“You look like hell,” he said in greeting.
“I’m sorry. You’re home early. I’ve been cleaning all day. I’ve not had a chance clean up yet.”
“Don’t give me excuses, Victoria. Just because you’re a whore doesn’t mean you need to look like one. You’re my wife, and you will appear presentable in case I choose to bring someone home with me.”
I don’t know what came over me, but I couldn’t take another word. I’d taken enough abuse from him, and these last words seemed to flip a switch within me. Bringing my arm back, I reached out and slapped Dale full across the face. I’m not sure who was more surprised, me or Dale.
“Don’t you ever call me a whore again,” I said calmly.
In slow motion, I watched Dale erupt. He was on me before I could escape. Grabbing my hair as it trailed behind, he yanked me back toward him and began beating me with both fists. I should’ve been used to it by now, as I’d been beaten more than a few times in the last couple of months, but it’s not something you ever get used to. My body screamed in pain.
“Don’t you ever lay a hand on me again, Victoria. I will kill you,” he said.
Before I could keep it from happening, Jack jumped onto Dale’s back and pounded on him for everything he was worth. “Don’t you ever touch my mama again!” he screamed. “Never again!”
Jack’s weight was nothing to Dale. Within moments, Dale dislodged him and threw him onto the floor not far from me. He raised his fist toward Jack, and I knew Jack was too small to withstand such a blow.
“Don’t!” I screamed, throwing my body over Jack’s. “Dale! Please stop! Don’t hurt him! He’s just a boy. He’s protectin’ me! Please stop!”
“A boy old enough to protect his mother is old enough to take a beating if he can’t make it stop,” Dale said.
“Please stop,” I cried. “He won’t do it again! I promise!”
Dale took a deep breath. “Stand up, Jack.”
Slowly, Jack got to his feet and stood defiantly before Dale.
“I’ve got no problem with you, son,” he said. “It’s your mother I have a problem with. This is your one and only warning, so listen carefully. Never again interfere between a man and his wife. This is not your fight; but, if you make it your fight, you’ll regret it. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.” Jack pulled his shoulders back in much the same way I always did when I needed courage.
“Now get out! Get the hell out of my sight before I change my mind.”
Mother Elizabeth came quietly into the room and took Jack by the shoulders. I hadn’t seen her standing there, but it was clear she’d seen everything. I was mortified. So long as this had been my secret alone, it had been my own burden to bear. But now that Mother Elizabeth knew the beatings had continued, she would make it her burden as well. I watched as she led Jack out of the room and away to safety.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
“WE’RE GONNA NEED TO DO SOMETHIN’,” Mother Elizabeth said to me the next afternoon. “This can’t continue to go on. I’ve stood by and watched these last couple of months, but the beatings are gettin’ more frequent. The combination of anger and alcohol is gettin’ worse. We’ve gotta do somethin’.”
“What can I do?” I asked. “I can’t leave. I don’t have any money. I can’t even leave the house. If he caught me tryin’, he’d kill me for sure.”
“Understood, but now Jack’s involved. Jack may only be a child, but he won’t stand by and watch someone beat his mother. We need to figure somethin’ out before Jack steps in again. Dale won’t let him go away unscathed a second time.”
“What’m I gonna do? Short of killin’ him, I can’t think of any way to make this stop. I neither have a weapon, nor am I strong enough to overtake him.”
“Then be creative.” Mother Elizabeth’s eyes held mine. “I’m not sure we have any other choice. It’s come down to you or him. Ya need to choose.”
“What in the world are you suggestin’?” I whispered.
“It’s not somethin’ I say lightly, but this can’t continue. You’re right—ya can’t leave or attempt to divorce him. I do believe he’d kill ya for sure if ya tried.”
“Then what?”
“That’s up to you, but ya need to decide soon. I’ll help ya any way I can, but this has to be your decision. I just don’t see any other way out. I don’t believe he’ll stand for Jack’s interference a second time.”
