Authors: Lorna Lee
Joe left them in the truck. He picked their bags out of the back and carried them inside. After a few minutes he came back out to check on his wife and her daughter, both with red and swollen eyes, staring blankly at him and the shack.
He opened the passenger door. “Come on. Let’s git this over with.” Joe pulled Meri out of the truck. She did not resist; she did not come out on her own, either. Jeannine only followed when her mother reached for her. They marched to the front door Joe had opened for them as if going to their death. He ushered them in.
“Pa. This is my wife, Meri and her girl, Jeannine. Ladies, this here is my Pa. Now take yer coats off and settle in.”
“Hello.” They said in unison. Jeannine curtsied. Mother and daughter behaved as if they were robots.
Meri and Jeannine shed their coats and gave them to Joe. He threw them over a wooden chair. Pa lay on a couch, which had various layers of dingy blankets covering the cushions. He also had a thread-bare blanket covering him. He nodded and flashed a toothless grin at his new family. He did not get up but pointed to a shelf. Joe picked up the glass resting on a dirty table in front of him, went to the shelf, and poured some whiskey into the glass. Meri noticed the time: 8:15 a.m.
Pa grunted when he snatched the glass from Joe.
“Let’s git you in your room, Jeannine.” Joe took Jeannine’s hand. “You probably want to git some rest. I fixed it up nice for you.”
Jeannine looked at her mother with wide, questioning eyes.
“It’s okay. You’re safe. I promise.” Joe’s voice was soft, gentle.
Meri nodded in consent. Then she noticed the dirt floors. “Joe! No floor?” Meri became a screech owl.
“Hold yer horses, Meri. I said it ain’t much.” Joe turned away from Jeannine and grabbed Meri by the shoulders.
“House have floor. This…ah…how you say? Jeannine?
La grange
?”
Jeannine thought for a moment and did her best to translate. “House of animals?”
“
Oui!
” Meri nodded.
Joe dropped his hold on Meri and stepped back. “Like a barn? Now that ain’t nice. We make do. You will, too, till I find us somethin’ better.”
“Better? In New York City?”
Joe scratched his head. “Forgit New York City, Meri. That ain’t gonna happen. Never was. You planted that silly notion in yer pertty head, not me. I’m gonna do right by you. I promise.”
“Promise. Promise.” Meri said the words like curses.
Pa finally spoke. “Just like yer Ma, Joe. Hope she’s a good lay fer all the trouble she’s gonna bring ya. Fuckin’ women.”
§
For the first week, Meri and Jeannine cried nearly around the clock. At first, Joe tried to soothe them and be the understanding, supporting husband and step-father.
“I know gettin’ used to a new life in a new country ain’t easy. Try to look on the bright side. Yer’re in America. Ain’t that whatcha wanted?”
Meri flatly rejected his efforts and refused to speak to him in any language. She sequestered herself in their bedroom, only emerging to cook meals and clean—tasks she vehemently resented.
“How am I supposed to dust a house with a floor made of dirt?” She fumed in French. “Cooking in this house is unsanitary. No wonder the old man drinks. The alcohol might kill the germs infesting this pigsty.” Only Jeannine understood Meri’s rants.
Jeannine giggled at her mother’s insults. “They think your French sounds ‘sexy,’ Mamma. What do they mean?”
Meri laughed for the first time in weeks. “They enjoy hearing me speak French? Good. Why should I learn English? You learn English and teach Joe French if he likes it so much.” From then on, Meri spoke very little English.
Jeannine,
Meri observed,
is more forgiving of both Joe and our situation.
She talks to Joe all the time and even goes with him on his “errands.” What do they do? I ask and she just says “Oh, this and that.” She’s asserting her independence in this place she knows I hate. At least she’s learning English, something she needs to do before she starts school in a few months.
One afternoon while Jeannine and Joe were shopping for groceries in town and Meri was scrubbing the inside windows of their filth, Pa grabbed Meri from behind. One hand cinched her waist, the other, her breast. He was usually on the couch and so drunk he could barely stand, so Meri treated Joe’s father like another piece of dirty furniture to avoid. Today was different.
