“I think you should come with me,” he said.
“Mister, I done told you to let Miss Bea Dot alone,” Thaddeus said, his voice rumbling.
Bonner held up his palm to silence Thaddeus and said to Bea Dot, “Perhaps you should read this telegram before making your decision.”
Bea Dot took the envelope from his pale hand and stepped to the back of the truck before opening it. Her nerves jittered as she unfolded the paper. The afternoon sun, just touching the distant tree tops, made the page glow.
RETURN TO SAVANNAH IMMEDIATELY OR I WILL REVEAL THE TRUTH ABOUT YOU AND YOUR FATHER STOP=
Bea Dot’s legs buckled, and she gripped the truck’s side for support. How did he know? She thought he’d suspected adultery, but he knew the real truth. But she’d told no one. She’d been so careful all this time to keep that horrible secret. How was it that Ben was threatening to use it against her?
Will couldn’t know the truth. If he ever found out, he’d despise her. She put her hand to her eyes for a few minutes before sighing in resignation. Then she returned to the two men. Thaddeus cocked his head with a curious frown. Bonner gloated beside him.
“You all right, Miss Bea Dot?” Thaddeus asked.
“Please apologize for me to Eliza,” she replied, “but I must return to Savannah right away.”
Bea Dot stepped just inside the doorway of her home and let her eyes adjust to the darkness. She felt as if she were stepping back in time. The house smelled dusty and stale, as if it had been shut tight for the last two months. Had Ben been away too?
After several seconds, she felt her way to a window and opened the shutter, letting the moon and street lights illuminate her foyer. She had no bag to unpack, just Will’s old woolen coat, which she had put on at the Taylors’ house. That seemed like weeks ago.
Bonner stood just inside the door, his arms extended downward, his hands clasped like a prison warden. A short, cylindrical prison warden.
“Your job is over now, Mr. Bonner,” Bea Dot said. She’d hardly spoken a word to him on the train. She moved to the door as a gesture for him to leave. “Good bye.”
He stood his ground. “I’m paid to deliver you to Mr. Ferguson, ma’am. Looks like he’s not home. I’ll just wait for him.”
Irritation simmered in Bea Dot’s chest. She took a deep breath before speaking. “Well, I am home, and I must wash up and change. I can’t invite you to stay. You’ll have to wait for my husband on the porch.”
Bonner nodded shortly and stepped outside. After shutting the door and turning the bolt, Bea Dot made her way through the house, lighting the lamps and surveying the home that was no longer hers. In the parlor, the dining room, the kitchen, she found glasses on tables and mantles, some holding an ounce or two of liquor, some empty, as if someone—Ben—had put them there and forgotten about them. Why hadn’t California picked them up? Bea Dot found two empty bottles as well, and when she opened the ice box, a few smelly, unidentifiable scraps of food revealed the ice had long ago melted. So the grocer hadn’t made deliveries either. Where was California? Or any sign of her? Bea Dot’s body hummed with trepidation.
When she stuck her head in Ben’s bedroom, the mess took her aback. Dirty clothes draped every stick of furniture, and a box from Ben’s tailor, opened with tissue paper sticking out of it, sat on his unmade bed. Another box lay on the floor.
Her foreboding heightened, Bea Dot finally crept though the mausoleum of a house to her room. She found her bed made, her clothes (what was left of them) hanging in the closet, her jewel box atop her bureau—just as she had left them, save for the thin layer of dust on every horizontal surface. She leaned in the doorway of her adjacent bathroom and gazed at her tub, remembering how she’d once adored a long soak in it. Now only eight weeks later, she’d give it up, and everything else in this modern home, in favor of a simple life with Will in Pineview. She silently prayed he was still alive.
But how could she return to him with Ben’s threat over her head? If she asked for her uncle’s help, Ben would surely divulge the truth about her pregnancy. Uncle David and Aunt Lavinia would surely despise her for it, but she could promise to leave Savannah for good in exchange for their assistance. Then Will could be none the wiser. She’d be exchanging their love for Will’s—a choice she hated to make, but a better choice than remaining in her failed marriage. Now was the time to act—while Ben was gone.
