“Your best bet is a settlement. If at all possible.” Halia gave her a quick hug, then pulled back and said, “We’re here for you. We’re all right here.”
She nodded and took a shaky breath.
Then she went out onto the lanai to meet her husband.
“Laurie!” Chris looked overjoyed to see her, and then his expression quickly gave way to guilt. He seemed so miserable, so contrite, that for a moment her heart ached for him.
There he stood, the father of her child. She had loved him once. Fear and empathy battled deep inside of her, hidden behind a neutral expression.
“Please come home.” He put two hands together in a plea – not the ASL sign for please, Laurie noted, because he had abandoned any efforts at sign language nearly a decade before. Just two hands pressed together in a performative prayer. “Please, Laurie. I’m so sorry.”
She could hardly see her way forward. Divorce proceedings, shared custody, supporting her daughter in Hawaii as a single mom… it was all so hopelessly ugly and difficult that for a moment, she felt tempted to walk right back into his arms.
If she didn’t have a whole household of women standing behind her, she might have done just that. It was easy to understand why so many women went back to their abusers. Why so many mothers stayed.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, but now frustration colored his expression. “I’ve just been so stressed with work and the mortgage. When you just take off without telling me where you are, it drives me insane. I know I overreacted, but so did you. Come home, Laurie. We can work this out.”
It was a torrent of drivel meant to excuse outright abuse – and to add insult to injury, she had to focus her full attention on reading his lips just to follow the nonsense that he was spewing.
She squinted against the bright summer sunshine, working hard to understand him while he tried to split the blame fifty-fifty.
Given a few more days, he would convince himself that the entire incident was her fault.
Laurie closed her eyes and recalled the night that she left.
She remembered the spit that flecked her cheeks when he shouted in her face. She recalled the burning pain in her scalp when he yanked her forward by her hair. And worst of all, she remembered Mia shaking with sobs as she witnessed her father’s terrifying rage.
Laurie opened her eyes and signed,No.
“No?” Chris shouted. “Just no?”
She swallowed her fear and stood her ground.
“You can’t just–” He paused and made a visible effort to calm himself. “How long are you going to drag this out?”
“I’m not going back to you. I’m done.”
He started up the steps, and she took an involuntary step back.
“What’s wrong with you?” he shouted.
Her hands moved without thinking:You frighten me.
A look of horror overtook his face. Self loathing, even.
So he did still remember some ASL. Enough to understand what she had said, anyway.
He took a step back.
For a moment, they just looked at each other.
Laurie’s kept her expression neutral, but her heart raced with a fear so intense that it made her arteries ache.
“Can I see my daughter, at least?” He took on a miserable, hangdog expression. It was blatant manipulation, and shewanted to say no. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t deny him access to their daughter without risking everything when they finally went in front of a judge.
And so she nodded. And stepped back. And opened the door.
The cousins were crowded around the coffee table, playing a board game.
