It was going to be that day. I was going to discover the truth that day, come hell or high water.
I spent all Sunday nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof. I couldn’t even bring myself to go to church. I told Otis I felt sick, which wasn’t entirely a lie. I stayed home thinking, planning every second. Otis went out with the girls.
I stayed alone in the silence. I went to the bedroom and looked at the bed—that old creaky wooden frame where I slept every night, where I woke up every morning at 2:47 to the sight of that man watching me.
Tomorrow, I was going to know. I didn’t know if I wanted to know, but I needed to.
That Sunday night, I ate dinner very early. I took a hot bath, scrubbing the worry off my skin, and lay down around 8 PM. I complained of a headache to avoid talking. Otis stayed in the living room, smoking his pipe. The girls went to sleep.
I lay there, eyes wide open in the dark, staring at the ceiling, listening to the noises of the house settling—the creaking of the wood, the wind hitting the windowpane, the crickets singing their chorus outside.
Otis came to bed around 9. He lay on his side like always. He stayed quiet. I kept my eyes open, waiting, my heart beating a frantic rhythm against my ribs, my palms sweating.
I couldn’t mess up tomorrow. I couldn’t fall asleep and miss it. I had to be awake. I had to hear.
Finally, I managed to drift off. It must have been around 11 at night. It was a light, jagged sleep, full of nightmares. I dreamed of weird things—of Otis, of the girls, of the house catching fire and burning to ash.
I woke up in the early morning with a jolt. I looked at the clock.
2:30 AM.
I still had fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes to go. Fifteen minutes until 2:47. Fifteen minutes to discover what that man was doing to me, to my peace, to my sanity.
I was lying there, completely still, my body tense, stiff as a board. I tried to force myself to relax.
I knew I couldn’t be tense like that or he would notice; he would sense the rigidity. It had to look like I was truly asleep, deep in the valley of dreams.
I breathed deep, slow. In through the nose, out through the mouth, real slow. I let my arms go limp at my sides.
I turned a little on my side into the position I always slept in. I closed my eyes, relaxed my face, dropped my shoulders, unclenched my legs.
I lay like that, breathing deep, slow, a perfect imitation of a sleeping woman.
Otis was on his side of the bed. I heard his breathing. It seemed like he was asleep, but I wasn’t sure. Was he truly asleep, or was he awake, waiting just like me?
The minutes passed slowly, agonizingly slowly. Every second seemed like an hour. I wanted to look at the clock, to check the time, but I couldn’t risk it. I had to keep the act up.
The silence of the house was heavy, pressing down on me. Only the wind outside and his breathing could be heard. And my own heart—thump, thump, thump, thump—beating in my chest like a war drum. I was terrified he would hear it.
I tried to calm down. I thought of peaceful things—the garden in bloom, the chickens pecking in the yard, the girls playing tag. But I couldn’t calm down because I knew it was time.
Suddenly, I heard the bed creak.
He was moving.
I stayed still, eyes closed, breathing deep and rhythmic. I heard him get up. The mattress sank on his side when he put his weight on it to leverage himself up. The bed groaned under the shift. He stood up.
I was waiting for him to come to my side like always, and he came.
I heard his steps slowly, very slowly, on the wooden floor of the house. Creak… creak… creak. They were the steps of a ghost, slow and careful, like someone who is terrified of waking the dead.
He stopped on my side of the bed. I felt his presence there—a heaviness in the air, a shadow blocking out what little light there was. I kept breathing deep, slow, my chest rising and falling in a perfect counterfeit of sleep.
He stood there, just like he always did. I felt the weight of his gaze on me physically, like a touch.
My heart raced—thump, thump, thump—beating so fast I had to clamp my jaw shut to keep my teeth from chattering. I couldn’t show that I was awake. Not now.
He stayed there. How long? I don’t know. A minute? Two? Three? It seemed like an eternity stretched out in the dark.
Then, he moved again.
I heard a different noise this time—fabric rustling, joints popping. He had crouched down. Lord have mercy. He was on his knees right next to the bed, his face level with mine.
I stayed still, breathing, pretending. And then, child, he started to speak.
His voice was so low, so weak, I could barely hear it. It was a whisper, a breath of air against the silence.
“Please, Hattie…”
He said my name.
“Please, Hattie… forgive me.”
Forgive what? My mind screamed. Forgive you for what?
He kept whispering, his voice breaking, trembling with tears.
“Forgive me for what I did… for what I promised. I shouldn’t have… God help me, I shouldn’t have done that.”
My whole body went rigid under the quilt, every muscle pulling tight, but I kept the rhythm of my breath steady. I needed to hear more. I needed to understand.
“I was desperate, Hattie… I was scared. The debt was too big. I had no way to pay it.”
Debt? What debt? We didn’t owe a dime to anyone, except maybe the dry goods store for a sack of flour now and then.
He cried then. I heard his quiet weeping, stifled chokes, like a man trying to vomit up his own soul but not wanting anyone to hear the retching.
“Three thousand dollars… Three thousand… I didn’t have it. I don’t have it. And he was going to kill me, Hattie. Mr. Thorne was going to kill me.”
Mr. Thorne. Silas Thorne. The wealthy landowner. The widower who owned half the county. My blood ran cold, turning to ice in my veins.
“So I promised… God forgive me… I promised our girl. I promised our Ruby.”
No.
No, no, no.
My heart stopped. The world stopped.
“When she turns fifteen… she goes to him.”
That was what he said. That was the sentence that ended my life.
“When she turns fifteen, she becomes his.”
I wanted to scream. I wanted to roar like a lioness. I wanted to get up, grab that man by the neck, and squeeze until the life went out of his eyes.
But I stayed still. I swallowed the scream that was clawing up my throat because I needed to hear everything. Every single dirty detail.
He kept crying, sobbing into his hands.
“It was January 16th… early morning. I had lost everything playing poker at Big Joe’s Juke Joint. Everything, Hattie. All the money we had saved… and I still ended up owing three thousand to Mr. Thorne.”
He had gambled our money. The money I scraped together sewing until my eyes burned. The money we saved for hard times, for the girls’ schooling. He had taken it all to a juke joint and gambled it away.
“I came home that morning wanting to die… wanted to hang myself in the barn… wanted to disappear. But then he showed up here at the house the next day. Mr. Thorne. And he made the proposal.”
What proposal? What kind of devil makes a proposal like that?
“He said he would forget the whole debt. Wipe it clean. If I promised him Ruby’s hand when she turned fifteen…” Otis choked on the words. “He is fifty-two, Hattie. Fifty-two… and our girl is nine.”
I was shaking on the inside, vibrating with a rage so pure and hot it felt like lava. Fifty-two. An old man. And my baby was nine. She still played with rag dolls.
“I said yes. God forgive me, I said yes because I was afraid. Afraid he would kill me… afraid of losing everything. I am a coward, Hattie. I am a coward.”
Yes, you are, I thought. You are lower than the dirt under my fingernails.
