Dead Ringer

Now she found him sitting outside on the covered porch. He teetered on the edge of the chair, elbows on his knees, head down as if struggling with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Abby approached him slowly, half-afraid that she might startle him. His volatile mood swings had her walking on eggshells around him. The floorboards creaked under her feet.

Wade rose and swung around, making her flinch. “What are you doing?” he demanded gruffly.

“I woke up and you weren’t in bed. Is everything all right?”

“I just needed a little fresh air. You don’t have to be sneaking up on me.”

Abby desperately wanted to reach out to him, to comfort him, to plead with him to tell her what was making him so miserably unhappy. She blamed herself. They’d been good together once. Hadn’t they?

But clearly he was in no mood for the third degree. Also she’d learned to keep her distance when he was drinking. But she knew he was hurting. Because of her fall? Or because of something else?

It was raining harder now. She hugged herself, the damp seeping through her thin nightgown. There’d been a time when he would have noticed just how thin the fabric was, how it clung to her rounded breasts and hips. Back then he would have pulled her to him, his breath warm against her neck. That husky sound in his voice as he told her how much he wanted her, needed her. How he couldn’t live without her.

Wade didn’t give her another look as he sat down again, turning his back to her. “You should go to bed.”

She felt tears burn her eyes. Wade kept pushing her away, then losing his temper because he thought some other man might want her.

“I saw Ledger McGraw looking at you when you came out of the grocery store,” Wade would say. “I’m going to kill that son of a—”

“You can’t kill every man who looks at me,” she would say.

“You like it when he looks at you.”

She would say nothing, hoping to avoid a fight, but Wade would never let it go.

“He wants you. He isn’t going to give up until he tears us apart. Not that he would ever marry you. He had that chance already, remember? Remember how he lied to you, cheated on you—”

There was nothing she could say to calm him down. She knew because she’d tried. “Wade, don’t be ridiculous.”

“Right, I’m ridiculous. I’m no McGraw, am I?”

“I married you.”

“Only because you couldn’t have Ledger.”

She would try to hug him and he would shove her away, balling his hands into fists. “You never got over him. That’s what’s wrong with our marriage. You’re still yearning for him. I can see it in your eyes.”

He would shove her or grab her, wrenching her arm. It would always end with him hurting her and then being sorry. He would berate himself, loathing that he was now like his father. He would promise never to do it again, beg her forgiveness. Plead with her not to leave him.

And each time, she would forgive him, blaming herself for setting him off. Then they would make love and it would be good between them for a while.

At least, that was the way it used to be. Lately, it took nothing to set Wade off. And there was no pleading for forgiveness or any making up afterward.

“It isn’t like anyone else wanted to marry you,” her mother told her when she’d seen Abby wince from one of Wade’s beatings. Her mother loved to rub salt in the wounds. “It’s plain to see that you aren’t making him happy. You’d better do whatever it takes or he’s going to dump you for a woman who will. Then where are you going to be? Divorced. Left like a bus at the Greyhound bus station. No man will want you then.”

Abby had bit her lip and said nothing. She’d made her bed and now she had to lie in it. That was her mother’s mantra.

“And stay clear of that McGraw,” her mother had warned. “Men always want you when you’re with someone else. But the minute they get you, they lose interest. So don’t be thinkin’ the grass is greener with him. You already know you can’t trust him. Look how he broke your heart. Just be glad Wade was willing to marry you since you weren’t exactly white-wedding-dress material, now, were you?”

Now she stared at the back of her husband’s head for a moment, then padded barefoot back to bed. If only she could remember how she’d gotten hurt. She had a feeling that would have answered all of her questions about what was happening with her husband.

* * *

“ABBY’S STARTING TO REMEMBER,” Wade told his father the next day. He’d been relieved that he had to work. The last thing he wanted to do was sit around with her. He felt as if he was going to come unraveled at the seams as it was. She knew she hadn’t fallen off a ladder. He saw it in her eyes and said as much to Huck.

“So what? It isn’t like she’s going to tell anyone,” his father said. “If she was going to do that, she would have done it a long time ago.”

“She’s going to leave me.”

Huck swore. “She would have done that a long time ago, too. She’s fine. It’s you I’m worried about.”

“Everyone knows.” As he’d wheeled Abby out to his patrol car parked at the emergency entrance, he’d seen the way the nurses were looking at him. Everyone knew now that he was his father’s son—a bastard who mistreated his wife. He was thankful he and Abby hadn’t had a kid. What if he took his anger inside him out on his own son?

“Snap out of it!” his father barked as they stood talking by their patrol cars. “You’re in the clear.”

Wade shook his head. “I’m afraid she’s going to remember why we fought. If she remembers what she overheard you and me talking about...”