Meri screamed in surprise rather than pain.
What’s happening? Who could be grabbing me?
Pa never entered her mind. Her attacker moved in closer. She smelled cheap liquor, man-sweat, and a faint scent of urine. Her gray eyes darkened at the same rate that the color drained from her face.
Mon Dieu! It’s Joe’s father!
She had lived there over a month and had not seen him take a bath once.
Does he ever change his clothes?
“Stop! Get away!” Meri knew these English words.
“So, Frenchie, ya can talk.” He slurred his words as his grip around her waist tightened.
“Joe home soon.” Meri felt sick to her stomach from the smell of his rancid breath and from what he might do to her.
He’s so strong I can’t move. I thought he was a sick old man.
“Naw. We got time fer what I want.” He spun her around.
Meri screamed. His rheumy eyes, craggy skin, toothless mouth, and thin-haired head horrified her.
He looks so evil. We’re all alone in the middle of a forest. Is he going to kill me? No, that thing he uses for a smile tells me he’s going to do something else. Mon Dieu! Joe, where are you? I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.
Her panicked thoughts were interrupted when he forced his acrid, sloppy tongue into her mouth. No matter how much she struggled, his grip held her in place.
When he pulled his tongue out, she spit in his face. Her eyes were thundery gray.
Something shifted in his eyes. They became clearer and more venomous. “I’m tellin’ ya, Bitch. We do this now or I wait till Jeannine come home and try a ride on her.”
Hearing Jeannine’s name come from his vile mouth nearly buckled Meri’s knees.
“No, please. No Jeannine. Take me.” Meri’s voice shook with the rest of her body.
He released his grip on her. “Good. Git me a drink and let’s git comfy on my couch.” He swayed a bit as he walked to the couch and lay down waiting for Meri to deliver his drink and herself to him.
Meri’s gait was unsteady, as well, as if she was walking aboard a ship navigating dangerously high seas. Her first attempt to pour the drink failed. She dropped the empty glass. It hit the side of the cupboard on the way to the dirt floor and broke.
“I break. I pick up.”
If I can stall long enough, maybe Joe and Jeannine will come back.
“No! Leave it. Clean it up after I do you.”
“Okay.”
Do me?
With trembling hands, she poured whiskey into another glass and, careful to avoid the broken glass on the floor, brought it over to him.
He grabbed it from her and downed it in one gulp. “Ah. Now come to Pa.” He reached his yellow chicken-skin arms over to her.
Meri knew she had a choice: go through with it and be raped by her husband’s hideous father or run away into the woods and risk Joe protecting him from going after Jeannine.
She ran.
§
Rather than running into the forest, Meri followed the driveway onto the dirt road that lead to a narrow paved road.
Left or right? Which way leads to a city?
She chose left.
She ran until her side began to hurt. Every minute or so she looked back to see if Pa had followed her. Since Joe had taken the only working vehicle she knew of, she felt confident Pa had no way of chasing her with anything faster than his drunken legs. Meri walked up and down hills.
Everything looks the same. Trees, shrubs. Where are all the Americans? Do any cars use this road? What’s going to happen when Joe and Jeanine return? What will Pa tell them? Where will I go? Will I die out here or will they come looking for me and bring me back? Which would be worse?
Meri heard a gravely, throaty sound. Joe’s rusty red truck cab appeared over the crest of the hill ahead of her. Meri saw two heads: Joe and Jeannine. She did not know if she felt relief or fear.
Joe’s truck stopped next to her. Jeannine poked her head out of the already opened window and asked, “Mamma, what are you doing all the way out here? Is something wrong?”
Before Meri could answer, she heard Joe ask, “Jeannine, ask her if Pa’s okay.”
The mere mention of Pa made Meri dizzy with anger. She hadn’t been sure what she would say to Joe or Jeannine if they found her. Now she knew. Once again, her eyes revealed her anger; they were the color of the sky before a devastating storm.
