“I don’t know what to do,” Girl told the counselor. She felt so small. The counselor was softly padded in the way of women around Mother’s age. She dressed conservatively and kept her face always arranged in a soothing expression. From the look of her, she didn’t have any more fight in her than Girl had.
“Be a snake,” the therapist said. Girl looked up in surprise. Marriage counselors were never supposed to tell you to leave, but the therapist had finally witnessed one of the rages Samson normally saved for when they were alone.
“Don’t even go home,” she said firmly. “Just get in your car and drive to your mother’s.” Girl was dumbfounded—this wasn’t even Samson at his worst. This was just the everyday type of screaming, not the really bad kind. The counselor’s permission to leave transformed Girl from a broken marionette back into the level-headed human being she was when she was at work. Girl stopped crying. She didn’t feel small and scared anymore. She gathered her coat and went out into the winter night. She went first to the bank, where she withdrew a third of their money, trying to be fair, and hid it in the trunk for the long drive to her parents’ home in Florida. Girl went back to their small house and parked in the street right in front of the chain-link gate. Their Cape Cod was dark—the only light came from the upstairs bedroom window. Girl opened the front door quietly and was greeted by their three dogs. She let them out into the fenced-in yard and culled the Rottweiler from the pack. He was the only dog that was really hers. The German shepherd and the black lab had always been Samson’s. The huge dog was happy to flop on the back seat of the car and wait for Girl. There was a dusting of snow in the air—ice crystals sparkling in the streetlight. It was dinnertime, but January’s dark came early.
When Girl entered the house, she found her favorite of their four cats sleeping on the sofa, so she grabbed her up and dumped her into the car, ignoring her windmilling paws and plaintive yowls. Girl wanted to take both of the female cats, Persephone and Pandora. The male cats lived outside half the time and could take care of themselves. She crept upstairs without turning on the lights and grabbed her jewelry box from her dressing room, secreting that to the car as well. Although they didn’t have much money, Samson liked to buy her jewelry so that she’d look like a “high-maintenance chick.” Girl hoped that she could pawn it all and, combined with the cash, pay off the debts that were in her name and maybe have something left for a security deposit and some used furniture.
Girl had packed away her summer clothes into two small suitcases a few weeks before, which she had then hidden in the storage space behind her closet wall. Before she could retrieve them, she needed to find the other cat. Suddenly, Samson spoke through the closed bedroom door.
“What are you doing, Girl?” His voice was glacial and tightly controlled, which unnerved her more than if he had yelled.
Samson had told Girl what happened to the last two girls that left him: one, he hit, and the other, he raped. She didn’t know if the stories were true, but she wasn’t going to take any chances. Samson always said he would never hurt Girl because he loved her too much, and so far, he had never laid a hand on her. She knew, though, that whatever love held him back in the past was gone now. The counselor had stressed that women in abusive relationships are statistically most at risk of being murdered when they tried to leave. Only a hollow-core door separated Girl from an unstable man high on morphine and in possession of four guns, two of which were semi-automatic.
“I’m looking for Pandora,” Girl replied, trying not to let her voice shake.
“She’s in here with me,” he said. “If you want her, come in and get her.”
Girl ran. She left the cat, left the suitcases, and ran down the stairs, out to her mother’s old car—hers had been totaled in an accident the month before, and Mother had let her drive the 1985 Camry she kept in New York and drove in the summers. Girl careened down the icy road, jumping the curb at the corner. Her hands steered the car forward, but her eyes watched only the rearview mirror. She made it to the expressway but when she passed the exit for her storage unit she didn’t stop. Samson might be following, and he might expect her to go there.
Girl just kept driving, glancing over her shoulder. She had secretly written down directions to her aunt’s house in Pittsburgh, her first stop on her way to Florida, and hidden them in her car, just in case. She didn’t take her foot off the gas pedal until she made it to the interstate. Girl had promised till death do we part. This, then, was the afterlife.
cue theme music
i will survive
Girl arrived at her aunt’s house after midnight. Her aunt was waiting up for her, though her cousins were asleep. Aunt Kiki gave Girl her bedroom to sleep in, and Girl fell asleep with an aching heart, trying not to think of
