Page 56 of Wreckage and Rain

Don't contact me. Don't look for me.

I look at the paper. I add one more line.

PS. I left my cocktail dresses in the closet, Cheyenne may need them.

I fold the paper in half. I set it on the dresser between the rings.

I stand.

I look at the room one last time. The bed we picked out together. The dresser. The window. The view of the magnolia I planted our second summer here, that hasn't bloomed yet but will.

I don't say goodbye to the house.

The house didn't do anything.

I pick up the suitcase. The laptop bag. I walk out of the bedroom. Down the stairs. Through the kitchen. Past the patio doors I will never look at again.

Out the front door.

I close it behind me.

I don't lock it.

He can lock his own door now.

***

The porch light is on at my parents'. It is always on. Mama and Daddy leave it on every night because they believe a light left on is a promise. We're here. Come home. The door is open.

I sit in the car for a minute. Two. Three. I watch the porch light through the windshield and I think about the girl who left this house with a boy's ring on her finger and the unshakable belief that love, if you held on tight enough, would never let you fall.

She was wrong.

I knock. Because even though I have a key, it is past midnight, and the knock is a warning. I'm here. Something happened. Brace yourselves.

Daddy opens the door.

Plaid pajamas. He takes one look at my face and his expression does something I have never seen. It empties. Every emotion drains out like water. What's left is something ancient andterrifying. The face of a father calculating who hurt his daughter and what he is willing to do about it.

He doesn't ask.

He opens the door wider.

Mama is in the hallway. Robe. She sees me and she doesn't ask either. She just opens her arms.

I walk into my mother and I shake. Full body. I don't cry yet. The tears are still trapped behind the ice. But I shake. Like a fever. Like something trying to break free.

Mama holds me. Daddy stands behind me with his hand on the back of my head.

Nobody says a word.

***

I make two calls before I try to sleep.

Jake first. He answers on the second ring.

"I'm okay. I'm safe. I'm at my parents'. Don't ask me questions."