“Jeannine, get out of the truck. The place Joe calls home isn’t safe for us. We’re not going back.”
Both Jeannine and Joe spoke simultaneously. Jeannine questioned her mother’s instructions and reasons for them. Joe asked Jeannine to decipher what his visibly shell-shocked and angry wife had just said. Three people in the vast, verdant forest created a vortex of chaos.
After French and English ricocheted around for a few minutes, Meri still remained on the side of the road. Joe stood beside her, while Jeannine refused to get out of the truck. “No. You’ll make me walk into the woods with you, and I’m afraid of what’s in there!”
Joe tried to touch Meri. She slapped his hand and moved away from him. “Come on, Meri. What’s got you so hoppin’ mad? I ain’t never seen no one this fired up since I left the army.”
“I no
come on
with you. Jeannine and me. We go. New York City.”
“That there’s crazy talk. How you gonna get to New York City? And whatcha gonna do if you git there? You ain’t got no money. Hell, you don’t even talk good English.”
“You give money. You take Jeannine and me.”
“I ain’t got no money. I just got me a job so’s I can afford to buy us our own house. We just have to stay with Pa a few more months. I know you don’t like it there. But it ain’t that bad.”
Jeannine got out of the truck and took her mother’s hand. “I don’t want to go to New York City, Mamma. Joe showed me where I’ll be going to school. The town isn’t that far away. It’s just over that hill.” She pointed in the direction from which the truck had just come. It has shops and everything. You should come and see it. Not so far away is a bigger city where the train took us. They have lots more shops. Joe can take us there, too. I want to stay here…with Joe. I like him.”
“I don’t. He tricked me and his father is a pig.” She spit on the ground.
“Mamma. That’s not nice. He’s old and sick.”
“He’s not so sick, Jeannine.”
Joe interrupted. “Jeannine, what you two jabbering about?”
“Sorry, Joe. I tell Mamma I like this place. I like you and want to stay.”
Joe smiled at Jeannine. “What’d she say?
Jeannine shrugged and rolled her eyes. “She makes her mind up to go.
“She can’t!” Turning to Meri, he repeated, “You can’t up and leave. You’re my wife and I’m puttin’ my foot down. Now get in the truck. I’m takin’ you home.”
“I put foot down. You home, not my home.” Meri crossed her arms and stood as tall as her 5-foot 3-inch frame would allow.
“Mamma, Joe promises it’s just until he can find us our own home. Things will be better soon.” Jeannine’s pleading took on a little-girl whining tone.
“Promises. I don’t trust promises anymore.”
Joe slapped a mosquito that landed on Jeannine’s bare arm. Dusk approached and so did the annoying insects of the thick forest. “We better at least get in the truck. The bugs’ll eat us alive.”
Meri noticed the insects buzzing around her and finally acquiesced. She got into the truck. Jeannine sat in the middle. Joe breathed a heavy sigh. Meri’s breaths were shallow and quick. Jeannine put her face in her hands.
Joe turned the key to start up the truck.
“No!” Meri shouted. Both Joe and Jeannine jumped.
Exhausted and now worried about the groceries they had purchased going bad, Joe sighed again. “Meri, I have to get these groceries home. We can talk more about this after the food is put away.”
“I no go back.” She started to get out of the truck.
“No. Wait. Stop. Let me drop off the groceries. You stay in the truck. I’ll come back out and we’ll talk. Okay?”
“Jeannine no go in.”
“Whatever you want.”
Meri nodded and they finally made their way back to the Trottier residence.
Meri began trembling as they headed up the driveway. By the time Joe parked the truck, she looked as if someone invisible was shaking her. Jeannine put her arm around her mother, but nothing would quell Meri’s physical repulsion to being so close to the place and the vile man who nearly raped her. The questions reeling through her mind did not help matters.
Should I tell Joe about what his father did to me? If I do, how should I tell him? Is there a good way to tell my husband that his father tried to rape me? I don’t want Jeannine to hear, but where can she go that’s safe while I tell Joe? How can I tell Joe so he’ll understand without Jeannine’s help? Mon Dieu!