SEXBAT

SEXUAL BATTERY

A Novella

by

Hal Jones

A heavy spring mist covered the Wennoscott Valley. A small rental car wound slowly along the highway that paralleled the Wennoscott River. The driver, a man in his early thirties, had been fighting the mid-April drizzle since leaving the city that morning. At times it seemed to clear, then socked in again. He knew he was pushing it too hard for the road conditions, but he had only that day. By mid-afternoon, as he entered the most familiar part of the valley, he slowed up, trying to recognize places he had known as a youth, but the mist grayed over the emerging greens of reawakening woodlands and the newly plowed browns of neat New England farms. A wishful tourist visiting his own past, he tried to make out views of the river, glens and farms he remembered, but the persistent haze prevented it.
When he reached Dover, barely a small town, he pulled off the highway and spent almost an hour weaving around streets and lanes he had bicycled over as a child and had not seen since. When he got to the high school, he got out and, in spite of the weather, walked over the basketball courts and the football field which had hardly been changed in fifteen years.
Then he realized he was deliberately delaying the real purpose of his trip, so he drove back through the town to the main road. About three miles west of Dover he found the side road he wanted and a mile later the house.
It looked better than he remembered - more prosperous. The first floor, the original farm house, was still a great pile of fieldstone, but a broad porch had been added. The second floor, which originally had covered only half of the first, now had been extended and finished in broad plank siding. There was a new shake roof. A carved sign by the road said “Manning.” It had not occurred to him to call to see if the people he had known still lived there, but the sign confirmed his assumption that at least this part of his past could not have changed without his consent.
He pulled into the circular gravel drive. The mist had progressed to a heavy, straight-down rain. Prickly nerves coursed his spine as he walked briskly across the soggy grass to the porch and lifted the heavy door knocker. But this was something he had thought about for years. There was no way not to go ahead with it.
Christine Manning was sampling from her stew pot when the knock echoed down the hall. She wrapped and pinned her long, graying hair into a roll as she walked to the door and opened it. The young man with the shaggy mustache said nothing. Her natural smile of greeting faded slightly as she realized who he was, but she forced it back. Thinking of what to say was something else, though. Finally, without addressing the young man, she half turned, turned back awkwardly to take his arm, turned again with him in tow and called, “Matthew, look who’s here. It’s Jerry Digiorno.”
By the time they were in the entrance hall, Matthew Manning was bounding down the stairs, hand out for a hearty handshake which pulled the young man into an embrace.
The three moved into the living room - a handsome, well-furnished room put together from what had been two smaller rooms in Jerry’s time - that took up most of one end of the house. Matthew seemed genuinely delighted by the visit, but Christine was clearly more reserved and soon excused herself to finish preparing dinner.
Jerry apologized for the hour of the visit. He explained that he was on a business trip and used the long drive from the city and the weather as his excuses for arriving so late in the day. He was invited to dinner, and after the usual refusals, he accepted.
At dinner they were joined by the two Manning children, Annie, a high school senior, and Jerry, a lanky fifteen-year-old. Jerry - the visitor - was surprised at the coincidence in name, but Christine was quick to point out that Matthew had insisted on naming the boy after Matthew’s father, whose name had been Jerrod.
Christine noticed that Annie seemed uncomfortable with the visitor. She explained to her that Jerry had worked for them when he was in high school. Annie had played with him when he was a baby. Maybe, Christine said, that explained why he seemed familiar. It did not quite satisfy the girl, though. There was something in the man’s face that seemed almost uncomfortably well-known. Jerry, the son, was much more relaxed and friendly, inquiring about the visitor’s work and whether he played sports. Upon hearing basketball, the boy became very animated describing his own team and questioning enthusiastically about how good local teams had been when the other Jerry was young.
Toward the end of the meal, the visitor sat back and took it all in. The beautiful house, the flowers on the sideboard, the warm, loving parents - still caring for each other after all the years - the handsome, courteous children - the perfect family.
Finally, the teenagers excused themselves to other places, and the adults took coffee and dessert back to the living room. After some small talk about Jerry’s work and about how things had or had not changed locally, Matthew said,
“I always thought you’d come back.”
“Why did you think that?” asked Christine.
“Well, there’s a classic reason for returning to a scene.”
“You aren’t suggesting a crime, are you dear?” she asked, laughing uneasily at this slight crack in the evening’s veneer.

“You aren’t suggesting a crime, are you dear?” The question rang in her head.
She remembered she had been pouring herself a drink, and it was only two in the afternoon. Each day she seemed to start a little earlier. Should she drink or should she just hate her husband? She was coming to hate her whole life.
