I moved as quickly as I could to the bathroom, hoping that if he saw how dragging the chain was especially difficult for me in my weakened condition, he might be merciful and unfasten it again. Surely he could tell that I didn’t have the strength to attempt another escape, but when I glanced back at him, I didn’t see any sympathy. He was still gazing at me furiously, as if he imagined having a whip in his hand. Maybe that was coming next.
The moment I looked into the bathroom mirror, I lost my breath and started to gasp. Having felt the top of my head earlier, I had some idea of how brutal he had been when he cut my hair, but the sight of it now, the patches randomly interspersed with portions that showed pink scalp, was so ugly and disfiguring I wished he had shaved me until I was completely bald. When I saw myself now, I once again wondered how he could look at me and mention the word beauty. Didn’t he realize what he had done?
A rush of new terror I didn’t think possible came over me. I thought I had reached the limit of what I could endure, but my pale face became even paler. The contrast with the bright new blouse made it look even worse. Visions of Haylee standing behind me and gaping at me returned. Her smile began and widened. I heard her laugh and saw her run her fingers through her beautiful hair, tormenting me with the sight of her rich, pampered strands.
I couldn’t stand it any longer. The little strength that had returned surged down my arm and helped me make a fist. I screamed and screamed and pounded the mirror, pounded at Haylee’s face, until I heard the glass shatter. Blood seemed to leap out of my hand. In moments, Anthony was beside me, his eyes bugging at the sight. I began to sink to the floor, but he grabbed me around the waist and helped me up with his right arm as he turned on the water and ran it over my hand. I watched my blood stream down the drain and wished I could go down completely with it.
There was a shard of glass still in the side of my palm. I gazed at it and then closed my eyes and felt my body turning boneless. Nevertheless, I tried to stay conscious. How many times could I faint and live? I kept myself from going completely dark this time. He had me sprawled on the floor and began to work on my hand wound, cursing and complaining as he did. He was mumbling like a drunken madman. I tried not to think of the pain, to imagine myself somewhere else, but even my imagination was exhausted. It was as if I had drained every nice thought, every pretty memory, and every ounce of happiness from my bank of cheerful and blissful times.
“No matter what I do to make us happy, you spoil it,” he muttered. “Spoil and spoil, that’s all you can do. That’s you, spoiled to the core. I was afraid of exactly this. Yes, I was. My mother told me, warned me, girls, pampered girls, are poison. They’ll turn your blood to ice water. They’ll make you hate yourself for ever caring about them. And they’ll always make more trouble for you than they’re worth.”
He began to imitate a woman’s voice. “?‘They don’t love you. They never love you. They love only what you can do for them. Their love doesn’t come to you; it bounces off you. You become a reflector . . . they’ll just be looking at themselves. They’ll see and want what’s good for them only. Stay away from pampered girls. You hear me, Anthony?’
“I heard, but I didn’t listen good. What you go and do this for? I got this great dinner planned. I bought you new clothes, new shoes, and your favorite things to eat. Why did you do this to me?”
He plucked a shard of glass out of my palm and then washed my hand roughly, mumbling and repeating his mother’s words like some chant. He smeared disinfectant cream over the deep cut before he wrapped my hand in gauze and bandaged it so tightly that I couldn’t move my fingers. Then he stood up and looked down at me with such disgust I couldn’t imagine him wanting to keep me any longer.
These have to be the final moments. Surely he’ll either let me go or kill me, I thought, but I was almost too tired and defeated to care which it was.
“You ain’t getting another mirror, Kaylee. And you ain’t gonna spoil my dinner. No, ma’am, no. You’ll sit there at our table, and you’ll eat everything I put in front of you with your other hand. Whatever you don’t eat, I’ll stuff down your throat either tonight or for breakfast tomorrow. That’s what my father did to me many times, made me eat for breakfast what I didn’t eat for dinner. You hear what I’m saying? Do you?”
He straddled me, both hands clenched into fists that looked like mallets, his knuckles strangely bruised, like those of someone who had been punching walls. The muscles in his neck were tight, embossed against his skin. His jaw looked locked open. My imagination was going wild. I thought I saw two tiny eyes gazing out at me from the darkness of his mouth.
