During the long ride home, she didn’t bother to make conversation with John like she usually did. She stormed into the house, calling Alex’s name so loudly her anger filled the corners of the front parlor.
“In here,” Alex said.
Cassie opened the door to the den, where Alex was sitting on the couch with a newspaper opened over his lap. A bottle of whiskey was wedged between the cushions to his right. “You’re drinking,” she said, snatching the bottle away from him and setting it on the bar across the room. She stood with her arms crossed over her chest, beside the playpen where Connor was gurgling.
Alex smiled lazily. “Connor had his bottle,” he said. “I figured I deserved one too.”
“You didn’t go to the group session last Sunday,” Cassie said flatly.
“No,” Alex admitted, the word long and drawn. “I was busy resurrecting my career. My reputation. You know, the one you keep knocking down so easily.” He stood up and thrust the newspaper into her hands. “Tomorrow’sInformer, pichouette. Came on the front doorstep in a plain brown envelope. And don’t just stop at the headlines. The story’s on page three, and it’s real good.”
Cassie folded the paper in half, scanning the front page.ALEXRIVERSFOOLEDBYWIFE’SHALF-BREEDLOVECHILD. There was a picture taken at the airport of Alex with his arm around her; and another of Cassie with Will, walking into the police station months ago, the day Alex had come to claim her.
“This is ridiculous,” Cassie said, starting to laugh. “You can’t possibly believe this.”
Alex rounded on her so quickly she dropped the paper. “It doesn’t matter what I believe,” he said. “It matters that everyone’s going to see it.”
“It’s not like this isTimemagazine,” Cassie said. “Anyone who reads this rag knows the stories are trash.” She paused. “We’ll sue them. And we’ll put the money into Connor’s trust fund.”
Alex took a step closer, grabbing her arm. “They quoted the letter he wrote you that’s upstairs. Said you’re going to meet him in Washington.”
For a moment her mind considered the mechanics of how Will’s note, carefully tucked into her lingerie drawer, had become public knowledge. Cassie was disappointed that someone on the household staff had sold her secrets, but she was absolutely shocked that Alex had been upset enough to go through her mail. “You don’t really think I’m leaving, do you?”
“No,” he said simply, “since I’d kill you first.”
Cassie felt the air grow heavy in the room, pressing down on her temples and making her limbs swing slowly. She backed herself against a wall. “Alex,” she said softly, “listen to yourself. Look at Connor.” She reached out to touch his arm. “I love you,” she said. “I came back with you.”
“Goddammit,” Alex exploded, his eyes darkening. “This shit is going to follow me forever! I could win every fucking award in the world and they’ll still be dragging up dirt from our private lives. Someone is always going to be out there looking more closely at that baby than they ought to. Someone is always going to be calling you a whore behind my back.” He grabbed Cassie by the shoulders and threw her heavily to the floor, then ran his fingers through his hair. “This never would have happened if you hadn’t left,” he said, and even as Cassie rolled away from him she could feel his shoes kicking at her sides and her back, his fists swinging at her shoulders and striking her across the side of the head.
When it stopped and Cassie opened her eyes, she was staring into the mesh of Connor’s playpen. The baby was screaming the way every inch of her body was, a red, hollow sound. His face was turned toward Cassie’s; toward his father, who was bent over Cassie’s side, crying.
When Alex touched her, Cassie pulled herself upright. Blood was running from her right ear and she realized she could not hear out of it. She lifted Connor from his playpen, soothing him, whispering to him the assurances she used to whisper to Alex. She stared at the form of her husband, drunk and keening on the floor, and she began to understand. That for the first time, Alex’s anger had not simply been displaced and rerouted toward Cassie—it had beencausedby her. That the rest of her life would simply be strung loosely between hard knots of fear. That her son would watch Alex hurt her over and over, and without any choice in the matter, might grow up to be just like his father.
That Alex, through no fault of his own, could not keep his promises.
She walked across the room and opened the door of the den, glancing at John, who stared a moment too long at the blood running down the side of her face. She turned Connor’s face to her chest so that he would not have to see, but she looked once more at Alex, bent over by his own misery. And in the way the most ordinary things have of rearranging themselves into the unfamiliar, Alex no longer seemed to be suffering.
He only seemed pathetic.
SHE NEVER REALIZED THAT HE KNEW SHE WAS CRYING. IN THE PAST when it had happened, she waited until she assumed Alex was asleep, and then she’d let the tears slide down her cheeks in silence. She never made any noise, but Alex could hear it all the same.
He wanted to touch her, but every time he started to reach across the endless three inches between them he couldn’t make himself do it.
He was the one who had hurt her in the first place. And if she shrank away from him, because after all, there was always a first time, he thought he would break down.
“Cassie,” he whispered. Shadows crowded the bedroom, listening.
“Say you aren’t going to go away again.”
She didn’t answer.
Alex swallowed. “I’ll go to Dr. Pooley’s tomorrow morning. I’ll postpone the film. God, you know I’d do anything.”
“I know.”
He turned his head toward her voice, clutching at the two syllables like a lifeline, unable to see Cassie except for the silver map of tears on her skin. “I can’t let you go,” he said, his voice breaking.
Cassie faced him, her eyes glowing like a ghost’s. “No,” she said calmly, “you can’t.”
