Common House Magazine

The river was louder today. 

It rushed past with more violence than she had seen on her scouting visits. Was it higher as well? She recalled last week’s rainstorms and the worry set in. What else had her plan not accounted for? The thrum of both her heart and the water made her sway on her feet.

Eleanor’s plan had been in motion for months. She had moped and scowled, denied and retreated through the whole of last winter. She had stopped asking for books or conversation. She’d stopped having opinions entirely, or so it must have seemed to her husband and mother-in-law. Her hair went unwashed. 

She’d been silent. 

Except for a constant “Yes, Philip,” “Of course, Philip,”  “If you like, Philip.” Maybe they thought their hard strictures had rubbed away her vibrancy like old paint. So, as the snow melted around Grand Lake, she was confident the groundwork had been laid. 

A crow cawed to Eleanor’s left, warning her that she could already be caught. Philip, or his awful mother, Ruth, would eventually notice her absence. She spun around, analyzing the field behind her. Was that movement at the treeline? 

Maybe someone else would catch her. A logger on his way to the river could come across her neat stack of clothes too soon, before she could gather the courage to enter the frigid, roiling water. Oh, just jump, you great coward, her insides screamed. Even if you don’t make it, even if your bloated body floats downriver for weeks, it’s better than the life you’re shackled to now, isn’t it? 

But she might make it. 

This could work, and she could outsmart them all. Her father’s voice rang in her head: “Ellie, if you don’t like it, leave it.” She tightened her grip on the oilskin bag containing a new set of clothes, stolen from the Church Poor Box. 

Eleanor had married Philip Grant at the last harvest, a supposed good omen for a farmer. But her thoughts of escape surged only weeks later. She had made a huge mistake. It wasn’t just that Philip’s farmhouse was musty for lack of fresh air (“The vapours!” Ruth had sputtered once when Eleanor had dared open a window), or that all the chairs were too hard. It was the silence that had pushed Eleanor to form the plan—and the silence expected of her. “You talk too much for a woman, Eleanor. Your husband will guide you on what to think,” Ruth had said. Philip, as usual, had said nothing.

She had hoped—or maybe, assumed—that her new husband would be interested in what she had to say, might even be charmed by it, might even want to discuss it. Wasn’t that the point of it all? To share your insides or the marvels of the Earth with another? But Philip had no curiosity about life, no opinions that his mother hadn’t had first, and no desire to wed beyond producing sons, which are “cheaper than hired hands.”

She didn’t belong there.

A gust of wind swept across the field, and she shivered in her thin cotton chemise. She must have looked like a glowing orb, bright white against the river’s darkness. Or a young and pale bird perched on the river’s edge, lacking courage for a first flight. Goose pimples dotted her bare arms, and the brisk air smarted as she breathed in through her nose. She couldn’t feel her toes. 

The river roared.  

She slowed her breath—in and out—taking in the spring smell of the Earth’s thawing corpse. She knew she was a good swimmer; another lesson from her father. She’d spent many summers learning to push and fight against the current of a different river. But that was long before he had died and left her with too many debts and not enough resources, and long before she’d been persuaded to marry Philip Grant and move downriver to his remote and stifling farm. 

It would be a great shock to the neighbours, she mused, that the new Mrs Eleanor Grant had jumped into the St Croix and presumably drowned on a cold May morning. They would gossip about how her husband and mother-in-law could never have seen it coming. But Philip—and Ruth, the old bat—would know that they had, in fact, seen it coming. But ending one’s life was just as embarrassing as a divorce, so they would say nothing. And soon there would be a new, new Mrs Grant. Eleanor was sure of it. Philip would soon find another young (and poor) lady to sit on hard chairs and keep his mother company, and birth baby boys to work the farm. 

Although with what success, Eleanor wasn’t sure. Philip often got into bed beside her and promptly turned away. There was mostly silence in that room as well. She prayed she’d counted the weeks right and no child grew in her now.

A twig snapped behind her and Eleanor’s head turned quickly once more. 

She held her breath and waited for the maker of the sound to reveal themselves. That’s it, I’ve been caught, she thought. It’s all over, and so much worse for the attempt. Philip and Ruth would never forgive this betrayal. She would become one of Bluebeard’s wives: held in a tower the rest of her days, where she would see no one, be alive to no one. 

But she wasn’t caught. Not yet. 

A soft white deer halted its motion, glaring at her. Tempting her. Reassuring her. 

She turned back to the rushing, frigid water. How far could the river take her before she would have to walk through the woods? Would the oilskin bag keep her clothes dry? Could she really float on her back, staring at the clouds, and be carried away to a different life? 

She felt her father’s words like a shove: “If you don’t like it…start again.” 

And she jumped.