I THOUGHT ON Mother Elizabeth’s words over the next week. I thought about the money I’d found hidden in the floorboard of the study, and vowed to check for it again as soon as I had a chance. But even if I could take it, where could we go? Besides Julianne and Earl, there was no one to turn to; and I certainly didn’t want to bring Dale’s wrath down upon them. The more I thought on it, the more I realized I had no other choice. I couldn’t convince Dale to listen to me, and I couldn’t take the chance of Jack getting in the middle again.
The only solution—the only real way out—was through death. Dale would have to die. But how? I had no weapon, and I wasn’t strong enough to overpower him.
Be creative, Mother Elizabeth had said. My mind raced with possibilities, but I discarded them all. I’d have to come up with something clean; something that wouldn’t point back to me. Anything else would leave my children destitute. They needed me, so I couldn’t get caught.
The answer came to me in a dream: poison. If I could get my hands on a poison of some kind, maybe I could put it in his food. With enough poison, he’d die before he knew what hit him. But where? We didn’t have poison in the house, and I couldn’t buy it. If Dale saw poison of any kind on my grocery list or receipts, he’d know I was up to something. Not only that, if the police were suspicious, they’d check my purchases and my pantry to see what I had on hand.
But what if I knew someone who had poison in her cabinets? I couldn’t ask someone else to be an accessory, but I already had Mother Elizabeth on my side. I couldn’t leave the house, but she could. And I thought I knew where we might find the poison.
“I need ya to help me,” I told her a week later, as we sat at the kitchen table after breakfast.”
“Ya know I’d do anything for ya,” she said.
“Mrs. Watkins. When we lived with her a few years ago, she kept rat poison in her cabinet below the sink in the kitchen. I saw it there a few times when I did some cleanin’ for her. I need ya to see if ya can get some of it. But ya can’t tell her and she can’t find out. I’d need ya to do it quietly so she’d never know.”
“I can do that. I’ve been invited to visit with her tomorrow afternoon. Maybe, if she steps out of the kitchen for a moment, I can take some. How much d’ya think ya need?”
“I have no idea. Maybe a tablespoon?”
“I can do that, I think. I’ll hide it in a washrag, and put it in my pocket. Unless she’s really low on it, she’d never know.”
“Thank you for doing this,” I said. “I just don’t know how I’d survive without ya.”
I WAS A nervous wreck the whole next day. I went through my routine of cleaning every room until it shined, all the while wondering what could be taking Mother Elizabeth so long to return. I hoped she wouldn’t be caught. My stomach was in knots. At nearly three o’clock, she finally returned.
“Did ya get it?” I whispered, meeting her at the door.
“I did.” Mother Elizabeth removed a washrag from her pocket, and handed it to me. I took it without looking, and placed it into my own pocket.
“How’re ya gonna do it?” she asked.
“I’m makin’ chicken noodle soup and fresh rolls for dinner. Dale likes my soup, especially if I make it with homemade noodles. I’ll prepare the bowls like I always do, then mix in some of the poison into his bowl. I can only hope he won’t taste it.”
“That should work,” she replied. “While you serve up the bowls, I’ll take ’em to the table. I don’t think he’ll suspect anything, but he’d suspect less of me puttin’ a dish in front o
f him than he might you. Just to be on the safe side.”
“Thank you.”
That evening, just before releasing Dale’s bowl, I sprinkled in the entire contents of the poison Mother Elizabeth had collected, and mixed it well. Sitting down at the table, I smile demurely and attempted to behave as normally as I could. I’d thought this through carefully. As a doctor’s wife, I’d heard Dale talk about the symptoms for all types of diseases. I’d decided I could lead the authorities in the direction of a heart attack. In his mid-forties, Dale was certainly old enough to have sustained a heart attack, especially with as stressful as his line of work had become.
As was our custom, the table was utterly silent; the only sound was the clinking of our spoons upon the ceramic bowls. Not a full ten minutes into the meal, Dale’s coloring turned gray and his hands began shaking.
