04
5
He still had on that flowered apron, spattered with grease, and the sight of it stung my eyes.
In the three years we were married, he never once set foot in the kitchen.
I ignored him and stepped aside to clear the way for the officer behind me. "That's him, comrade."
The officer took a step forward, pulled out his ID and flashed it. "Bob Stephens, right? You've been reported for bigamy. Come with us and cooperate with the investigation."
The color drained from Bob's face the instant he heard it.
He rushed to explain, panic all over him. "Officer, there's been a misunderstanding, she... she's my ex-wife... we divorced a long time ago." Then he lunged at me, reaching for my hand.
"Violet, I know I was wrong, I know I owe you. Whatever you want, whatever it takes to make it up to you, I'll give it, just don't push me off a cliff. Getting into the machine-tool factory wasn't easy for me. If I go in, my whole life is finished."
I stepped back, out of his reach, and forced down the nausea rising in my throat.
"Bob, when exactly did we divorce? Since when am I your ex-wife?" I pulled out that creased marriage certificate and flung it in his face.
"If you're going to talk, back it up. You say we divorced, so where's the divorce paper? Show it to the officer!"
Bob had nothing to say to that.
Just then the woman with the curls heard the noise and came out too, holding onto the doorframe.
She was carrying a bowl of pot roast she'd just dished up.
The smell of it drifted over and turned my stomach.
In Millstone Village I'd gone almost a year without smelling meat.
The first time I smelled it again, and it came from the three of them.
Martha set the bowl down on the threshold and looked me up and down out of the corner of her eye. "So you're Violet? Bob's told me about you. You went off to that labor assignment for him of your own free will. Nobody tied you up and dragged you there. Now you're back and you want to ruin him. What kind of person does that?"
"What kind of person does that?" I laughed, and the laugh shook through my whole body.
"I did seven years of hard time in his place. You took my name and my place and had seven good years with him, and now I'm the one in the wrong? Comrade, you're living with a married man and you had his child. That's a misconduct charge. If we're really going to count things up, you don't come out clean either. Instead of standing there sneering at me, you'd better think about what happens to your kid once you're taken in."
The woman with the curls, who a moment ago had thought she held all the right, went white the instant she heard it.
She truly hadn't expected me to be ruthless enough to want her sent in too.
She pointed at me, her lips trembling so hard she couldn't get out a full sentence. "You... don't you go slandering me! Bob and I registered fair and square. How does that make it a misconduct charge!"
I couldn't be bothered to keep arguing with her. I turned straight to the officer. "Officer, since she says they registered fair and square, then I'll trouble you to take her in for questioning too. What's true and what's false will all come out once it's investigated."
The officer nodded. Things had come this far. How could he not see who was lying?
If the Stephens family had nothing to hide, would Bob's mother have dropped to her knees the moment she saw me?
He stepped forward. "Bob Stephens, Comrade Martha Fox, please come with me."
That was the moment I learned the name of the wife Bob had taken. Martha Fox.
The garment factory director's daughter.
