There wasn’t a proper bed in the little closet under the eaves that Tiffany had turned into the prettiest nook in the house. Walls the color of cotton candy, a twin mattress on the floor covered with a quilt in hues of the softest green. Nora had refinished a squat bookshelf for a birthday present and it contained a treasure trove: the entire collection of Olivia and all the original Curious George, Richard Scarry with his willowy Lowly Worm and a hidden Goldbug like a secret on every page. Nora’s favorites were the dog-eared procession of Anne of Green Gables paperbacks, but they were simply biding their time, waiting on the bottom shelf for the day when the picture books would be set aside.
Thank God the little girl was gone. Thank every celestial creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth that at least she was safe. As for Tiffany . . . ?
Nora put a finger on the spine of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and slipped it from the bookshelf. They had chosen the book purposefully, deciding that a trip through the wardrobe was exactly what they needed. A fresh start, a clean break, a new beginning. But when Nora felt for the manila envelope they had hidden, it was gone. She started yanking books, dropping them to the floor as she searched for the packet. It was no use.
Nora sank to her knees on the floor and forced herself to breathe. To think. But her mind was blank and aching. She didn’t know what to do or where to turn. She had never felt so betrayed in her entire life.
Why? Where was she?
Suddenly, it hit her with the force of a lightning bolt. She knew. She knew what Tiffany had done. Nora scrambled to her feet and raced back through the house, down the stairs, and out the back door where she slipped across the wet grass on her way to the leaning detached garage. It had started to pour, thunder rumbling in the distance and promising that there was so much more to come. Nora shielded her face from the fat drops with her hand, but by the time she hit the shelter of the garage she was soaked.
Nora had left her phone in the glove compartment of her car, but she knew that there was a Maglite on the workbench. It was thick and heavy as a billy club—it had occurred to her more than once that it could be used as a weapon. But now, she just needed it for light.
The board she was looking for was beneath the workbench and half hidden by the support beam for the long counter. Tiffany had shown it to her long ago, back when she was still trying to prove that Donovan was a good man. The sort of man who could make an honest woman out of her and be a loving daddy to Everlee.
“See?” Tiffany said, wedging back the board and shining the flashlight into the depths of the recess beyond. Nora could just make out a brown paper bag folded up inside.
“What is it?”
“Money.” Tiffany sounded smug, I told you so ringing in that one simple word. “I counted it a couple days ago when I knew he would be out for hours.”
“And?”
“There’s got to be over ten thousand dollars there.”
“You said you counted it.”
Tiffany laughed. “I gave up! There were too many bills.”
Back then, Nora hadn’t asked all the questions that were burning on the tip of her tongue. Where did it come from? Why is he hiding it in the garage? Who else knows about it? She didn’t trust herself to because she knew that she’d start to yell. To tell Tiffany what to do and how far to run. Tiffany never responded well to demands. Instead, Nora just pushed herself up and walked away, swinging Everlee into her arms as she left the garage.
But now. Now Nora wished she knew the answers to all those questions. She wished that she’d screamed at Tiffany, told her to get out before it was too late.
Because all at once her every fear was justified.
I’M A FLIGHT RISK. Always have been. Things get heated and instead of sticking around to figure out if there’s going to be a hot-dog roast or a natural disaster, I assume the worst and split.
Don’t hate me for what you can’t possibly understand.
I feel like I’ve always done my level best with what I’ve been given. Or, at least, usually. But sometimes life doesn’t hand you lemons—it throws a snake in your lap. And what are you supposed to do about that? Before my grandpa died he taught me that you take its head off. Clean, with one sure chop of a sharpened hoe.
But I’ve never been good with garden tools. I prefer to run.
Usually straight into the arms of exactly the wrong man. Funny thing is, I fell for a good man once. Or someone who I thought was good. Stable, safe, familiar. But he turned out to be all soft inside, and not in a sweet way. He was rotten to the core. Nora tried to warn me, just like she has every single time. And I don’t deserve her no-strings-attached friendship, because I’m about the worst listener alive.
I traded my truck for a two-door Corolla and a quarter gram of glass. My last. Can you blame me? But then, you don’t know who he is. What he’s done.
Believe it or not, it was the things that I couldn’t put a label on, things he could never be convicted for, that seeded my imagination with violent thoughts. Those incidents made me understand with almost sickening clarity how satisfying it would be to claw his eyes out with my bare fingers. That’s an expression, you know, but it’s more than that, too. It’s the very core of each layered feeling I have for him: the lust masquerading as love, the dependence, the need. The way he made me feel wanted in a way that I had never been wanted before. As if I were air and water and light and life. As if he needed me for his very survival. Once, I believed he would die without me. But none of those things were real. And when it was all peeled back and I saw what he really was? It was too late. Almost.
We had been together for over a year when I glimpsed the truth. Of course, I’m no saint myself. Never have been, probably never will be. I met him in another man’s bedroom, and if that doesn’t tell you something, I fear you lack imagination. There were drugs and far too much alcohol. Rehab, sometimes. It didn’t do much good.
He only hit me once. We were fighting about something. Maybe rent (it was his turn to pay?). I don’t remember. But I do remember that I was, as my auntie would say, sassing. I have a sharp tongue. I use it. And why not? He wasn’t my father, my elder. I thought we respected each other.
I was wrong. Without even giving it a thought, he hauled off and smacked me across the face. It was vicious, backhanded, and the class ring he still wore on his third finger split my lip like a piece of overripe fruit. I was too shocked to react. As the blood spilled warm and quick from the corner of my mouth I just stood and stared. Of course, my mouth throbbed and a headache was sparking behind my temple like a struck match, but I barely registered those things.
It was the betrayal that hurt. No one had ever hit me before. Not even my auntie, who chased me with a wooden spoon and pretended like she’d paddle me purple. She never did. If she caught me—which was rare—she pulled me to her scrawny chest and held me so tight I wondered if she had decided to suffocate me instead of beat me.
“Good God in heaven,” she’d whisper over my dark curls. “You are ten handfuls, Tiffany Marie. And I only have two.”