“I thought you said she didn’t remember anything?”

He shrugged. “She says she doesn’t, but the way she looks at me... She’s going to start putting it together. I can see it in her eyes.”

“Bull. If she remembered, she’d either go to the sheriff or she’d be in your face. What she needs to do is get back to work, keep her mind off...everything. In the meantime, you need to stay calm. You can’t mess up again.”

“I’ll treat her real good,” he said more to himself than his father. “I’ll make up for everything.”

“That alone will make her suspicious. Do what you normally do.”

“Get drunk and stay out half the night?” Wade asked his father in disbelief. “And you think that will help how?”

“It won’t make you seem so desperate. Stop saying you’re sorry. It was her damned fool self who climbed up that ladder to get those canning jars.”

Wade stared at him. He’d always known that his father bought into his own lies, but this was over the top. “She’s not stupid. She knows damned well she didn’t fall from a ladder.” He felt a sob deep in his chest begging to get out. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold it together. “You don’t live with her. You have no idea what it’s like. She knows she can do better than me. She’s always known. If she ever finds out that we lied to her about Ledger McGraw and that girl at college—”

Huck swore a blue streak. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself, you miserable little miscreant. It’s our word against McGraw’s. He swore nothing was going on, but if she didn’t believe him then, she sure isn’t going to now. She isn’t going to find out unless you confess everything. She married you. Don’t blow this. If she remembers what we were talking about when she overheard, then we’ll deal with it. In the meantime, go get drunk, get laid, stop worrying.”

* * *

ABBY COULDN’T SIT STILL. The doctor had told her to rest, but she felt too antsy. Not being able to remember nagged at her. She got up and turned on the television.

Standing, she flipped through the channels, but found nothing of interest and turned it off.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a book lying open on the floor next to her chair. As she bent to pick it up, she winced at the pain in her ribs. Dizzy, she had to grab hold of the chair arm for a moment.

She stared at the book, trying to remember. Had she been reading? It bugged Wade when she read instead of watched television with him. He took offense as if her reading made him feel dumb. It made no sense. No more sense than what had happened to her. Why would she have been reading if she was going to get canning jars down to make peach jam?

Marking her place, she put the book down and walked into the kitchen to open the refrigerator. Of course there were no peaches in there. Had she really thought there would be this time of year? Her ribs hurt worse as she breathed hard to fight back the nausea. She hadn’t fallen off a ladder. Why did she keep trying to make Wade’s story plausible?

She turned to look at her house, seeing her life in the worn furniture, in the sad-looking cheap artwork on the walls, in the creak of the old floorboards under her feet.

Her gaze went to the floor as she caught a whiff of pine. Someone had cleaned the kitchen floor—but not with the cleaner she always used. Wade? Why would he clean unless...

Heart beating hard, she noticed that he’d missed a spot. She didn’t need to lean any closer to know what it was. Dried blood. Her blood.

* * *

ABBY REALIZED SHE had nowhere to go. But she desperately needed to talk to someone. Even her mother.

She knew she shouldn’t be driving, but her house wasn’t that far from her mother’s. Once behind the wheel she felt more in control. Seeing the blood, she’d quit lying to herself. She hadn’t fallen off a ladder. Wade had hurt her. Again. Bad enough for her to end up in the hospital.

Only she had no idea why, which terrified her.

Too upset to just sit around waiting for Wade to get off his night shift, she’d finally decided she had to do something. If only she could remember what they’d fought about. A vague memory teased at her, just enough to make her even more anxious. It hadn’t been one of their usual disagreements. It hadn’t even been Wade drunk and belligerent. No, this time it had been serious.

As she turned down the road, she saw the beam of a flashlight moving from behind her mother’s house toward the old root cellar. Abby frowned as her mother and the light disappeared from view.

Why would her mother be going down there this time of the night? She pulled up in front of the house and got out. As she neared the back of the house, she saw that her mother had strung an extension cord so she would have light down in the root cellar. It would be just like her mother to get it into her head to clean it out now, of all crazy possible times.

Abby had spent years trying to please her mother, but she felt she’d always fallen short. She almost changed her mind about trying to talk to her tonight. Her mother would be furious with her for not believing her husband—even though it was clear he was lying. Nan Lawrence was a hard woman to get close to. The closest they’d been was when her mother had pushed her to marry Wade after her breakup with Ledger McGraw. Not that it had taken a whole lot of pushing since she had been so heartbroken.

She’d just reached the back of the house and was about to start down the path to the root cellar when she heard a vehicle. A set of headlights flashed out as the car stopped in the stand of cottonwoods nearby. Someone had just parked out there.

Her first thought was Wade. He’d stopped by the house to check on her, found her gone and figured she’d run to her mother.