What she really hated was doctors’ offices and doctors’ tools and especially instruments with little tubes that pushed into places that tubes should not have to go just to put her husband’s sperm where it should have the brains to go anyway. She downed a large slug.
All her life she had worked with farm animals and making babies was almost never a problem. You just had to find a good stud, and if one didn’t work, you found another.
She hated to see breeders using artificial insemination. It offended her, and yet, after twelve years of a marriage with no children and an increasingly desperate husband, that was exactly what was being done to her. All indications were that she was perfectly fertile, but she was the one who had to suffer the indignities. And what was her husband doing? Making love to her? No. He was masturbating into little bottles then leaving her to fish-faced old Doctor Withrow while he left town on a sales trip.
They had tried it all, and still there was no child. And she drank a little earlier each day.
She had downed two and a half highballs when the front door knocker sounded. From the window she could see that it was a boy she had seen before. His bicycle lay on the grass. She opened the door.
“Hi,” the boy said in a forced-peppy voice. “I’m Jerry. I’m your newsboy.”
She was a little blurry.
“I didn’t know you collected,” she said.
“I don’t. Your husband sends his check to the office. The paper’s having this charity.”
He handed her the brochure.
“I’m supposed to ask you if you want to contribute.”
Blankly, she considered the brochure for a moment, then invited him in. While she rummaged her purse for some money, she told him to go to the kitchen. She dropped some bills on the table and asked him if he was hungry. When he didn’t answer, she cut a large wedge of cherry pie she had made and poured him a glass of milk. Why she should do this, she wasn’t clear. She was just so tired of being alone.
He ate silently, surprised at his good fortune. As he downed the pie, he looked up at her with large dark eyes from time to time. She sat and regarded him closely for the first time. He was only about thirteen. His face was clear and still had a childish beauty which should become very handsome in a few years. An unruly mop of shiny black hair covered most of his forehead and hung to his collar.
She asked about his family and remembered his mother. She was a Montgomery from a town up the valley. Christine had gone to school with her younger sister.
Jerry’s mother had gone off to college in New York where she had met and married a student from an Italian-American family. When it didn’t work out, she’d brought her son back to the valley.
The spring sun was fading; the kitchen darkened. The boy smiled at Christine, but said he’d better go. She looked at him sadly. He was so new, so complete. He probably was full of hundreds of millions of potential babies. It would be so sweet to hold him, to fold him in, to pull his seed into her....so simple....so completely impossible. The alcohol finally eroded away the dam, and the tears poured out uncontrollably.
She felt his hand on her shoulder. As if drowning, she grabbed at it and pulled him to her. She embraced him and kissed him several times on the face. He didn’t resist, but he didn't respond. Gradually she realized what she was doing and stopped. She got up and went to the sink.
For a moment she watched the horses in the pasture outside the kitchen window, then she rinsed her face and turned back to the boy.
“I’m sorry. I’ve been under a lot of tension lately. I didn’t mean to....I’m sorry,” she said.
She saw him to the door, then, trying for a joking tone but missing, said,
“Come back if you want more pie....sometime.”
That night Jerry couldn’t sleep. Instead he felt over and over the soft burning of her lips on his cheek. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen her. In fact, he’d watched her a lot. He saw her in her garden or in the field working with the horses. He saw her in town shopping, talking to friends. He’d been fascinated with her for the last year.
He knew she didn’t remember him, but his seventh grade class had gone to her farm one day to see the birth of a lamb. Some of the other kids had screamed and turned away from the blood, but he was attracted by the efficient, tender way she helped the ewe and explained things to the students at the same time.
He didn’t think Christine was exactly beautiful - her face was a little broad and plain, and she was slightly heavy below the waist - but the way she carried herself and the way she handled the animals drew him to her.
He thought about her hair. He liked how she piled and pinned her long, light brown hair on top of her head or rolled it into different shaped buns. She never wore rollers like other ladies did, and he liked that, too. He wondered how her hair would look unpinned, how far it would fall over her back.
He hated being forced to go to all the houses for the newspaper’s dumb charity, but he’d seen it at a chance to talk to her at last. What had happened had left him totally unnerved.
He felt her lips touching him again. He felt himself getting hard. He slipped his shorts down and stroked himself under the sheet.
The next afternoon Christine had even more need for a drink, and she’d had a couple when the door sounded. It was Jerry.
“Hi. I left my collection envelope here yesterday. Can I get it?”
“Oh. Sure. Wait a minute. I guess it’s in the kitchen.”
He could smell the alcohol like the day before and didn’t like it much, but she’d said she had some trouble. He’d seen it before in some of his father’s family.
He followed her into the kitchen. It surprised her when she turned and saw him.
“Listen, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to...”
“Did you use all the cherry pie?”
“What?”
