Free Lacy's End by Victoria Schwimley Page A

spanking.
    “Ah, I’m sorry, baby. Here let me kiss it and make it better.” He kissed her cheek, then her mouth, and his hands touched the inside of her thigh, sliding up to touch her underpants, and then under them until his finger found its way inside.
    From the doorway, her father cleared his throat. Brenda jumped. “I need dinner,” he said. He turned and walked away.
    Thus began a ritual around the house. Peter and her father watched the game together. Brenda cooked, cleaned, and had sex with Peter, sometimes roughly, other times slow and patient. She had been fourteen at the time and hadn’t known any better. In less than a year, she was pregnant and trapped.
    When she broke the news to her father, all he managed to do was look at Peter and say, “You’re going to marry her, boy.” And he had.
    They all lived in the trailer: Peter, Brenda, Jason, and eventually Lacy when she made her entrance. They lived as one big dysfunctional family until her father’s death. Then the trailer had become theirs, and life continued. The trailer was a nice one, and Brenda did a good job keeping it up. Peter’s salary as the city’s sheriff could have afforded his family more things, but he preferred spending it on himself. He considered fishing and hunting trips and a country club membership necessary to schmooze the mayor, the local judges, and the town council members—the cost of doing business. The membership wasn’t a family plan. The rest of the money he squandered on booze and prostitutes.
    ***
    She stared at Peter, now, wondering how she had been sucked into this type of life. Becoming a mother at fifteen certainly had something to do with it. Her sense of obligation to her family bound her in marriage as surely as an animal caught in a trap. Did she have a choice?
    She stepped aside and walked past Peter. He followed behind her. “Where have you been all day?”
    She sighed. “At the hospital.”
    “All day?” he questioned.
    She blushed, turning her head away so he wouldn’t see the color stain her cheeks. “They were busy.”
    “All day?” he asked again.
    “Look, Peter. If you want to know if I was out screwing around on you or something, just ask. The answer is no. I woke this morning, cleaned the house, made a grocery list, baked some cookies, and went to the hospital…” she stumbled for an excuse. “…to have the sutures checked. They were busy, so I volunteered to wait. On the way home I stopped at the grocery store.” She gestured at the groceries for proof. “Then I came home, and now I’m going to prepare your dinner.” She sighed in exasperation. “Does that itinerary meet with your approval?”
    “From now on I want to know when you go to the hospital.”
    She frowned at him, puzzled. “Why, Peter? Why is it so important for you to know if I go to the hospital?”
    “I don’t like you going there.”
    She bit her lower lip. His comment didn’t make what she had to ask any easier. She plunged on anyway, “Peter, I’ve been thinking that I might like to volunteer at the hospital.”
    “Doing what?” he scoffed. “The only thing you’re good at is cooking, and I’m pretty sure they don’t use volunteers for that.”
    “They’re looking for people to volunteer in the waiting room. Sometimes the parents are too ill to watch over their children. They need people to look after the kids. I could read stories to them. Maybe even help out the sick.”
    “No,” he said, without a second thought.
    “Why not?” she asked, defiantly.
    Instinctively, he reached out and slapped her face. “I’m not comfortable with it,” he said and strode off toward the shed.
    She rubbed her cheek, already feeling the beginning signs of a welt. She knew why he’d denied her request. If she were to go to the hospital on a regular basis, someone might begin to question the bumps and bruises. But hadn’t they already begun to do so?
    She heard the lawn mower start up just as Lacy walked through