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“Can we talk?” he asks. “I feel like we’ve never talked this through.” He stares at the ground. His shoulders sag. He is laughably bad at pretending to be sorry.
“I don’t see what there is to talk about.”
“Just…there are some things I want to say to you. Important things.” His eyes meet mine. “I miss you.”
And there it is.
Jeremy doesn’t like to lose. It would be one thing if he’d left me, but the fact thathe’sbeen left is finally starting to rankle. And he really believes that after everything he’s done, he can briefly don that face he shows the world—the face he fooled me with when I was a naïve college student—and I’ll come trotting right back.
Sophie runs past me without a backward glance, but Henry lingers, pressing his head to my leg and wrapping his little arms around me. I wish he wasn’t leaving, and I suspect he wishes it too.
“We’ll talk later?” Jeremy asks.
If I argue with him, he’ll take it out on Henry, which is how he’s kept me in line for most of our marriage. I nod, lips pressed tight, as he grabs Henry’s hand and pulls him away.
I stayed with Jeremy as long as I did because I knew he’d make the twins’ lives difficult if we left. It was only when he began including Henry in the potshots aimed my way that I knew we had to go. “Apparently, he’s as dumb as you,” Jeremy said when we got Henry’s first school report. Both the twins were sitting across from me at the table, and as I watched the light dimming in Henry’s eyes, I knew it was time to do the hard thing, the scary thing.
Except leaving was only half the battle.
As long as he has the power to hurt my children, I’m never going to be free. And neither are they.
11
CALEB
I'm in the garage on Sunday afternoon setting up a sawmill when a BMW swerves into Lucie’s driveway at high speed. Henry and Sophie emerge from the back of the car and run to their mother, who wraps herself around them as if they've been gone for a year.
The man who climbs out after them is the exact kind of jackass I hate—the type who spends the weekend dressed for golf, whether he’s playing it or not, and smiles like a smug prick at the woman he just cheated on.
I’m about to enter the house, but when he tells the twins to go inside, there’s something about Lucie that holds me in place. Her jaw is set hard, but it's not anger I sense in her posture—it's fear. I fight the urge to go out there and ask if she’s okay.
“Can we get dinner sometime this week?” he asks. “I’d like to talk things through.”
She hugs herself tighter. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
That fake fucking smile of his falls away even faster than it arrived. “Are our children nothing?” he snaps.
I quietly set the wrench down on the shelf behind me.
“Look,” he says, his voice calm by force, “I’ll admit it. I cheated. I’m a big enough man to admit when I’m wrong.”
This motherfucker. Jesus Christ, Lucie. You married this guy? Why?
“It’s big of you to admit it,” she says, “now that I have it on film.”
His nostrils flare and his eyes narrow, but it’s followed by a small, condescending smile. “You aren’t blameless either. I made a mistake, but you were always so busy with the kids you stopped making time for me. I wanted to come first with you once in a while, but I should have let you know that instead of trying to find comfort elsewhere.”
“Comfort?” she asks. “Is that what we’re calling our babysitter’s vagina now?”
I’m inclined to laugh until he slams his hand against the roof of the BMW. It's not so much the action as it is the look on his face, the rage and loathing.
I’m already heading toward them when he turns to his car. “Fine, Lucie. I tried to give you a chance, but you aren’t capable of loving anyone but yourself. Enjoy these last few days with the kids. You’re about to lose them for good.”
She stands still as a statue with her shoulders back and watches him drive off as if she hasn't heard a word he said. And once he's out of view, her shoulders start to shake and she buries her face in her hands.
As Kate’s amply proven, I just make a bad situation worse, but here I am, walking outside to her anyway, though I should not.
She wipes her eyes and forces a smile. “It never fails. You witness every shitty thing that happens.”