“You said to come by anytime for pie.”
She hesitated, her mind a little fuzzy.
“Well, I was sort of kidding, but I guess there’s still some left. You’ll have to go when you finish, though.”
She took the pie from the refrigerator and cut him a piece. She noticed that she was hungry, too, so she cut a second piece, and they sat at opposite sides of the round oak table and ate in silence. But guilt made her uneasy.
“Look, about yesterday, I...”
“I liked it when you kissed me,” he said without looking up.
“What?”
“I liked it when you kissed me. It made me feel good.”
“Oh, listen...”
“I couldn’t sleep last night. I kept think about it. I kept thinking about you. About me and you.”
“Are you trying to proposition me or something?” she asked in a mock-scandalized tone.
“Yes.”
And with that, as though he’d rehearsed it, he stood up and pulled his T-shirt over his head, folded it and laid it on the table. Then he took off his tennis shoes and socks, setting them neatly by the chair, and finally his pants and shorts which he doubled and laid next to his shirt.
Christine sat amazed as he stood before her. His upper body was that of a child, but his legs had grown long, and he had a man’s equipment. He was beginning to tremble.
“What’s the matter? Are you all right?” she asked, rising.
“Maybe...maybe...just a little scared shitless.”
She went to him and touched his shoulder. She ran her hand over his back. He skin was soft - a little plastic - like clay. He was clammy. She rubbed his back soothingly.
Under her caresses his trembles calmed, and he was clearly aroused. She sat him in one of the straight-backed wooden chairs. She was wearing a short housecoat. Without removing it, she slipped off her panties and straddled him, lowering herself when she felt him in the right place.
He sucked air between his teeth as he felt her warmth and moisture taking him in. She began to rock back and forth. As the heat built, she started a more sensuous weaving, swiveling around his resistance. She felt him tense and then gasp as his load swelled and passed into her.
She stood and gave him a paper towel to clean with, but he made no move to leave. Gathering up his clothes, she led him upstairs. They sat on the edge of the big four-poster as she let him undress her. It surprised her when he pulled the pins from her hair and watched it cascade down to the middle of her back. She pulled off the covers and lay back. He kneeled next to her on the bed and took in all the details of her firm, thick body. She pulled him over her and helped him find the place. Then, with her hands on his butt, she began his drive.
For a while he raised himself, watching as he awkwardly entered, withdrew and entered again. At last he lay on her, resting his head over her large breasts. Feeling his soft skin and his thin arms wrapped around her, Christine could imaging that he was her own child clinging to her even as the emerging man poked away down below.
This time when he finished she had him dress and packed him off.
Every day that week he arrived after his route. Each time she took him to her room where he performed his service with gradually improving skill. She noticed that he’d started to bathe before coming to her, and he was using some kind of cologne.
During that week, a man from a nearby town was arrested for having sex with a thirteen-year-old girl. They charged him with sexual battery on a minor. This worried Christine, but she continued with it. Her constant prayer was to please let this little stud pass her seed that was clean and strong and that would free her from the slow corrosions of an infertile marriage.
At the end of the week she told him that he must never come back to that house and never, never talk about what they’d done. She’d shown him what she could, and he was a fine young man, but her husband was coming back from a trip. She painted him as a violent man who would certainly beat her badly if he even suspected what they’d done. She couldn’t imagine what he might do to Jerry. She mentioned that he kept guns.
Jerry was dejected, but he knew that she was married, and he’d expected that this day would come. Still, there was no way he could just forget her, so he drifted back into his habit of watching her from a distance.
Toward the end of the summer he was surprised to see that she was pregnant. As the winter progressed he lost track of her progress. When he saw her in town she was under a heavy coat. He never saw her working outside, even though he made a point of riding by her house each day. Then, during deep winter, months went by when he didn’t see her at all.
It was almost a year later when he spotted her preparing her garden for spring flowers. On the lawn near her was a playpen with a baby playing in it.
Jerry had asked around about Matthew Manning, and he knew that Christine’s husband was not at all what she had described. One Saturday morning when Matthew was working on his car, Jerry wheeled his bike down the circle drive. The bike kicked up some gravel as he stopped. Matthew looked up.
“Mr. Manning?”
“Yes.”
“I was wondering. I go by here all the time, and I noticed your yard needs some work. Do you need someone to cut your lawn? I'm looking for a job.”
“Well, I don’t know. To tell you the truth my wife used to do most of that, but we’ve got a new baby.”
“Oh. Congratulations. When was it born?”
“January 15.”
Matthew looked more closely at the boy.
“Do I know you?” How do you know my name?”
“I used to deliver your paper.”
“Oh? Why did you stop?”
“I needed more time for sports. I play football and basketball. But I can work on weekends and some days after school.”
