Page 8 of Her Wicker Guardian

Nobody asks who.

I tell them about spotting it at Calhoun’s while I was shopping for a bathmat. Red ceramic base, cream glass shade. I loved it before I remembered that Trent hated red.

Maybe that’s what I’m trying to get back to, the part of me that wanted things before I checked them against what he would allow.

The shade was cracked, so Mrs. Calhoun ordered a replacement. Her son will bring it out when it comes in.

“I already know where I’m putting it,” I say. “On the little table by the front window. I want to come home at night and see that stupid red lamp from the driveway.”

“Now you’re getting the hang of divorce,” Shannon says.

“I don’t even have the lamp yet.”

“You bought something because you liked it and he would’ve hated it. It counts.”

I smile into my cup. “I had red shoes once. Little flats. I wore them to his cousin’s wedding.”

The ballroom carpet comes back under my feet. Thin soles sinking into it. Trent’s attention dropping to my shoes, then coming back to my face.

I pull my knees together and tuck my feet back, as if I can still make the red less visible.

“He saw them and did this thing where he didn’t even have to say anything except my name.”

Laura frowns. “What do you mean?”

I give them the version he used.

“Rachel.” Quiet and flat, with the warning already inside it. Stop. Don’t. You know better.

The sound leaves my mouth, and for one disorienting second, I’m back at the reception hearing it from him. My fingers tighten around the cup until the plastic gives.

Nobody speaks.

Laura is the first. “I hate the way you just said your own name.”

Heat climbs into my face. “It was just how he talked when he was angry.”

Blair’s humor disappears. “Just?”

I look down at my cup. “He didn’t have to yell.”

Shannon asks, “What happened if you didn’t listen?”

I almost tell her nothing. The answer comes so automatically that I can feel the shape of the lie before I say it. Instead, I stare down at the wine.

“Once I kept arguing with him in the hallway. I don’t even remember what it was about anymore.” I pause. “He kept walking toward me while we argued, and I kept backing up. By the time I realized what I was doing, I was against the wall.”

The circle goes quiet.

“He put one hand beside my head and told me to stop. I didn’t.” The memory comes back in pieces. The wall against my shoulder blades. His face too close. The hard little pulse in his jaw. “So he punched the wall on the other side of my head.”

Shannon’s face goes completely still. “That close to your head?”

“Yes.” I swallow. “He wasn’t trying to hit me.”

Blair’s voice is flat. “That doesn’t make it better.”

“I know.”