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KIM BALDWIN. “Mmm. Tired,” Gable answered
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“Mmm. Tired,” Gable answered. Her eyelids were drooping.
“The doctor said you need to rest.”
“Stay with me?”
“You just try to get rid of me.”
“Wouldn’t think of it,” Gable replied. “Come up here beside me?”
“We shouldn’t.”
“Don’t care. If you really want me to get some sleep…”
“What about your hands?”
“They’re all right. We’ll be careful.”
Erin relented and climbed onto the narrow hospital bed next to Gable. She settled gingerly into her familiar position, lying on her left side with her head tucked into the crook of Gable’s shoulder. Gently, she draped her arm across Gable’s stomach.
“Sore?”
“S’F ne. Thanks,” Gable mumbled drowsily. She was nearly asleep when Erin whispered her name.
“Gable? You still awake?”
Gable answered but didn’t open her eyes. “Mmm-hmm.”
“All my life, I always dreamed I’d only get married once. Just once.”
Gable struggled to rouse herself. Erin’s talking about marriage.
This is important. You have to stay awake. She wanted to encourage her to continue, but she didn’t want to interrupt. Instead, she tilted her head and kissed Erin’s forehead.
“My parents were married for F fty-one years. Devoted to each other until Dad died. And you know how it is, growing up Irish Catholic.
No one we knew ever got divorced. It just didn’t happen. That’s the mentality I grew up with.” Erin paused for a long moment.
“I guess I just always believed in the fairy tale that you F nd the person you’re destined to be with, and you live happily ever after.” She paused again. “But it didn’t happen that way for me.” She took a long, deep breath and let it out.
“I was right out of college and had just started teaching when I met Phil. I was thirty pounds heavier and hadn’t dated much. Very inexperienced sexually—thanks to all those years of parochial schools.
Phil was tall, charming, and a year older than I was, and I had no idea what he saw in me when he asked me out.”
Gable could feel her tremble at the recollection.
• 232 •
FORCE OF NATURE
“I didn’t have any self-conF dence at all, you understand, back then. I was still a kid, really. I was f attered by the attention, and I wanted so much to fall in love that I got swept up in the relationship.
We got married less than three months after we met.”
She trembled again. Took another long, deep breath.
“Things went downhill almost immediately. Phil was a very jealous guy. He hated to have me out of his sight at all, and if any guy dared talk to me…Well, he’d accuse me of all sorts of things for hours afterward. I didn’t know it right away, but I found out later he followed me when I wasn’t with him, spying on me to see if I was cheating on him. He even listened in on my phone calls.”
Another long pause.
“What started out as gentle lovemaking became constant demands for sex. Rough sex. Whether I was up for it at that moment or not.”
Gable was wide-awake now; her anger at the thought of what Erin had suffered was pouring through her.
“He told me from the beginning that he didn’t believe in divorce.”
Erin laughed, but it was a laugh without humor. “I thought that was a good thing, at the time.”
She took another deep, shuddering breath. Her voice, when she resumed, had the soft, fearful quality of a child’s voice relating a nightmare. “He started drinking more and more. And then he started hitting me, about six months into the marriage.”
Gable clenched her jaw. A tear slipped down her cheek.
“He broke my arm the F rst time. He cried and cried and promised it would never happen again. The second time he blackened both my eyes and gave me a concussion. That’s when I left him.”
Erin shifted her weight and hugged Gable tighter. “Phil refused to give me a divorce. He went to the school where I worked and made all sorts of crazy accusations, until F nally they had to let me go. I don’t blame them. They were worried about the kids, and he was clearly out of control.”
She sighed. “Then he started showing up at the apartment where I moved. I wouldn’t answer the door, and he’d pound on it and make all the neighbors crazy.” Another pause. “One night he hid in the laundry room down the hall until I came home and pushed his way in behind me.”
Erin was shaking again. “That was an awful night. And next day.
During most of it, he kept me tied up and gagged and locked in a closet.”
• 233 •
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