Chương 5
"You don't know what I've been through."
Nora smiled faintly.
Then her smile vanished as her eyes moved to the bruises on her arm.
Ryan saw the change.
"What aren't you telling me?"
She put down the toast.
"When Paige grabbed me, she wasn't alone."
"Who was there?"
"Your mother."
The answer hurt more than he expected.
He pulled his chair closer.
"What did Mom do?"
"At first, nothing."
Nora folded the corner of her napkin.
"Paige went through the nightstand."
"Which side?"
"Yours."
"What did she take?"
"I don't know if she took anything."
"You saw her searching?"
"Yes."
"And Mom?"
"She kept saying it was family business."
Ryan breathed through his nose.
"What happened next?"
"I told them to leave the bedroom."
Nora's voice grew thinner.
"Paige said I didn't get to order them around in their brother's home."
Ryan's jaw flexed.
"I told her it was my home too."
"Good."
Nora's mouth twitched.
"I was less impressive than that makes it sound."
"You shouldn't have had to be impressive."
"I stood in front of the closet."
Ryan looked at her arm again.
"And Paige moved you."
"She grabbed me."
"Hard enough to bruise."
"I pulled away."
"What did Mom do?"
Nora's fingers stopped folding the napkin.
"She told Paige not to leave marks."
Ryan did not move.
The sentence seemed to arrive quietly and then break something enormous.
"She said what?"
Nora looked down.
"She said, 'Don't leave marks, for God's sake.'"
Ryan's phone started ringing.
Marla.
Neither of them looked away from each other.
The phone rang until it stopped.
Then immediately started again.
Nora whispered, "Answer it."
"I don't want to hear her voice."
"You need to know what she's doing."
Ryan stared at the screen.
On the fourth ring, he answered.
"What?"
Marla's voice came fast and furious.
"Are you seriously calling strangers and telling them I'm some kind of criminal?"
"Where are you?"
"You embarrassed me in front of people."
"Where are you?"
"Your sister is crying."
Ryan looked at Nora.
"Where are you?"
A pause.
"Outside."
"Outside where?"
Another pause.
Then Ryan heard a familiar mechanical sound through the phone.
A garage door.
His pulse jumped.
"Mom."
"Don't talk to me like I'm a child."
"Are you at my apartment?"
Silence.
Ryan was already reaching for his keys.
Nora sat upright.
"Ryan."
He lifted a hand.
"Mom, answer me."
Marla exhaled sharply.
"We came back for our things."
Ryan closed his eyes.
"How did you get inside?"
"You gave me a key."
"Get out."
"Don't be ridiculous."
"Get out of my apartment."
"We are taking our belongings."
"You already had two hours."
"Because you threw us out like trash."
Ryan's voice dropped.
"Is Paige with you?"
"She's my daughter."
"That's not what I asked."
"Ryan, I am not doing this over the phone."
He heard something metallic in the background.
A closet hanger.
Or maybe a lockbox.
His entire body went rigid.
"What room are you in?"
Marla did not answer.
"Mom."
A door creaked over the call.
Ryan stood.
Nora reached for his wrist.
He looked at her.
She shook her head.
Not no.
Don't go alone.
He understood.
Ryan spoke into the phone.
"If you're in my bedroom, leave now."
Marla went silent.
That silence told him everything.
Ryan ended the call and dialed the apartment complex's after-hours security number.
Nora watched him with one hand on her stomach.
"You're staying here," she said.
He nodded.
"For once in my life, yeah."
Then he told security that unauthorized people were inside his home and that one of them had already assaulted his pregnant wife.
The words sounded ugly.
They also sounded accurate.
Ryan did not soften a single one.
The security dispatcher asked Ryan to repeat the apartment number, then asked whether anyone inside had a weapon.
Ryan said he did not know.
The answer made Nora look at him.
Marla had never carried a gun, and Paige barely trusted herself with a kitchen knife after cutting her palm on an avocado pit two summers ago, but Ryan was finished making reassuring assumptions on other people's behalf.
The dispatcher said an officer from the property's contracted patrol service was three minutes away and advised Ryan not to return until the apartment was cleared.
Ryan thanked her and ended the call.
His phone immediately lit with messages from Paige.
YOU CALLED SECURITY ON MOM?
What is wrong with you?
We are literally getting our stuff.
Nora read them over his shoulder.
"Don't answer."
"I wasn't going to."
"You have the face."
"What face?"
"The face you make before typing something that will keep you awake at two in the morning."
Ryan looked at the blank reply field.
Then he locked the phone.
"Apparently marriage has destroyed all my mystery."
"You snore and leave your socks beside the hamper."
"I leave them near the hamper."
"Exactly."
She smiled, but it lasted only a moment.
A contraction tightened across her stomach, less severe than before but enough to make her close her eyes.
Ryan watched the monitor numbers change.
"Should I get Claire?"
Nora breathed slowly.
"Wait."
He hated waiting.
He had built most of his adult life around preventing it.
He arrived early for work, paid bills before they were due when there was money to do it, kept jumper cables in the trunk, and bought toilet paper twelve rolls at a time because running out felt like a personal failure.
Now the most important thing in his life was happening inside another person's body, and all he could do was sit beside her.
The contraction eased.
Nora opened her eyes.
"Still here."
"Not funny."
"A little funny."
His phone rang again.
This time it was the security officer.
Ryan answered on the first ring.
"Mr. Mercer?"
"Yes."
"This is Alan with Stonebridge Patrol."
Ryan could hear wind against the officer's microphone.
"I'm outside your unit."
"Are they still there?"
"Four women are present."
Ryan looked at Nora.
May you like
All four.
He should have expected Brooke and Tessa to return with Marla, but some last childish part of him had hoped at least one sister would have enough sense to stay away.
