Page 96 of Beneath Her Skin

“It’s how I was raised,” Judith says, and years of being away from her family makes it sound absurd, even to her. “I haven’t done it in a long time, not since I left home. But I’ll do it for?—”

She almost saysfor you, because Gloria’s big green eyes are damp with tears and vivid with fear, because the bruises from Kenneth’s abuse have turned her lovely tanned skin mottled, like old fruit, and because Judith feels an overwhelming need to protect her. But she stops herself, not wanting to risk the vulnerability.

“For my baby,” she finally says instead, which is also true.

“You’repregnant?” Gloria squawks. “And withhis?—”

“Yes.”

“You can’tkeepit—” Gloria slaps her hand over her mouth. “I mean, if I was pregnant by that motherfucker, I’d?—”

“I don’t want him anywhere near my baby.” Judith’s skin prickles; she considered abortion, of course, a brief thought that flickered and died. It’s too risky and too difficult to find someone willing and qualified to perform it. She’s seen what happens when abortions go wrong.

But it’s not just that. The truth is that she wants the baby. She wants to love Kenneth’s evil out of it, even if she can’t love away her family’s curse.

“So that’s why you want to kill him,” Gloria says. “To get him away from your kid.”

Judith frowns. “It’s not the only reason.”

Gloria blinks, giving Judith a doubtful look.

“I don’t like what he did to you,” Judith says quietly.

“You told me you come from a family of her murderers.”

“It’s different.”

Gloria scoffs.

“It is,” Judith says. “My family doesn’t—” She swallows, not sure if she wants to say the truth of what Kenneth did out loud. “They only kill,” she finishes, and something in Gloria’s face darkens.

“Most women like you would say I deserved it,” Gloria says softly. “Being a dancer and all. That I was asking for it.”

Judith feels herself bristle; how much more clear can she make it, that she’s not a sheltered housewife? But she bites back her irritation. “No one deserves that,” she says, perhaps a little more sharply than necessary. “Certainly not you.”

That last part comes out before Judith can stop it, and immediately her face flushes hot. Gloria can see it, too, because her expression changes—softens, flashes with that slyness that makes Judith’s heart flop around.

“And why would you say that?” When she asks the question, she gives Judith a third smile. Judith’s belly fills with butterflies.

“I don’t know,” Judith says quickly, feeling stupid. Gloria tilts her head, studying her, the smile still dancing on her full lips. Judith wonders if Kenneth kissed her before he fucked her—before he shoved that knife into her leg and revealed what he is and what he planned to do. Jealousy tightens in Judith’s chest.

But she’s not jealous of Gloria.

“The way you talk about killing him,” Gloria says, shattering the moment. “It’s creepy. But—” She looks away, staring at some empty place on the wall. “But I get it.”

“You don’t have to kill him yourself,” Judith says. “Just help me. I’ll do the hard part.”

“For me?” Gloria looks at her again, eyes bright.

Judith sucks in her breath.

And then she nods.

8

There’s this calendar that Judith keeps in her kitchen, with an oil painting of a snow-covered mountain. It looks like she got it from a bank or something. The day that her husband comes home, Saturday, she circled with a red pen.

We make our plans in the kitchen, sitting at the little wooden table beside that calendar, and I keep staring at the red circle as we get closer and closer to Saturday. I feel better, physically—the wounds on my leg and on my back are healing slowly but surely, and all the aches and bruises have started to fade. But there’s still this black seed inside me, and as I listen to Judith lay out her plans, it grows bigger and bigger until I think it’s going to swallow me whole.

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