Chương 5
She had stored them with an attorney recommended by a former professor.
Not Henry.
The act had felt disloyal when she did it.
Now it felt small.
“My attorney has them,” she said.
Lena faced forward again. “Good.”
Mara looked at the silver pendant in her palm.
A red smear marked one edge. She could not tell whether it was wine or blood.
Her sister opened the door before Mara knocked.
Nora Ellison was twenty-seven and six months pregnant, wearing an old university sweatshirt and one sock. Her dark hair had been cut to her chin after years of falling nearly to her waist. She looked at Mara’s evening gown, the adhesive strips, the blood trace the clinic had not fully removed, and the security vehicles at the curb.
“What happened?”
Mara had rehearsed a smaller answer during the drive.
Dinner went badly.
There was an accident.
Julian lost his temper.
Instead she said, “He threw a glass at me.”
Nora stepped backward as if Mara had pushed her.
Her husband, David, appeared from the kitchen carrying a dish towel. He stopped when he saw Mara. Behind him, a pan hissed on the stove.
“Turn that off,” Nora said.
David did not move.
“The stove.”
He returned to the kitchen.
Nora touched Mara’s arm, then withdrew her hand before making contact. “Did you call the police?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I went to a clinic.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“I know.”
Nora looked over Mara’s shoulder at Lena, who remained on the walkway. “Are those police?”
“Private security.”
Nora’s mouth twisted. “His private security?”
“It’s complicated.”
“No, Mara. It really isn’t.”
The words came too fast. Nora pressed her lips together and glanced toward the kitchen, where David was pretending not to listen.
Mara had not come for judgment, but judgment was easier to recognize than pity.
“I need somewhere to sleep,” she said.
Nora’s face changed immediately.
“Of course.”
Lena carried the bag inside. She gave Nora her number and explained that an officer would remain on the street until morning, not because they expected Julian to arrive, but because the incident had involved company information and emotions were high.
Nora listened with one hand on her stomach.
When Lena left, the house became awkwardly quiet.
David had made grilled cheese sandwiches. One had burned on one side. He scraped it with a butter knife over the sink, creating a small pile of black crumbs.
“I can make something else,” he said.
Mara sat at the kitchen table in her emerald gown. “That’s fine.”
“You sure?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“People say that and then steal mine.”
Nora gave him a look.
“What?” he said. “She does.”
Mara almost smiled.
The attempt made the cut pull.
David placed the least burned sandwich in front of her anyway. Beside it he set a glass of water in a thick plastic tumbler, not crystal. She wondered whether he had chosen it deliberately.
Nora sat across from her.
“How long has this been happening?”
Mara tore the sandwich into two uneven pieces. “He hasn’t thrown anything before.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because you keep asking questions with other questions inside them.”
Nora leaned back. “Fine. Has he hurt you before?”
Mara stared at the melted cheese stretching between the pieces.
“He grabbed my wrist once.”
“When?”
“March.”
“It’s July.”
“He blocked me from getting into my car.”
“When?”
“June.”
Nora rubbed her forehead. “Anything else?”
“He gets angry.”
“Everyone gets angry.”
“Not like him.”
The refrigerator motor started. David rinsed the pan for too long.
Nora’s voice softened. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Mara looked at her sister’s bare foot under the table, the toes curled against the tile.
“Because you would have asked why I stayed.”
“I’m asking now.”
“I know.”
Nora’s eyes filled, but she did not cry. “I would have come.”
“And what would you have done?”
“I don’t know. Something.”
“You’re pregnant. You have a mortgage. David’s school contract gets renewed every year. The Ashcrofts know everyone.”
“That’s your answer?”
“It’s part of it.”
“The rest?”
Mara looked toward the dark window over the sink. Her reflection appeared faintly between potted herbs.
“The rest is that he wasn’t like that all the time.”
Nora let out a breath through her nose.
It sounded impatient, though Mara knew it was grief.
Julian could be attentive in ways that made other men appear unfinished. He noticed when Mara’s shoes hurt before she complained. He remembered the names of her graduate students from a lecture two years after meeting them. When her father died, Julian had sat on the laundry-room floor beside her because she could not bear the condolences filling the rest of the house.
He had once driven three hours to bring her a notebook she forgot before a site inspection.
He had also held her wrist until her fingers tingled because she wanted to leave a fundraiser before he finished speaking to a donor.
Both men existed.
That was the problem.
Nora said, “Are you going to marry him?”
Mara looked down at the ring.
The diamond was an old family stone, square-cut and colorless. Evelyn had told her it survived a shipwreck, a bankruptcy, and two divorces. She said this as though endurance were a virtue stones could lend to women.
“No,” Mara said.
The word entered the room quietly.
David turned off the faucet.
Nora’s face crumpled, not with sadness for the wedding but with relief so strong it embarrassed all of them.
Mara removed the ring.
Her finger was pale beneath it. A shallow groove circled the skin.
She placed it beside the plastic tumbler.
At two in the morning, Julian called from an unfamiliar number.
Mara was lying on Nora’s couch beneath a quilt that smelled faintly of laundry detergent and cedar. The television displayed a paused menu screen. She had been watching nothing.
She answered because she was tired of wondering what he would say.
May you like
“Mara.”
His voice was low. Controlled.