Hanging back in the deep shadow of the house, she watched a figure come out of the woods. It was too dark without the moon tonight to see who it was, but it was definitely a man, given his size. Wade? He stopped for a moment at the opening to the root cellar before lifting the door and disappearing inside, leaving the door ajar.

Although she couldn’t make out his face, she caught the gleam of a badge on a uniform. Abby almost turned back. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to see her mother now that she was here. She definitely didn’t want to see her mother and Wade. They would gang up on her like they often did, confuse her, make her feel guilty for not being a better wife. Make her believe that all of it was her fault.

And yet she was tired of running away from the truth. Wade had almost killed her. There couldn’t be another time. Not unless she had a death wish.

She moved toward the open door of the root cellar. Wade had left it open. A shaft of light rose up out of the earth as she walked toward it. Her head ached and she told herself now wasn’t the time to have it out with her husband.

But her feet kept moving, like a woman headed for the gallows.

The moon was still hidden well behind the cloud cover. She made her way across the yard until she reached the gaping hole of the root cellar.

The room belowground was larger than most root cellars. Having lived in Kansas as a child, her mother was terrified of tornadoes. No amount of talking had convinced her that tornadoes were rare, if not unheard of, in this part of Montana. She’d insisted that her husband build it large enough that if she had to spend much time down there, she wouldn’t feel cramped. So he had. He’d have done anything for her. No wonder he’d died young after holding down at least two jobs all of his life.

Abby braced herself on the open door and took the first step, then another. The steps were solid. Also she could hear voices below her that would drown out any noise she made. They wouldn’t hear her coming. She thought she might hear them arguing, but as she got closer, she realized there was only a low murmur rising up to meet her as if they were speaking in a conversational tone.

That alone should have warned her.

It wasn’t until she reached the bottom step that she saw she’d been wrong about a lot of things. The man with her mother wasn’t Wade. Nor was her mother down here cleaning.

Abby froze as she took in the sight. Black lights hung from makeshift frames along the earth ceiling. Under them green plants grew as far back into the root cellar as she could see.

Her mother and her visitor had frozen when they’d seen her. Deputy Sheriff Huck Pierce had a plastic bag filled with what looked like dried plants in his hand. Her mother had a wad of cash. Both quickly hid what was in their hands.

“What are you doing here?” her mother demanded. “You never stop by and tonight you decide to pay me a visit?”

Realization was like a bright white noise that buzzed in her aching brain. She stood stock-still. This, she realized, was why her mother had pushed her to marry Wade. It had nothing to do with him being her best choice. No, it was all about his father and the drug business her mother had been secretly running in her root cellar.

“Abby,” Huck said casually. “I thought you’d be home in bed.”

“I’m sure you did,” she said and looked to her mother.

A mix of emotions crossed Nan’s face before ending with resignation. “So now you know,” she said.

Yes, now she knew why her mother had berated her for not being a better wife to Wade. Even when Abby had told her how Wade hurt her, she hadn’t said, “Leave the bastard.” No, she’d told Abby that it was her fault. That she needed to treat him better. That she needed to put up with it. Otherwise, she would be a divorcée, and look how that had turned out for her mother after Abby’s father had died and she’d quickly remarried twice more and was now divorced again.

“I’ll let you handle this,” Huck said as he moved to leave. He tipped his hat as he edged past Abby as if she was a rattlesnake that couldn’t be trusted not to strike.

But it wasn’t Huck who she wanted to sink her venom into. It was her mother. All she’d wanted was her mother’s love, she realized now. But the woman was incapable of real love. Why hadn’t she seen that before?

“Don’t be giving me that look,” her mother snapped as she put away the empty jar that had held the dried marijuana the deputy had just bought. “I have to make a living. That’s all this is. You have no idea what it’s like being a single woman at my age. Anyway, it should be legal in this state. Will be one day and then I’ll be out of business. But until then...”

She thought of all the things she wanted to say to her mother and was surprised when the only words that came out were “I’m divorcing Wade.”

“You don’t want to do that.”

“You don’t want me to do that, you mean. Or is it Huck who wants me to stay with his son?”

“Huck and I agree that the two of you need to work some things out. You two married just keeps things...simple.”

“Simple for you since you’re apparently in business with his father.”

Her mother took a step toward her. “I won’t hear any more about this. What are you doin’ here, anyway? You should be home waiting for your husband. No wonder he has to take a hand to you.”

Abby heard herself laugh, an odd sound down in the root cellar. “It’s not going to work, Mother. All I’ve ever wanted was you to like me if not love me. I tried to do what you asked of me, thinking that one day...” She shook her head. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to turn in your little...operation or snitch on the deputy. Knowing Huck, he’d wiggle out of it and let you fry. But as for you and me?” She shook her head again and turned to leave.

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