The Music of the Deep: A Novel

by Elizabeth Hall

  He rolled onto his side, and his arm curved over the top of her pillow, his hand lying beside her face. She stared at that hand, the fingers white in the dim light. Like the hand of a dead man, she thought.

  It hit her, like a shooting star in this constellation of despair. Someday, Daniel would die. It would happen; death came to everyone. There was a woman at work, a coworker, whose husband had dropped dead of a heart attack at the age of forty-six. He’d never been sick; he ran every day. And just like that—gone. Things like that did happen.

  This was the first time she actually let her mind go into that space of thinking about Daniel being dead and gone, unable to inflict any more harm. Unable to haul back and punch her in the eye or kick her in the stomach, kicking her over and over again as Alex lay coiled, trying to protect their baby, and finally losing consciousness.

  She did not lie there in bed and think of trying to kill him; it was nothing like that. It would never occur to Alex to kill him, no matter how much she despised him. But something in her grabbed on to the idea that someday he would be dead, that someday, she might have a life without him.

  It was the first ray of hope that she had felt since losing the baby, since coming back to live with him. Someday, Daniel would die. He might have a heart attack. Or an accident at one of the drilling sites. Or perhaps his car would slide off a road one night, coming home from work.

  Someday, Daniel would be gone, and she could have her life back again. She could claim control of her own paycheck; she could make her own decisions about what to buy. She could have a space to herself, someplace where she would not have to hear him or smell him or submit to his many demands. Someplace where she would not have to listen for his car in the driveway, feeling her stomach clench in fear. Someplace where she would not have to wonder what horrors the night would bring.

  That was exactly the moment when Alex’s health began to improve. She got out of bed and took a shower and went back to work. She came home and cooked his meals, even managed to remember all his demands for her cooking (no onions, no pepper, no casseroles, for God’s sake—that’s just slop). She cleaned the house. She gave in to his demands in the bedroom.

  And after he went to sleep, she let herself slip into that wonderful world that would be hers after he was gone. Sometimes she imagined traveling to Europe, she and her mother visiting museums and art galleries in Paris. Or sitting at a coffee shop in Vienna, some incredible pastry placed in front of them. She imagined the little home she would have. She imagined going out to dinner and ordering what she wanted to eat, not whatever was cheapest on the menu just to preserve the peace.

  Someday. Like a prisoner of war, she managed to keep going with her dreams of someday.

  She’d been back at work about a month when Rachel Medina, now the head librarian, strode into Alex’s office back by the museum safe and closed the door behind her. She leaned against Alex’s desk and put one piece of paper on the desk in front of her.

  Alex looked down at it. It was the number and information for a domestic violence hotline. All her air rushed out like a waterfall.

  “Alex, you have to do something. How can you stay with that man, after what he’s done to you?”

  Alex moved her chair and reached into the file drawer on the right side of her desk. She pulled out a file, over an inch thick, of papers she had been accumulating, and opened it. “How can I stay with him? You want to know how I can stay with him? Have you seen these statistics? From the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence?”

  Rachel looked her in the eye and shook her head.

  “The most dangerous time for anyone in a domestic violence situation is when they try to leave. Read this. It boggles the mind.” Alex leaned back against her chair and met Rachel’s dark eyes.

  Rachel picked up the paper and scanned some of the statistics:

  Domestic violence accounts for 15% of all violent crime in the United States.

  On average, twenty people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner in the United States.

  50% of female murder victims are killed by intimate partners.

  44% of mass shootings between 2008 and 2013 involved intimate partners.

  Having a gun in the home increases the risk of intimate partner homicide by 500%. In households with a history of domestic violence, the risk increases 2000%.

  Women in the United States are eleven times more likely to be murdered with a gun than in other high-income nations.

  Rachel leaned against the desk, her shoulders sagging. “Does he own a gun?”

  Alex nodded.

  Rachel shook her head. “But . . . you could call the police. Get a restraining order. Go to a shelter.”

  Alex pushed her chair back and stood, walking to the one window in this back office. She stared out at the campus. “Call the police?” She turned and looked at Rachel. “Exactly when should I call the police? In the middle of the assault? Should I put up my hands in a time-out signal and say, ‘Excuse me, I need to make a phone call’?” Alex took a breath. “Or maybe I should call them when the assault is over. When I’m either unconscious or barely conscious? When any small whimper could set him off and start the whole nightmare all over again?”

  Alex took one quick step and tapped the papers on her desk. “Or maybe I should call the police before the assault. Like Nicole Brown Simpson. Do you know how often she called the police, with O.J. outside her house, pounding on the door and trying to break in?

  “Over and over and over again, before he was inside the house. And even with the cops on the way, he still managed to beat the snot out of her. We all know how that ended.”

  They stood silently; Alex’s breathing punctuated the air with small explosions.

  She shook her head. “The people on the outside, who have never had to live like this? They think it’s so easy. Why don’t you leave him? Why don’t you get a restraining order?”

