But what was most horrifying were the ravings about Henry and me. She was obsessed with the idea that I was possessed. Nothing new there. But she was convinced my soul had been compromised, that I was a willing servant of evil,that I was colluding with demons, conspiring to kill her and feast on her entrails. In one of the entries, she recounted a dream where I was standing in a dungeon, covered in blood, wielding a knife, my face contorted with vengeance while fire raged around me.
“Zellie, baby, what’s wrong?” Whit asked, coming into the living room where I sat on the floor, the notebooks scattered around me. He crouched down beside me. “I heard you crying from the kitchen.”
I looked up at him, Vivian’s ravings briefly tainting my vision, making the caring, handsome face of my beloved look like something out of a horror film. I gasped, shrinking back, as he reached for me.
He instantly pulled his hands back. Vivian’s toxic influence immediately vanished, and he was my love, my Whit, again. “Zellie?”
Relief washed over me, and I reached for him. “I’m so sorry… What she wrote… Whit, it’s so disturbing. I didn’t realize she was this troubled, that she needed professional help. I should’ve tried to get her the help she needed.”
“Disturbing how?” he asked, frowning.
I flipped back a couple of pages. “She was convinced that Henry was the son of the devil, that he was a product of a demonseducingme. She says she dreamed of the encounter…and she goes into great detail about that dream.”
“Jesus,” Whit breathed, his eyes going wide.
I held the notebook out to him.
He took it, holding my gaze for a long moment before finally turning his eyes down to the page. I watched his face as he read. His jaw tightened, the muscles twitching with strain from how hard he must’ve been grinding his teeth. I could see his rage growing, his expression becoming harder, the already chiseled lines of his face growing sharper. When he looked up, his eyes burned with fury.
Without a word, he gathered up the notebooks and took them into the kitchen.
“Whit?” I hurried after him when I heard him rummaging through the drawers. “What are you doing?”
“I’m destroying these,” he said, his tone clipped. “Do you want me to tear them to shreds or burn them?”
“Whit—”
He turned abruptly, cutting me off. “Do you want to put yourself through more abuse? Are you going to let her do this to you even now, Zellie?”
I was conflicted. I knew he was right, but part of me wanted to finish reading them, figure out what else she’d put on those pages. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I just need closure.”
He gave me a curt nod and grabbed a box of matches from the drawer. “You sure as hell do.” He swiped the notebooks into the empty sink with his arm then handed me the matches.
I hesitated only a moment before taking them. I looked down at the pile of notebooks. My final connection to Vivian. Her last words to me, appropriately wounding and harmful. Anger welled up in me so powerfully my hands shook as I struck a match and held it to the pages of one of the notebooks. I stared at the flame as the paper caught fire, the white pages curling upon themselves, charred and crumbling into ash as the fire spread.
It vaguely registered that the smoke alarm went off, but the strident beeping was cut short. Several minutes later, only the metal spirals and a pile of ash lay in the sink where the notebooks had been.
Whit turned on the faucet, dousing the ash. Then he pulled me into his arms, held me, wrapped me in his love. And when I lifted my face to his, he wiped the tears from my cheeks and kissed me so tenderly that my pain from the searing agony of the rejection, humiliation, and hatred from a woman who was supposed to love me, began to dissipate, supplanted by another kind of heat.
Chapter twenty-one
Aweek later, Whit and I shared our engagement with Henry, who wasn’t surprised at all, just eager to tell Addie as soon as he could.
“Can we go tell her now, Mama?” he asked, bouncing on his toes. “And do I get to call you Daddy now, Mr. Whit?”
Whit’s mouth opened and closed, searching for the right answer. Whit looked at me, brows raised, then back at Henry. “Well, it’s up to your mama. But I would very much like that.”
Henry turned hopeful eyes on me. “Can I, Mama?”
I was just as much at a loss for words as Whit, who automatically picked up Henry when he raised his arms to Whit. Seeing them like that…it just feltright.“I…yeah, I guess so. If that’s what you want.”
Henry threw his arms around Whit’s neck, hugging him tightly, then kissed him on the cheek. “I always knew you were my daddy.”
I flushed, confused and embarrassed. “Henry—”
“Well, I guess you were right!” Whit cut in, grinning broadly, apparently just as excited as Henry. “Should we go tell everybody?”
Panic fluttered in my chest. I wasn’t sure I wanted to share our happiness just yet. But I was clearly outnumbered. Whit was already helping Henry put on his shoes.
