Chương 3
He had suggested using it toward the wedding photographer.
Emily said no.
It was one of the few arguments she had won by simply refusing to continue discussing it.
At eleven thirty, she called Megan.
Her sister answered on the fourth ring.
“If this is about returning the arch, Mom has the rental paperwork.”
“I need to stay with you.”
Silence.
Then Megan said, “Okay.”
Emily shut her eyes.
Megan did not ask why.
That nearly broke something open inside her.
“For maybe a few days.”
“You can stay as long as you need.”
“I’m leaving Ryan.”
This silence lasted longer.
Emily heard traffic through Megan’s phone and the click of a turn signal.
“Are you safe?”
“Yes.”
“Did he hurt you?”
Emily looked at the dirty streak still faintly visible on her sweater sleeve where she had wiped her cheek.
“He threw something at me.”
“What?”
“A dish rag.”
Megan exhaled.
“That sounds stupid when I say it.”
“No.”
“It was just a rag.”
“Emily.”
Her sister’s voice changed.
“Stop helping him minimize it.”
Emily looked at the suitcase.
For several seconds she could not answer.
Megan said, more quietly, “Do you want me to come?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
Another turn signal clicked.
“Bring your work shoes.”
Emily frowned.
“What?”
“You always forget shoes when you’re upset.”
Despite herself, Emily laughed.
It came out strangely, almost like a cough.
“Right.”
“And your good pillow if that woman has one of those decorative concrete slabs on the guest bed.”
“It’s my bed.”
“Not anymore.”
The words were casual.
They landed harder than Megan intended.
Emily looked around the room she had spent three months trying to make tolerable with two lamps, a rug, and framed photographs that Ryan said made the walls look crowded.
“Not anymore,” she said.
By four fifteen, nearly everything she cared about fit into her car.
She left the furniture.
She left the blender her parents gave them.
She left the expensive sheets from Linda because carrying them felt ridiculous.
She took photographs of every room before going, including the condition of the bedroom and the items she had left behind.
Then she changed the passwords on her bank account, email, and phone carrier account.
Ryan called while she was doing it.
She let the call ring out.
A message came next.
Why aren’t you answering?
Then:
Mom says house looks weird.
Emily looked toward the kitchen counter.
The ring sat on the same rag Ryan had thrown at her that morning.
She had washed neither.
She considered leaving a note.
For five minutes she stood with a pen over a sheet torn from Linda’s grocery pad.
Every sentence sounded like an invitation to debate.
You embarrassed me.
He would say she was dramatic.
I need space.
He would promise to give it.
This marriage was a mistake.
He would demand examples until dawn.
Emily put down the pen.
At five twenty-three, she carried the last suitcase outside.
She locked the door behind her and slid the key through the mail slot.
Her phone began ringing before she reached the end of the block.
Ryan.
She turned the sound off and kept driving.
At five thirty-seven, Linda called.
At five forty-one, Ryan called again.
At five forty-four, he sent six messages in less than a minute.
What the hell is this?
Where are you?
Why is your ring here?
Emily answer me.
This isn’t funny.
Call me NOW.
Emily stopped at a red light on Broad Street.
Cars crowded both lanes around her.
A man in the next vehicle was singing with his windows up, tapping the steering wheel as though nothing extraordinary had happened anywhere in the world.
Emily looked at Ryan’s messages.
Her pulse thudded behind her ears.
The light turned green.
Someone honked.
Emily put the phone facedown in the passenger seat and drove toward her sister’s apartment.
For the first time since the wedding ceremony, she had no idea what would happen next.
For the first time in much longer, the uncertainty belonged to her.
Megan’s apartment was on the third floor of a brick building near Grandview, above a dentist’s office and across from a laundromat that never seemed to close.
Emily parked behind the building and sat with both hands on the steering wheel until the engine began chiming because she had opened the door without turning off the headlights.
She switched them off.
Her phone showed twenty-three missed calls.
Fourteen were from Ryan.
Six were from Linda.
Two were from her mother.
One was from a number she did not recognize.
Emily put the phone in her coat pocket and carried the first suitcase upstairs.
Megan opened the door before Emily knocked.
She wore hospital scrub pants, a faded Ohio State sweatshirt, and one sock.
“You look terrible,” Megan said.
“Thanks.”
“I mean emotionally.”
“Much better.”
Megan stepped aside.
Emily dragged the suitcase across the threshold.
Megan looked toward the stairwell.
“Where’s the rest?”
“In the car.”
“I’ll get it.”
“You just got off work.”
“I spent eight hours arguing with a printer that thinks every patient lives in Kentucky, so carrying luggage will be therapeutic.”
Emily almost smiled.
Megan disappeared down the stairs.
The apartment looked exactly as it had the last time Emily visited, which was somehow comforting.
A dying basil plant leaned toward the kitchen window.
Three unopened pieces of mail sat beneath a ceramic bowl full of loose change.
A pair of running shoes occupied the middle of the living room as if someone had stepped out of them and vanished.
Emily placed her purse on the couch.
Her phone vibrated again.
Mom.
She let it stop.
Thirty seconds later, a message arrived.
Please call me before this gets worse.
Emily stared at the words.
Not before you feel worse.
Not are you safe.
Before this gets worse.
She knew exactly who had called her mother first.
Megan returned carrying the second suitcase and Emily’s pillow wedged beneath one arm.
May you like
“Mom knows.”
“Yes.”