“Well, you know, that might be a damn good idea. We’ve got more to do around here than just the lawn. Are you up to some farm chores, too? My wife’s got her hands full for sure, and my work takes me away a lot.”
“Sure I don’t mind work.”
“Good. Let’s see what you can do.”
He led Jerry to the barn and showed him to gas up the power mower. A few minutes later Jerry was running the mower back and forth over the front lawn.
Inside, Christine was surprised at the sound. Matthew almost never did jobs like that without a fair amount of nagging first. She picked up the baby and went to the front window, then drew back, horrified.
She paced the house furiously for the next hour, muttering to herself. The motor stopped. She saw that Matthew had driven to town. Jerry was taking the mower back to the barn.
The baby was asleep, so she stormed out to the barn and cornered him.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Cutting the grass.”
“You know what I mean. I told you never to come here.”
“Your husband wants me to help with chores now that you have other responsibilities.”
“Well, I don’t want your help. I want you out of here.”
Jerry’s nerves clawed at his voice. He hadn't come for a fight; he just wanted to be near her and the baby. Still, her attack made him truculent. He struggled to hold his tone level.
“Come on,” he said, “ fathers have visitation rights, you know.”
Her first reaction was shock which she quickly covered with a steely glare.
“Father! You’re no father - at least not here. You’ll never get near my child.”
“Maybe I should talk to someone about that. I’m not so sure I want my son raised by a lush.”
The fact that Jerry didn’t roll over in the face of her fury slowed Christine’s charge a little, and his last shot stung. She fell off her stride.
“It’s not a boy, and I haven’t had a drink since I got pregnant,” she said defensively.
“Look, I don’t know why you’re here, but I know it’s not to cut the lawn. The only thing you can do here is make trouble. You can make all of that you want; it doesn’t frighten me at all. The baby is not yours, and there’s no way you’ll touch her. I’ll kill you first.”
Jerry was staring at the ground like a child being scolded.
“I want you to leave now!”
He shook his head.
She whirled around and started toward the door. She’d taken two steps when he said in a low, clear voice,
“In biology class I just learned that human gestation takes 266 days. I’m not so hot in math, but I wonder: if you take 266 from January 15, does it equal a week in April?”
She closed her eyes and breathed in, making a hissing sound, but continued out of the barn.
Christine knew she had a major problem and immediately started planning how to get Jerry off the ranch. She knew she must be careful. Nothing she did should arouse Matthew’s suspicions. She had to be patient and take advantage of any chance. But the chance she needed never came. Almost at once, Matthew and Jerry took great likings to each other.
Matthew was a friendly man who had few real friends. He’d grown up in a tight-knit farm family, and his best friends were his three brothers. The family farm had been large at one time, but by the time their father died, parts had been sold off to pay debts. What was left was not enough to provide four working farms, and no one of the brothers had enough money to buy the others out. For a while they tried to work it cooperatively, but - one by one - they sold off their shares and left the valley to make their livings in other places. Matthew would probably have done the same if it hadn’t been for Christine. She refused to let him sell. They still held the old farmhouse, but the land that was left couldn’t support itself. It meant that Matthew had to go into sales and travel around a lot.
He missed the camaraderie of men playing or fishing or hunting, and Jerry began to fill that void. Matthew found the boy mature for his age. For his part, Jerry welcomed the attention. He'd always missed being with his father.
Matthew began to go to some of Jerry’s games when he was in town. The boy was a good athlete, and the two often got up basketball games on the weekends or played on-on-one in the evenings. From time to time they fished together, and once Matthew took Jerry hunting with some of the other men. Jerry became a fixture at the farm.
Christine felt she was living on the edge of a volcano. The best she could do was to make it clear to Jerry that he was to stay out of the house and away from the baby. She feared having Matthew see the two together.
She knew Jerry was a good boy. He was more than that. She still couldn’t believe how he’d searched her out as his initiator, and she understood completely the determination that pushed him to be near her and the baby. But there were other forces working on her. The most important was a fierce need to protect her child. In that, Jerry was her greatest threat.
Although he wanted to know the child, for the most part Jerry did what Christine wanted, but it was tricky. Matthew often insisted he come in for food or for some other reason, but Jerry left as soon as he could.
Matthew found his wife’s behavior strange, but didn’t confront her on it. God knew she was strong-willed and even more so since the baby’s birth. Some things were better just accepted.
Things continued on like that for over a year. But gradually Matthew became uneasy. He’d come to depend on his time with Jerry, but he knew that in another year or so the boy would leave the valley for college or work - many of the young men did. They’d continue to be friends, but not like a real father and son. Matthew dreamed of having his own son. He felt the need almost daily.