“I don’t feel well,” he said.
“What seems to be the problem?” I asked, standing up to help him. “Can I get ya somethin’? A wet rag, maybe?”
“No. I’m just—I’m dizzy, and my heart is racing.”
“What can I do?” I asked, truly concerned. I may have wanted him gone, but the actual act of killing a man isn’t easy.
“I think—I think maybe I should lie down.”
“Jack,” I said. “Please help me walk your stepfather up to his bed.”
Jack rose and walked around me to Dale’s other side. There he placed his shoulder and arm around his stepfather’s back, and together we walked slowly with Dale between us. We’d barely made it to the stairs when Dale collapsed.
“Mama?” Jack said in surprise.
“Step back. Lemme see what I can do,” I said.
Kneeling beside Dale, I could see he was already gone. His heart had stopped beating, and he was completely motionless.
“Oh, my God!” I said. “Oh, my God! Jack. Gracie. Take the children outta here. Please. Now! Don’t come back ’til I call you!”
“What can I do?” Mother Elizabeth rushed to my side and whispered.
“Get rid of his soup bowl,” I whispered. “Wash it out, and make sure it all goes down the drain. Then bring a fresh bowl, but only fill it half way. Put it beside his place at the table so it looks like that’s what he’s been eatin’. Maybe make sure his handprints are on the spoon, just to be sure. And, whatever you do, don’t use the same bowl! Clean it and put it back in the cabinet mixed in with the others. I’ll call for emergency.”
AN HOUR LATER, I was seated on my sofa playing the part of the bereaved widow, as the officers took my statement. I watched as the coroner’s office removed the body of my second husband.
“And then he just clutched his chest and said his heart felt funny,” I told them. “Jack came to help me get him upstairs to the bedroom, but he just collapsed onto the floor! Oh, my God! I can’t believe he’s gone! What are we gonna do without him?”
“I’m so sorry for your loss, Mrs. Greene,” the officer said. “Is there anything we can do for ya?”
“Nothing. Not unless you can bring my husband back! There’s nothin’ anyone can do!”
The officers stayed for a while longer, but I was truly so distraught there was nothing more I could contribute.
I was now a murderer. My soul would be forever stained by Dale’s death.
FOUL PLAY WAS never suspected in Dale’s death. I hadn’t known it, but he’d had a mild heart attack some five years prior, long before we had married. The coroner’s office made note of the symptoms I described, paired it with information from Dale’s own doctor, then filed his report with the cause of death as a heart attack.
I never knew where that money came from that was hidden in the floor of Dale’s study closet. I suspect he hid it there for fear of the stock marketing crashing like it had in ‘29. I used a small portion of it to give Dale a proper burial as cheaply as I could do so without raising eyebrows. What remained was still enough money to see us comfortably through a full year or more, but I was surprised to find Dale had taken out an insurance policy shortly after we had married. In his own twisted way, Dale must’ve loved me at some point and wanted to make sure we were well cared for. The two monies combined saw us fed and clothed until the hard times of the Dust Bowl and Depression finally ended.
We remained in Dale’s home until April of 1942 when I took my family back to El Reno. There we lived until the children were fully grown and moved out on their own. To my relief, they all stayed in the vicinity to raise their own families.
Mother Elizabeth died in 1967 at nearly seventy years old. We never spoke about those days or what led to the death of Dale Greene. It was our secret, and she took her end of it to her grave.
Caroline, Olivia, Catherine, Joseph and Daniel remained in California to raise their families. As the years went by, and money was more easily available, they each returned to visit us in Oklahoma every few years. In return, we took every opportunity to visit them in California. Though the miles separated us, we were still family. All of my children—David, Anna and Elijah, included—remained very close with each other. The five older children never blinked an eye at David’s birth, and they embraced him as a sibling, along with my two children with Dale Greene.
