He is serious. I can see that. He’s wound up tighter than an overtuned guitar string. One more turn and something’s going to snap. His jaw is so tight, the muscle bunches. There’s a slight sheen of sweat on his forehead. His breathing has sped up to a rate that almost matches my own.
This retriggers my memory of Greg and the night he hit me. Whatever possessed me to talk to him the way I did on the phone just now? I’m terrified by my own audacity, and Tony, my safe protector, seems lethal all at once. Too big. Too male. Too full of untapped possibilities. Where on earth are Mia and Elle? Surely they’ve had plenty of time to inspect every carton of ice cream in the store. A group of teenagers spills out of a car, laughing, shoving. The automatic doors at the front of the store open but disgorge only one old man, bent and shuffling, clutching a brown paper bag.
No Mia. No Elle.
My breath keeps catching on a sharpness in my throat. Greg’s right about one thing at least—I don’t really know anything about Mia or Tony. I’ve trusted him, partly because of his occupation, partly because up until this minute he’s made me feel safe and protected. But abusive men can be firemen. Stalkers can be policemen. Maybe, for all I know, Tony is the guy my mom was scared of. My hand digs in my purse for my phone and I clutch it, ready to dial 911 if I need to.
“I’ll sleep with two phones by my bed,” I say out loud, hearing the strain in my voice and hating it. “Cell and landline. I’ll make sure all the doors and windows are locked. I’ll call 911 before I let anybody in.”
“Good.” He relaxes a little. I watch him do it, one muscle group at a time. Jaw. Shoulders. Hands. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says. “I get a little intense. It’s just—something about this situation has me all tied up in knots. Your—Greg—ignited the whole mess.”
“He’s not my Greg. Hasn’t been my Greg since before Elle was born. He’s married.”
We sit there in a tight, awkward silence, both staring straight ahead. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel. I clutch my phone. Two more minutes, then I’m going in looking for Elle.
At precisely one minute and twenty-five seconds into my countdown, Mia and Elle emerge from the store, each carrying a shopping bag. Elle is laughing. Mia is talking nonstop and is still talking when she opens the car door.
“So then, George says a bear ran into him. Can you believe it? He didn’t hit the bear. He was just sitting there on his four-wheeler, and the bear came bolting out of the woods and plowed right over the top of him. Never even stopped to look back . . .”
A cool breeze enters the car with the two of them, a fresh hit of mountain air and trees with undertones of gasoline and exhaust. It clears my head. Grounds me.
“We’ve got a carton for everybody,” Elle says. “Even for Grandpa and Mia’s mom.”
I think about the way Tony treats his mother, the way she kissed him on the forehead before he left. The way Mia clearly adores him. He’s done nothing but be helpful. I have no more reason to believe he’s dangerous than I do to believe that Marley is going to show up at my door with intent to kill.
Leah’s Journal
The first time that he hit me, I was six months pregnant and already awkward and ungainly. I’d always been light and quick on my feet. Now I felt like a wide-load trailer on a two-lane highway. The doctor explained that I was extra big because of the twins. “Take it easy,” he told me. “Slow down. There are extra risks with twin pregnancies, and the babies usually come early.”
“No more sex,” he’d said, at the last visit.
I was relieved by the prohibition. The babies were more than a fantasy now. They moved around inside me like secret subterranean creatures, the three of us forming a world of our own. Sex felt like an intrusion, like we might disturb them, hurt them, sully them somehow.
Boots did not share my relief. We fought after that visit, his rages growing in intensity. It wasn’t just about the sex. He started pushing me to do other things I’d stopped doing on account of the babies. Smoke a cigarette. Have a drink.
“It’s one party,” he’d said to me, that night. “We’re going. Can you find something to wear besides that tent? You look like somebody’s pregnant granny.”
His words stung me. He’d been on about my appearance all week. The weight I’d gained. The ugly red marks forming on my growing belly. I agreed with him. My jeans had long since stopped being an option, and I’d started wearing maternity dresses as the easiest thing. I’d been to the Goodwill and brought home what I could find. The dress was hideous. I was hideous.
I’d always had a sharp tongue in me, something Boots appreciated as long as it wasn’t directed at him. I was hurt, and I retaliated, poking at his weak spots. “Maybe if you’d get a good job instead of lying around all day, I could buy something pretty.”
“You’ve turned into a nag,” he said. “I don’t like it.” His eyes had gone cold. He was looking at me the way he looked at teachers and police officers.
I should have taken the warning. Instead, I stood my ground. “Well, I don’t like the way you’re looking at me. It’s not just you and me anymore—”
Those were the magic words to unlock his fists.
No slapping for Boots. It was a straight-up right hook to my cheekbone. Dropped me to the floor. I was heavy, and the fall wrenched my back. My head hit the floor, and there were lights flashing. He stood above me, looking down, breathing hard through his nose.
“Maybe you’ll be good for something again someday,” he said, but with scorn. “I’m going to the party. You can stay here.”
And then he kicked me in the belly. It wasn’t even a vicious kick. At that point, I wasn’t worth the energy that would have taken. It was a gesture of disdain, the way someone might kick aside a bit of garbage on the road. But those beautiful, shiny, cowboy boots had pointy toes, and my skin was stretched tight like a drum.
It was my soul and my heart that hurt worst. Something broke in me right then that has been broken since. All these years with you, my Walter, you’d think it might have been put right. But some things, I guess, can’t be mended.
I was afraid more for the babies than I was for myself. What if that kick had broken something inside me? Harmed them? If it had been just me I’d like to think I’d have either stood up to him again or walked out. But I was young and frightened and so very pregnant. Where would I go? What would I do?
I had learned my lesson. When he came home, drunk, blubbering his apologies and begging my forgiveness, I held him and swore over and over that I would never leave him, that it would always be the two of us against the world, that even the babies would never come between us.
All of it lies.
I knew, right then, that I would figure out a plan to leave him.
Chapter Nineteen
When we pull up in the driveway of my parents’ house, all the lights are on. My fear sensors start blaring like a fire alarm. Dad should be in bed. He should be sleeping. Surely Tony’s mom wouldn’t let him start burning things again, but what do I really know about her?
I am out of the car before it comes to a full stop. No evidence of smoke or fire, thank God, but I still cross the space between me and the door in a series of giant leaps, superwoman without a cape.
Dad and Mrs. Medina are as comfy as can be at the kitchen table, both nursing mugs of hot tea. She is a plump, comfortable-looking woman, with the same blue eyes as Mia and Tony, but her hair is lighter, a mousy-brown color, streaked with gray. She sits close beside Dad, one hand resting on his shoulder. His eyes are red and swollen, as if he’s been crying.
Relief that he’s okay gives way to a sucker punch of guilt.
My mother is being buried tomorrow, and the stranger I’ve left Dad with is doing a better job than I have of comforting him.
He tries to smile at me, though. “There’s my girl,” he says. “Hannah told me you were fine and not to worry. But I couldn’t sleep.”