Chương 4
Instead, I asked, "Why are you here?"
Mason looked genuinely surprised.
"Because you're my wife."
Beatrice added, "And because this has gotten completely out of hand."
My fingers tightened beneath the blanket.
"How?"
She made a small impatient sound.
"Hannah, please."
"No, tell me."
Mason leaned forward.
"Mom didn't mean to break your leg."
Beatrice looked at him sharply.
The room went still.
He noticed.
"What?"
She adjusted the strap of her purse.
"Don't phrase it that way."
"Why?"
"Because it sounds deliberate."
Mason rolled his eyes.
"I just said she didn't mean to."
Beatrice turned toward me.
"You know I wasn't trying to injure you that badly."
My pulse hammered.
I kept my face still.
"That badly?"
"You were screaming before anything was even broken."
Mason gave a short laugh.
"She does have a low pain tolerance."
The laugh died when I didn't respond.
Beatrice crossed her arms.
"You embarrassed me."
"By talking about salt?"
"You corrected me at my own table."
"It wasn't your table."
Her expression hardened.
I had not planned to say that.
The house was legally mine and Mason's, purchased eight months before his parents moved in temporarily after Richard's retirement.
Temporarily had become fourteen months.
Beatrice had slowly begun referring to it as the family house.
Mason's mouth tightened.
"Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Push."
There it was.
The old warning.
Soft voice.
Controlled face.
A threat disguised as advice.
I looked at him and waited.
He glanced toward the door, perhaps expecting an audience.
"Nobody wants this to become uglier than it already is."
Beatrice nodded.
"Exactly."
"What does uglier mean?"
Mason exhaled through his nose.
"It means police involvement."
"There's already police involvement."
His eyes sharpened.
"Because your neighbor overreacted."
Beatrice leaned closer to me.
"That woman has always been nosy."
"She called an ambulance."
"Which was unnecessary."
I stared at her cast-colored reflection in the dark television screen.
"The surgeon put a plate in my leg this morning."
Beatrice's mouth opened, then closed.
For the first time since entering, she seemed genuinely unsettled.
Mason recovered faster.
"You'll heal."
"Maybe."
"You will."
His confidence irritated me.
Not because he was reassuring me.
Because he had already decided what my injury was allowed to mean.
He reached for my hand.
I pulled it away.
A brief flash crossed his face.
Anger first.
Then calculation.
"Hannah, listen to me."
"No."
He blinked.
It was such a small word.
I had said much harsher things to him during our marriage.
But I could not remember the last time I had simply refused to listen.
Beatrice shifted her weight.
"We came here to discuss how we're going to explain this."
"To whom?"
"People."
"Which people?"
She looked at Mason.
He answered.
"Your employer."
My stomach tightened.
"You contacted them."
"I had to."
"No, you didn't."
"Somebody had to explain why you weren't showing up."
"I had surgery."
"Exactly."
"You told them I was mentally unstable."
His eyes flicked away.
There was the first crack.
Small, but real.
"I told them you've been under stress."
"Janet called me."
Mason's gaze returned to mine.
"Janet shouldn't have done that."
"Why?"
"Because you're medicated."
Beatrice made an approving noise.
"Exactly."
I let the silence stretch.
Mason hated silence when he wasn't controlling it.
He filled it.
"You've been emotionally unpredictable since the miscarriage."
The sentence landed with less force than it once would have.
Maybe because he had used the word so many times that it had finally worn smooth.
Maybe because my mother's voice had repaired something in me that morning.
I looked at him.
"Did you text my parents pretending to be me?"
Beatrice's face changed instantly.
Mason's did not.
That told me enough.
"What are you talking about?"
"My father sent you three thousand dollars."
He leaned back.
"Oh, that."
I nearly stopped breathing.
Not denial.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
Beatrice stared at him.
"Mason."
"What?"
She pressed her lips together.
He looked annoyed now.
"The money was for household expenses."
"My father was told it was for dental surgery."
"No, he wasn't."
"He showed me the messages."
Mason shrugged.
"Then you must've sent them."
For half a second I could see how easily this had worked before.
The confidence.
The inversion.
The invitation to doubt my own memory.
He didn't need a believable lie.
He needed only to make certainty feel expensive.
I said, "My phone was in your possession."
"You gave me access."
"Sometimes."
"All the time."
"No."
He smiled without warmth.
"You don't remember half of what you do when you're upset."
Beatrice sat on the edge of the second chair.
Her voice softened.
"Hannah, this is what we've been trying to tell you."
I looked at her.
She tilted her head with almost maternal concern.
"You need help."
Three days earlier, that sentence might have folded me in half.
Now I could hear the machinery inside it.
If I resisted, I was unstable.
If I cried, I was unstable.
If I became angry, I was unstable.
If I remained calm, I was cold and manipulative.
There was no correct behavior inside the version of me they had created.
So I stopped auditioning for innocence.
"Where is my passport?"
Mason's jaw tightened.
"What?"
"My passport."
"I don't know."
"Where is my driver's license?"
"You lose everything."
"My debit cards?"
"Probably in your desk."
"Which desk?"
He hesitated.
Beatrice looked at him again.
This time the warning between them was unmistakable.
I asked, "The locked desk?"
Mason's face drained slightly.
It lasted less than a second.
Then he leaned forward.
"What did you tell the police?"
I felt something cold move through me.
Not fear.
Recognition.
This was why they had come.
Not concern.
Not reconciliation.
Information.
Beatrice stopped smiling.
"Hannah, you need to be very careful."
"About what?"
"About making accusations you can't take back."
Mason nodded.
"If you tell people crazy things, there are consequences."
"What consequences?"
"For everybody."
"Be specific."
He stared at me.
May you like
Then he lowered his voice.
"You think your job is going to keep you if this becomes public?"
