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Tears fill her eyes, but I don’t know who they’re for. For me and everything I lost? For Sophie? For herself? Or maybe the tears are for how helpless she feels, like how I felt. How I still feel sometimes.
“You escaped because your husband died. I’m not going to be so lucky. He’s like a prison warden. There is no escaping—”
“Are you all right, Mrs. Wilson?” a deep voice says to the side of us.
My body tenses from the warning buried beneath the surface of the words, and I can feel Violet’s body do the same next to me.
A uniformed cop approaches us. My body shifts into overdrive, and a feeling of déjà vu squeezes air from my lungs. I wrap my fingers around my biceps and squeeze-release-squeeze-release the muscle as I focus on my breaths like Robyn taught me to do. I breathe in through the nose. My stomach is a balloon, gently filling with air. I breathe out a little longer than the inhalation, my lips pursed.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Don’t let him see you have a panic attack.
The cop’s eyes search us. For what, I don’t know. “Are you all right, Mrs. Wilson?” he repeats, the unspoken warning still there.
“I-I’m fine. I-I was just taking Sophie to the playground, and I ran into a friend from yoga.”
Except the playground is on the other side of the park. We aren’t even in her neighborhood. Violet lives closer to my house than she does Troy’s home.
“I’ll escort you there,” the cop says, his command-chilled tone setting off another round of déjà vu. “You can never be too safe on a day like this. Too many strangers in town for the celebrations.”
God, it’s all too familiar. The explanations. The excuses. The lies.
During the final year of my husband’s life, whenever he couldn’t be there to stalk me in person, he sent his friend, a fellow cop, to do the deed. To keep me in line. To remind me how powerless I was. Is this…is this what’s happening to Violet?
Violet gets to her feet, her arms protectively around Sophie as if she’s afraid the cop will take away her daughter. She gives me a brief smile that seems more wilted than genuine. “Bye, Jess.”
“I’ll talk to you later.” Be careful.
Without another word, she walks away. She doesn’t even glance in my direction.
The cop walks two steps behind her. He doesn’t see the air expel from my lungs in a long, dizzying breath, my breathing technique already forgotten.
I slide off the bench and drop to my knees next to Bailey and Butterscotch. My shaky fingers sink into their fur, and I stroke them until the tremor in my body fades.
I watch Violet walk away with Sophie in her arms. She admitted it—whether Violet knows it or not, that’s the first step in escaping her husband. Violet wants to be saved.
The question is: how the hell am I going to help her?
24
Jessica
July, Present Day
Maple Ridge
* * *
Emily is talking to an older couple who she knows as we wait for the horses and wagon to arrive for the next group. The early afternoon sun warms my bare arms, and I let my gaze wander over the area where the Maple Ridge Fourth of July celebrations are taking place: an open stretch of land on the edge of town, near the lake.
Zara and Simone are also volunteering, but they’re at the petting zoo.
The event isn’t huge. The bustling crowds I’ve witnessed at celebrations in San Diego don’t exist here. But the place has seen a steady stream of people, laughing and talking and walking around. Kids eating ice creams that would be dripping down their arms if this were San Diego.
It’s all so…wonderful. It’s been forever plus a day since I last enjoyed the holiday.
In the background, country music plays through the nearby speakers.
