Page 52 of Counting Backwards

“But you know they won’t.”

“Jess,” Vance continued, “all you know is that they won’t move forward if you’re the lead attorney on the case. You never asked if they’d take the case if you removed yourself.”

“But I can’t remove myself. I have to do this. It has to be me.”

“Why?” Vance asked.

I clamped my lips closed to prevent myself from mentioning my great-grandfather. I knew Vance’s first response would be about how my sordid family history reflected on him. He’d worry how it would impact his image with his own family to have chosen someone who came from a man like Grandpa Harry. Never mind the embarrassment he’d feel with his podcast community if it came out that he’d married the descendant of someone responsible for so many of the losses the podcast was meant to rectify.

But if the truth ever came to light, as the truth so often does—and if I won this case and better protected the women at Hydeford—Vance would have that to hold on to. Despite my deplorable family history, I would have tried to help the Hydeford women. What kind of person wouldn’t? And yet, the case seemed to be turning into a compulsion for me, maybe because it had the power to redeem me—the power to redeem us both. But I couldn’t tell Vance any of that.

“Because I feel this in my bones,” I said instead. “Maybe because I’m a woman? I don’t know. I just worry the firm won’t do what needs to be done, and I don’t understand why you’re so dead set against me working this case.”

I could see the disappointment settling over his face as he let out a breath and uncrossed his legs, rising from where he’d been sitting.

Moments ago, we might have been making progress, and now I’d ruined it again.

“There’s leftover Chinese in the fridge,” I told him, realizing suddenly that in my current “teeny bit pregnant” state, maybe I shouldn’t be eating food with MSG. Or was MSG even a thing anymore? I clearly still had a lot to learn about being pregnant. Starting with how to best share the news with my husband while also being utterly at odds with him. Even so, it was well past time to tell him. I took a deep breath, preparing to just blurt it out.

Before I formed the words, Vance said, “You know, I just don’t understand what’s with you lately. You’ve gone from this organized, deliberate, up-and-coming attorney to a woman who seems intent on destroying everything in her path. You’re literally lighting your whole life on fire. Why? For the women at Hydeford? I understand how awful it is, whatever’s happening to them. What you’re describing sounds like an Orwellian horror movie, and of course something like that has to be stopped—but by you alone? You’re on some ego trip, insisting you can do everything on your own when these women would clearly fare better with someone else taking the lead. You certainly don’t care one iota how this could impact my own reputation at work. I mean...” He let out a cynical laugh. “Who’s to say you won’t fuck this up just like you fucked up Shantrane?”

I blinked at his words.

“Wow, Vance,” I said, trying to digest what had just come out of his mouth. “Just... wow. You don’t understand one-millionth of what you’re talking about, and you’re being a complete and utter asshole.”

Vance stared back at me long and hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “I don’t know what is happening here, but I can’t do this. I thought... I don’t know what I thought, but I just can’t do it anymore.”

“Can’t do what?”

“This. Us.” He motioned between us with his hand. “I have to go.”

He walked into the bedroom and called over his shoulder, “I’m packing a bag.”

“Wait, what? Vance, no.” I hurried after him, but he was already pulling a duffel out of the closet and filling it with clothing. “You can’t just leave because we had a fight.”

“A fight? This isn’t just one fight, Jessa,” he said. “I’m talking about weeks and weeks of arguing, of us never agreeing aboutanything, of you going full steam ahead, never pausing to let me into your thought processes, and on and on you go, ignoring what I tell you to do and just bulldozing everything in your way.”

As he stuffed clothing into his duffel, I floundered.

“But... no! You can’t just run away from this.Where are you even going?” I demanded.

“I just need out. Out of all of this.” He waved his hands in the air, like he was indicating everything that constituted our life together.

“You’re leaving me?” I nearly shrieked. My hand shot to my abdomen, as if to protect the secret fetus from the sight and sound of what was happening around it.

“Yes, Jessa.” Vance spat out the words. “I. Am. Leaving. You.”

Within minutes he was out the door. It happened so quickly, it felt like I might have imagined the whole thing. He couldn’t really mean it, right? He’d cool down and come back in the morning, wouldn’t he?

I needed to talk to Gram, the only other person who would understand what I was going through and help me think through my next steps. But as I picked up my cell phone, I noticed it was already close to eleven o’clock. She would be sleeping, and I didn’t want to wake her. Even if I were to try, she slept like a hibernating bear and wouldn’t pick up anyway.

Moving back to the living room, I flopped down into the corner of the sectional sofa. It was always my favorite place to curl up next to Vance when we were reading or watching a movie. But now Vance was gone. And I was alone. The apartment was silent except for the quiet hum of the refrigerator coming from the kitchen. I realized that, at thirty-one years old, I had landed exactly where I’d always been most afraid of finding myself: with nobody. But thenI thought of the baby growing inside me. I wasnotalone. I had the baby. As I held my hand against my belly, thinking of the little life working itself into existence, I knew the only way I could mother any child was to stand up for what I believed was right. No matter what else it cost me.

18

Carrie

December 1927