Rose Madder

by Stephen King

  Then don't look at it! the part of herself which fancied itself practical and sensible shouted nervously. For Christ's sake don't look at it, it's going to get you into trouble!

  Except she found she could no longer look away. Her eyes remained fixed upon the spot, and she rocked faster than ever. Her feet, clad in white lowtop sneakers, patted the floor in a quickening rhythm (the buzzing was now mostly in her head, rattling her brains, heating her up), and what she thought was Fourteen years. Fourteen years of having him talk to me up close. The miscarriage. The tennis racket. Three teeth, one of which I swallowed. The broken rib. The punches. The pinches. And the bites, of course. Plenty of those. Plenty of--

  Stop it! It's useless, thinking like this, because you're not going anywhere, he'd only come after you and bring you back, he'd find you, he's a policeman and finding people is one of the things he does, one of the things he's good at--

  "Fourteen years," she murmured, and now it wasn't the last fourteen she was thinking about but the next. Because that other voice, the deep voice, was right. He might not kill her. He might not. And what would she be like after fourteen more years of having him talk to her up close? Would she be able to bend over? Would she have an hour--fifteen minutes, even--a day when her kidneys didn't feel like hot stones buried in her back? Would he perhaps hit her hard enough to deaden some vital connection, so she could no longer raise one of her arms or legs, or perhaps leave one side of her face hanging slack and expressionless, like poor Mrs. Diamond, who clerked in the Store 24 at the bottom of the hill?

  She got up suddenly and with such force that the back of Pooh's Chair hit the wall. She stood there for a moment, breathing hard, wide eyes still fixed on the maroon spot, and then she headed for the door leading into the living room.

  Where are you going? Ms. Practical-Sensible screamed inside her head--the part of her which seemed perfectly willing to be maimed or killed for the continued privilege of knowing where the teabags were in the cupboard and where the Scrubbies were kept under the sink. Just where do you think you're--

  She clapped a lid on the voice, something she'd had no idea she could do until this moment. She took her purse off the table by the sofa and walked across the living room toward the front door. The room suddenly seemed very big, and the walk very long.

  I have to take this a step at a time. If I think even one step ahead, I'm going to lose my nerve.

  She didn't think that would be a problem, actually. For one thing, what she was doing had taken on a hallucinatory quality--surely she could not simply be walking out of her house and her marriage on the spur of the moment, could she? It had to be a dream, didn't it? And there was something else, too: not thinking ahead had pretty much become a habit with her, one that had started on their wedding night, when he'd bitten her like a dog for slamming a door.

  Well, you can't go like this, even if you just make it to the bottom of the block before running out of steam, Practical-Sensible advised. At the very least change out of those jeans that show how wide your can's getting. And run a comb through your hair.

  She paused, and was for a moment close to giving the whole thing up before she even got to the front door. Then she recognized the advice for what it was--a desperate ploy to keep her in the house. And a shrewd one. It didn't take long to swap a pair of jeans for a skirt or to mousse your hair and then use a comb on it, but for a woman in her position, it would almost certainly have been long enough.

  For what? To go back to sleep again, of course. She'd be having serious doubts by the time she'd pulled the zipper up on the side of her skirt, and by the time she'd finished with her comb, she'd have decided she had simply suffered a brief fit of insanity, a transitory fugue state that was probably related to her cycle.

  Then she would go back into the bedroom and change the sheets.

  "No," she murmured. "I won't do that. I won't."

  But with one hand on the doorknob, she paused again.

  She shows sense! Practical-Sensible cried, her voice a mixture of relief, jubilation, and--was it possible--faint disappointment. Hallelujah, the girl shows sense! Better late than never!

  The jubilation and relief in that mental voice turned to wordless horror as she crossed quickly to the mantel above the gas fireplace he had installed two years before. What she was looking for probably wouldn't be there, as a rule he only left it up there toward the end of the month ("So I won't be tempted," he would say), but it couldn't hurt to check. And she knew his pin-number; it was just their telephone number, with the first and last digits reversed.