  Her words flew like punches, shooting into the air. “A restraining order didn’t save this woman,” Alex spat, flipping a paper over in the file. “She and her attorney were shot and killed on the steps of the courthouse. It’s all right here, in these papers.” Alex jabbed the list of statistics. “One study found that one-fifth of homicide victims with temporary restraining orders are murdered within two days of getting that protective order. One-third are murdered within the first month.”

  Alex raised her eyes to Rachel’s and forced herself to slow her breathing. “A restraining order is only a piece of paper. You can’t hold it up like armor if he decides to come after you. There is nothing magical about a restraining order.”

  Rachel was completely quiet.

  Alex sat down, frustration making her breath ragged. “They came to see me in the hospital, you know. The social services workers. They brought all this information—the hotline numbers, the list of warning signs. The number for the shelter. I’ve read it all.” She raised her eyes to Rachel again. “Suppose I do check in to a shelter. He can’t find me that night or the next night. But what about when I come to work? Do you want him to come in here, looking for me? With a gun in his hands? Blazing angry, because I left?”

  Tears welled in her eyes. “And even if I didn’t come to work. Even if I stayed in the shelter and gave up my job—he knows where my mother lives. He knows where you live, Rachel. Do you really think he wouldn’t try to find me?”

  Alex leaned forward and shuffled through the papers in her file. “Did you know that twenty percent of the murders related to domestic violence are not the victims themselves, but a relative or a neighbor? A cop, or someone who tried to intervene?” She pulled out a copy of a newspaper article from the Chicago Tribune, October 2008. “Jennifer Hudson lost her brother, her mother, and her nephew. Murdered by the man who had been married to her sister.”

  Rachel reached for a chair and sank into it.

  “I’m not stupid, Rachel. But no one—no cop, no restraining order, no shelter, can keep an eye on Daniel every mi
nute. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to let anyone else get hurt.”

  Their eyes met, both pairs blurred by tears.

  “This was my mistake, getting hooked up with him. No one else should have to pay for that.”

  “But . . . what are you going to do? You can’t just stay with him. You can’t just wait until he kills you.”

  Alex exhaled. “I don’t know. But I’m working on it. I’m trying to figure out a way to do this so that no one else gets hurt.”

  They both sat, still and quiet, for a full minute.

  Rachel leaned forward and put her hand on Alex’s shoulder. “Alex, I’m sorry. I had no idea about all this. If there’s anything I can do to help . . . anything at all . . . you’ll tell me, won’t you?”

  Alex nodded. They never talked about it again.

  It wasn’t long afterward that she started to lie to him. It wasn’t planned. She had no design, no grand scheme in mind when it started. But there she was, standing at the checkout of the grocery store, buying the groceries for the week. She ran the debit card through the machine, and that question popped up, as it always did—would you like cash back?

  She stared at it. Never, in all these years since she lost her own account, had she considered that question. She pushed the button for yes, unable to stop herself from looking side to side as she did, almost as if she were robbing a bank. She pushed the button for ten dollars. He had never, in her experience, asked to see the actual receipt for groceries. He checked their account online, watching where she shopped and the total amount. Maybe, just maybe, if she was very careful and did not take too much, he wouldn’t notice.

  She took the bill that the clerk handed her and realized that her first deception would now require another. Where would she put it? How could she hide it? None of the zippered pockets in her purse seemed safe enough. She stuffed the bill in the pocket of her pants and took her groceries to the car. And there she sat, pondering the possibilities.

  She tried to conjure all the possible hiding places in their home—maybe her dresser or a coat or somewhere in the kitchen. Somehow, the idea of leaving it in the house, the chance that he might find it when she wasn’t home, seemed too big a risk.

  She looked at her purse again, and it was then she noticed the cardboard bottom, covered with the fabric that lined the inside of the bag. It slipped out easily, and she laid the bill flat, underneath it. She did not think about the long term; she had no vision in mind. But just the small comfort of having that ten-dollar bill made her feel better. It gave her a sense of power, a sense of control over her own destiny that had been missing for years. If she wanted to, she could go buy a coffee or a scone or a magazine.

  She did not want any of those things. She wanted this feeling, this sensation of hope, this small glimmer of personal power. She wanted her own money. She wanted her own life.

  And then she waited. It was harder than she had ever anticipated, to act normally, to act as if nothing in the world were any different than it had ever been. She was lying. She was hiding money from him. Waiting for him to check their account, almost holding her breath from the suspense. It gave her a small taste of what criminals must feel after committing a crime. No immediate fallout, no immediate detection, but how to go on living as if none of it had happened? How to go on living, knowing the truth?

  It was a full three days before he sat down at the computer and checked the bank statement. Alex sat huddled in a corner of the couch in the living room, ten feet away from his desk, a library book in front of her. She could not even see the words of the story, much less perceive the meaning. Her palms grew clammy, and she wiped one on the leg of her pants.

  Daniel clicked through the recent charges to the account. He turned off the computer and sprawled on the couch beside her, flicking on the television and flipping through the channels. He put his left hand on her knee, his eyes locked on the television screen. Alex forced herself to breathe, to flip a page of her book as if everything were exactly normal.