Her heart racing, she rushed to Ben’s room and rifled through his bureau drawers and night stands, searching for money. She found only a few coins before checking his suit coat pockets and pants. Finally, at the touch of soft, folded paper, Bea Dot’s spirits soared. Not bothering to count the bills, she slipped them into her coat pocket, then rushed to the back door to make her getaway. But when she opened it, Ben’s stocky frame blocked her way.
“Leaving so soon?” he sneered as he stepped over the threshold.
Before she could reply, he punched her in the gut. Doubling over, she fell backward and winced at the sharp thump of her head on the floor before the room went black.
#
Her head pounding, Bea Dot opened one eye, then the other, to a view of the aged, slick bricks of the kitchen hearth. Almost instantly, she squinted at the sunlight peeking through the kitchen window. As she pushed herself to a seated position, the mantle clock chimed: 7:30. Ben must have dragged her into the kitchen and left her there all night.
Her head hammered her as she rose and gripped the back of a kitchen chair. Dizzy, she swayed momentarily before shuffling through the dining room, wanting the comfort of her bed. A dry voice beckoned her from the parlor.
“Good morning, Mrs. Ferguson.”
Bea Dot’s skin turned cold as she stopped, and she inhaled deeply to quell a bout of nausea.
“Come in here and have a seat. I want to talk to you.”
Still dizzy and drowsy, Bea Dot crept into the parlor. Her side ached, and dread hummed in her chest. Ben lounged on the sofa, empty bottles and glasses adorning the side tables like perverse bric-a-bracs. However, he was washed, shaved, and dressed for work. He gestured for her to sit, as if conducting a business meeting. Bea Dot carefully lowered herself into the chair across from him.
“And so the wife returns,” he said, drawing a cigarette from his gold case before striking a match to light it. The smoke made Bea Dot queasy, and she held her hand to her nose to mask the odor. “Only six weeks late,” he continued, his voice sober and menacing. “So glad I sent Bonner after you. Seems you’d lost your way.”
Bea Dot sighed and rested her aching head on her hand. “I tried to contact you…”
Ben held up his hand to halt her explanation. “No need. I understand perfectly.”
Bea Dot frowned and lifted her head. “You do?”
“Of course,” he said. “But I’m not just talking about your venture into the wilds of middle Georgia. I’m talking about our entire marriage. No doubt, you’ve proven you can’t be trusted, but I realize now you could not have turned out any differently, considering your upbringing. What other influence could a drunken father and a deceptive mammy have had on you?
Bea Dot’s jaw tightened. What was he getting at?
“I’m willing to acknowledge my part in the demise of our marriage as well,” he continued as Bea Dot listened, perplexed. “After all, I knew of your deception early on, and still, I allowed that black bitty to remain in our home, all the while letting her convince you to spin your web of lies.”
At the mention of California, Bea Dot’s heart beat sped with worry and confusion. Where was she?
“But all that will change, now that you’re back and she’s gone. I’ve asked Mr. Bonner to stay here indefinitely. While I am at work, you will remain at home under his guardianship. You will only leave the house with me, and over time, perhaps you can repair your image as a respectable lady of Savnnah.”
Most of Ben’s edict passed her by, as concern for California eclipsed his words. Nausea and dizziness escalated with her fear. “Where is Cal? What do you mean when you say she’s gone?”
“I’m sure she’s rotting in hell,” Ben said, snuffing his cigarette in one of the empty whiskey glasses. “After all the damage she’s caused this household, that flu was too good for her.”
Bea Dot’s stomach lurched, and she bolted from her chair, rushing to the kitchen and just barely making it to the sink before she vomited. Gripping the counter’s edge, Bea Dot stood for a moment, waiting for the room to stop spinning before she rinsed her mouth and splashed water on her face. After regaining her composure, she returned to the parlor, her hand to her forehead in attempt to stop the pounding.
“Ben, how could you—”
“Oh, there’s no need for histrionics,” he interrupted. “It’s good riddance, and you know it.”
Bea Dot sank into the same chair she’d sat in before, wincing at Ben’s condemnation.
