Four months later, I drank in her latest text like a woman dying of thirst.
NOELLE: Happy Spring, Mom! Big news! I know this is coming out of the blue, but I’ve moved to a small mountain town in Canada, and I’m engaged!!! Also, I’m pregnant with twins, and we’re planning a summer wedding. Mom, I’d really love it if you could come. Could you call me? Please? I’m so, so happy, but the situation I’m in is kind of a long story, and I don’t think it’s explainable over text. Also, I’d love to see how you’re?—
“What do you think you’re doing?”
The phone was yanked from my hands before I could even finish reading the text.
Heart clenching, I looked up to find Dennis hovering over the bed where I’d sat to check my messages since he “moved back in.”
His paunch, which he didn’t see any reason to be ashamed of, hung over the towel wrapped around his waist. Water droplets and shampoo lather were clinging to his thinning halo of curls. Apparently, he’d been mid hair wash when he realized he’d left my phone out where I could find it.
I hadn’t even heard him come out of the bathroom. I’d been too wrapped up in the joy of Noelle’s news—twins. Twin grandbabies.
But Dennis didn’t look happy as he scanned the message.
“She’sgetting married, and she didn’t even think to invite me?” His lip curled. “The grandfather?”
The joy that had swelled in my chest only moments ago curdled into something cold and sour.
Of course, Dennis would make it about himself.
And, of course, I couldn’t act as overjoyed as I was. That would give him something else to hold over me. I could see it now—him threatening to show up at her wedding, then making me beg him not to ruin her special day.
“Aren’t you going to call her, Belly?” He dangled the phone like a carrot, using the new nickname he’d been shaming me with for months. “Ask for a plus-one?”
I shook my head quickly. “I don’t care,” I lied, keeping my voice small and empty. “No use calling her back when I don’t even want to go.”
He stared at me with narrowed eyes, and I made sure to keep my expression downtrodden, the way he preferred it.
But my subservient act wasn’t good enough this time.
“I don’t think you understand,” Dennis said, his expression twisting to mean and petty. “I’m not asking.”
So, this was how it was going to play out.
There was no right answer. No safe choice. If I refused, he’d punish me. If I called, he’d find a way to hurt our daughter.
It wasn’t a choice, really. The decision had already been made.
I felt the familiar deadening inside me, the shift where I stopped being a person and became a shell.
Instead of the art studio at UMG, I went to another happy place. A new one, this time.
A church pew. Twin grandbabies—soft and warm—snuggled close at my sides as I turned to watch Noelle walk down the aisle in a gorgeous wedding gown.
“Mom, I’m so happy.”
And I was happy for her. Even as the back of Dennis’s hand cracked across my cheek, the blow snapping my head to the side.
It didn’t matter. The pain couldn’t touch me. Because Noelle was no longer a sitting duck in Gemidgee.
3/
check-in
RAVIK
“By Ursa, Ravik.” Zion, who Niska and I used to call Professor behind his back, pulled out a chair on the other side of the counter where I’d set breakfast, scanning the spread with an arched eyebrow. “You're aware my having to put in another few months at that infernal school isn’t an occasion to celebrate, correct? You didn’t have to do all of this.”
