I sighed and chose to curl up in another pair of pajamas—a tank and pants long enough that they whispered around my ankles as I made my way over to the sitting area by the window. There, I listened to the vent the whole evening, hoping to hear his voice.
Nothing.
There was no movement from the office, and I wasn’t sure why, but I was relieved. The night air called to me here as a summer breeze blew in through the curtains. Sometimes fresh air cleared a head, eased a mind, and soothed a soul.
After Jameson’s tense good evening in the hall, I needed something of the sort. I reached for my phone and found myself dialing for my older sister, like she had the time or mental space to deal with me.
“It’s late, Mia,” she answered on the first ring.
“Crap, sorry,” I grumbled. “It’s been a long day.”
“Tell me about it.” She sighed right as I did, and then we both chuckled.
“How’s my niece or nephew doing?”
“Okay, I think. Wondering if I should figure out the gender soon. Felix is on a work trip, so we’re on our own for a couple more days.” Relief always washed over me when she got time to herself. Felix never really updated her on his schedule because he didn’t want her to plan on his going anywhere, but on those days, she sounded lighter and freer without him there.
“So weather’s great then? Why didn’t you call?” There was the all too familiar knot that was tightening in my chest.
I heard the soft smile in her voice. “Weather’s great, and I just … I don’t know.” She hesitated. “He’s been okay. Things are good.”
There was the dreaded line I hated to hear. He’d been “okay,” as ifokaywere a reason to stay, as if it took away all the turmoil, the abuse, the pain.
“Okay.” My response was practiced as I kept my voice soft, pressing my lips together and trying my best not to push her. “How is he with the pregnancy?”
“He’s trying … I think.”
“Right, and how are you holding up?”
She exhaled as if my agreement was a weight off her shoulders. “I’m tired. Felix has been good about letting me rest.”
“You’re growing a baby. You should be tired, shouldn’t you? That’s nice he’s letting you rest.” My complimentary tone felt forced, and we both knew it.
“Yeah, maybe,” she murmured. Then I heard a sniffle before her voice cracked. “You’re supposed to fight me on how he’s not nice and I should leave again, so I can push back and hang up on you and stay, Mia.”
It would have been the easy way out. I’d done that before, and she hadn’t spoken to me for months. “I’m here for you either way.” My heart broke admitting that, because I didn’t want to support her staying there, didn’t want to support her holding on to a man who didn’t deserve her.
She chuckled. “Wish I could say the same for Mom and Dad.”
It was true. My sister was the shining star my parents now showed off around town ever since she’d married Felix and had a wedding they could all remember. His parents were local celebrities with that liquor company they owned and with the money they put back into that town. Marian divorcing him would have been the equivalent of what I’d done with my coach, and my sister saw how that had worked out.
“Yeah, Mom and Dad are probably hoping I find a life exactly like yours in the next year or two. Maybe then they’ll forgive me.” And forgiveness felt wrong, jaded, twisted. Still, as a daughter, I wanted to smooth things over and make the connection with them strong again. But families were complicated. Sometimes a family was meant to break and you had to learn to choose yourself over them—or find the people who that would accept you for who you truly were and call them family instead.
“I wouldn’t ever wish this life on you,” she blurted out.
I heard her take a shaky breath before silence stretched between us. Maybe I was waiting for her to admit what was really going on, because there was always more. He got angry, he drank, he hit her, he lashed out. There was always, always more.
Or maybe she was waiting for me to reassure her that everything would be okay, but I couldn’t do that. The silence over the line felt fearful, sad, and weighed down by expectations that might never come true.
I tried to wait it out, letting the wind from the window talk to me instead of my sister while she mulled over how to move forward. Instead of the wind, though, a snap at the edge of the estate’s forest drew my attention.
A flicker in the trees had my heart jumping. I stood abruptly and blinked to get a better look, but it was gone. I tried to remind myself that I was living on a huge property with staff and people who watched over me and it was probably just them, but paranoia bled in, making me think that strangers might be watching too.
I hated the feeling of being watched, because I’d only really felt it with my coach and then when I’d stayed with my sister and Felix.
She was five years older than me and newly married when I graduated from college. I hadn’t gotten my first teaching job yet,and she must have known my parents wouldn’t offer me a place to stay after the fallout with my coach.
So she did. It only took two weeks for me to find a job and only two weeks of her husband watching me at night, his stare becoming heavier and heavier, for him to come on to me. “If you’re going to stay here, I hope you’ll let me stay in this bed with you sometimes,” he’d whispered to me in the doorway of the spare room where I slept.
