A Stillness in Bethlehem(100)

“Good God. Good Christ in heaven. What happened to you?”

“What do you think happened to me?” Candy said. “Reggie happened to me.”

Kelley looked up. Candy had already pulled her shirt back on and got it buttoned up. She was reaching for her sweater. Kelley could tell now that she was finding it hard to move. The miracle was that Candy could move at all. She had heard the rumors, of course—in a town like this, you always heard the rumors if they didn’t have anything to do with you; there’d been whispering for months at least that Reggie George beat his wife—but she’d had no idea of what the reality would be like. Even after all that volunteering at the women’s center, she’d had no idea what the reality would be like. She’d never faced the reality before. She’d always been involved in the talk counseling afterward.

Candy settled her sweater around her waist and sat down. Kelley asked her, “Did that just happen today? Just now? Did you escape from him and come running here?”

“That happened yesterday.” Candy took the tea bag out of her cup. She reached for the sugar, and Kelley was relieved to see she used a lot of it. “If it had happened today,” she said matter-of-factly, “it would still be bleeding. I always bleed for hours afterward. Sometimes for days. He doesn’t like me to put bandages on it. He says they make my clothes look funny.”

“Right,” Kelley said. Matter-of-fact or not, Candy was still disoriented. “Where is your husband?” she asked. “What are you doing here? Is he chasing you?”

“Reggie can’t chase me because I locked him in the basement. I tried to call Franklin Morrison to come and take him away, but every time I got the police station, they said Franklin was out. Franklin came once when it was bad and tried to do something, but I wouldn’t let him and nothing came of it. He said he’d come back and help any time I wanted him.”

“Wouldn’t any of them have helped? Couldn’t you have told one of the other policemen and had him come and take Reggie away?”

“I don’t know,” Candy said. “I didn’t trust it. I wanted Franklin. I still want Franklin. Reggie will be safe enough in the basement. I threw all the bolts.”

“Right,” Kelley said again. It didn’t seem to be the time to suggest that basements have windows that can be broken, or that the George house was close enough to civilization so that someone might hear Reggie hollering and let him out, or that Reggie was a large and strong man who might break a door or two if he got angry enough. “Well,” Kelley said, “you’re here now. I’ve just got to figure out what we can do for you.”

Candy looked up from her tea, skeptical. “You’re a feminist, aren’t you?”

“A feminist? Well, yes. Yes, of course I am.” Kelley didn’t think it sounded like an accusation, although it would have with some people. It sounded more like Candy was making sure she had her facts straight.

“I’ve got to go be in the play tonight,” Candy said. “And for the rest of this week. You see what I mean?”

“Not exactly.”

“Well, I can’t do anything about anything now,” Candy said, “except get Franklin Morrison to lock Reggie up, and I can do that as soon as I find Franklin, because he once said—well, he said. And then I have to be in the play for the rest of the week, and I won’t give that up for anything. But then there’s after that.”

“After that what?”

“You’re a feminist,” Candy said, “so you’ll know.”

“Know what?” Kelley was getting desperate.

“Know where to go,” Candy said. “I saw it on television, on 60 Minutes. I know everybody thinks I’m stupid, but I’m not. I watch 60 Minutes when Reggie’s gone out to a bar or someplace, which he does practically every Sunday night. And there it was. All these women who were feminists and the feminists got women whose husbands beat them up the way Reggie beats me up and the feminists helped these women find new places to stay and how to get a job and what to do about school and they give advice, you see what I mean? They give advice, which is all I need, because I sure as hell don’t need any guts, I must have been born with those or I’d have been dead by now, but I do need some information and you’re always saying you’re a feminist and Gemma Bury was, too. I used to think feminists were just women who didn’t like men, but on 60 Minutes it said feminists were women who did this instead. So are you real? Are you a feminist?”

Are you a feminist? Kelley Grey asked herself, marveling. She knew the tone in Candy’s voice all too well. She’d heard it from dozens of other people over the course of her life. That tone said: Put up or shut up. And faced with that alternative, Kelley Grey had always failed.