When he first mentioned this to Christine, she thought she saw the gates of hell opening before her. At first she ignored him, but her will was exceeded only by his plodding insistence. She knew that in the end he would make her crazy.
It was spring again. There was a lot of work on the farm: animals being born, fences to be repaired, pastures to be cleared. Extra help had been hired and Jerry was putting in all the hours he could.
One afternoon he was hauling sacks of feed when Christine called him into the kitchen. Matthew was on a sales trip. Christine had left Annie with her sister.
When Jerry came in she was sitting at the table, drinking a cup of coffee. There was a freshly baked apple pie on the sink counter. She invited him to sit down and asked him if he wanted coffee or something to eat. He stood by the door and said nothing. Finally, she began,
“I need your help.”
He didn’t reply. His expression remained unchanged. She stared into the cup for a minute, then said quickly in a flat tone,
“I want to have a baby, and I need your help.”
“If you want a baby, you should ask your husband for help.”
“He can’t have babies. He’s not fertile. The doctors have told him as much, but he won’t accept it, especially after Annie.”
Now Jerry moved to the table and looked down at her. She didn’t like his expression.
“They Annie is my child.”
She laughed gently, but her eyes looked pained.
“Just look at her face,” she said. “Each day she looks more and more like you did when you first came to me.”
He sat down and looked directly at her. His eyes were hard, and she wanted to look away.
“For two years I’ve worked here. For two years anyone who came out here could hold Annie, talk to her, play with her. She played with the animals. She played with dirt. But I couldn’t get near her. I couldn’t touch her. I couldn’t even talk to her.”
“I had to protect her.”
“From me?”
“From everyone else. You live here. You know what a small town is like. I was raised here. If I’m to have children, I want to raise them here. If even a suspicion of the truth got around, it would ruin her life here before it even began. And what would Matthew do? That’s what’s terrified me every day you were here: that one day he’d look at her and see you.”
“If it’s so terrifying, why do you want to do it again?”
“What else is there? Who else is there? Matthew won’t let up. I won’t do it artificially. Before you came to me they had me through all their tests and treatments. I won’t go through that torture again in my life. If he wants another child so badly, maybe we’ll just have to do it this way.”
“Then that’s why you...why you let me be with you the first time.”
Her first reaction was vehement:
“No! It was you who came to me.”
But after some thought she said,
“Oh, I don’t know. It wasn’t conscious. Not at first. But maybe it’s what I wanted.”
Jerry was quiet for a while. Then he said,
“Maybe this is just something you should let your husband work out for himself.”
“Maybe so, but he won’t accept it. His answer is always, ‘Well, we had Annie, didn’t we?’”
Later he said,
“What if you have a baby, and it’s not a boy, and he wants more?”
“Then I’ll have my tubes tied. I’ll do something. Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the whole mess. It’s my mess, not yours. Just forget it. It’s crazy. I’ll do whatever you want...about Annie...about anything.”
They sat in silence. He saw that more talk was useless; he could do what she wanted, or he could leave. Finally, he got up and took some steps to the door, then he paused, turned, crossed the room and went upstairs. She followed.
They undressed silently, not facing each other. He began at once. She wasn't ready, and it burned at first. He wasn’t a child anymore. Fine, dark hair fringed his chest. His shoulders were broad and bony. The muscles of his arms and legs didn’t bulge much yet, but were long and taut, outlined by veins. Inside he touched her in places her husband never did. At times it hurt, especially because - as he warmed to it - he was driving hard into her, moving her with each thrust. He was punishing her, she knew, but she bore it. He’d propped himself on his arms, hardly touching her body. He wouldn’t look at her. He stared at the wall or closed his eyes. His expression was grim.
Strangely, though, she felt a tension rising around her. For the first time in years she felt an orgasm wash over her - then another - before he arched his back and emptied into her. He barely slowed, continuing to drive furiously, but after some minutes his breathing became ragged. At last he groaned and collapsed over her, his face buried in a pillow. He lifted himself and sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the floor.
“For a long time I haven't liked you much,” he said.
“I know...I know.”
She started to leave the bed. He reached out and touched her arm.
The healing came gradually, but as they learned each other, a strange thing began to happen. Even after his rage was spent, Jerry had a wildness, a fire about him when he made love. Each act was a creation as he explored this world he’d only seen vaguely before.
Christine began to find things about herself she’d never known. She’d always been around animals and brothers and later a husband. She couldn’t believe that a body could hold great excitement for her. But Jerry’s did. She thought of him constantly when he wasn’t there. She was impatient for his arrival each afternoon. Each day was a holiday. It was exploring dark attics. It was balancing on branches or walking deep forests. In a word, she was a teenager again. She wondered if she’d ever really been one.
