civil disobedience, but she only stared out the window and toyed with the necklace she wore, a gold cross smaller than a pinky nail.
After a while I cut him off. “You’re not exactly encouraging her to avoid this situation in the future,” I chided. “How about telling her what a criminal record will do for her job prospects?”
“At least she’s standing up for what she believes in,” he replied. “And no employer’s going to turn her down because she got arrested for protesting. That’s a rock-solid American tradition right there. Thomas Jefferson would heartily approve.”
I heard Maggie shift in her seat. Turning to Russ, I asked, “Are you planning to ask Thomas Jefferson for a loan to pay for her lawyers?”
“You don’t need lawyers if you can sweet-talk the cops into not charging you in the first place. Why don’t you offer a little of your motherly wisdom on that one?”
I offered him an icy glare before I turned away. Behind me Maggie asked, “Mom, did you get arrested for protesting, too?”
“Yes,” I told her. “Several times.”
Once Maggie had been safely returned to her dormitory, Russ and I drove down the main strip until we found a motel that catered mainly to alumni who were rabid college-sports fans. Team paraphernalia decorated the lobby, along with a display of brochures for caves, natural bridges, old-fashioned train rides and outlet shopping centers. I thought of Zach and his friends back home in Sylvania setting up the bazaar without me, the darkened and nearly-empty school thickening the camaraderie between them, the temptation to exploit the school’s shadowy corners with the adults in short supply. I thought of the way Fairen Ambrose, my wry little kindergartner grown up into a fair-haired and foul-mouthed swan, seemed always to have her gaze turned the same way mine did. Eventually she would quit holding back, and that worried me. Zach was neither particularly discerning nor difficult to please.
Russ accepted the key cards, and I followed him down the sidewalk to a room with a dull green door. Inside I set my overnight bag on the luggage rack and locked myself in the bathroom to take a shower. We would need to set off early the next day to make it back to Sylvania in time for the bazaar, which began at eleven. Already it was past midnight, and after only a few hours of sleep the driving would probably fall again to me, because Russ would likely still be conked out on Nembutal. Not that he had told me this—I had picked up a prescription drug guide to figure out what exactly my husband was doing to himself. Whether the dosages applied to drugs purchased over the internet from Mexico, I had no idea.
I undressed and leaned into the mirror to evaluate the depth of the dark circles beneath my eyes. That was when I noticed a fan of fingertip-shaped bruises a little above my left breast. I looked at the right and saw an identical set of marks. Reflexively my hands lifted to touch them. They were unmistakable: eight purplish prints and, nestled in my cleavage, a lighter, smaller one for each thumb.
The memory rushed back to me in a jumble of images: myself lolling in euphoria, and Zach above me, freed from the constraints of patience, allowing all his subdued frenetic energy to surge into his muscles at once. Anger, still lingering, gave his passion an edge that was a little selfish, a little sadistic; I didn’t mind. Once he had dutifully attended to me he seemed to disappear into himself, black bangs swinging, breathing heavily through his mouth. His bottom teeth were exposed by his grimacing lower lip. At the time, the grip of his fingers hadn’t hurt at all. The endorphins pumping through my veins were to thank for that.
I checked the lock on the door and got into the shower. When I came out of the bathroom, I expected to find Russ knocked out in one of the full-size beds. He was in his pajamas and on the bed, all right, but with his glasses on, watching the news on the small TV.
“Poor Bill,” he said. “They caught you red-handed, sucker.”
I took a container of hand lotion from my overnight bag and smoothed a dollop onto my hands. When I folded down the coverlet on the other bed, Russ asked, “What are you doing over there?”
“Going to sleep.”
“In
“Why wouldn’t I?”
He held out his arms to indicate the breadth of the bed in which he sat. He had already removed the bedspread, of course; hotel bedspreads, to Russ, were flower-print petri dishes. “You never sleep in a different bed at home.”
“We have a king. These are full-size.”
“Ah, so what? Don’t be a stranger.”
Unintentionally, I snorted a laugh. “Russ, really.”
He pushed himself down the bed on the heels of his hands, then spun sideways to face me. He rubbed a knuckle against my knee and said, “In college we used to make do with a twin.”
“I’d never want to do
“By that measurement, a full is luxurious.”
I peeled down the blanket and top sheet. “What’s luxurious is a full night of sleep, which I’m not going to get anyway. And I have a full day tomorrow, with the bazaar.”
“Hell, I’ll come by and give you a hand. You make the sacrifice, I will, too. Call it teamwork. How does that sound?”
“Fantastic,” I said dryly. “What a way to recruit volunteers. Mind getting the light?”
“Not at all.”
He got up to hit the switch, and I climbed under the stiff covers and rolled onto my side. Light from the security lamps in the parking lot glowed around the curtain, but I felt so exhausted it would hardly bother me. I rearranged the pillow and closed my eyes. Then Russ climbed in beside me.
I didn’t move. I felt too surprised to react. When was the last time he had tried to have sex—had it been this year, or the previous one? Despite the conversation, I had assumed he was making a nominal attempt to come on to his wife so he could tell himself it was her fault he wasn’t getting laid, in service to his ego. Never mind his complete disinterest in the act itself.
