Free When Horses Had Wings by Diana Estill

repeated, making a stupid face to mock me. “Maybe I oughta just stick my fist someplace so you’ll remember not to hide money. Don’t you think I know what this means?” His voice spiraled up an octave. “Don’t you think I know what you’re up to?” He lunged, dropping the bill onto the floor. Before I had time to brace myself, he shoved me backward against the counter. With one hand, he squeezed my jaw so hard I thought his fingers would poke right through my skin. Steadily gripping me, he hissed, “Any guy who’d want to screw you would have to double-bag your face first.”
    Across the room, the pot of boiling jars spewed steam into the air. I needed to turn off the burner before all the water evaporated from my Dutch oven. For some reason, that seemed critically urgent, even more vital than protecting myself from Kenny’s imminent eruption.
    Kenny loosened his grip. I tried to get past him, but he caught me full-throttle. His forearm struck me across my collarbone, knocking me backward into the stove. Instinctively, I grabbed for the pot handle, but I missed fully connecting with it. My back slammed against the oven door, sending the boiler and jars crashing onto the floor.
    I leaped back to dodge the falling threat.
    Hot water splashed from the Dutch oven, scalding me as the liquid seeped through my jeans. Screeching, I yanked open my fly and peeled free of my pants.
    Kenny tore at my clothing like it was on fire. I thought he was still raging, until he said, “Ohmigod, Renee. Omigod! I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
    Stripped down to my bikini panties and peasant blouse, I stared at the aftermath beneath me. Miraculously, none of the glass had broken.
    Kenny used a dishtowel to retrieve two escaped projectiles while I switched off the stovetop and felt along my shins for damage. Only one burn. A red streak about four inches long. Probably wouldn’t even blister.
    Right then I thought about Sean. What if he hadn’t been in his playpen? What if he’d been sitting on the floor beneath me? The horrors of what could have been were too awful to imagine.
    Kenny dabbed the towel over the puddle before he looked up and saw my scalded streak. To him, maybe it resembled some kind of roadmap to redemption. He clutched my ankles. Kneeling there in the middle of the kitchen floor, he kissed the burgundy mark he’d caused me to suffer. His lips soothed my sting. As he inched his way up my injured leg, tracing the line well past the point where redness faded to more neutral tones, you could say he found his destination.
    It might seem crazy to want to make love to someone who has attacked you. On the surface, it was insanity. But I was out of my mind with grief and hurt. I wanted him to take it back, take it all back, through any means possible. And I could see no other way for him to do that.

 
     
     
    TEN
     
     
    I told Kenny that Sean was out of milk so one of us would have to step out and get some. I said it just like that, “one of us,” as though it would have been no stranger for the driver to have been me than him. He never even looked at me, kept right on watching The Rookies and tossed me the car keys. “I’m timing you. Don’t go nowhere but to the store and back.”
    The only other car I’d ever driven had been Momma’s Rambler station wagon, which didn’t have much oomph. The Fury, on the other hand, had enough engine power to give me goose bumps. On that muggy winter night, it was just me and the Plymouth for the next fifteen minutes. So I decided to open her up to see how long—like I’d heard so many commercials say—it would take to get from zero to sixty.
    After I’d reached fifty-five miles per hour, I noticed a car closing in on my bumper. I slowed to forty-five, reducing my fun to five miles per hour above the posted speed limit. But not in time.
    Cherry and blue lights swirled across my rearview mirror. I pulled off onto the road shoulder and waited to see what might be coming