He said nothing, but bent and picked up the baby. Rory tugged at the scraggly beard Sir had grown during the last months.
It killed her, every time he touched the baby. She had a knot of terror and despair tight in her belly. But she made herself smile as she rose.
“I’ll share breakfast with him. He likes eggs.”
“It’s your job to give him mother’s milk.”
“Oh, yes, and I do, but he likes solid food, too. Just little bits. He’s got five teeth and another coming in. Sir? I’m remembering what my own mother said about fresh air, and how you need it to stay healthy, grow strong. If we could go outside, get that fresh air, even for a few minutes.”
His face as he held the baby turned to stone. “What’d I tell you about that?”
“Yes, Sir. I’m just trying to be a good mother to … our son. The fresh air’s good for him, and for my milk.”
“You eat that food. He’s got more teeth coming in, I’ll get him something to gnaw on. Do as I say, Esther, or I’ll have to remind you of your place.”
She ate, said nothing more, told herself to wait a week. A full week before she asked again.
But in three days, after she’d eaten the evening meal, nursed the baby, he came down the steps again.
And stunned her by showing her the key to her leg shackle.
“You heed what I say now. I’m going to take you out the house, ten minutes, and not a second more.”
She quivered as that rusty knife of hope slashed jagged through her heart.
“You try yelling, I’ll break your teeth. You stand up.”
Docile, head down so he wouldn’t see that flicker of hope in her eyes, she rose. The hope died when he looped a rope around her neck.
“Please, don’t. The baby.”
“You shut your mouth. You try to run, I’ll snap your neck. You do just as I say, and it may be I’ll let you go out for that fresh air once a week. You don’t obey me, I’ll beat you bloody.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Her heart shook in her chest when he fit the key into the lock and, for the first time in four years, the weight of the irons dropped from her ankle.
She made a soft, throaty sound, an animal in pain as she saw the raw, red, circling scar above her foot.
His eyes were bright black moons. “I’m giving you a gift, Esther. Don’t make me sorry for it.”
When he shoved her forward, she took her first step without the shackle, then another, her gait uneven, a kind of shambling limp.
She held Rory close, struggled her way up the stairs.
Run? she thought as her shaking heart grew heavy. She could barely walk.
He tugged the noose tight at the top of the stairs. “You heed me, Esther.”
He opened the door.
She saw a kitchen with a yellowing floor, a wall-hung cast-iron sink with dishes stacked in a drainer beside it. A refrigerator no taller than she was, and a two-burner stove.
It smelled of grease.
But there was a window over the sink, and through it she saw the last dying lights of the day. The world. She saw the world.
Trees. Sky.
She tried to pay attention, take a picture with her mind. The old couch, a single table and lamp, a TV like she’d seen in photographs—a kind of box with … rabbit ears, she remembered.
Wood floor, empty walls, log walls, and a small, empty fireplace made out of mismatched brick.
He nudged her toward the door.
So many locks, she thought. Why would he need so many locks?
He opened them, one by one.
Everything—her plans, her hopes, her pain, her fear—fell away as she stepped outside on the short, sagging porch.
The light, oh, the light. Just the hint of the setting sun sliding behind the mountains. Just a hint of red against the peaks.
The smell of pine and earth, the feel of air moving over her face. Warm, summer air.
Trees surrounded her with a scraped-up patch of ground where vegetables grew. She saw the old truck—the same one she’d so foolishly climbed into—an old washing machine, a tiller, a locked cattle gate with barbed wire forming a toothy fence around what she could see of the cabin.
She started to step off the porch, lost in wonder, but Sir yanked her back.
“This is far enough. Air here’s just like out there.”
She lifted her face as tears of stunned joy rolled down her cheeks. “Oh, the stars are coming out. Look, Rory, look, my baby. Look at the stars.”
She tried to tip the baby’s head up with her finger, but he only grabbed on to it, tried to gnaw.
It made her laugh, kiss the top of his head.
“Listen, listen. Do you hear the owl? Do you hear the breeze going through the trees? Isn’t it beautiful? It’s all so beautiful.”
As he babbled and gnawed, Alice tried to see everything at once, absorb everything.
“That’s enough. Go back in.”
“Oh, but—”
The rope dug into her throat. “I said ten minutes, no more.”
Once a week, she remembered. He’d said once a week, too. She went inside without a sound, and this time saw the shotgun on a rack over the empty fireplace.
Was it loaded?
One day, please God, one day she’d try to find out.
She limped back down the steps, amazed the ten minutes had both exhilarated and exhausted her.
“Thank you, Sir.” She didn’t think—couldn’t think—of what it meant that the humble words didn’t burn her throat as they once had. “Rory’s going to sleep better tonight for getting that fresh air. Look there, his eyes are drooping already.”
“Put him in his bed.”
“I should feed and change him first.”
“Put him in his bed. He wakes up, then you do that.”
She settled him down. He barely fussed at all, and quieted when she rubbed gentle circles on his back. “See that? See how good that was for him?”
Once again, she kept her head down. “Did I do everything you told me?”
“You did.”
“Can we really go outside once a week?”
“We’ll see about it, if you keep doing as I say. If you show me you’re thankful for what I give you.”
“I will.”
“Show me you’re thankful now.”
Keeping her head lowered, she closed her eyes tight.
“You’ve had more’n enough time to heal up after birthing the boy. And he’s eating solids so he don’t need your milk the same as he did. It’s time you do your wifely duties.”
Saying nothing she walked to the cot, pulled the baggy dress over her head, lay down.
“You’ve gone to sagging here and there,” he said as he stripped. Leaning over, he pinched her breasts, her belly. “I can tolerate such things.” He climbed on top of her.
He smelled of cheap soap and kitchen grease, and his eyes held that wicked, burning light she knew too well.
“I can do my duty. You feel my staff, Esther?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“You say: ‘I want my husband to use his staff to take mastery over me.’ You say it!”
She didn’t weep. What did words matter?
“I want my husband to use his staff to take mastery over me.”
He rammed into her. Oh, it hurt, it hurt.
“Say: ‘Take what you will of me, for I am your wife and your servant.’”