Faithless

He rubbed her back, his callused fingers catching on the material of her robe. She gritted her teeth, wishing he wouldn’t touch her but not wanting to deal with the hurt look on his face if she pulled away.

He cleared his throat. “You want me to call the doctor?”

“I’m okay.”

He pointed out the obvious: “You never had a strong stomach.”

“I’m okay,” she repeated, feeling like he was trying to remind her of their history, of the fact that he had seen her through just about everything in her life.

He pulled out another chair and sat across from her. Lena could sense him waiting for her to look up, and she took her time obliging. As a kid, she had thought Hank was old, but now that she was thirty-four, the age Hank had been when he took in his dead sister’s twin daughters to raise, he looked ancient. The life he’d lived had cut hard lines into his face just as the needles he’d pushed into his veins had left their marks. Ice blue eyes stared back at her, and she could see anger under his concern. Anger had always been a constant companion to Hank, and sometimes when she looked at him, Lena could see her future written out in his cragged features.

The drive to Atlanta, to the clinic, had been a quiet one. Normally, they didn’t have much to say to each other, but the heaviness of the silence had been like a weight on Lena ’s chest. She had told Hank she wanted to go into the clinic alone, but once she got into the building- its bright fluorescent lights almost pulsing with the knowledge of what she was about to do- Lena had longed for his presence.

There was one other woman in the waiting room, an almost pathetically thin mousy blonde who kept fidgeting with her hands, avoiding Lena’s gaze almost as keenly as Lena avoided hers. She was a few years younger than Lena, but kept her hair swept up on top of her head in a tight bun like she was an old lady. Lena found herself wondering what had brought the girl there-was she a college student whose carefully pla

Lena didn’t ask her- didn’t have the nerve and did not want to open herself up to the same question. So they sat for nearly an hour, two prisoners awaiting a death sentence, both consumed by the guilt of their crimes. Lena had almost been relieved when they took her back to the procedure room, doubly relieved to see Hank when they finally wheeled her outside to the parking lot. He must have paced beside his car, chain-smoking the entire time. The pavement was littered with brown butts that he had smoked down to the filters.

Afterward, he had taken her to a hotel on Tenth Street, knowing they should stay in Atlanta in case she had a reaction or needed help. Reese, the town where Hank had raised Lena and Sibyl and where he still lived, was a small town and people didn’t have anything better to do than talk about their neighbors. Barring that, neither one of them trusted the local doctor to know what to do if Lena needed help. The man refused to write prescriptions for birth control and was often quoted in the local paper saying that the problem with the town’s rowdy youth was that their mothers had jobs instead of staying home to raise their kids like God intended.

The hotel room was nicer than anything Lena had ever stayed in, a sort of mini-suite with a sitting area. Hank had stayed on the couch watching TV with the sound turned down low, ordering room service when he had to, not even going out to smoke. At night, he folded his lanky body onto the couch, his light snores keeping Lena up, but comforting her at the same time.

She had told Ethan she was going to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s training lab for a course on crime scene processing that Jeffrey wanted her to attend. She had told Nan, her roommate, that she was going to stay with Hank to go through some of Sibyl’s things. In retrospect, she knew she should have told them the same lie to make it easier, but for some reason lying to Nan had flustered Lena. Her sister and Nan had been lovers, made a life together. After Sibyl died, Nan had tried to take Lena under her wing, a poor substitute for Sibyl, but at least she had tried. Lena still did not know why she could not bring herself to tell the other woman the real reason for the trip.

Nan was a lesbian, and judging by the mail she got, she was probably some kind of feminist. She would have been an easier person to take to the clinic than Hank, vocalizing her support instead of seething in quiet disdain. Nan would have probably raised her fist at the protesters outside who were yelling “Baby killer!” and “Murderer!” as the nurse took Lena to the car in a squeaky old wheelchair. Nan probably would have comforted Lena, maybe brought her tea and made her eat something instead of letting her hold on to her hunger like a punishment, relishing the dizziness and the burning pain in her stomach. She certainly wouldn’t have let Lena lie around in bed all day staring out the window.

Which was as good a reason as any to keep all of this from her. Nan knew too many bad things about Lena already. There was no need to add another failure to the list.

Hank said, “You need to talk to somebody.”

Lena rested her cheek against her palm, staring over his shoulder. She was so tired her eyelids fluttered when she blinked. Five minutes. She would give him five minutes, then go back to bed.

“What you did…” He let his voice trail off. “I understand why you did it. I really do.”

“Thanks,” she said, glib.

“I wish I had it in me,” he began, clenching his hands. “I’d tear that boy apart and bury him where nobody’d ever think to look.”

They’d had this conversation before. Mostly, Hank talked and Lena just stared, waiting for him to realize she was not going to participate. He had gone to too many meetings, seen too many drunks and addicts pouring out their hearts to a bunch of strangers just for a little plastic chip to carry around in their pockets.

“I woulda raised it,” he said, not the first time he had offered. “Just like I raised you and your sister.”

“Yeah,” she said, pulling her robe tighter around her. “You did such a great job.”

“You never let me in.”

“Into what?” she asked. Sibyl had always been his favorite. As a child she had been more pliable, more eager to please. Lena had been the uncontrollable one, the one who wanted to push the limits.

She realized that she was rubbing her belly and made herself stop. Ethan had punched her square in the stomach when she had told him that no, she really wasn’t pregnant, it was a false alarm. He had warned her that if she ever killed a child of theirs, he would kill her, too. He warned her about a lot of things she didn’t listen to.

“You’re such a strong person,” Hank said. “I don’t understand why you let that boy control you.”

She would have explained it if she knew how. Men didn’t get it. They didn’t understand that it didn’t matter how strong you were, mentally or physically. What mattered was that need you felt in your gut, and how they made the ache go away. Lena used to have such disgust for women who let men knock them around. What was wrong with them? What made them so weak that they didn’t care about themselves? They were pathetic, getting exactly what they asked for. Sometimes she had wanted to slap them around herself, tell them to straighten up, stop being a doormat.

From the inside, she saw it differently. As easy as it was to hate Ethan when he wasn’t around, when he was there and being sweet, she never wanted him to leave. As bad as her life was, he could make it better or worse, depending on his mood. Giving him that control, that responsibility, was almost a relief, one more thing she didn’t have to deal with. And, to be honest, sometimes she hit him back. Sometimes she hit him first.