One afternoon Jerry arrived later than usual because of a basketball game. To kill the time Christine had begun mucking out the horse stalls, a job he usually did. When he arrived he helped her, but it was impossible for them to be so close and just work. He bumped her with a rake. She flicked straw at him. He stuffed a handful down her shirt, and they were all over each other.
Annie was playing with her toys and some of the barn kittens in another stall. Jerry pulled Christine to the loft where they got off the first of their passion in the hay.
Later, he played with Annie while her mother cooked. He helped the child as they ate, then got her ready for bed. He had a natural, easy way with children, and the little girl responded warmly. Christine watched this with the mixed feelings of contentment with their present, guilt for the past and worry about the future.
When all was cleaned and put away, they sat in the living room like any married couple, but the conversation was more that of mother and son as she asked about his game and how classes had gone. Then they were on each other again.
She noticed that the curtain was still open and hurried to close it. By the time she returned, here shirt and bra were gone. He was down to his shorts.
He kneeled on the sofa, kissing her breasts and stomach as he fumbled with the tight buttons of her jeans. They came together on the sofa as if they’d been apart for years. He pulled her legs tight around his waist. He pushed at her so hard her head pounded against the arm rest.
She freed a leg and rolled him off the sofa. He looked up, surprised, then laughed and pulled her down. She fell over him and stayed there, his hands cupped over her breasts, until they finished.
They showered then fell to it again in bed. After that he went to sleep.
About eleven she woke him to go home. He drew her back to him. Before twelve he left. He’d told his mother he was baby sitting.
The week went by like that, but by the weekend they could feel Matthew’s shadow. On Saturday Jerry arrived early but spent the morning doing chores he’d neglected during the week. They ate lunch together and then went upstairs, but their lovemaking had a formal, polite feel. He left soon after for a game.
Matthew didn’t arrive by evening as he usually did. It didn’t worry her much, but for the first time she realized he hadn't called once during the week. If he felt too tired he sometimes stopped at a motel Saturday night instead of driving straight through, but he always called if he did. When he was still not home by Sunday afternoon, Christine began to call places he usually stayed, but no one had seen him. Finally, that evening the phone rang.
He’d gone farther than usual, he said, trying to open up some new accounts, then the car had broken down. He should have it in one of two days and would come home then. When he hung up she realized that somehow he’d managed not to say where he was calling from. He arrived on Wednesday but seemed distant and not very clear in his explanations. She wondered if he’d had an affair.
A month after that, when Christine was pretty sure she was pregnant, she went into the barn one afternoon to find Jerry filling a paper bag with some clothes and other things of his that had accumulated there.
“What are you doing,” she asked.
“I’m leaving.”
“To where?”
“Florida.”
“But, why?”
“To visit visit my father. He moved there a couple of years ago.”
“But why are you going now? You’ve still got school.”
“My mother’s getting married again.”
“Oh? Nice man?”
“He’s okay. She wants me to give them a month alone...to get started, sort of.”
“Like a honeymoon.”
“I guess. But I’m not coming back. I can’t stand it here anymore. If I can’t stay on with my father, I’ll live with some cousins. We’ve got ‘em all over the place. If I can’t do that, I’ll live on the beach.”
“But why would you do that? You have everything here. Have you told Matthew?”
“No.”
“But you have to. He’s your friend. It will hurt him a lot if you just leave.”
“Well, I’m not Matthew’s friend. I hate him. How can you say I have everything here? Everything here is for Matthew. What right does he have to all this? This place he doesn’t even take care of. My babies. You.
“And you. You just love Matthew. You love him so much you could even bring yourself to fuck me just to give him children.”
Angry tears stood in his eyes. She came over to him and took both of his arms in her hands.
“I love you. You’re my first love, my Romeo. I’ll always love you. You showed me a love I didn’t believe existed. But Matthew...Matthew has always been there - ever since I was born, it seems. Matthew and Christine. Christine and Matthew. It’s always been like that. What would he do without me? What would I do without him? And what would you do with me?”
He studied her face. Already something different - Maybe a maternal glow - was showing. Sounding almost casual he said,
“I guess we can just wait 'til he goes on a trip again.”
Even before he saw it, he knew the faint crease of worry that touched her eyes and mouth would be there. He picked up the rest of his things and left without looking back. He never returned.

“You aren’t suggesting a crime, are you dear?”
“No, I guess there are other reasons for returning to a place,” Matthew said.
“Of course - people usually come home,” Christine replied.
“Or try. Is this your home, Jerry?”
“Well, not really. I guess that’s Miami now. I only lived here about four years. I’ve been there for the last fifteen.”
“I suppose you made a lot of friends in that time, though,” Matthew continued to probe.
