At Five in the Morning, the House Heard What They Meant to Bury

“Nicole,” I said. “Turn it off.”

“It’s a private group.”

“You’re filming me on the floor.”

“You’re making it sound creepy.”

“Turn it off.”

Helen gave a soft laugh. “Listen to the authority in her voice.”

Trent bent down, caught me under one arm, and hauled me partly upright. My feet slipped on the tile. I clung to his shirt.

“I can’t,” I said. “Something’s wrong.”

His breath smelled of coffee. He had already eaten or drunk something while waiting for me to be punished for not serving him.

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“I can’t feel her.”

The expression that crossed his face was not concern. It was irritation that I had introduced a fact difficult to dismiss in front of witnesses.

“She was kicking last night,” he said. “You told me to feel.”

“That was last night.”

Richard set down his tablet. “Women have been giving birth in fields for thousands of years.”

No one answered him. Even Helen looked annoyed, though not for the reason I was.

Trent released me. I dropped back to the floor, catching myself with my palms.

“Get the eggs out,” he said.

I stared at him.

He stepped toward the far corner of the kitchen, where a thick wooden exercise club leaned beside the pantry. He had bought it months earlier after watching videos about old-fashioned strength training. For a week he had swung it in the backyard. After that it became something he picked up during arguments.

He had never hit me with it before.

He had struck doors. The dining table. A cardboard box beside my head. Once, the wall close enough to scatter plaster into my hair.

Never me.

The distinction had helped me lie to myself.

“Trent,” I said.

He lifted the club.

Nicole stopped laughing. Her phone remained raised.

Helen leaned one hip against the island. “She’s not going to learn if you keep threatening and never follow through.”

The refrigerator alarm continued chiming.

Richard rubbed his forehead. “Can somebody shut that thing?”

Trent used his foot to kick the refrigerator door closed. The alarm stopped. In the quiet, the oil in the skillet hissed.

I brought both arms around my stomach.

“Don’t.”

He struck my outer thigh.

For half a second there was only pressure, a tremendous dull force that seemed to flatten muscle against bone. Then the pain arrived. My leg folded under me. I screamed and rolled toward the cabinets, trying to keep my abdomen from hitting the floor.

Helen said, “Again.”

The word was almost cheerful.

Trent raised the club.

My phone lay near the breakfast table, where I had left it charging before bed. It was perhaps eight feet away. The cable trailed from the wall, and the screen was dark.

I began crawling.

No one seemed to understand at first. My right leg would not support me, so I dragged it. The tile chilled my palms. I heard Nicole say, “Wait, what is she doing?”

Richard stood. “She’s going for the phone.”

Trent caught the back of my shirt. The fabric tightened against my throat.

I reached anyway.

My fingers brushed the charging cable and pulled the phone from the table. It hit the floor, bounced once, and landed facedown within reach.

I grabbed it.

The screen was locked. My hands shook too badly to enter a passcode, but I did not need one. Months earlier, after Trent had smashed a bowl beside my head, Alex had shown me how to trigger the emergency shortcut using the side button.

We had practiced once in his truck without completing the call.

Press fast, he had said. Don’t wait to be certain. Certainty is what people like him use against you.

I pressed.

Once. Twice. Three times.

Trent kicked my wrist.

The phone flew from my hand.

I did not know whether I had pressed enough. I reached again, but he stepped on my fingers. Pain snapped up my arm.

“You think someone’s coming?” he said.

I looked at the phone. A faint vibration rattled against the tile.

Trent saw it too.

He picked it up and slammed it against the marble counter.

The first strike shattered the screen. The second bent the casing. On the third, part of the back split open and a black shard skittered beneath the island.

“There,” he said. “Call your brother now.”

Nicole whispered, “Trent, maybe stop.”

He turned toward her.

She shrank behind the phone. “I’m just saying, the screen’s already broken.”

Helen looked pleased. “Your brother has filled your head with nonsense. That’s the real problem, Mara. He taught you to turn ordinary marriage into an emergency.”

My cheek was wet. When I touched it, my fingers came away streaked with blood from a cut near my eyebrow.

I tried to feel the baby.

Nothing.

The skillet began smoking.

Richard moved to the stove and switched off the burner. “This whole thing is ridiculous. We’re going to miss the flight.”

Trent stood above me with the wooden club resting against his shoulder. His breathing had slowed. That frightened me more than his anger. Anger passed through him like a storm. Calm meant he had decided he was entitled to whatever came next.

“Tell them you fell,” he said.

I looked at Nicole’s phone.

Her livestream was still running.

“She has everything,” I said.

Nicole’s face changed. “No, I don’t.”

“Your video.”

“It’s a private stream. It disappears.”

Helen turned sharply. “End it.”

Nicole tapped the screen. “I’m trying.”

Trent stepped toward her, and that small shift gave me room to curl onto my side. Pain pulsed through my thigh with each heartbeat. I pressed both hands against my stomach.

“Come on,” I whispered. “Come on, June.”

A weak movement touched my palm.

It was not a kick. More like the brush of a fish beneath dark water.

I began to cry.

Not loudly. I had learned not to make sounds that could be presented as proof of instability.

“She moved,” I said.