  It WILL hurt! Practical-Sensible screamed. If you take something that belongs to him, it'll hurt plenty, and you know it! PLENTY!

  "It won't be there anyway," she murmured, but it was--the bright green Merchant's Bank ATM card with his name embossed on it.

  Don't you take that! Don't you dare!

  But she found she did dare--all she had to do was call up the image of that drop of blood. Besides, it was her card, too, her money, too; wasn't that what the marriage vow meant?

  Except it wasn't about the money at all, not really. It was about silencing the voice of Ms. Practical-Sensible; it was about making this sudden, unexpected lunge for freedom a necessity instead of a choice. Part of her knew that if she didn't do that, the bottom of the block was as far as she would get before the whole uncertain sweep of the future appeared before her like a fogbank, and she turned around and came back home, hurrying to change the bed so she could still wash the downstairs floors before noon ... and, hard as it was to believe, that was all she had been thinking about when she got up this morning: washing floors.

  Ignoring the clamor of the voice in her head, she plucked the ATM card off the mantel, dropped it into her purse, and quickly headed for the door again.

  Don't do it! the voice of Ms. Practical-Sensible wailed. Oh Rosie, he won't just hurt you for this, for this he'll put you in the hospital, maybe even kill you--don't you know that?

  She supposed she did, but she kept walking just the same, her head down and her shoulders thrust forward, like a woman walking into a strong wind. He probably would do those things ... but he would have to catch her first.

  This time when her hand closed on the knob there was no pause--she turned it and opened the door and stepped out.

  It was a beautiful sunshiny day in mid-April, the branches on the trees beginning to thicken with buds. Her shadow stretched across the stoop and the pale new grass like something cut from black construction paper with a sharp pair of scissors. She stood there breathing deep of the spring air, smelling earth which had been dampened (and perhaps quickened) by a shower that had passed in the night, while she had been lying asleep with one nostril suspended over that drying spot of blood.

  The whole world is waking up, she thought. It isn't just me.

  A man in a jogging suit ran past on the sidewalk as she pulled the door closed behind her. He lifted a hand to her, and she lifted hers in return. She listened for the voice inside to raise its clamor again, but that voice was silent. Perhaps it was stunned by her theft of the ATM card, perhaps it had only been soothed by the tranquil peace of this April morning.

  "I'm going," she murmured. "I'm really, really going."

  But she stayed where she was a moment longer, like an animal which has been kept in a cage so long it cannot believe in freedom even when it is offered. She reached behind her and touched the knob of the door--the door that led into her cage.

  "No more," she whispered. She tucked her purse under one arm and took her first dozen steps into the fogbank which was now her future.

  4

  Those dozen steps took her to the place where the concrete walk merged with the sidewalk--the place where the jogger had passed a minute or so before. She started to turn left, then paused. Norman had told her once that people who thought they were choosing directions at random--people lost in the woods, for example--were almost always simply going in the direction of their dominant hand. It probably w
asn't important, but she discovered she didn't even want him to be right about which way she had turned on Westmoreland Street after leaving the house.

  Not even that.

  She turned right instead of left, in the direction of her stupid hand, and walked down the hill. She went past the Store 24, restraining an urge to raise her hand and cover the side of her face as she passed it. Already she felt like a fugitive, and a terrible thought had begun to gnaw at her mind like a rat gnawing cheese: what if he came home from work early and saw her? What if he saw her walking down the street in her jeans and lowtops, with her purse clamped under her arm and her hair uncombed? He would wonder what the hell she was doing out on the morning she was supposed to be washing the downstairs floors, wouldn't he? And he would want her to come over to him, wouldn't he? He would want her to come over to where he was so he could talk to her up close.

  That's stupid. What reason would he have to come home now? He only left an hour ago. It doesn't make sense.

