Sixteen

Caper found her way to my room a few weeks after her inauguration into our marriage. I’d done no more spying, but the paleness of her face and the nervous way she constantly darted her eyes told me that things weren’t going well for her.

I greeted her warmly, pitying her. “Come in, come in!” I said, ushering her forward. “Let’s get to know each other. How are you, Caper?”

She bowed her head respectfully, and I pulled her forward. “No need for that in here,” I said. “Of course, we should keep the customs in public, but here, between just the two of us, there’s no need for all of that ceremony.” I thought for a moment and then, summoning a lie, I added, “I’d very much like for us to be friends.” Inwardly, my heart ached thinking of Alasbar and my many mistakes.

“I would like that, too,” she said, her quiet voice barely audible. “I thought, perhaps, we could go to market together. I’ve heard that they’re to have a lovely crop selection this year.”

“I would love that,” I said, hating the small talk. She obviously had something on her mind, and I wished that she’d just get to it. We’d managed to avoid any real conversation up until this point, and I was content to let things go on that way, but now that she was here, I played my part dutifully. I was now nearly eight months pregnant, and it wouldn’t do to cause friction in the household when I was so close to escaping it.

She opened her mouth, about to go on, and then closed it again, looking demurely down.

“Please, speak freely,” I encouraged her, motioning for her to take a seat at the small coffee table in the far east corner of my room. I sat down across from her and rubbed my belly, waiting.

She hesitated once more, and then, finally, her inner dam broke and she spilled her words so quickly that I barely had time to register my own shock, let alone hide it.

“Chan makes me do things,” she said. “He likes to make me spread my legs and touch myself, and he wants me to bend at awkward angles, and lately he’s started insisting upon putting things inside of me- last night it was the silver candle stick from my dresser and the things get more and more awkward and I worry about being unclean and I don’t know how I’ll ever get pregnant and provide him with children if he won’t consummate our marriage in the traditional sense. I’m so sore and, oh, truly, humiliated and I don’t know what to do and I thought…” here, she gulped in air, and tears stung her eyes. “Well, I suppose I thought you might know. Maybe if you’ve gone through the same thing with him…? And now you’re so successfully pregnant so I thought, maybe, you found a way to get past this… this phase or… Please say something.”

Her eyes, bloodshot, tired and so full of embarrassment and hope, made me pity her even more than her words. I reached out and held her hand in mine.

“I am so sorry,” I said quietly. “Please, don’t be embarrassed. Chan is a… peculiar man, to say the least. He has strange tastes. I’m sure you know about my late sister wife, Alasbar?” She nodded. “She was his true love. He adored her, and her death broke something inside of him.” It sickened me to be making excuses for him, but I couldn’t invite Caper to run away with Mayla and I, so I had to do the best I could as her sister wife to prepare her for a lifetime with the man. Instead of thinking of how unfair her life would be, and how cruel Chan would continue to be toward her in the future, I thought of how she could make the best of her own path and circumstances. “Be kind toward him,” I said, thinking of his easy tenderness with Alasbar and of Caper’s similarities with his favorite wife. “Be always welcoming. Make sure your face lights up when he enters a room, even if you don’t want to be near him. Make him feel as if he’s the only important person in your life and he will respond to that. It may take a while, but eventually he will treat you as a husband should treat a wife,” if for no other reason than I will be gone and he’ll have no other choice, I silently added.

She nodded, not meeting my eyes. “Hey,” I said, quieter still. “Really. Don’t be embarrassed about this. We’re sisters now, you and I. If we can’t come to each other about these things, to whom can we go?” She smiled, relaxing a bit, and I felt a small tendril of guilt at deceiving her, at leading her to believe that I was as invested in this marriage as she was. But only a small one. At that moment, I heard Mayla moan from the other room, and her sleep-riddled confusion was evident in her voice. I shrugged toward Caper, letting go of her hand. “Duty calls,” I said sorrowfully. “She has nightmares, you know. I like to keep her close so that I can comfort her.” I bit my tong against telling Caper to be very careful around our husband.

“And she still can’t remember who attacked her?”

I shook my head as the memories of Chan standing over her in a bloodied shirt flitted through my mind, etched there forever.

“Pity,” Caper said. “You’re such a good sister in law to her. She’s very fortunate to have you.”

“And you,” I said. “We should all care for one another. We’re family now.”

Caper smiled once more and left, closing the door behind her. I walked to Mayla’s room and found her curled in a ball, sleeping fitfully, sweat covering her forehead. She was moaning still, softly, and her eyes flickered quickly back and forth under her eyelids. I pressed my hand gently to her head, and she instinctively jerked away from me. I tried again, pushing her hair away from her face, and this time, she awoke.

“Another nightmare?” I asked. She nodded her head, tears spilling out of her eyes.

“It’ll never be over,” she said. “Not really. Every time I close my eyes, he’s there.”

I rubbed my hands over my belly. “Two more months,” I said. “We have two more months, and then we can go, I’m sure of it.”

What I wasn’t sure of was exactly where we would go, but that part of the plan would present itself later. As a well provided for woman, I had very little reason to ever leave the compound, and therefor very little knowledge of the outskirts of town. But I was confident that Mayla and I would be able to work out the details when the time arrived. I thought of Cheylin and her fearless ability to travel with her husband, and I was emboldened. We could do this. We could leave this place, eventually.

We just had to survive until then.