Secrets, part fourteen

Leta was looking at her husband. He was more inebriated than she, but in his red-faced rage, there was no way for anyone else to realize. Besides, he had just entered the speakeasy where she had been secretly meeting another man for weeks, so no one would suspect that he was anything more than a betrayed husband exercising his rightful claim to his wayward wife.

Once he recognized that he was in control of the situation, Ora puffed out his chest and stood up straight. After looking at the barkeep, his wife’s suitor and around the room for any potential challenger and finding none, he turned back to Leta. She was precariously balanced on her knees, partly clinging to a chair for support, her curly hair displaced and a slight smear of lipstick on her lips. Ora yanked her to her feet.

“Let’s go,” he said gruffly and dragged her toward the door, barely giving her time to snatch her pocketbook from the table.

The air was chilly, but neither seemed to notice, as they walked away from the establishment.

“Where’s the truck?” Leta asked as he pulled her down the street.

“Shut up,” he snarled and slapped her again, only not as hard as he had in the saloon. Still, because she was sore from the first slap, it hurt more, and she cried in pain.

“It’s after eleven,” she gasped. “The trolley has stopped running. What happened to the truck?” And when he didn’t answer, she persisted. “How did you get here?”

Ora stopped for a moment and looked around. He seemed bewildered.

“You can’t remember where you parked?” she inquired. She was holding her stinging cheek with one hand and he was gripping her other forearm. Her carefully coiffed hair had partially fallen. Somewhere, somehow she had lost her hat, and when she had fallen onto the chair, she had torn the skirt of her dress. The chilly air and her own vulnerability had her shivering.

As for Ora, he looked the same as he always did in this state—shiny red face made more bright by his sallow complexion; half-open, blood-shot, leaking eyes; perspiration beaded on his forehead and soaking through his shirt which looked as though he had slept in it. Part of the shirt had come untucked from his pants and strained against the suspenders that held his pants over his round belly. The shirt had several stains—mustard, coffee, rum—and his pants had twisted slightly. If he didn’t look so threatening, he would have looked like some character in a Charlie Chaplin film.

He grunted as if he finally found his bearings and then turned around, still dragging Leta roughly. Five minutes later, after forcibly shoving her into the passenger side of his vehicle, they were on the road and fifteen minutes after that, stopping in front of their house.

During their drive, the truck had been silent, except for an occasional whimper by Leta and a disapproving grunt from Ora. Neither moved at first, Ora staring straight ahead as if his brain had been turned off and Leta eyeing him cautiously, huddled against the passenger door so as to be as far away from his as she could and still be in the cab of the vehicle.

“Ora?” Leta finally whispered.

At first, he seemed not to hear her, so she repeated a little more loudly.

In an instant, his hands were squeezing her neck and pulling her face to his.

“If you ever shame me like that again, god damn you to hell, I will kill you!” he hissed. Then he squeezed a little more tightly before pushing her back into the door.

“Now, get out!” he ordered.

Keeping her eyes on her husband, Leta reached for the door handle, and then eased herself out of the truck. She walked backwards, watching him the entire time, until she reached the front door. Ora was still in the truck, staring out the window. While still watching him, she found her keys, but had to turn to unlock the door. Before she had finished, he was standing over her and she cried in fear, but not loudly enough to wake the children or any of their neighbors. His heavy breathing and noxious breath nearly overcame her.

With her hands trembling and body tense, fearing at any moment that he might repeat or magnify the violence, Leta unlocked the door. He pushed her aside so hard that she fell into the frame of the door and cut her already sore cheek, tore her stocking and bruised her leg. But she let him pass. He immediately went into the bathroom, where she heard him vomiting.

This gave her the opportunity to race into her son Dale’s room, grab her sleeping son roughly and yank him quickly into Vivian’s room where she immediately locked the door.

The noise had awakened Vivian.

“Ma?” she inquired, “What is it?”

Leta shushed her and clung to her twelve-year-old boy, who held onto her tightly, barely breathing in the confusion and fear. The threesome stayed that way for fifteen minutes at least, as Leta listened to her husband finish in the lavatory then stagger into the kitchen, pop open a bottle of beer, drop the bottle where it broke, swear and then stagger through the house and into their bedroom. Only then did she relax her hold on Dale.

While she could still speak, before the sobs overwhelmed her, she instructed him to get into bed with his sister.

“Ma?” he questioned.

“Go now,” she said firmly, “you have school in the morning.”

He paused and tried to see her face in the dark.

“You heard me,” she concluded, and he reluctantly obeyed.

Once he had walked away, she could hold back no longer. Her cheek burned, she could feel the trickle of blood running down her chin, her arm which Ora had gripped so tightly ached and her knee throbbed. The tears started to flow and flow and flow, so many that she wasn’t sure she would ever stop. She could feel Vivian and perhaps Dale watching from the bed, but she could do nothing to stop the tears or prevent her bewildered children from watching their unkempt and distraught mother from falling apart.

Her heart, her soul felt sorrow and regret and blame, and most painfully, she missed her beloved Albert. If he was still with her, none of this would have happened. They would still be laughing and carrying on like teenagers, Vivian would feel less responsible, and Dale would be confident and strong. They would live in a nice house with plenty to eat and clothes that weren’t patched together again and again. She would have a man that loved her, cared for her, listened to her, and provided her with affection and respect. Instead, she had this, this cesspool of unhappiness and pain. So she cried. Leta cried for half the night, then stared at the wall for several more hours, her entire soul numb, and finally, just as dawn was peeking into the room through the hold in the drape she had not the patch to fix, she fell lightly asleep.

The next afternoon, she met Dale and Vivian at school, just as they were dismissed. Instead of walking toward their house, they walked the mile to her old friend Mrs. Drew’s, where they spent the rest of the afternoon until her brother Aaron picked them up in his automobile.

Two days later, Leta filed for divorce.