Jack Ketchum - Right to Life

She imagined a tabby. A female. She imagined her eyes were green.

Alone in the early days following Daniel’s death and her divorce she had taken a six-week-old kitten, a tabby, out of the Humane Society shelter and sardonically named her Neely after the doomed Patty Duke character in VALLEY OF THE DOLLS. The cat lived with her until her death, of cancer, only last year. The name she had given to her, that of a fictional junkie, became ironic and practically prescient and not really very funny at all because in the almost three years prior to her death the cat had come down with diabetes and Sara had needed to give her insulin shots twice a day, into the heavy fold of skin at the back of her neck, at feeding time.

It was inconvenient as hell building her entire schedule around the shots and running every morning to the litter box to check the blood-sugar levels in her urine but she did it gladly because nobody could comfort her the way Neely did. It was almost always at night that the sadness and loss and loneliness descended upon her and when they did the cat was magically always there, seemed to sense the yawning gulf of emptiness opening up inside her even as it grew, seemed ever alert and responsive to this alien human need. The cat was right there. Curled warm and soft in her lap or lying on her chest purring until these awful moments passed and long after if she wished, asking only a stroke or a scratch behind the ear or even just the heat of her body if Sara’s soul could offer up neither of these just then. As though she knew that this was exactly her role in life, exactly what she was born for, this gentle service.

Sara found her lying in the darkness of her closet one day and the cat could barely raise her head. In the vet’s office she held and stroked her and looked into the green-golden eyes as he administered the shots. One which would rocket her deep into anaesthetic sleep and the next which would kill her. She saw the head droop and fall and felt her heart break yet again.

She had not got another cat despite her family and friends’ advice. There was too much loss for her in the world. And then she met Greg. For a long time he’d made her — if not forget — at least put aside the losses and focus on what they had together, on the present.

She couldn’t imagine what he was going through.

Or her parents. Or her sister.

Her parents and sister didn’t even know about the abortion — or the pregnancy for that matter. She assumed they’d know everything now once she was reported missing. Her parents were strict Catholics, especially her father, her sister lapsed the same as she was. Who would tell them? How?

She was glad that none of them could know the half of this.

She had to kneel again. The muscles in her calves were jumping.

She spread her arms as wide as she could to accommodate the V-shape and sunk slowly down. The floor was hard and cold. The wooden beams dug into her biceps and they began to ache. She tried to relax her legs, to breath easily and regularly. It helped.

He came out of nowhere.

How could he do that? The man was stealthy as a snake.

She felt his fingers pinch down hard on her left nipple, the one he’d whipped raw and then the other one, pinch hard and lift which meant he wanted her up off the floor up off her knees and she groaned behind the gag and complied and stood for him and still he pinched and twisted and it felt as though he were trying to tear them off but she knew enough not to try to squirm away, knew enough to bear it. She stood and took it from him and finally he stopped.

“Didn’t say you could do that. Did I.”

When the whip came down across her breasts again she thought she would faint but she didn’t, her body wouldn’t give her even that much, her body was useless to her as now she felt suddenly it always had been, though pregnancy and childbirth and then this pregnancy too all useless and giving back nothing, even the pleasure of sex, that too useless ultimately. The body had always betrayed her. All it gave it took back and at the end of it was always pain, her breasts flooded with, engorged with pain, pain like mother’s milk inside her and maybe she deserved this after all as he said she did because everything she touched either died or was destroyed. Her body, her touch, a poisonous flower torn up out of a sour earth.

What do you think, daddy? Do I deserve this? Your little girl?

She didn’t know what he’d say. He’d maybe say she did.

When it was finished he allowed her to sink to her knees, said she had permission to do so now and she should always ask in the future and she hung there not even aware of the wood bruising into her biceps and wept behind the blindfold. Exactly what she was weeping for she wasn’t sure but she knew it wasn’t just the pain.

A strange thought occurred to her which wasn’t exactly a Catholic thought but which certainly partook of that.

Sin begins with a repugnance for the flesh.

She stared into her soul and saw herself a sinner.

11:45 p.m.

They sat in the dark watching the latest Jackie Chan movie on Cinemax. He was thinking how easy these kinds of movies were, the plots so familiar you didn’t have to follow them. You could think about other things like how he was going to have to start work on restoring Ruth Chandler’s hutch tomorrow and what he was going to do with Sara Foster once Kath went back to work Monday. You could think about this stuff and plan things until the next fistfight started and then go back to it once the fight was over. He decided that Monday she’d spend the day inside the Long Box. Total dark. All day long. Every day he’d soften her.

He was thinking that sitting in the flickering shadows finishing the leftover stuffing from last night’s chicken when the doorbell rang.

So who the fuck was that? At this time of night. He’d made a point of not cultivating the neighbors. He looked at Kath on the sofa and saw she was thinking the same thing he was — cops, we’re fucked — and felt a moment of utter panic, wondering if he shouldn’t get his ass out the back door double-quick.

Then he thought no way, I got this covered.

It couldn’t be.

He put his fork down on the plate and set it on the end table and turned on the lamp beside it and got out of the chair. Jackie Chan was getting punched out by some black guy. It wouldn’t last. Chan would break his nigger ass. At the door he put on the porch light and looked out the window.

McCann. Jesus, McCann of all people. He didn’t need this. Not today.

But he couldn’t very well play at nobody home either. Not with the TV blaring.

He opened the door.

“Stephen.”

“Mr. McCann. How are you?”

“Fine. I know it’s late. May I come in a moment?”

“We were just about ready to go to bed, actually.”

“Only a moment. Something’s been on my mind. It won’t take long. I promise.”

The smile was unctuous as usual. There was something about the little bearded bald man that always revolted him. McCann was a lifelong bachelor. Probably a faggot. Their interests had led them into the same circles but for very different reasons. Stephen didn’t have to like him.

“I guess. Where’s your car?”

“In the shop, I’m afraid. I walked over.”

McCann lived about two miles away, practically into the next township. What the fuck was this all about?

He decided he’d better find out.

McCann stepped into the room and Stephen gestured toward the chair. He turned off the volume on Jackie Chan. Chan and the black guy fought on in silence.

“Thanks.” McCann sat down and sighed.

“Can I get you a beer or something?”

“If sinners entice thee, consent thee not.”