“If this goes on, he’ll kill me,” she said, and after she got over her momentary surprise, she supposed it was the drop of blood-the little bit of herself that was already dead, that had crept out of her nose and died on the sheet-she was speaking to. The answer that came back was inside her own head, and it was infinitely more terrible than the possibility she had spoken aloud: Except he might not. Have you thought of that? He might not.

She hadn’t thought of it. The idea that someday he would hit her too hard, or in the wrong place, had often crossed her mind (although she had never said it out loud, even to herself, until today), but never the possibility that she might live… The buzzing in her muscles and joints increased. Usually she only sat in Pooh’s Chair with her hands folded in her lap, looking across the bed and through the bathroom door at her own reflection in the mirror, but this morning she began to rock, moving the chair back and forth in short, jerky arcs. She had to rock. The buzzing, tingling sensation in her muscles demanded that she rock. And the last thing she wanted to do was to look at her own reflection, and never mind that her nose hadn’t swollen much. Come over here, sweetheart, I want to talk to you up dose. Fourteen years of that. A hundred and sixty-eight months of it, beginning with his yanking her by the hair and biting her shoulder for slamming a door on their wedding night. One miscarriage. One scratched lung. The horrible thing he’d done with the tennis racket. The old marks, on parts of her body her clothes covered. Bite-marks, for the most part. Norman loved to bite. At first she had tried to tell herself they were lovebites. It was strange to think she had ever been that young, but she supposed she must have been. Come over here-I want to talk to you up close. Suddenly she was able to identify the buzzing, which had now spread to her entire body. It was anger she was feeling, rage, and realization brought wonder. Get out of here, that deep part of her said suddenly. Get out of here right now, this very minute. Don’t even take the time to run a comb through your hair. Just go.

“That’s ridiculous,” she said, rocking back and forth faster than ever. The spot of blood on the sheet sizzled in her eye. From here, it looked like the dot under an exclamation point.

“That’s ridiculous, where would I go?” Anywhere he isn’t, the voice returned. But you have to do it right now. Before… Before what? That one was easy. Before she fell asleep again. A part of her mind-a habituated, cowed part-suddenly realized that she was seriously entertaining this thought and put up a terrified clamor. Leave her home of fourteen years? The house where she could put her hand on anything she wanted? The husband who, if a little short-tempered and quick to use his fists, had always been a good provider? The idea was ridiculous. She must forget it, and immediately. And she might have done so, almost certainly would have done so, if not for that drop on the sheet. That single dark red drop. Then don’t look at it! the part of herself which fancied itself practical and sensible shouted nervously. For Christ’s sake don’t look at it, it’s going to get you into trouble! Except she found she could no longer look away. Her eyes remained fixed upon the spot, and she rocked faster than ever. Her feet, clad in white lowtop sneakers, patted the floor in a quickening rhythm (the buzzing was now mostly in her head, rattling her brains, heating her up), and what she thought was Fourteen years. Fourteen years of having him talk to me up dose. The miscarriage. The tennis racket. Three teeth, one of which I swallowed. The broken rib. The punches. The pinches. And the bites, of course. Plenty of those. Plenty of-Stop it! It’s useless, thinking like this, because you’re not going anywhere, he’d only come after you and bring you back, he’d find you, he’s a policeman and finding people is one of the things he does, one of the things he’s good at-”Fourteen years,” she murmured, and now it wasn’t the last fourteen she was thinking about but the next. Because that other voice, the deep voice, was right. He might not kill her. He might not. And what would she be like after fourteen more years of having him talk to her up close? Would she be able to bend over? Would she have an hour-fifteen minutes, even-a day when her kidneys didn’t feel like hot stones buried in her back? Would he perhaps hit her hard enough to deaden some vital connection, so she could no longer raise one of her arms or legs, or perhaps leave one side of her face hanging slack and expressionless, like poor Mrs Diamond, who clerked in the Store 24 at the bottom of the hill? She got up suddenly and with such force that the back of Pooh’s Chair hit the wall. She stood there for a moment, breathing hard, wide eyes still fixed on the maroon spot, and then she headed for the door leading into the living room.

Where are you going? Ms Practical-Sensible screamed inside her head-the part of her which seemed perfectly willing to be maimed or killed for the continued privilege of knowing where the teabags were in the cupboard and where the Scrubbies were kept under the sink. Just where do you think you’re- She clapped a lid on the voice, something she’d had no idea she could do until this moment. She took her purse off the table by the sofa and walked across the living room toward the front door. The room suddenly seemed very big, and the walk very long. I have to take this a step at a time. If I think even one step ahead, I’m going to lose my nerve. She didn’t think that would be a problem, actually. For one thing, what she was doing had taken on a hallucinatory quality-surely she could not simply be walking out of her house and her marriage on the spur of the moment, could she? It had to be a dream, didn’t it? And there was something else, too: not thinking ahead had pretty much become a habit with her, one that had started on their wedding night, when he’d bitten her like a dog for slamming a door. Well, you can’t go like this, even if you just make it to the bottom of the block before running out of steam, Practical-Sensible advised. At the very least change out of those jeans that show how wide your can’s getting. And run a comb through your hair. She paused, and was for a moment close to giving the whole thing up before she even got to the front door. Then she recognized the advice for what it was-a desperate ploy to keep her in the house. And a shrewd one. It didn’t take long to swap a pair of jeans for a skirt or to mousse your hair and then use a comb on it, but for a woman in her position, it would almost certainly have been long enough. For what? To go back to sleep again, of course. She’d be having serious doubts by the time she’d pulled the zipper up on the side of her skirt, and by the time she’d finished with her comb, she’d have decided she had simply suffered a brief fit of insanity, a transitory fugue state that was probably related to her cycle. Then she would go back into the bedroom and change the sheets.

“No,” she murmured.

“I won’t do that. I won’t.” But with one hand on the doorknob, she paused again. She shows sense! Practical-Sensible cried, her voice a mixture of relief, jubilation, and-was it possible?-faint disappointment. Hallelujah, the girl shows sense! Better late than never! The jubilation and relief in that mental voice turned to wordless horror as she crossed quickly to the mantel above the gas fireplace he had installed two years before. What she was looking for probably wouldn’t be there, as a rule he only left it up there toward the end of the month (’so I won’t be tempted,” he would say), but it couldn’t hurt to check. And she knew his pin-number; it was just their telephone number, with the first and last digits reversed. It WILL hurt! Practical-Sensible screamed. If you take something that belongs to him, it’ll hurt plenty, and you know it! PLENTY!