to the barn, grateful. But … inside, he was churning with resentment. It was her turn then.

She apologized for any wrong she had done, but warned him that using anger as a means of controlling her would not work. Yes, she was afraid of his pouting, more than she could ever explain. And, yes, it made her submit to him, but more out of fear than anything else, which in the end brought loathing.

“You know, Mark, when you lie in that recliner and pout, what I really want to do is hit you over the head with a broom and seriously knock some sense into you. But I have to realize, you’re not normal.”

Mark snorted, asked her what she meant by that remark, and she told him. The fat was in the fire now, she said, and kept right on going. A good hard thunderstorm clears the oppressive heat in summertime, and so a good long talk does the same in a relationship. They ended up at the kitchen table, dipping cold soft pretzels in congealed cheese sauce, making sandwiches of deer bologna, mayonnaise, bread and butter pickles, and onion, drinking the rest of the sweet tea, and talking some more.

They talked longer than they ever had. The clock struck midnight, the moon began its descent down the star-studded night sky, casting rectangles of ghostly light across the rugs on the oak floor, and still they talked.

Mark told her the worst part of his life was trying to overcome it, which clicked in Sadie’s understanding. Excitedly, she told him maybe that was his whole problem. He couldn’t give up. But he
had
to give up and accept his childhood. Stop trying to get away from it.

It had happened, through no fault of his own. Why God chose to single out one small boy to suffer in such a harsh way they could never know. God’s ways weren’t their ways. He could not blame other people now. Yes, they had done wrong. But it was over, in the past, and they were in God’s hands. Not in Mark’s hands. The past was over, as soon as he accepted it.

Tomorrow was Saturday, and they could sleep in. Sadie had a long, hot shower sometime after one o’clock, while Mark put logs on the fire, checked on Paris, and locked the doors.

As Sadie covered herself with the heavy quilts, her whole body ached with fatigue. It had been a long day, scrubbing floors with Erma Keim, having her parents visit, but far above all of it, she had the opportunity of taking a giant leap in the journey of understanding her husband.

When he came to bed, she asked him if he thought Tim would ever fall in love with Anna. When he laughed and said Tim had already fallen so hard he’d never get over it, Mark took Sadie in his arms and told her he knew the first time he saw her he couldn’t live without her. It was like God’s hand came down and used an enormous eraser, obliterating every hurt that had ever been between them. The beauty of a relationship was not in the outward show, but in transforming the dark valleys to new heights of joy and love, brought about by the ability to forgive.

T
HEY DROVE TRUMAN TO
Sadie’s parents’ house after a late breakfast, their necks craning to find the secret enclosure containing the horses. At one point Sadie thought she saw a pair of tracks but couldn’t be sure.

They unhitched the horse, and Sadie slipped and slid along the walkway to the house, scolding Dat for his lack of work shoveling the sidewalk. She could have fallen. Wasn’t he ever going to improve? He laughed as Mam welcomed her warmly, reminding her what a treat this was, being with her last evening, and here she was again!

“Can I go along to see the horses?”

“Guess you can ask Dat. Or Mark.”

As it was, they all piled into the buggy to drive to the location. Reuben was acting as if he was the town hero until Anna told him to get down off his high horse. He was acting like a banty rooster.

There was no doubt about it—Reuben was on to something. When they followed him down the side of the ridge, over the creek, and up the adjacent hill, Sadie’s heart was pounding more from excitement than the strenuous climb.

She watched Anna’s face, afraid she would not be able to make it in her weakened condition. But there was a healthy flush in her face, her eyes were bright with excitement, and her gloved hand slid guiltily out of Tim’s when Sadie turned to look at her.

And then she saw them. It was a concentration camp for horses. It was a scene of deprivation, heartlessness, and just plain cruelty. The horses stood in their long shaggy coats, pitiful sentries of death, calmly awaiting its arrival. Some of them milled about, snuffling the snow, lipping it as if it were nutritious.

They made their way down slowly. A cloud of disbelief led them over the fallen logs and debris. How long had these horses been here? How many horses had come and gone since this lean-to had been erected?

No one spoke at first as they absorbed the sadness. It was the same as when Nevaeh was sick. What broke Sadie’s heart entirely was the calm acceptance of these animals, the way they patiently endured the hardships men inflicted on them. They existed in this squalor and neglect, living in the only way they knew how, to be obedient, grateful for the few bales of hay thrown to them on an irregular basis.

Dat spoke then. “It’s enough to make you sick.”

Reuben was talking, talking, but the words faded for Sadie. She saw the rib cages, the jutting hipbones, the poor bleeding feet, and then knew she was going to fall into the snow in a completely uncharacteristic faint.

The cold of the snow was a rude awakening. Mark bent over her, calling her name. Dat assured him it was all right, she’d come to. He could believe this was too much for Sadie, the way she loved horses and all.

Tim leaned on the heavy steel gate, extended a hand, but the horses kept their distance, the whites of their eyes showing their fear.

Anna yelped, pointed with a shaking, gloved finger. “There … beside the fence,” she said softly.

They all turned to look and saw the gory sight of a freshly ravaged carcass, the bones protruding from the mass of unchewed flesh where the carnivores had eaten their fill, leaving the remains for a later snack.

Nausea overtook Sadie, and she stepped aside to deposit her breakfast neatly into the snow. A hand patted her back, and Anna said dryly, “I stopped doing that. Don’t you start now.”

Sadie wiped her mouth, then smiled. “I wasn’t planning on following your example.”

Mark was very attentive, searching her eyes, asking her if she was sure she could walk back to the buggy. She assured him everything was fine, but for the remainder of their stay she sat on a bale of hay and refused to look at the horses.

Anna sat beside her. “I quit
cutsing
(throwing up).”

“Really?”

“Yep, I’m eating, too. I ate a whole entire slice of bacon.”

“One whole slice?”

“Yep. And one slice of whole-wheat toast.”

“When did you decide to change?”

“I didn’t. Tim made me. He said if I don’t quit doing this, he was going to go back to New York.”

“You don’t want him to?”

“No.”

Sadie closed her eyes as another fresh wave of nausea approached her senses. She just wanted to leave. Get away from this sadness, these poor creatures. It was more than she had bargained for. She should never have come.