I nodded.
“Say it!”
“Yes,” I managed. Every time I thought I would simply give up and die, the fear within me boiled higher and higher. I didn’t want any more pain. I couldn’t refuse to speak to him. I had tried that and failed. He would simply imagine my words, imagine them the way he wanted them to sound. I couldn’t deliberately starve myself. My body wouldn’t let me. I couldn’t defy him in any way, and yet somewhere so deep inside that I had never gone there before, I felt the twitter of resistance, a part of me still alive. I couldn’t give up, no matter how futile it looked. I was in that strange place where you could only shut down your mind and try to step outside yourself, no longer caring what happened to your tortured body but still dreaming of escape.
“You get yourself up and go sit at the table. Don’t do anything else to get me mad,” he warned. “My patience is on empty. And I’m not putting on any of the music you like. This ain’t a romantic dinner now. It’s just a dinner, tossing food at you like feeding hogs. Don’t get me mad again.”
He stared down at me, imprinting his threat on my forehead with his angry eyes. I closed mine and waited, half expecting him to stamp on my face and maybe kick the last drop of life out of me.
He returned to his dinner preparation, mumbling to himself as he worked. I sat up slowly. He hadn’t picked up the pieces of the mirror, so I had to be careful where I put my left hand as I stood. My right hand was pounding with pain, but I walked out and sat at the table. He began to bring food, but not pretending to be a waiter this time. He was more like who he really was, my prison guard, my abductor. He served the salad and then sat and glared at me, defying me not to eat.
I began. It was impossible to use my right hand, and I was clumsy with my left, but he didn’t say anything. He watched me unhappily. I was eating, but his rage was not subsiding. Maybe the end really was near, I thought.
“Nice new clothes, the best steak, good food, plans to fix up our place with you picking out what colors to use, planning new furniture, new flooring, all of it, and none of it making you happy,” he recited with the speed of an automatic weapon. “Ah, why waste my breath?”
He stabbed at his salad, nearly splitting the dish in two, and began to eat. It sounded like he was growling when he chewed. He poked at his lettuce and tomatoes, nodding as if he had been listening to someone speak. Suddenly, he threw his fork down and sat back.
“What’s it gonna take to make you happy, Kaylee? You told me things you like, and I made sure you got them. Love ain’t a one-way street, you know. Yeah, I remember you said you was spoiled and I might have to be a little tough with you, but you were just being honest, and don’t forget, you invited all this. Did I tell you to meet me? Did I keep contacting you, or did you keep contacting me? I told you, I warned you, I don’t like just fooling around, and you said you weren’t. You swore. You even got mad at me for even thinking you were. And now this behavior? You think a man is just another toy for you to play with? Is that what you think? I ain’t no toy—no, ma’am.”
He folded his arms across his chest and sat back, scowling at me.
Did I dare try again? Did I have the strength for it?
“That wasn’t me,” I said. “I told you, that was my twin sister. Her name is Haylee. You were supposed to meet her, not me.”
He didn’t speak; he simply shook his head, looked up at the ceiling, nodded again as if he heard someone speaking, and returned to eating his salad.
After a few quiet moments, he spoke, but he looked down at the table as if he was speaking his thoughts not to me but to himself.
“It’s just gonna take time. Patience, like Ma always said. ‘Patience paves the way to satisfaction. Impatience lets the air out of your tires.’?”
He rose and went to the stove to finish fixing our dinner. Everything he did was still lined with anger, as he slammed pans and cursed under his breath. I kept my head down. I was eating and swallowing, but I wasn’t tasting anything. I was trying to get it down as quickly as I could, thinking that my eating would calm him and give me the strength to resist again. When he brought my steak, he stood over me and cut it into small pieces for me. I kept my eyes down and ate. He did the same and stopped talking. We were both almost done when I heard what sounded like a doorbell. He paused and listened. It was there again, definitely a doorbell.
Did I dare hope? I had never heard the doorbell ring.