  No ... but sometimes people did things that didn't make sense. Her, for instance--took at what she was doing right now. And suppose he had a sudden intuition? How many times had he told her that cops developed a sixth sense after awhile, that they knew when something weird was going to happen? You get this needle at the base of your spine, he'd said once. I don't know how else to describe it. I know most people would laugh, but ask a cop--he won't laugh. That little needle has saved my life a couple of times, sweetheart.

  Suppose he'd been feeling that needle for the last twenty minutes or so? Suppose it had gotten him into his car and headed home? This was just the way he would come, and she cursed herself for having turned right instead of left when leaving their walk. Then an even more unpleasant idea occurred to her, one which had a hideous plausibility ... not to mention a kind of ironic balance. Suppose he had stopped at the ATM machine two blocks down the street from police headquarters, wanting ten or twenty bucks for lunch? Suppose he had decided, after ascertaining that the card wasn't in his wallet, to come home and get it?

  Get hold of yourself. That isn't going to happen. Nothing like that is going to happen.

  A car turned onto Westmoreland half a block down. It was red, and what a coincidence that was, because they had a red car ... or he did; the car was no more hers than the ATM card was, or the money it could access. Their red car was a new Sentra, and--coincidence upon coincidence!--wasn't this car now coming toward her a red Sentra?

  No, it's a Honda!

  Except it wasn't a Honda, that was just what she wanted to believe. It was a Sentra, a brand-new red Sentra. His red Sentra. Her worst nightmare had come true at almost the very moment she had thought of it.

  For a moment her kidneys were incredibly heavy, incredibly painful, incredibly full, and she was sure she was going to wet her pants. Had she really thought she could get away from him? She must have been insane.

  Too late to worry about that now, Practical-Sensible told her. Its dithery hysteria was gone; now it was the only part of her mind which still seemed capable of thought, and it spoke in the cold, calculating tones of a creature that puts survival ahead of everything else. You just better think what it is you're going to say to him when he pulls over and asks you what you're doing out here. And you better make it good. You know how quick he is, and how much he sees.

  "The flowers," she muttered. "I came out to take a little walk and see whose flowers were out, that's all." She had stopped with her thighs pressed tightly together, trying to keep the dam from breaking. Would he believe it? She didn't know, but it would have to do. She couldn't think of anything else. "I was just going to walk down to the comer of St. Mark's Avenue and then come back to wash the--"

  She broke off, watching with wide, unbelieving eyes as the car--a Honda after all, not new, and really closer to orange than red--rolled slowly past her. The woman behind the wheel gave her a curious glance, and the woman on the sidewalk thought, It if had been him, no story would have done, no matter how plausible--he would have seen the truth all over your face, underlined and lit in neon. Now are you ready to go back? To see sense and go back?

  She couldn't. Her overwhelming need to urinate had passed, but her bladder still felt heavy and overloaded, her kidneys were still throbbing, her legs were shaky, and her heart was pounding so violently in her chest that it frightened her. She would never be able to walk back up the hill, even though the grade was very mild.

  Yes, you can. You know you can. You've done harder things than that in your marriage and survived them.

  Okay--maybe she could climb back up the hill, but now another idea occurred to her. Sometimes he called. Five or six times a month, usually, but sometimes more often than that. Just hi, how are you, do you want me to bring home a carton of Half-n-Half or a pint of ice cream, okay, bye. Only she felt nothing solicitous in these calls, no sense of caring. He was checking up on her, that was all, and if she didn't answer the telephone, it just rang. They had no answering machine. She had asked him once if getting one might not be a good idea. He had given her a not entirely unfriendly poke and told her to wise up. You're the answering machine, he'd said.

  What if he called and she wasn't there to answer?

  He'll think I went marketing early, that's all.

  But he wouldn't. That was the thing. The floors this morning; the market this afternoon. That was the way it had always been, and that was the way he expected it to always be. Spontaneity was not encouraged at 908 Westmoreland. If he called ...

