Bishop's Road by Catherine Hogan Safer

Miflin’s house had that figured out before they planted their feet on the floor this morning.
    When the knock comes at the front door, it is loud and serious. Mrs. Miflin hears it first and screams to the others to answer it, hoping Judy will be the one to greet the probation officer. Wishing she could see her face. And his when he smells old beer on her breath. But it isn’t Judy who opens the door. Eve, still in her dressing gown, but face washed, hair brushed, is the one to let the man in.
    Pushing her aside he demands to see Mrs. Miflin. Takes his filthy self into the sitting room to wait. “I know she’s hurt. Tell that tall one to bring her downstairs. Tell Mrs. Jessie Miflin that her husband is home and wants to see her right now.”
    No one need tell Jessie Miflin any such thing. She can feel his fists. She can feel his feet kicking at her full belly. She screams as the bloody water gushes from between her legs. She cradles the infant forced from her womb. Holds its precious body to her heart while he tears their home to pieces. Hears him snore. Rocks her cold baby for hours until the woman next door comes to visit.
    She tried to kill him after that. Pretty Jessie Miflin stole a gun from her friend’s husband down the street when no one was looking. October. Cool and bright. Followed him to the hills where he was shooting rabbits. Walked for hours until she saw the blue of his jacket. Came as close as she dared. Looked him in the eye before she pulled the trigger but aimed lower than she wanted. Stood over him while he bled, the ground around him wet, the bones of his pelvis showing sharp through the flesh, through the skin. Stayed there until she heard voices and fled.
    No one believed him when he told what she had done. It must have been another hunter. It must have been an accident. Pretty Jessie Miflin wouldn’t hurt a fly. Look how unhappy she was with her baby being stillborn and all. She was so frail and sad. Pretty Jessie Miflin didn’t shoot her husband. Pretty Jessie Miflin worked two jobs for years, to overcome her grief, they said. By the time she had saved enough money to buy her house there was nopretty left in Jessie Miflin except in deepest sleep. And even if someone had said ‘and that’s the God’s truth!’ with one hand on a Bible, still no one would have believed that she could dig up her baby’s grave and steal the little bones away. Carefully wash and wrap those bones in the lovely pink blanket she had made and place them in the cradle in the attic. They put it down to vandalism. There’s a lot of that on the go these days.
    Mrs. Miflin has thrown up all over herself. Eve washes her face and changes the bedding. The others are awake now and wandering about. Judy alone has ventured to the sitting room. Stares at Mr. Miflin. Thinks to herself, I could take him in a second, scrawny little bastard. He’d better not be trying anything around here. But he sees doubt in her face. Cocky as she is, this girl won’t be a problem.
    Eve doesn’t understand why Mrs. Miflin is not pleased that her husband is back, for all that he is rather dirty and seems to have fallen on hard times. She can’t reconcile the wedding pictures, the dried bouquet, the place so lovingly set at the table, with Mrs. Miflin’s attitude.
    â€œWell maybe,” says Ruth, “things are not as they appear. It happens, Eve. All the time. Perhaps our Mrs. Miflin is not who we think she is. What’s the story Mrs. Miflin? You spend years yammering on and on about that wonderful husband of yours and now here he is finally home from wherever the hell he was and you’re puking your guts up. A little shy all of a sudden?”
    â€œLeave her alone,” says Ginny Mustard. “She’s sick. Don’t you talk to her like that. Make him go away Ruth.”
    â€œShe’s the one who has to make him go away. She did it once and I’m sure she