Right to Life

The cat seemed always at her feet.

After a while she got the house in shape and from then on it was only maintenance. Vacuuming, dusting, laundry, cleaning after meals.

The bathroom was spotless. The windows gleamed in the sun.

Kath laughed. "You're a pretty good slave," she said.

She was.

There were times during her third trimester when her back ached terribly and she felt very short of breath. She knew that the shortness of breath was her uterus expanded and pushing up against her diaphragm. She had to explain this to Stephen. Who'd get annoyed with her whenever she stopped working. She was relieved when the baby dropped lower in her abdomen and made breathing easier.

For a while she'd hated the baby. The baby was the reason for her captivity. But she'd gotten used to the notion of actually having her now. Of bringing her to term and delivering.

She'd gotten used to so much else. It wasn't hard to get used to this.

***

Then one sunny September day there was nobody around to watch her. Nobody.

No Kath. No Stephen.

She realized this while she was letting the cat out through the back door.

The silence. The emptiness. Looming with potential.

There was nobody in the whole damn house but her, free upstairs. Just finishing up the breakfast dishes.

Kath had driven into town to do the usual Saturday shopping.

She didn't know where Stephen was. He just wasn't there. Though his pickup was in the driveway.

She couldn't believe it. She looked around to be sure. The bedrooms, the bathroom, the cellar. Even walked upstairs to the attic. She peered out the windows front and back. Nobody there. The narrow dirt road that wound down the hill to the mailbox was empty. So was the back yard all the way to the woods. The garage door was closed.

He had a shop there but if he were in it he'd have left the door open and even in broad daylight she knew a light would be on inside.

She could leave. She could do it. She could walk away.

She could run.

Her heart was pounding. What about the Organization? What would they do if she got away? She could warn everyone, couldn't she? Of course she could. Tell her mother and father and Greg and the kids' parents and get the cops to protect them. Get these two arrested. Make them pay.

For kidnapping. For murder.

The Organization had a long reach, they said. They could wait and bide their time and even if Kath and Stephen were locked up in jail they'd get her. Get all of them. That was what they said.

But how could she not run? How could she not try?

Oh, god. She couldn't.

She walked to the front door and did the simplest, most amazing thing.

She opened it.

Walked down the wooden stairs she had walked only once before in all these months and that was going up, not down them, walked them slowly and carefully because they creaked and moaned under her feet and she was looking for him side to side all the time, around the tall hedges that needed trimming, along the line of trees far off to her right and then she was on the gravel path that led through the front yard to the road and she was running, aware of her bulk and the weakness of her legs, the legs complaining of too little exercise and her breath coming hard and then heard him behind her on the gravel, turned and saw him drop the rake why hadn't she checked the sides of the house? he was out there raking the leaves for god's sake and she stopped dead in her tracks because there was no way she was going to outrun him and stood her ground and looked at him.

He stopped running. Walked up to her, shaking his head, brows knit tight.

Then slapped her to the ground.

"Get up," he said. "Get your ass up

He grabbed her by the arm and hauled her to her feet. Marched her back to the house, up the stairs and in. The kiss of warm sunlight disappeared behind her back like a fair-weather friend. He slammed the door. She was crying so hard she could barely see and her ear was ringing where he'd slapped her and throbbed with pain. He moved her through the house to the cellar stairs and down into the cold dark.

"You fat fucking cow! Strip! Get your ass over to the X-frame. You run from me?"

So furious he was spitting.

"Turn around! Spread your legs. Get your arms up."

He strapped her into the manacles.

"You run from me, you bitch? I ought to break your fucking legs. You fat sow. You cunt!"

"Please, Stephen. The baby…"

It was her only card.

He was pacing the cellar, the studded whip in hand, slapping it against his jeans. Screaming at her.