“No, not that still live here. Only you two that I know of.”
“What became of your mother?” Christine asked. “I hope she’s well.”
“She stayed on in the valley a couple of years after she remarried, but her husband’s from Michigan. They moved back up there.”
“So it comes to our friendship, then,” Matthew said with an edge to his voice. “I guess I could raise a few questions about that. For instance, I’ve always wondered why you never said good-bye.”
“Well, I told Christine I was going, and I guess I thought she’d tell you.”
“You know, Jerry, I really thought of you as more than a friend, more like a son or a brother, so what you did - leaving like that - could really have been taken badly. But, as a matter of fact, I did understand it - and for the same reason I knew you’d be back.”
“And what is that, dear?” asked Christine.
“His children.”
A log cracked and dropped from the grate in the massive old fieldstone fireplace. Otherwise the protected calm of the room continued unchanged. Jerry tried one last line from the old fiction.
“My children? I was only sixteen when I left here. I’m not even married. What children?”
“Annie and Jerry.”
Jerry looked across at Christine, but her eyes were fixed on the garden beyond the wide front window. The rain had stopped, but the water still dripped from the eaves and tree leaves.
“Why would you say that?” Jerry asked quietly.
“Well, I guess I should have seen it in Annie. I mean, it’s lucky your face has some good-looking elements to it, or she’d be in trouble the way she takes after you.
“Of course, I couldn’t - or wouldn’t - see it. After all we’d gone through she was my triumph. I was vain enough to think that.
“Well, maybe I had some doubts. That’s the curse of traveling salesmen - you know - always wondering what their wives are up to.”
He gave a dry laugh. No one else reacted.
“I’d never worried much about that. We had that kind of a marriage, or so I thought. But I became a little suspicious around the time we were trying to have our second child, or what I thought would be our second child. I guess you know we - or I’ve - always had a little trouble in that area. I’d heard a bout a fertility specialist, and I’d been pressuring Christine to go with me to see him. She’d been putting me off, but she finally gave in.
“Then, just before I was to leave on a sales trip, she told me she’d canceled the appointment. I asked her why. She said she was sure she was pregnant. I asked her how she could be so sure. She said it was just one of those things she knew.
“I thought about that as I drove away. I’d been following her period pretty closely, and I didn’t see how she could be pregnant. For the next couple of days it bothered me. Finally, I cut the trip short.
“I got back here during the morning. I just parked in the trees across the road to see what was going on. Christine didn’t leave the farm all day, and, beside the mailman, the only person to come here was you.”
“I was working here.”
“You sure were. You got here late in the afternoon and went into the barn. I’d seen Christine go in there earlier. It was about an hour later that you both came out and then went into the kitchen. I thought that was a little strange, considering how she’d always treated you, but I thought she’d had a change of heart and was giving you some dinner. Over an hour later you hadn’t left. Through the window that used to face out to the road I could see both of you sitting in the old living room. When Christine closed the curtains I decided to spy on my own house. I crept across the road, and through a crack in the curtains I saw what you two were doing on the sofa. I was damn glad when we remodeled and got rid of that sofa. I hated the sight of it after that.”
For the first time Christine looked up and turned toward her husband. Pain covered her face. Oddly, Matthew showed little emotion. He seemed content telling a good story that had the interest of his audience. There was no bitterness or accusation in his tone.
Jerry was desperate to make some move, but there was nothing to be done, so he sat.
“I’ve often wondered how other men would have reacted to seeing something like that,” Matthew went on. “There was a shotgun in the barn. I might have gotten that or at least have busted in and made a hell of a scene.
“The truth is it didn’t even occur to me to do anything like that. In all my life I’ve never felt so bad. I felt like I had to vomit, and I did when I got back to the car. I felt completely beat up, like I’d just lost the worst fight of my life.
“I got back in the car and just drove like hell. I drove all night. I only stopped for gas. I finally had to stop because I got to the ocean. As a matter of fact, without even realizing it, I’d driven right to the bay. I found myself stopped in front of old Brady’s dock, where I used to work in the summers when I was a kid. The place was all closed up. I figured Brady must have died or sold out. I didn’t even get out to check around. I was so tired I fell asleep right there in the car.
“When I woke up it was light. No one was around. It was too early in the season. I thought about breaking into the old boathouse. There used to be a bed in there, but it was too cold for that, anyway. I found a cheap motel up the coast a bit and rented a room. I really don’t remember what I did the next few days. I walked a lot, I guess. I must have gotten food. I don’t know if I talked to anyone; there weren’t any vacationers yet. I looked at the ocean a lot. I’ve always liked to travel, and I really loved to watch the ocean when I worked at the bay. I’d imagine all the great places that must be on the other side. I had a lot of opportunity for that during the next few days.
