“You look like hell,” he said. “There are black-and-blues where I didn’t expect.”
He put the blanket back and rose, coughing. He hacked like someone with poisoned lungs. Maybe he was getting sick. Maybe he had lung cancer. Maybe he would die with me down here, and then what? If he died and I was still chained to the wall, what could I do? Ironically, I had to wish that he remained healthy. I saw him go into the bathroom and heard him peeing.
When he came out again, he stood for a while looking around and then at me. Suddenly, he opened the door and went out and up the stairs. I stood up and, although it was painful, dragging that horrible chain along with me, I walked to the bathroom. When I came out, he had returned and was standing with a faded blue robe in his hands.
“Put this on,” he said. “It was my father’s. That’s all you’ll wear for a while. I’m not giving you any more of my mother’s nice dresses and other things until I think you’ll have respect for them and for me.”
He tossed the robe at me. It smelled sour and was stained with old food and drink, but I put it on quickly and stood looking away.
“I’ll make you some breakfast,” he said. “I shouldn’t. I should keep you on bread and water for a while to teach you a lesson, but the faster you get better, the faster we can think about having our baby. I know how mothers are. They never ever think of leaving their babies. You’ll be able to think of someone besides yourself and me. Go on. Get off your feet,” he ordered.
Nearly tiptoeing to keep my weight off some of the scrapes and cuts on my feet, I returned to the bed. He started to make some coffee and eggs. Either it didn’t bother him that he was stark naked, or he was doing that to intimidate me. It didn’t matter. I was intimidated and kept my gaze on the floor.
“You stay in that bed for now,” he said. “For a while, I want you to keep off your feet except to go to the bathroom. Those bandages got to be changed every other day, even if I forget. We don’t want no infections and fevers and all the other crap that goes along with it. But even if that happens, don’t worry. I have pills. I have lots of pills.”
Obediently, I got back under the blanket.
“Put my pillow behind yours, too, and sit up,” he ordered. He continued to prepare a tray. “I’ll be your servant for now, but once you’re better, you’ll be doing everything for us. You’re too spoiled. All you rich girls are too spoiled. Rich bitches turn to witches if you don’t use some switches,” he recited, and laughed.
“I’m not a rich girl,” I said. I was amazed myself that I cared enough to say anything. How could I care what he thought or what anyone thought about me now? I didn’t feel human.
“Sure you are. You ever work? Well? Did you?”
“No.”
“Then you’re a rich girl. Ma warned me about rich girls, but you can be cured.”
“Cured? What’s that mean?” Did his ugly little rhyme mean something . . . if you don’t use some switches? What else did he have planned for me?
I could see he was thinking. Then he turned when the right word had come to him. “Trained is what I mean. People can be trained just like animals. If my mother was here and saw you, she would say you ain’t been housebroken yet. That’s why you went and did this damn dumb thing. She was always saying that about my father. ’Course, he never was, and never could be, housebroken. When he was really drunk, he might pee in the kitchen sink and set her into some tirade. I seen her hit him with a frying pan once.”
To my surprise, those memories seemed to cheer him up. He started to whistle as he finished making breakfast. He was happy again, mumbling about our future, the things he was planning to do for our family, behaving as though nothing had happened. He simply refused to accept my rejection, even now, even after I had made such a dramatic and desperate attempt to escape. I watched him and thought how crazy he was, and yet he obviously could get by in the world without anyone realizing it or caring. Without friends and, apparently, without contact with relatives, who would know how he lived and what he did in his own home? How many weird people lived alone like he did and went about their daily lives unnoticed until they hurt someone or themselves? Yes, I thought, it was very possible that there had been another young girl kept down here, very possible that there had even been more than one.
Because he didn’t work at a company and with the same people every day, his insanity was surely even less noticeable. If he was telling the truth about the quality of his work, he was possibly able to present himself as being normal enough to work for people. There were probably people who might have praised the work he had done and, as he had suggested to me, recommended him to others. Someday, if what he was doing to me and with me was ever revealed, these same people would shake their heads and say something like “Anthony Cabot? Who would have ever imagined that a nice, efficient working man like that would do such things? He was always talking about his mother. He must have loved her very much, a devoted son.”
The thought reminded me of what I had seen.
“Whose coffin is in that room upstairs?” I asked.
He paused as he began to pour coffee into a cup. “That’s my mother,” he said. “You went in there,” he added, as if someone had just whispered in his ear.
“Why is her coffin on a bed in that room?”
“It’s her room.” He finished pouring the coffee and put the eggs and some toast on the dish. Then he placed it all on a tray and brought it to me. Carefully, he put the tray on my lap. “Eat,” he ordered.
I began. It wasn’t until I had started to chew that I realized my jaw was sore, too. When I had fallen into that ditch, I had really smashed my face into the hard soil.
“But why put her coffin in her room? Why isn’t it in a cemetery?” I asked as I ate.
“I wasn’t going to bury her beside my father. She didn’t want that. The day she knew she was going to die, she made me promise.”
“But you could put her in a grave that wasn’t near his, couldn’t you?”
“No. Stop asking questions about her. You ain’t earned the right yet.”
The right? He talked about his mother as if she was some sort of divine being. I was so tired, defeated, and bruised that I didn’t care.
However, a new thought came to me, one that was perhaps even more frightening.