Did he hit her?
He never has.
But the fact that I hear the question in my head does something to me.
I’ve always told myself that even though his anger causes him to lash out at me sometimes—even when it gets physical, it’s not abuse. Not really. Not like punching or kicking. Just grabbing. Shaking me so I’ll pay attention.
And he’s a good daddy, I would remind myself. He loves Ari. He’d never, ever hurt her.
But now, I don’t know, and I’m too afraid to ask.
As I hold my precious little girl, with her round cheeks and her very first tooth starting to show, I can’t lie to myself anymore. I can’t be afraid anymore. She needs me to protect her.
“Mom cancelled! She’s in the ER with Mike,” Matt spits.
“What happened?” I gasp. Mike is Matt’s younger brother, a sweet guy.
“The idiot broke his arm hanging cobwebs on the patio roof. Fell off the ladder and now needs surgery to put a pin in his arm! Mom is staying with him, so we’re screwed. He’s nineteen! It’s not like he needs her there. Shesworeshe would babysit.”
Matt hits the crib with the flat of his palm and gives it a vicious kick, making it jump several inches.
That must be how he woke Ari, and she probably screamed because an adult shaking her crib and slamming into it must feel like an earthquake to her.
“Well... Maybe I can ask my parents to come over?” I ask, and I know it’s a stupid offer the second I said it.
“What? Your parents are going to drive down from Rochester by six? It’s already after five! This night is ruined—and it’s that dumb brat’s fault!”
At first, I think he means his younger brother, but then I notice the hateful glare directed squarely at me.
At the baby I’m holding.
“If we didn’t have her, we wouldn’t need a sitter, and we’d be back to how it used to be, football games every weekend, dinners out, no more waiting eight weeks to see if I can fucking sleep with my own goddamned wife!” His voice rises to a roar, but inside my head, it’s very quiet. “If it’s not ‘the doctor said to wait,’ it’s her damn crying all night!”
The little voices that I hear, my own sense of self, my wisdom, my common sense... They’re not whispering now. They’re speaking. Softly, but loud enough to be heard over the din and panic setting in, penetrating my brain with a clarity I haven’t felt in weeks.
Clarity that I’m scared to feel, because staying is easier in some ways.
Take Ari and go. Take her and go. Get out of here. Go to somewhere Matt’s never heard of. Somewhere he won’t find you.
“It’s all right, babe,” I say, voice calm. Some days that would make him yell, but tonight, I say it as I collect things in the nursery, moving like everything is okay. “She’ll be part of my costume. Then we won’t need a sitter. I’ll throw that old red and white picnic blanket over her carrier and say she’s my basket of goodies.” I grab an armful of her clean laundry from the changing table and add it to the baby bag.
Load the baby bag. You still have that jumbo box of diapers and wipes in the trunk because you didn’t unload them last night, and Matt didn’t do it when he said he would.
Take the grocery money. Take the money you were saving for his birthday gift. Don’t worry about the rest. Once you’re away, and you know he’s not following you, you’ll call your parents. They’ll get you set up somewhere far, far away. Somewhere where he won’t come for Arianna.
I hold her more tightly to my chest.
Matt isn’t protesting for the moment, but he’s shooting poisonous looks at her, a loathing on his features that I’ve never noticed.
I want to ask how much he’s had to drink tonight, but I don’t.
“I’ll get her back to sleep by driving her around the block a few times. If she wakes up while we’re at the party, I bet your co-workers will adore her. They’ll pass her around all night, and we’ll have the greatest Halloween ever, lover.” I kiss his cheek in passing and hurry to the kitchen. Grab my purse from where it’s slung over the back of the chair. Check to see that the little envelope of money I’ve been saving out of the household budget is still in the front pocket.
On the outside, I’m calm and confident, the perfect little Doris Day pin-up with my poise and my shiny blonde bell of sprayed hair over my red and white hooker outfit.
Inside, I’m listening for his footsteps, terrified he’ll grab my arm and ask what I’m doing. I’m afraid I’ll barf on Ari, and I’m trying not to scream, beg, or flinch.
Am I really going to run away? Am I really going to try to “hide out” in some town I think he’ll never have heard of?