“The lowest point came when it sank in that at your age you’d done what I never could in my life. I thought about walking into the water and swimming out until I couldn’t swim anymore. I ‘d heard about some woman doing that once, but it seemed a frightening way to die. If I’d had some fast way to end it, I might have. I sure couldn’t figure out how I was going to keep living.
“Then one morning I saw my father in a dream, and I heard his voice so clearly that I jumped up and looked for him in the room. It took several minutes for me to realize that he’d been dead for years and that I was alone in a motel room. Finally, I calmed down, but his voice still rang in my head. He’d said, ‘You are careless of those who love you.’
“It was exactly the way he would say it, the way he would turn the thing to rest on me. It was what he’d done all his life. It was why we could rarely talk to each other. It brought me back, though, not because I believed it, but because it made me mad. I couldn’t see how I was responsible for anything that had happened, and I sure couldn’t see how anyone involved loved me. But finally I called up with some story, and a day or so later I came home.
“I really intended to have it out and let the chips fall wherever, but each time I started to say something I’d hear my father’s voice. Then you went away, and gradually things just dropped back like they’d always been. Sometimes when things got a little rough I’d hear the voice again, but I realized it was just me - not my father - and in time I understood exactly what it meant.”
Christine had turned away again. It was hard for her even to stay in the room. She still appeared to be studying the garden, but if she was, she was only seeing her reflection in the darkening window. She was really thinking about adjustments - about all the adjustments married couples must make during their lives.
She’d always felt that she was the one who made most of the adjustments in their marriage. It was something she’d felt was the woman’s role - probably an idea she picked up from her mother.
Her mother hadn’t said much to prepare her for marriage, but she had once talked to
Christine about the male ego and how things usually went better if that was appeased. Most people probably thought that Matthew had few ego problems. He seemed such a nice, reasonable man. But Christine knew well enough the tyrannies of a reasonable man. The whole baby problem had grown out of that kind of thing.
She loved children as much as anyone, but if nature had intended for her not to have them, she could have accepted that. Not Matthew, though. So she’d adjusted. Maybe most people wouldn’t agree with the particular adjustment she’d made, but it had worked well enough - even if she hadn’t anticipated all the consequences. It was surely better than what they’d tried to force on her.
The years after Jerry left had been difficult for them. She knew Matthew suspected her, and she waited for the blowup. It never came. They never talked about it. Instead, he threw himself into his work. He traveled almost all the time.
Ironically, it was from this unhappy period that their present prosperity grew. Matthew’s sales doubled, then doubled again. He was doing so well that there was little pressure on the ranch. Christine began to reinvest to improve the breeding stock. She took a loan and bought more land. Soon the ranch’s reputation - and hers as a breeder - were spreading beyond the valley.
Then one day the unhappiness was over. They touched, then kissed and then found they could even make love again. Over time he became a good husband and a good father.
She never suspected his secret nor the depths of his suffering. She wondered how she had misjudged his character so badly all these years. What he’d done would all be so admirable - if it weren’t so painful.
And yet...and yet...there was something...something about that pain...something she found hard to accept.
He had spied on her through closed curtains. He had kept the secret all these years. He had waited, it seemed, for this moment which he said he had known would come. He had taken what to her had always been a shining thing and turned it dark.
And then there was Jerry. Why had he come back? She’d kept the memory of what they’d had, but, like a teenage love, she’d put him away from her, or so she thought. She never wondered where he was or what he did or how he must look. But now she realized that they had never really separated. Living with his children all these years had made him a part of her life.
All evening she had avoided looking closely at Jerry. Now she let herself turn and study him, silhouetted against the dying fire. She didn’t care much for the mustache, but it didn’t hide the fact that age had only made him more handsome. She remembered his touch, could feel each place he had touched her. She turned back. It hurt her physically to watch him. Now, at last, the amount of the stud fee was clear to her. Despite all her efforts, it would never be paid in full.
She became aware that Matthew had stopped talking. Her usual role would be to take up the slack in the conversation, but there was nothing she could say. Jerry looked at her for a moment, then looked away. They took up their neglected desserts. After a long silence it was Matthew who asked,
“So, then, Jerry, do you think your job will bring you this way often?”
“I don’t guess so,” he replied. “I don’t guess it ever will.”
Again silence. Finally Jerry said softly,
“They are good children, aren't they?”
Christine reached to touch his hand then didn’t quite. She answered,
“They’re fine children, fine in every way.”
Earlier the setting sun had broken through the haze. For a few minutes everything was illuminated, but now it was gone. The fire’s last embers sparkled and dropped through the grate. The three sat with their coffees in the darkness.