  He stopped his channel surfing and leaned back into the cushions. “Have you seen this show, Alex?”

  “What show?”

  His eyes never left the television. “It’s called Dexter.”

  She looked at the television and shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  His left hand stroked her thigh. “Pretty fascinating stuff. This guy—Dexter—is a serial killer. But not the regular kind that just snatches random people. This guy is very methodical. He only kills people who really need to be killed.” He turned and looked at her. “Only the people who have done something awful. The ones who deserve it.”

  For a moment, she could not breathe, her eyes locked on his. Then she forced herself to swallow, to take a breath, to lower her gaze to her book. “Huh. Sounds interesting.”

  That night, when he rolled on top of her, she pretended to enjoy it. She pretended that nothing awful had ever happened between them, pretended that she loved him just as much as she had on the day they married, six years before. Her body, her breath, were those of a woman in love.

  Another lie. When Daniel rolled off of her, she turned her back, facing away from him. She remembered the scene in the movie When Harry Met Sally, the now famous deli scene.

  Move over, Meg Ryan, she thought. Faking an orgasm was the least of her lies.

  TWENTY

  “Where have you been? It’s almost five.” David stopped spinning to address Caroline, just coming in the door of the old Hadley house armed with two plastic bags.

  Alex, sitting in the corner with her borrowed spinning wheel, was happy to see her. Without Aditi or Emmie or Caroline, the room had been too quiet.

  “Jeez, what are you, my mother?” Caroline dropped her bags on a footstool in the middle of the circle and plopped into a chair. “I went shopping. Hey, Alex.”

  “In Copper Cove, that would not make you almost an hour late to the spinsters.”

  “I didn’t shop in Copper Cove. I went across the pond. To the dark side.” She raised her eyebrows.

  David leaned back in his chair, away from her. “You went to the mainland to go shopping?”

  Caroline nodded and tipped her lips toward the bags. “Target. They were having a sale.”

  David sat still, a look of stunned incredulity on his face. “You took a one-hour ferry, and drove another . . . I don’t know what . . . to go to Target?”

  “And Trader Joe’s.”

  David sat back in his chair and shook his head back and forth. “What exactly was on sale that would make it worth the price of a ferry over and back? And almost a full day of your time?”

  Caroline took out her knitting, which had been conveniently left behind, stuffed into the back of the seat cushion of the chair she always sat in. “You know. Stuff. Sparkling water. Butter. Ho Hos.”

  David starting laughing. “Ho Hos?”

  Caroline looked stern. “Chocolate. Anyone want a chocolate Ho Ho?” She took a big bite. “Alex? Grace?”

  Grace shook her head. Alex smiled and murmured, “What’s a Ho Ho?”

  Caroline held up the cellophane-wrapped package. “Hostess cupcakes.”

  Alex smiled. “Ah. I think I’ll pass, thanks.”

  “Caroline, do you have any idea how many preservatives are in those? They probably baked those cakes in 1950.”

  Caroline smiled, a crumb of chocolate frosting on the side of her mouth. “Yep. Better living through chemistry.”

  David tipped his head to the side. “You mean better dying through chemistry. With the preservatives in that cupcake, science will be able to dig up your body one hundred years from now and still see everything you have ever put through that stomach.” He leaned forward and poked through the two bags. “Vegan cookie dough? And butter? Tell me how that makes sense?”

  “Have you tried the vegan cookie dough at Target? It’s delicious.” Caroline picked up her knitting again, still staring at it as if she couldn’t quite remember what was supposed to happen next.


  “It’s a knit stitch, Caroline. Just knit it.” He lifted his hand from the bag, and his mouth dropped open just a little. “Ah. Now I see.”

  Caroline leaned forward and snatched at his hand, which he pulled back away from her.

  “Now we have the real reason.” He held a box in his hand, shaking it back and forth. “You can’t buy condoms at the general store?”

  Caroline exhaled. “Not the large size box. No one in town has sex that often, apparently. Besides, if you buy condoms at the general store, then everyone knows about it.” She snatched the box away from David and replaced it in the bag.

  Grace chuckled. “Far better to bring them to the spinsters and show them to the editor of the newspaper.” She shook her head. “Makes perfect sense to me.”

  David put a hand on his wheel and leaned forward, his voice dropping to almost a whisper. “Don’t worry. It won’t make the paper unless there’s a crime involved.”

  Alex glanced at David, trying to read his expression.

  “Which reminds me. Have you ladies heard the scuttlebutt?” he continued.

  “Is there a rumor you haven’t yet printed in the paper?” Grace asked, continuing to spin and not the slightest bit bothered by talking at the same time.

  “Shows what you know.” David sat back. “I always make sure that any rumors that go into print are corroborated by at least two sources.”

  “A bartender,” Caroline supplied, raising her right hand to point at her own head, “and a waitress,” she continued, pointing with her left index finger. She turned to David. “Would it be three corroborating sources if we include the fact that I’m also a potter?”

  David scowled. “You think you’re so clever.”