Sister of Silence (23 page)

“I just finished fixing a piece of equipment they need on midnight shift tonight. I’ll be there shortly. It won’t matter if we’re late, will it? You didn’t have anything special planned, did you?”

“No, but I would like to eat before too much longer. I’m starved already.” I glanced at my watch, which read 5:30 p.m. That meant he wouldn’t get home until after 6 p.m. I wasn’t paying any attention to what he was saying, but I could tell by his tone of voice he wasn’t worried.

“That’s all right, Eddie. I’ll just grab a snack until you get here. But please hurry.”

“Okay, see you soon.”

I turned to the kids as they tore through the house. “Hey now, you four, don’t think you’re going to turn this place upside down just because your father and I are going out, because you’re not. I already wrote Pam a note telling her you have to clean up any messes you make before you watch television.”

I went into the bathroom and began putting on my make-up. When the doorbell rang twenty minutes later, I yelled for the kids to get the door. “Tell Pam I’m in the bathroom, please.”

I heard the sound of jumping. “Pam-my! Pam-my! You’re our favorite babysitter,” they chanted.

I stepped out of the bathroom long enough to see them fighting over which one would get the privilege of sitting on Pam’s lap. “I left you a note on the table, and there’s some leftovers in the oven, in case you haven’t eaten. Why don’t you go ahead and look over the note, in case you have any questions.”

“All right kids, let’s go read your mom’s note.”

I finished brushing my hair and went into the kitchen for a snack, to keep my growling stomach from protesting any louder.

I was still there when the front door opened and the kids ran to greet their father, whom they dragged into the kitchen. Eddie had returned
working at the mines a few months earlier, and came walking in carrying his metal miner’s pail, amid the cries of “Daddy, Daddy!” He hugged each child and then looked at me. The whites of his eyes looked bright against his coal-blackened face. His clothes were black, too, and I had given up asking him to hold off hugging the kids when he first came home. They always ended up with coal soot on them, but I had long ago realized it wouldn’t kill them. I figured that’s what the bathtub was for.

“My, don’t you look nice?” Eddie said, noticing the pale blue blouse and new jeans I was wearing.

I smiled, happy that he noticed I had dressed for the occasion.

“Thank you. Now if you expect us to get to town before the stores close, you better get on the ball
,” I teased him.

He saluted and the kids squealed with laughter, while I gritted my teeth. He knew I hated that, and he only did it to irritate me. “Yes, Maam!”

After Eddie showered and changed into clean clothes, the kids ambushed us at the door when we tried to leave a short while later. They all wanted kisses and hugs, and each one had a special, last minute request. When we finally made it into the car all alone, the quiet that surrounded us was practically deafening.

“So, where to tonight, kid?” Eddie asked, evidently letting me choose our destination.

“I hadn’t really thought about it, but pizza sounds good. What about you?”

“Can’t go wrong there. What then?”

“I haven’t gotten any farther than that in the planning stage. Don’t you have any ideas you’d care to contribute this evening?” I asked. I wondered if he would have even remembered we were going out on a date, without my reminder that morning.

“Well, I know one thing we could do that might be fun.” A sideways glance told me just what he meant.

I turned my head so he wouldn’t see me grimace, wondering if sex was all he ever thought about.

“They’re having a live radio show at the mall. Why don’t we go there?” Eddie suggested.

“Okay, but let’s eat first,” I said.

“Sure. You name the place.”

“I think the pizza parlor over on Fifth Street has the best crust. Let’s go there.”

I was mildly surprised when Eddie asked about my day while we ate our dinner. Usually he never asked, but he seemed to be following Trudy’s suggestion that he show more interest in my daily routine.

I told him I was working on a story about the statewide teacher’s strike for the next edition. By the time I started working on the story, teachers in forty-six of fifty-five counties were on strike. Teachers were fleeing the state to find work elsewhere, and local educators were predicting a “mass exodus” if things didn’t change. They believed the state government was immune to their plight and that of their students, allowing them to subsist on substandard conditions both in the classroom, and in their weekly paychecks.

That very morning I had crossed a picket line to interview teachers at the school our children attended. I found myself facing a battle line—one that included teachers with seniority who refused to cross, and some newer teachers fearful of losing their jobs if they didn’t go back to their classrooms and their students.

Eddie knew about some of this, because I had mentioned a couple of things in passing earlier in the week, but as I talked, he didn’t seem to remember anything I had said. I shrugged it off and tried to ignore his seeming indifference. By the time I finished, though, I knew he had only inquired about my day because Trudy assigned him to do so. Nor did Eddie tell me about his day, shrugging it off as “just another day in the pit.”

Later, as we stood on the sidelines of the music show, I asked Eddie if he wanted to dance. “No, you know I can’t dance. Especially not in front of all these people
.” He looked at me like I was crazy.

“You do so know how to dance, you just don’t want to. If you tried it, you might like it,” I pressed, giving him my best smile.

He shook his head. “Nah, I don’t think so. I’ll just watch—if it’s all the same to you.”

I gave up trying, and a few minutes later his expression told me just whom he was interested in watching: the voluptuous blonde across the room. It wasn’t that he looked at other women that bothered me—it was the way he looked at them, as if he’d like to devour them, or like he was trying to figure out what their measurements were. I turned away in disgust, walking over for some refreshments.

While waiting for my drink, I casually glanced around the room. Many of the men were inspecting the blonde as intently as Eddie. They were openly gawking at her as she gyrated on the dance floor. Some men were more discreet than others, but they were just as interested in watching her as the men who weren’t trying to hide their leering looks.