“I have to admit, she was a good liar, and she taught you well. You had everyone convinced I was that baby’s father, but what neither of you realized, my dear, is that I do know how to read a calendar. You were too far along in your pregnancy for that child to be mine. True, for a while I suspected you’d had a…liaison…with another man, but I finally figured out the truth. That California always did talk too loud, and when I heard her tell you—you must have thought I had not come home yet—that the only other person who knew the truth was dead, I put two and two together.”
Bea Dot’s heart plunged into her stomach at Ben’s recollection. The conversation he described occurred right after his first outburst at her, and she’d told Cal she feared he had discovered the truth about her baby. California had grasped both of Bea Dot’s forearms and said, “Now you stop that worrying. Me and you’s the only ones know the truth. Only other person know the truth put a bullet in his head.”
“Of course,” Ben said, “when I sent you that telegram and you returned straight away from Pineview, you confirmed your deceit. By that time, I’d realized you’re not the piece of trash I’d originally thought you were. Not exactly. I remembered how naïve you were growing up. You wouldn’t have thought of that ruse by yourself. It had to have been that nigger woman put you up to it.”
“Stop it, Ben, please.” Bea Dot put her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. For a year now, she’d pushed those dreadful memories deep inside. To bring them to the surface again made her whole body hurt.
“What did he do, rape you?”
“Stop.”
“Let’s just say he did,” Ben said, rising. “The alternative is too disgusting to think about.” He walked around her chair and put his hand on the mantle piece. After a long pause, he exhaled, then said, “Now, I must be off to work. I’m late as it is.”
“Wait.” Bea Dot lifted her head and tried to ignore the swirling room as she rose to face him. He regarded her with a curious, amused smile. Gripping the back of the chair for support, she said, “I should never have deceived you, and I’m sorry for that.”
She expected him to soften at those words, but instead, he stiffened haughtily, as if considering whether to accept a belated apology.
“I think it would be best,” she continued, trying to cease the shaking in her voice, “if we declared the marriage a failure. Clearly, no love survives between us. If you divorced me, you could marry someone else to make you happy.”
Ben laughed cynically. A slight tick in his cheek warned Bea Dot that she’d lit the pilot light of his rage. Her muscles tensed at the signal, even though she tacitly urged herself to remain calm.
“You’re so stupid, Bea Dot,” he said. “I won’t scandalize my family with a divorce, especially if it confirms you as a two-timing whore. You’ve already made a fool of me by tricking me into this marriage. I’ll not let you make me a bigger fool before all of Savannah.” He stepped away from the mantle and pointed his finger at her. Instinctively, she backed away. “Besides, you’ve made your bed. Now lie in it. And while you’re at it, you can make a son. My son this time. My parents are expecting an heir.”
The back door opened, and Bonner’s frame glided into the hallway before slipping silently into the kitchen. Ben turned at the noise, then returned to Bea Dot. “I’m going to the office. While I’m at work, get this house in shape. It’s a wreck.” He turned to leave, but then faced her one last time. “But first get out of that cowgirl getup you’re wearing and take a bath. You stink.”
Bea Dot rubbed her palms down the fronts of her riding pants, wrinkled with wear, as if consoling the garment after Ben’s insult. These clothes were the only link to Will. She wouldn’t wear them again around Ben, but she refused to get rid of them. She slipped her hands into the pockets of Will’s wool coat, and only then did she remember the dollar bills she’d taken from Ben’s clothes the night before. Her spirits rose at the touch of them. Once she got a telegram to Will or Ralph, she’d call Uncle David, who could help her find a way out of this mess.
Ben walked out the back door, leaving Bea Dot in the parlor. Using a tray from the tea cart, she picked up the empty whiskey glasses and carried them into the kitchen. She rinsed the sink, then filled it with warm soapy water. Her dizziness had subsided, although her head still plagued her. As she silently washed and dried the glasses, Bonner sat at the table reading the newspaper. Bea Dot glanced at him once, but he took no notice of her. The paper’s headline read, “Armistice! Wilson Signs Treaty of Versailles.” A smaller headline to the side read, “Influenza Subsides. Face Mask Ordinance Lifted.”