“Three o’clock?” Marin is on the phone, attempting to reschedule a meeting she missed while dealing with Gia’s situation. “I’ll have to get back to you.” Hanging up, she searches for Raj to see if he’ll be able to switch pickup duties. She finds him in his office, staring out the window. Knocking once on the open door, as if they were colleagues instead of married, she catches his attention. “Can you get Gia today? I have a call I need to take.”
He doesn’t answer her, offering her a cursory glance before returning to staring out the window.
“Raj!” Marin loses her patience. “Can you get Gia after school today?”
He remains silent, instead holding out a sheet of paper for her. Marin stares at it in his hands, refusing to take it. “What is it?” she demands.
“I found it a few days ago. I think it’s time I share.”
Moving forward on legs that barely hold her, Marin takes the paper. Something in his eyes, in his voice, gives her a sense of foreboding, a wish to be back in her office, overwhelmed with work. At first glance she recognizes Gia’s handwriting. It starts with a paragraph about love and loss. About being all alone. Marin reads through the words quickly, Gia’s heartbreak laid out in detail. It is the last few words that cause Marin to stumble, to wonder when it all went wrong, when she had planned it so perfectly to go right. Gia’s soliloquy speaks of life and wonders if death is not easier. If maybe life isn’t meant to be lived, that somewhere it had to be easier than it was here. Sure she can’t be everything everyone wants her to be. That in the end, she just wants to be herself, but fears that it will never be enough.
“Where did you get this?” Marin demands, finally finished.
“I found it in her diary. It was dated three days ago,” Raj says quietly, still not meeting Marin’s eyes.
“You searched her room?” Marin asks, needing someone or something to blame.
“This from the woman who had Gia followed? Who raised her hand to our daughter when she was already covered in bruises? Who decided to humiliate her in front of all her friends and classmates by bringing in the police to arrest her boyfriend?” He finally turns his head to stare at her, the air filling with his disgust. “You dare to stand in judgment of me?”
“I did it all for her,” Marin says, her breath shallow, uneven. “I did what I thought was right for her life.”
“The life she doesn’t care to live.” Raj stands, tearing the paper out of Marin’s hands. “I have followed your lead for years. Trusted you knew what school was best for her, what activities. The focus on her grades trumping all else. I have abdicated all decisions, trusting you completely. I now see my mistake.”
“You think you know better than I do?” Marin holds back an expletive. “Let’s be realistic.”
“I am,” Raj says quietly, his demeanor more serious than Marin has ever seen. “She’s hurting, and as much as you had hoped sending Adam to jail would solve all our problems, it hasn’t. We’re pulling her out of school immediately. Giving her some time off.”
“We will do no such thing,” Marin says, the room closing in on her. Her daughter’s success, the routes that would define her place in the world, start to erode, washed under a tsunami, left only with debris. “I won’t allow you to mess with her future.”
“She has no future,” Raj spits out. He shakes the paper in Marin’s face. “This is all she has. All she is.”
“We’ll send her to a therapist,” Marin decides, remembering the card thrown carelessly into a drawer. “Karen mentioned someone. I can set up some appointments for after school.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Raj demands, narrowing his eyes. “This isn’t a discussion. I’ve made my decision.”
“When did you start to believe it was yours to make?” Marin demands.