Carolina Moon

caused nothing but trouble.’ She sat in the dirt, with her lip bleeding, either from where he hit her or from biting it when she fell. I just kept walking, never said a word to her. I haven’t spoken to her since. My own mother, and I haven’t had a word with her since I was twenty.”
    “It’s not your fault.”
    “No, it’s not my fault. I’ve had years of therapy so I can say that with assurance. It was none of it my fault. But I was still the cause. He, I think, he fed on punishing me, for being born. For being born the way I was. Up till the time I showed that I was different, he left me pretty much alone. I was my mother’s problem, and he rarely took time for more than an absent swat. After that, I don’t think a week ever went by without him abusing me.
    “Not sexually,” she said when she saw Cade’s face. “He never laid hands on me that way. He wanted to. God, he wanted to, and that frightened him more, so he beat me more. And got twisted pleasure from it. Sex and violence are wrapped up tight inside him. Whatever they said he did to that woman, he did. Not rape, at least not that could be proved, or they’d never have given him probation so easily. But rape’s only one way a man can hurt and humiliate a woman.”
    “I know it.” He got up to fetch the pot and pour her tea. “You said you’d seen them twice.”
    “Not them, him. Three years ago he came to Charleston. He came to my house. He followed me home from work. He’d found out where I worked, and he followed me home. He caught me as I was walking from the car. I was scared to death. Didn’t have much of that steel I’d forged in New York left in me. He said my mother was sick and they needed money. I didn’t believe him. He’d been drinking. I could smell it on him.”
    She could smell it now, if she let herself. The stale, hot stench like a bad taste in the air. She lifted her cup, breathed in the steam instead. “He had his hand around my arm. I could see what he wanted to do. To twist my arm, to snap the bone, and he was aroused by the images in his own head. I wrote him a check for five hundred dollars, wrote it on the spot. I didn’t let him into the house. I would not let him into my home. I told him if he hurt me, or tried to get in the house, that if he came to where I worked, any of those things, I’d stop payment on the check and there’d never be any more money. But if he took it and left, and he never came back, I’d send a hundred dollars every month.”
    She let out a short laugh. “He was so surprised at the idea, he let me go. He’d always liked money. Just the having of it. He liked to lecture about rich men and eyes of needles, but he liked having money. I got into the house and locked the door. All that night I sat up with the phone and the fireplace poker in my lap. But he didn’t try to get in. Not then, not ever. A hundred dollars a month bought me a kind of peace of mind. Not a bad price for it.”
    She drank now, a long drink of tea that was too hot and too strong, and nonetheless bolstered her. Unable to sit, she rose to stare out at the steady rain. “So, there you have it. Just some of the ugly secrets of the Bodeen family.”
    “The Lavelles have some ugly secrets of their own.” He got up to walk to her, ran his hand down the length of the tidy braid that hung down her back. “You still had your steel, Tory. You had what you needed. He couldn’t break it. He couldn’t even bend it.”
    He brushed his lips on the top of her head, pleased when she didn’t step aside as she usually did. “Have you eaten?”
    “What?”
    “Probably not. Sit down. I’ll scramble some eggs.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “I’m hungry, and if you’re not, you should be. We’ll have some eggs.”
    She turned, jerked once when he slid his arms around her. Tears swam into her eyes, quick and stinging, to be blinked ruthlessly away. “Cade, this can’t go anywhere. You and me.”
    “Tory.” He cupped the back of her neck until her head settled on his shoulder. “It’s already gone somewhere. Why don’t we stay there awhile, see how we like it.”
    It felt so good, so steady to be held this way, this easy and familiar way. “I don’t have any eggs.” She drew back, met his eyes. “I’ll make soup.”
    Sometimes food was only a prop. She was using it now, Cade thought. Maybe they both were as she stirred canned soup on the stove and he put together the makings for grilled cheese