Standing there, I began looking at the women with those men. Some of them were average looking, but many of them were very attractive. Some of the women even wore an expression of forced happiness, as they pretended their husband or boyfriend wasn’t favoring the beautiful blonde. I gave myself a mental shake, trying to comprehend it all. I had seen it in high school, when the jocks dated the prettiest and most popular girls, but then (behind their girlfriends’ backs, of course) continued showing interest and even flirting with any other girl who showed them attention.

This was a long way from high school, though, and some of the couples I saw were much older than me, and even older than Eddie. All around that room, I sensed a resigned sadness behind the women’s fake smiles, as if they were used to being treated disrespectfully, and they had just decided to live with it. I wondered how long it would take for me to wear that same look of resignation.

I think I’d die first
.
I’ll never get used to such inconsideration and rudeness.

Drinks in hand, I went back to Eddie, noticing the way he tried to tear his gaze away from the blond before I noticed.

“You’re too late.” I sipped my soda calmly.

“What do you mean?” His stare was blank.

“Too late to keep me from seeing you stare at her,” I said, grinning wryly.

To his credit, Eddie pulled off a realistic puzzled look. “Her? Who on earth do you mean?”

I nodded towards the blonde bombshell on the dance floor.

“Why on earth would I be watching her?” He sounded flabbergasted.

“Oh I don’t know, Eddie. Why do you stare at any woman who comes within a fifty-foot radius?” I smiled politely, hoping it looked like we were having a pleasant conversation.

“Look, I don’t know why you’re upset, but I wasn’t staring at her.”

“All right, I guess it was probably the male DJ who caught your interest, right?” I heard the sarcasm in my voice, a clear indication we were on our way to a fight, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself.

“Well, I can tell another evening is spoiled. Come on, let’s go.”

He took off toward the exit, and I had to fight back the urge not to run after him and apologize for spoiling things, for overreacting, for everything.

It’s not your fault. He caused this. If he wants to leave then, fine, let him leave. You certainly don’t get to enjoy yourself, having to police him whenever he’s around other women.
The voice in my head was persistent, to say the least. And I listened.

I forced myself not to run to keep up with him. We rode for the first fifteen minutes in total silence, until I tried to ease the tension. “You know you’ve always had a problem in that area, Eddie. I don’t know why you just don’t admit it and then work on it. Instead, you try to deny everything and accuse me of being paranoid.”

“Oh, so now we’re back to that! I wondered how long it would take.” As his anger increased, so did the car’s speed.

“Do you mind to slow down some, please, so we can get home in one piece?” The speedometer still didn’t slacken though, and I knew he wasn’t listening. We made it home safely, but I felt a sense of loss because the evening had turned out badly, and we weren’t going to have any progress to report to Trudy. I wondered if it was any use to continue going to her.

We kept on trying, though, twice a month. Sometimes our sessions seemed beneficial, as if Eddie and I were both trying very hard to make our marriage work, but at other times I felt I was the only person putting forth any effort. That usually happened after Eddie began talking about something that had happened in the mines, which then dominated most of our session. I felt like the time we should be using to iron out our marital problems was being shortchanged. So I never mentioned it to Eddie, knowing that it would be therapy suicide if I did. That would be all it would take for him to stop going completely, and I didn’t want him to blame me for that, too.

Nor did I need to speak up, because Trudy did it for me, gently suggesting we try to focus on relationship topics during our sessions. And for a while, we seemed to gain ground. But for every inch of progress we made, we seemed to slide backwards two inches. We eventually got into the habit of having lunch together after our appointment, before Eddie had to leave for work, which allowed us to continue our session privately. Those lunch dates became something I looked forward to, knowing it was one of the few times we usually didn’t argue. Because we had just paid for an hour’s worth of therapy, and an argument immediately afterward would have seemed like a waste of money, we usually managed to get along.

About the same time Trudy entered our lives, a Valentine’s Day mystery occurred, when a local man simply vanished into thin air. It was the first of four disappearances—and what would ultimately culminate in 10 murders—to occur in our sleepy little county during an 18-month period. The crime rate soared, making more work for the police and media alike. At the same time Robert Barlow disappeared, another local man from a neighboring county was shot a few hundred feet from where we lived on Swan Street in Newburg.

By then, I had been on the job two years, and local cops would offer me stories and news tips willingly. They would even give me a scoop, providing details about ongoing investigations in return for holding a story until it wouldn’t compromise their investigation. I had learned that ours was a mutual relationship—we needed each other—so I was willing to work with them, because it ultimately meant getting a story.

Deputy Charlie Haney investigated the Swan Street shooting. Haney was Joe Stiles’ sidekick and sometimes partner, and the pair had put on a good cop, bad cop display for me not long after I started working as a reporter, which initially left me nervous about talking to them. Before long, I learned they were some of the biggest jokers—and best cops—in the state.

Where Barlow had been murdered, the Newburg shooting wasn’t fatal, and was an accident. Apparently, an overanxious neighbor fired off a round when he heard noises outside, hitting the victim by mistake, wounding him just enough to send him to the hospital. As I listened to Deputy Haney and took notes about what happened, I realized I was becoming less sensitive to the details involving such crimes, which I took as a good sign.

And when I sat down with Joe to get details of the latest news about the Barlow case, I realized I was becoming less afraid of Eddie. I wasn’t sure what had happened to cause it, but wondered if my growing rapport with the two deputies had anything to do with it. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I think I knew all I had to do was pick up the phone and call them for help, and they would take care of Eddie in a heartbeat. They wouldn’t stand around and let any man beat on his wife. Besides, I knew they liked me, they respected me, and they knew I was a woman—not a doormat.