Chương 2
This was the first time I no longer cared to find out.
"If you touch either of us again," I said, "you'll regret what happens next."
He laughed.
It wasn't theatrical.
It was worse than that.
It was familiar.
"What happens next?"
I said nothing.
"You're going to call somebody?"
Cassandra smirked.
"Maybe her yoga instructor."
"I don't do yoga."
She blinked.
The bartender coughed into his fist.
Under different circumstances, I might have laughed.
Spencer stepped closer.
"You have no money that isn't mine, no house that isn't mine, and no attorney you can afford without me knowing about it."
"Okay."
That answer bothered him.
"What does that mean?"
"It means I heard you."
"Then act like it."
I carried Hazel toward the stairs.
Patricia followed us with her voice.
"Where are you going?"
"To get her things."
"She has a nanny for that."
"Not anymore."
Spencer called after me.
"The gala starts at seven."
I kept walking.
"You are expected to attend."
That nearly made me stop.
Hazel was bleeding against my shoulder, and Spencer was reminding me about a gala.
Upstairs, I locked the bedroom door.
Hazel sat on the edge of my bed while I found the small first-aid kit from the bathroom.
"Are my grown-up teeth broken too?"
"No, sweetheart."
"How do you know?"
"Because those aren't here yet."
She considered this.
"Are they scared?"
"Your grown-up teeth?"
She nodded.
"Maybe a little."
"Tell them Cassandra's gone."
My hands stopped.
Hazel watched me with swollen eyes.
I wet a piece of gauze.
"Open."
She obeyed.
The bleeding was slowing.
I texted her pediatric dentist from my regular phone and sent a photograph of her mouth.
Then I packed two pairs of pajamas, underwear, her toothbrush, the stuffed rabbit Cassandra had thrown onto the floor, and the purple sweater Hazel insisted was blue.
My own suitcase remained in the closet.
There wasn't time for the performance of packing a marriage.
Hazel watched me.
"Are we coming back?"
I folded the sweater twice because the first fold was crooked.
"No."
She was quiet.
Then she said, "Can I bring the fish?"
I looked toward the little aquarium on her dresser.
One orange fish drifted behind a plastic castle.
"Not right this second."
"Who feeds him?"
She accepted this with the solemnity children reserved for promises adults hadn't yet earned.
My phone buzzed.
The dentist wanted Hazel brought in immediately.
I slipped the phone into my pocket.
Then I went downstairs with Hazel and her backpack.
Spencer was waiting at the bottom.
A stack of papers lay on the entry table.
"Since you're determined to create a crisis," he said, "we might as well make something useful out of it."
I recognized the first page.
Petition for dissolution of marriage.
My stomach turned over once.
Not because I wanted him.
Because some humiliations remained humiliating even after love had died.
"Your lawyer prepared these today?"
"Last week."
That landed differently.
Cassandra looked away.
So did Evan.
Spencer picked up a pen.
"You sign, you leave tonight, and I transfer enough money for you to rent somewhere decent."
"How much?"
He seemed surprised by the question.
"Twenty-five thousand."
Six years of marriage had been priced somewhere below Cassandra's wardrobe.
I almost admired the efficiency.
Then I reached the custody paragraph.
Spencer wanted primary physical custody.
My vision sharpened.
"No."
His mouth hardened.
"Don't make this difficult."
"You don't even know Hazel's dentist's name."
"That's irrelevant."
"She sleeps with the hallway light on."
"Gwen."
"She hates bananas unless they're frozen, and she tells people she's allergic to them because she thinks hatred is a medical condition."
"Enough."
"You didn't know she lost her first tooth in April."
Cassandra shifted impatiently.
"We have somewhere to be."
Hazel pressed her face into my shoulder.
Spencer lowered his voice.
"Sign it."
I put the papers down.
"Not with that clause."
"Then leave without the money."
"Fine."
His confidence returned.
He mistook the word for surrender.
I carried Hazel past him and opened the front door.
"You won't last a week," he said.
I stopped.
There was one thing upstairs I had almost forgotten.
Not clothes.
Not jewelry.
Not photographs.
I handed Hazel's backpack to Evan.
"Hold this."
He took it automatically.
Then I walked to the narrow storage room beneath the main staircase.
Patricia frowned.
"What are you doing?"
I shut the door behind me.
The room smelled of dust and cedar polish.
Six years earlier, on the morning after my wedding, I had loosened one floorboard and hidden a black phone beneath it.
My father had called the idea paranoid.
Thomas had called it prudent.
I had called it unnecessary.
I lifted the board.
The phone was still there.
So was the charger.
When I powered it on, the battery showed eleven percent.
One number was saved.
I pressed it.
Thomas Crawford answered before the second ring.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then his voice softened.
"Gwen?"
Hearing my name from someone who had known me before I became Mrs. Albright nearly undid me.
I sat on the dusty floor.
"My daughter was hurt."
His breathing changed.
"Is Hazel safe?"
"She's with me."
"Are you safe?"
"For the next few minutes."
"Tell me where you are."
"You know where I am."
A pause.
"Yes."
I closed my eyes.
"Thomas, tell my father I'm done."
He didn't ask what I meant.
Six years was a long time to wait for four words.
"No."
My hand tightened around the phone.
"Do more than that."
Silence settled on the line.
Then Thomas said, very carefully, "How much more?"
I looked at the thin strip of light beneath the storage-room door.
"Everything we were afraid Spencer was doing."
"Yes."
"Stop protecting him from the consequences."
Thomas exhaled.
"Gwen, once I start that process, I can't promise you'll control where it ends."
May you like
For the first time that afternoon, somebody had spoken to me as though consequences were real.
I was grateful enough to almost cry.
