Leta moved in a daze, but deliberately. While she had felt
many times before that she should just leave everything and walk away, this
time she was actually doing it. The words of the woman in the butcher shop had
served as a force she could not overcome. Her already weak and conflicted
marriage was predicated by a lie. Her husband Leech told her that this was his
first marriage, and for that, she forgave him again and again his mistreatment
of her, his inconsiderate habits, and his difficulty with her children.
However, the tenuous acceptance had been shattered by only a few words: “I’m
Goldie. I was married to Leech. We have three children.”
Upon learning the information, Leta gave instructions to her
daughter Vivian to go right home and walked out of the butcher shop. She hailed
the first streetcar that drove past and got on. It was fairly crowded, but a
kind gentleman gave her his seat. She sat carefully. She looked at the other
passengers, a car full of strangers. Then she collapsed in on herself—alone,
distressed, uncertain. Her unhappiness clung to her like the heavy humid air,
and all she wanted to do was ride until her neighborhood, the city, and her
life faded away. In her mind, she no longer had children or home. There was
just her deceitful husband’s swollen face with its vast emptiness looking at
her. He said nothing. He simply breathed and waited for her to abandon her
dismay and anger, and be his devoted, obedient wife. She closed her eyes to
hide from him, but he followed her there with that same arrogant expression. It
was as though he was taunting her, waiting for her to say something or do
something that he could respond to. But she would not give him that
satisfaction.
Leta rode the streetcar to its last stop and stepped onto the
street. Across the street was a small park, so she walked to an empty bench.
There she sat from afternoon until evening. The park was filled with children
and families, laughter and food, but she paid no attention. Instead, her
thoughts battled each other. Her husband told her he had never been married,
but he had been. He told her he had no interest in children, and he meant it;
he had no interest in his own three children, which he abandoned to the horrors
of the world. Did he even work where he
said he worked? Did he own the house or was he lying about that? He obviously
hadn’t lived there as long as he told her had. What else was he keeping from
her? There were no satisfactory answers. Because of this, Leta could not
figure out what she should do. She now possessed knowledge that could—that
should—change everything, yet the question remained, What am I going to do?
Some time after the sun set, she finally left the park. She
took two streetcars to get to a blind pig that she knew her husband would not
patronize. She was really thirsty and asked the barman for a glass of water. She
emptied it in one long drink while the barman watched her. She knew she looked
terrible from sitting outside in the sun all afternoon and evening, but she
didn’t care. She merely wanted to quench her thirst and arrest the shaking that
seemed to be rising from the deepest part of her.
“Another,” she said as she put the glass down.
The barman complied. This one she took more slowly. When she
finished, he asked her if she wanted yet another, but she felt as though that
need had been satisfied.
‘Whiskey,” she said. “Straight up. Make it a double.”
“Someone has had a hard
day,” the barman noted.
She lifted the glass to her lips. “You don’t know the half of
it,” she said, and then took an entire shot in one mouthful.
The libation coated her insides with a warm comfort, and she
immediately began to relax for the first time that day.
When she finally returned to the house, she was feeling
light-headed. The lack of food, the unsatisfying amount of water and the three
double whiskeys she had been drinking for the past three hours had taken their
toll. The house was quiet, but she barely noticed. Instead, she sat on the sofa, slipped off her shoes, and then stretched
out.
Her life was about to change.
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