“Out cold.”
“How was the visit?”
She let out a breath. “She checked the fridge. Counted the bedrooms. Told me the office was a waste of a perfectly good room. The usual inspection.”
She said it lightly, but whatever her mother had come and done, she’d left Alyssa weighed down. I could see it sitting on her.
I ate, and let her talk.
“Sometimes I think Micah’s the only thing I got right,” she said suddenly.
“You’ve gotten plenty right.”
“Have I?” She laughed, and it had an edge. “I’ve made some spectacular mistakes.”
“Like what?”
“Like marrying a man I knew was wrong for me.”
It hung there. I kept my face even. I’d read the headlines, heard Raschad’s version. Hearing it from her was different.
“How did you end up with him?”
She studied her wine a moment. “You ever do something because it’s easier than fighting? Because everybody expects it?”
“No.”
That got a real laugh. “Of course not. Julian Wade doesn’t bend to expectations.”
“Neither does the woman who stormed into my office.”
“That woman came later. After. Twenty-something me was different. My mother introduced us at church. He was available. Interested.” Her voice flattened into an impression. “Time’s running out, she’d tell me.Good men don’t wait forever, Alyssa.”
The pain under her mimicry was loud.
“So you married him.”
“I married him. And it’s not like I didn’t see it.” She pulled her feet up under her. “There were signs. Plenty of them, before the wedding. I just got good at explaining them away.” She was quiet a second. “One I should’ve listened to. The day I passed the bar. Seven years of school. One of the hardest exams in the country. I called him crying, I was so happy. You know what he said?” She looked up at me. “Cool.Then he asked if I was picking up dinner on the way home.”
My hand had closed into a fist somewhere in there. The man was dead and I still wanted to put him on the floor.
“And I excused that too,” she said. “Told myself he just wasn’t an emotional man like that. That he showed it in other ways.” She shook her head. “He didn’t show it in other ways. There were no other ways.”
“And you stayed,” I said.
“I stayed. Had Micah. Kept pretending, because leaving meant admitting I’d been wrong. Meant all those years were for nothing.” She turned the glass slowly. “The marriage was already gone by the time he was killed. Especially after Micah got hurt.”
“What happened to Micah?”
Her body tensed. “He got injuredwhen he was two. Malik called me from the ER. Micah had fallen and split his head open. Claimed he’d just gone to the bathroom for a minute and it happened that fast.”
Something in her tone made me go cold. “Claimed?”
“Part of me never fully believed him. But I wasn’t there, so I took him at his word. We had two visits from CPS over it. I was livid. Then he was killed and at the murder trial, his mistress testified.Shewas at my house at the time. In our bed, with Malik, while Micah was left downstairs alone.”
I didn’t move.
“Micah got hungry and tried to climb the counter. Fell and hit his head on the corner. A neighbor heard him screaming and called 911. Not his father. A neighbor.”
