He shrugged. “I thought I could teach you to be a good wife. But unfortunately for me, you’re not as smart as everyone said you were.” Then he gave me a charming smile. “But don’t worry. I won’t give up on you.”
He reached over and touched my belly. “At least you can supply me with a son.”
I flinched and scooted closer to the window. He scowled. “But you’ll probably screw that up too and give birth to a girl.”
I stared out the window, watching the world go by. He’s like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
And I wish I wasn’t married to either one of them.
April 28, 1965
I lied and told Dickie I needed the car today because of a baby appointment with Dr. Carlyle. But I didn’t have an appointment. Instead I drove over to see Ruby again.
I wanted to ask if I could stay with her for a couple days, until I figure out what to do, until I work up the courage to leave.
I wanted to tell her everything.
But as we sat there in her tiny kitchen with her beautiful baby sitting on her lap, babbling and waving her chubby little hands, I just couldn’t do it. The words stuck to the roof of my mouth like peanut butter.
Dickie doesn’t hit me or beat me. He’s not violent. He’s just ... mean. He says I’m too sensitive, and that everything he does and says is for my own good, to help me improve, to help me become a better wife.
And what if that’s true? What if he’s doing all this out of some twisted, distorted sense oflove?
I honestly don’t think he can help it. He’s wired this way. Or he learned it from his own parents, who had a very unhappy marriage before his mother died. At least, that’s the impression I’ve gotten from Dickie.
I thought about all this as Ruby sat across from me, giving her baby a bottle.
“Does your husband ever ... give you advice?” I asked tentatively.
She laughed. “Oh gosh, yes. He’s full of terrible ideas. Like he thinks we should plant hydrangeas on the south side of the house, even though they would absolutelyfryin the heat. I’ve told him, but he won’t listen. So I’ll let him plant them where he wants, and then they’ll all die, and he’ll see that I was right.”
I gave her a weak smile and kept my mouth shut.
I can’t tell Ruby. She wouldn’t understand. And I have the baby to think about.
Those years after Mother died were so hard. I was always the only girl who didn’t have a mom to help her pick out a prom dress or give her advice about boys. I don’t want my baby to be the only child without a father, or worse yet, to be the only child in the class with divorced parents.
Lots of women have it worse. Lots of men have it worse too. Like poor Danny, getting shot at every day and then bleeding to death in the jungle before the medics could arrive. All I have to do is clean my house and cook some meals. I need to keep things in perspective.
And maybe Dickie is right. Maybe Iamtoo sensitive. Plus, I’m sort of ashamed. If my marriage isn’t working, don’t I share half the blame for that? Maybe I just need to have a better attitude. Maybe I just need to try harder.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Kiersten
As she loaded the dishwasher that night, Kiersten’s mind returned to Dottie and 1965.
He’s like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
And I wish I wasn’t married to either one of them.
What would it be like to live in an era when divorce was considered a scandal, with real social consequences for leaving a husband, even an abusive one? She’d always believed that her mother and grandmother had grown up in a time similar to hers. After all, they had the right to vote. It’s not like they were Mary Poppins–era suffragettes.
But now she was starting to wonder if she’d taken some things for granted. Like the right to pursue any career she wanted and to keep working, even after she got married and had children. Or the right to be Kiersten Cleaver after marriage, instead ofMrs. Garrett Cleaver, with her name and identity subsumed by her husband.
Those old black-and-whiteLeave It to Beaverreruns she’d sometimes seen on TV had given her an impression of a wholesome, more innocent past. But now she felt like she’d stumbled onto the bad side of the good old days.
She’d done some creative googling that morning after reading the next entry, but she still couldn’t figure out Dottie’s last name or her maiden name. But if she could find an old newspaper, she could look for local car-dealership ads from 1965. And she could only find those at the library. That was the next logical step. That and speaking to Lillian, her eighty-seven-year-old neighbor who was currently in Chicago, visiting her son.