  She began walking again, knowing she had to get off Westmoreland Street at the next comer, even though she wasn't entirely sure where Tremont went in either direction. That wasn't important at this point, anyway; what mattered was that she was on her husband's direct route if he came back from the city by way of 1-295, as he usually did, and she felt as if she had been pinned to the bull's-eye of an archery target.

  She turned left on Tremont and went walking past more quiet little suburban houses separated from each other by low hedges or lines of decorative trees--Russian olives seemed particularly in vogue down here. A man who looked like Woody Allen with his horn-rimmed glasses and freckles and his shapeless blue hat crushed down on top of his head looked up from watering his flowers and gave her a little wave. Everyone wanted to be neighborly today, it seemed. She supposed it was the weather, but she could have done without it. It was all too easy to imagine him coming along behind her later on, patiently working her backtrail, asking questions, using his little memory-stimulation tricks, and flashing her picture at every stop.

  Wave back at him. You don't want him to register you as an unfriendly, unfriendlies have a way of sticking in the memory, so wave back and just slide along your way.

  She waved back and slid along her way. The need to pee had returned, but she would just have to live with it. There was no relief in sight--nothing ahead but more houses, more hedges, more pale green lawns, more Russian olives.

  She heard a car behind her and knew it was him. She turned around, eyes wide and dark, and saw a rusty Chevrolet creeping up the center of the street at little more than walking speed. The old man behind the wheel wore a straw hat and a look of terrified determination. She faced forward again before he could register her own look of fright, stumbled, then started walking resolutely with her head lowered. The pulsing ache in her kidneys had returned and her bladder was pounding, too. She guessed she had no more than a minute, possibly two, before everything let go. If that happened, she might as well kiss any chance of unnoticed escape goodbye. People might not remember a pale brownette walking up the sidewalk on a nice spring morning, but she didn't see how they would be able to forget a pale brownette with a large dark stain spreading around the crotch of her jeans. She had to take care of this problem, and right away.

  There was a chocolate-colored bungalow two houses up on her side of the street. The shades were pulled; three newspapers lay on the porch. A fourth lay on the walk at the foot of the front steps. Rosie took a quick look around,
saw no one observing her, then hurried across the lawn of the bungalow and down along its side. The back yard was empty. A rectangle of paper hung from the knob of the aluminum screen door. She went over, walking in cramped little steps, and read the printed message: Greetings from Ann Cosso, your local Avon Lady! Didn't find you at home this time, but will come again! Thanks! And give me a call at 555-1731 if you want to talk about any of Avon's fine products! The date scribbled at the bottom was 4/17, two days ago.

  Rosie took another look around, saw that she was protected by hedges on one side and Russian olives on the other, unsnapped and unzipped her jeans, and squatted in the niche between the back stoop and the LP gas tanks. It was too late to worry about who, if anyone, might be watching from the upper stories of either neighboring house. And besides, the relief made such questions seem--for the time being, at least--trivial.

  You're crazy, you know.

  Yes, of course she knew ... but as the pressure of her bladder decreased and the stream of her urine flowed between the bricks of this back patio in a zigzag streamlet, she felt a crazy joy suddenly fill her heart. In that instant she knew what it must feel like to cross a river into a foreign country, and then set fire to the bridge behind you, and stand on the riverbank, watching and breathing deeply as your only chance of retreat went up in smoke.

  5

  She walked for nearly two hours, through one unfamiliar neighborhood after another, before coming to a strip mall on the west side of the city. There was a pay phone in front of Paint n Carpet World, and when she used it to call a taxi, she was amazed to discover she was no longer in the city at all, but in the suburb of Mapleton. She had big blisters on both heels, and she supposed it was no wonder--she must have walked over seven miles.

  The cab arrived fifteen minutes after her call, and by then she had visited the convenience store at the far end of the strip, where she got a pair of cheap sunglasses and a colorful red rayon kerchief. She remembered Norman saying once that if you wanted to divert attention from your face, the best way was to wear something bright, something which would direct the observer's eye in a different direction.