Twelve children: five of Will’s, four of mine with Will, one of mine with Gene Blanchard, and two of mine with Dale Greene—all of them siblings to each other, blended seamlessly as one family. This was my gift to you—my children and grandchildren. A family. Someone to always call your own. Someone to always take your side. It was the only thing I ever wanted, and far more than I ever dared hope.
I never completely recovered who I had been before I met Dale. I certainly never remarried. Life had been too hard on me, and I resented anyone whose life was easy and without strife; including my grandchildren. Sadly, as members were added to our family through marriages and births, a disconnect grew between the younger generations and myself. Jack, Grace, and even Ethan understood me—they’d lived that harsh, unbearable life alongside me. But the younger children and my grandchildren never understood. They never have been, nor would be, homeless or hungry. I don’t wish them hardship but, without it, they can’t comprehend how I became the woman I am. And so they criticize. They call me “the meanest woman they’ve ever known.” They joke behind my back about the “Immaculate Conception of David.” They laugh at the old woman pinching pennies, furious over a single nickel lost between the seat cushions in the car.
But I survived, and I have no regrets; and for my efforts I leave behind a large extended and loving family. Life is not easy, and sometimes you have to make a decision between “me and thee.” For myself, I will always choose me.
THE END
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My deepest gratitude to the following people:
To Michelle Halket for taking on this second edition of The Edge of Nowhere. I’m so thankful for your guidance.
To my husband, Troy D. Armstrong, and my children, Amber and Braden Armstrong. Your constant belief in my abilities gives me the courage to keep going.
When the original version of this novel was released in 2016, my dad was so proud. For months before his memory deteriorated with dementia, he carried a copy in his jacket pocket to show everyone he met. This second edition is dedicated to his memory.
The Dust Bowl spread far beyond Oklahoma, leaving very few states completely unaffected. Even those states not directly affected saw some of the blowing dirt that gave the Dirty Thirties its name. It was no doubt a difficult life for those who survived.
Q&A WITH C.H. ARMSTRONG
Since the original publishing of this novel in 2016, I’ve been asked many of the same questions by readers. Since I’ve been offered the unique opportunity to publish this second edition, I’d like to take a moment to answer some of the most popular questions I am asked.
Q: Is The Edge of Nowhere a true story?
A: Yes and no. While the overall novel is a product of my imagination, many of the events included were inspired by eve
nts that actually took place. For example:
(1) Like the character of Victoria, my grandmother did marry a man some twenty years older than herself, who came to the marriage a widower with five children close in age to herself.
(2) Similar to Will, my grandfather died of an appendicitis rupture. They tried to take him into town for treatment, but they didn’t have a motorized vehicle and he died en route in the back of the family’s wagon.
(3) Similar to Victoria, my grandmother gave birth to two children between husbands. To my knowledge, she never named their father(s), and we’re not sure how those children came to be. However, we do believe there’s a strong possibility those children were conceived in a manner she found necessary to survive as a widow with children to support in that difficult era.
(4) Like David, my two uncles were never seen as “other.” To my knowledge, they were always embraced as equal siblings, and without prejudice. In fact, as a niece, I was completely unaware of this “secret” until I was nearly an adult, as the love shared by all of my grandmother’s children was strong and unwavering. It remains the same today, nearly thirty years after her death.
(5) Like Victoria, my grandmother had a child who survived rabies—my dad. I’ve tried to describe the scenario as closely as it was told to me throughout my childhood, including the shots that were administered so painfully. The biggest difference is that there was no Mrs. Watkins for them to stay with, nor a Mother Elizabeth to care for the other children. They were, I believe, already in Oklahoma City as they were receiving medical attention for my dad’s oldest sister, who’d been hit by a car. I’m told there was only one bed for all of them, and my dad (then about 4) had to share it with his older sister (then about nine or ten, who was bedridden and in a near body cast after the accident).
(6) Like the older siblings in the book, my grandmother’s stepchildren (all but one, I believe) did move to California, as many did during this era. As times and finances improved, they returned to Oklahoma frequently to visit. While they have all long-since passed, their descendants still live there today.
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