Part 4
Her cheek had begun to swell.
At the first red light in Rockport, Daniel said, “We should go to the hospital.”
“I don’t need the emergency room for a slap.”
“You’re pregnant.”
“She didn’t hit my stomach.”
“I want you checked.”
Mara looked out the window. A seafood restaurant was closing across the street. Someone inside stacked chairs upside down on tables. The ordinary motion made the night feel stranger.
“I don’t want to spend five hours under fluorescent lights while people ask whether I feel safe at home.”
“You don’t feel safe at home.”
“That isn’t home.”
Daniel’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.
“I’ll call Dr. Patel,” she said. “If she wants me seen, I’ll go.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
“And your cheek?”
“It hurts.”
“We should document it.”
The word document made her turn.
Daniel kept his eyes on the road. “I’m not telling you what to do. I’m saying she’ll deny it.”
“You saw it.”
“I know.”
“You think that won’t be enough?”
“I think she’ll say I misunderstood. Or that I’m unstable. Or that you pushed her. She’s already constructing the story.”
Mara touched the sore skin below her eye. “Are you asking me to call the police?”
“No. I’m asking what you want.”
“I want to sleep somewhere she cannot enter.”
“All right.”
“And tomorrow I want to decide what happens next before you call your mother, your lawyer, your foundation, or anyone else.”
“All right.”
She watched the road pass beneath the headlights. “You said it again.”
“I don’t know what else to say.”
“Then don’t say anything.”
He nodded.
The furnished rental belonged to a colleague of Daniel’s who spent summers in Maine and winters in Washington. It was smaller than Mara expected, a gray clapboard cottage at the edge of town with narrow stairs, low ceilings, and a kitchen painted an unfortunate shade of yellow.
Daniel found the lockbox beneath the porch rail. He had arranged access weeks earlier in case the Camden house needed repairs before they moved.
That detail should have reassured her. Instead, it told her how long he had been planning an escape he had never trusted her enough to discuss.
Inside, the cottage smelled faintly of cedar and closed windows. Daniel turned on lamps while Mara stood in the living room with Noah against her shoulder. The furniture did not match. A chipped blue bowl held keys on the entry table. There were books about sailing, gardening, and the Civil War stacked beneath a brass lamp.
The normal imperfection of the place made Mara’s throat tighten.
No rooms staged for photographs. No monogrammed towels. No portrait of Daniel’s grandfather watching from above a fireplace.
She sat on the sofa and began to cry.
The tears came without sound. She hated them for arriving now, after she had remained dry-eyed through the slap and the drive.
Daniel crouched in front of her.
“Can I take him?”
She shook her head.
He rested his hands on his knees.
“I’m not crying because it hurt,” she said.
“I know.”
“She thinks I was going to run.”
Daniel waited.
“I wasn’t.”
“I know.”
Mara looked down at Noah’s soft brown hair. “But I thought about it.”
The words settled between them.
Daniel did not move.
“Not tonight,” she said. “Not with that suitcase. But last month. After she changed the nursery schedule and told the night nurse not to bring him to me until six.”
“I told her the night nurse was temporary.”
“That isn’t the point. She gave instructions about my child, and when I objected, you asked me to let it go until the nurse’s contract ended.”
He looked at the floor.
“I called Harbor House,” Mara continued. “Not because I needed a shelter bed. I asked whether they knew any short-term rentals that accepted infants. I didn’t use my name.”
Daniel’s mouth opened, then closed.
“I was trying to figure out whether I could leave Greyhaven without taking money from you.”
“Why wouldn’t you take money from me?”
“Because every account we use is visible to the family office.”
He sat back on his heels.
Mara wiped her face with the heel of her hand. “I had twelve hundred dollars in my old savings account. I thought I could manage two weeks. Maybe three.”
“With Noah?”
“Yes.”
“Without telling me?”
“I didn’t know if I would do it.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No. It’s the answer you gave me for two months about leaving your mother’s house.”
He flinched.
Noah stirred. Mara rocked him slowly until his breathing settled.
Daniel rose and walked to the window. The glass reflected him more clearly than it showed the dark street outside.
“Did she know you called?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“How would she?”
Mara thought of the iPad Celeste kept in the breakfast room, linked to the household account. She thought of the day Celeste had quoted part of a message Mara had sent Daniel, then claimed he had told her.
“My old phone was still connected to the house Wi-Fi,” she said. “The call log might have synced to the family account.”
“She has access to the account.”
“She has access to everything.”
Daniel turned from the window.
The anger in his face had changed. It was no longer aimed only at his mother.
Some of it had turned inward.
He sat beside Mara, leaving space between them. “You were considering leaving me.”
“I was considering leaving the house.”
“With our son.”
“Yes.”
“Without telling me.”
“I told you every week that I couldn’t stay there.”
“That’s not the same as saying you might disappear.”
“I wasn’t going to disappear. I was going to tell you once I had somewhere safe.”
He gave a small, humorless breath. “That’s almost exactly what I said about the house.”
“I know.”
They sat with the ugliness of that.
May you like
The resemblance did not make their choices equal, but it made them legible to each other in a way neither wanted.
Daniel rubbed his palms together. “I’m sorry I made leaving me feel safer than asking me again.”
