AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He throws up his hands. “Enough with the questions already. Just suggest camping or fishing— something—I don’t know. Be flexible. Surely, you can handle that.”
“He doesn’t seem like the type.”
“Make him the type.” He shoots through the doorway, sucking the air from the small space. “Open your mouth.”
I do as he asks. I want to keep things even-keeled where he is concerned, knowing I have to go to work and leave Matthew behind. But also I remember what Melanie said about being careful. Most everything that comes out of her mouth are lies, but until I have a chance to dig for the truth, it’s best to err on the side of caution.
He hands me the glass of water and waits for me to swallow. “Good girl.”
“I don’t understand…” I say, realizing I’ll have to purge the second I’m alone but also want him to stay long enough to hear his answer. “What’s so important about them anyway?”
He reaches across the small space and pushes my head into the wall. My answer comes in the form of a bloody nose. I don’t even see it coming, which makes it worse.
“Now, you don’t have to worry quite so much about provoking your trick,” he spits. “I’ve already done half the work.” I pinch my nose to slow the flow of blood dripping from my face down onto the marble floor. I don’t have time to fix my face and the dirty floor. My husband throws a wad of toilet paper at me. “Better get yourself cleaned up. Not that anyone cares much about your face where you’re going.”
When I turn, Matthew is standing behind him.
Chapter Eighteen
Elliot
It starts with one bad decision and then it snowballs. I’m scheduled to go golfing tomorrow with a potential client, and not only have I been informed at the last minute, but I realize I don’t have the right tools. I hate golf; my attorney set this up, but if I have to play I might as well have the advantage of my own clubs.
I don’t mean to drive by Emily’s house. It’s just that it’s my house, and it’s my name that’s on the mortgage, and every month the payment is drafted from my bank account. Also, I know it’s an arbitrary thing, but it’s almost Christmas, and I fully intend to have my family back together by then. So this is how one wrong turn leads to another, and I decide I have just as much right to be there as she does. Don’t even get me started on the boyfriend.
Unfortunately, there’s some sort of misunderstanding about that, because the cops have to arrest me for trespassing, even though I can tell they feel very bad about it and also believe that I’m right. Especially when I explain I just wanted to grab my golf clubs from the garage before her boyfriend starts mistaking those for his too.
Apparently, possession is nine-tenths of the law, says my attorney, and this is why I’m placed in handcuffs, put in a squad car, and getting a free ride downtown. All the while, my neighbors, or rather my former neighbors, stand out on their lawns watching as it unfolds. And as for that wife of mine? Well, she doesn’t even look one bit sad about it.
I can’t see my daughter on account of a similar misunderstanding to the golf club incident. It’s a rather long story, but the gist is it all unfolded much in the same way as that Sublime song about “putting that barrel straight down Sancho’s throat.” I imagine you get the picture. Only real life, I didn’t pop a cap in Sancho’s ass. Unfortunately. And, in the song, there
isn’t a little girl who was supposed to be in bed but wasn’t, and courts don’t look favorably upon guys who pull guns on people, and if you add a kid to the mix, well…that just makes it worse.
I was sad my daughter witnessed that song and dance, of course.
If only my wife had been equally as sad about her witnessing her mother erasing her father from the picture until it was as though he’d never existed in the first place.
Jail is an awful place. Let’s just get that out of the way. I am lucky that my attorney has me in and out moderately quickly.
“We need to talk,” he tells me on the ride home.
I need a shower, and conversation is the last thing on my mind. So I stare out the window and imagine this isn’t my life and instead I’m living in that Sublime song where everything works out as it should. For whatever reason, I’m also thinking about the prostitute. I wonder if she’s ever been to jail. Sometimes I think the system has it backward, and the things that ought to be legal aren’t.
“Elliot…I don’t know how to say this, but the board is going to ask for your resignation in the morning.”
Clearly, he does know what to say. I sensed not one bit of hesitation in his voice.
“This is your second arrest in two months,” he continues. “If this gets out…the deal—all the deals—they’re done.”
“If what gets out? And where? It’s my company.”
“Maybe,” he says. “But if you continue like this, it could very well go under.”
“That’s bullshit, Nathan. And you know it.”
“It’s too risky keeping you on, Elliot.”
“Says who?”
