Rescue - By Anita Shreve Page 0,29
her away from the aunt and uncle. About how she’d foolishly traded one nightmare for another. She left out the parts that had led to the bruises Webster had seen, but by the time the sun was beginning to set, Webster wanted to smash in the man’s face and break all his teeth.
“He’s married,” Sheila said. “He has kids. When he called me a whore, he meant it.”
She never wept. She never indicated she felt sorry for herself.
She held Webster’s hand between her own and gently massaged it. She told him about the night she knew the cop was coming over, and she’d heard from a girlfriend that he’d been drinking since noon. She put a few things into a bag, got into the Cadillac, and drove. When she reached the New Hampshire border, she stopped and peed and ate and had a couple of drinks. An hour later, she stopped and peed and had a few more drinks. The alcohol helped with the fear. She was terrified the whole drive that he was right behind her.
“You were headed to New York,” Webster said.
“I was going to go as far as I could go.”
“And you ended up on my stretch of road.”
“That’s one way to put it.”
For a long time, Webster sat with her story while Sheila made dinner. He hated her history, but he didn’t hate her. He decided to think of her past as “the time before Vermont,” and the tree against which her Cadillac had come to rest as the dividing line between “then and now.” He decided he could live with that.
They ate, and she washed the dishes. After all the talk, she was silent, as if she had no more words. When she was through with the dishes, he took her to the couch and held her and waited for all the poisonous spores to leave the apartment.
Sheila entered the apartment announcing she needed a shower straightaway. She shed her uniform as she walked, as if she couldn’t get it off fast enough. After the shower, in reverse, she collected the bits and threw them in the washing machine before she presented herself to Webster—wet hair and clean skin.
She glowed. Though she was doctor-phobic right from the get-go, he made sure she kept her monthly appointments and took her hefty vitamins.
“Why were you so eager to get your clothes off?” he asked when they sat down to a London broil he had just grilled. “My amazing charm?”
“Geezer rubbed my belly. Usually I don’t care. My body’s not my own anymore, and that’s fine. But it made my skin crawl when he did it.”
Webster had bought candles and a tablecloth. Sheila seemed not to notice.
“Well, you can rest now.” He took a bite of steak.
For a minute, she looked around the room as if searching for something. Then she was silent. She picked up her fork but didn’t touch the meat or the baked potato or green beans.
“I thought maybe I’d paint the bedroom tomorrow,” Webster said.
Sheila lifted her glass of water and drank it straight down. She set the glass on the tablecloth. He reached for her hand and startled her.
“There’s something I want to ask you,” Webster said, and grinned.
Sheila was wary. Not smiling.
“Will you marry me?” he asked.
Sheila paused, fork in midair. She put her fork down.
“What?” she asked.
Webster was silent.
“This is kind of a surprise,” she said.
“Sheila.”
“Do we have to do this now?”
Webster let her hand go. “Do what now?” he asked.
“Talk. Make plans.”
“We make plans all the time,” he said.
“We don’t make concrete plans.”
“Yeah, we do. We’re having a baby. That’s a pretty concrete plan.”
She pressed her lips together.
“What the hell, Sheila?” he said, sitting back. “This isn’t your average plan. I’m proposing to you.”
Sheila rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. “It’s so good the way it is,” she said wearily. “Let’s not mess it up.”
Sheila’s skin was pink from the hot water, and her hair was flowing damp and straight behind her ears. She wore no makeup, as she did when she went out, and he felt, when he saw her naked face, that he was seeing the real Sheila.
“I’m not asking you just because you’re pregnant,” he explained.
“I know.”
“Then what is it?”
“Why formalize everything?” she asked, lighting a cigarette.
He stared at her.
“See?” she said. “You want me to put this out.”
“I do.”
“Why?”
“Sheila, you know why.”
“That’s just it! I don’t want all these fucking rules. You’re smothering me.”
She wants a drink.
Knowing that, Webster couldn’t argue further. There