“I’m so sorry.”
Now it’s my turn to stare at the ceiling. I don’t know how this woman has a way of making me want to open up, but with her, I feel safe to talk about this stuff. Some of it, anyway.
“We had a fight. She left. I shouldn’t have let her go out into the night alone. It was?—”
“It was what?”
I choose my words carefully. Francesca died because of the life I chose, and that’s why I can’t ever let someone in again. I won’t have yet another innocent woman’s death on my conscience.
“Where we lived… it was too dangerous. She was killed in a drive by shooting.”
“Oh my God,” Erin whispers. “That’s awful. I really am sorry, August.”
Swallowing hard, I recover quickly. “It’s okay. I’ve had many years to make my peace with it.”
I don’t add that I haven’t yet managed to do so. The guilt haunts me so deeply, it’s a part of who I am—the ‘August’ that doesn’t ‘do’ relationships, because when I do, people die.
I turn to her. “Can I askyoua personal question?”
“Um, okay, sure.”
“Why are you leaving your husband?”
I turn to see her eyes widen and her chest brace. She breathes steadily for a couple of minutes before she replies.
“He beat me.”
Suddenly, I’m sitting up, staring at her. “Hewhat?”
She doesn’t look at me. Just continues to stare at the ceiling, choosing her words with care. “It only happened twice.”
I want to say it shouldn’t have fucking happened at all. And also, the minute all this is over I’m going to track that bastard down and disable his fucking hands.
“The first time, he—” She clears her throat and starts over. “He used to work away a lot but he always told me when he’d be home. This one time though, he didn’t. He was two days late and I couldn’t get hold of him. Paige was worried about her daddy. When he walked through the door one afternoon, so blasé, as if there was absolutely nothing wrong, I just blew up.
“I yelled at him, told him he’d been selfish, he should have called, blah blah blah. He backhanded me right there. I fell into the wall, completely disoriented. He kicked me while I just curled up into a ball. I got bruises all over my back from where the pointed edge of his shoe hit me over and over again. I thank God every day that Paige was at her friend’s house at the time.”
My vision turns white with rage. She swallows and continues.
“He didn’t apologize right away. It took me threatening to leave and take Paige with me before he said it was the biggest mistake of his life and he hated himself and he loved me, loved us both. I wanted to believe him. Really, I did. I didn’t want to break up the family—for Paige’s sake. But, deep down, I knew I’d just seen a side of him he’d kept under wraps through our entire relationship. It had always been there in the background, an undercurrent of aggression beneath his composure.”
I bite my lip. “He did it again?”
“A week later. We were both due to go to Paige’s school for a meeting but he didn’t show. When he came home later that night, I snapped at him. His face just went blank, as if in that moment he felt no emotion at all. He came at me so fast I couldn’t get out of the way, then he punched me repeatedly in the stomach. I collapsed onto the floor; I couldn’t breathe. He just walked out of the house again and left me there. I honestly thought I was going to die.”
A tear rolls down her cheek, making my muscles twitch to lean forward and wipe it away.
“I knew in that moment, there was no longer any love in our marriage. To be honest, I’m not sure there ever was. He was my first steady boyfriend and the father of my child. Looking back, we never stayed up late just talking about stuff; we never had a playful relationship. He was always in control of what we did, even down to the fertility treatments I underwent when we were trying for a baby. He wasn’t particularly romantic—he never gave me gifts or flowers—but I never needed for anything. There was always money. Sometimes, there was a lot of it. I just thought he was stoic. Reliable. But I don’t think I loved him towards the end. I stayed for Paige.”
“Was he absent a lot?”
She’s quiet for a few moments.
“Yes. He worked away from home all the time, traveling, but he usually had the courtesy to tell me when he’d be back.”
My bones itch with hatred for the man. If this gorgeous, sexy, sassy, funny woman was my wife, I’d struggle to leave her side. I absolutely would not have laid a hand on her to harm, only to make her feel good.
“What did he do for work?”
