Hush Little Baby (10 page)
Gordon pays the check, and I manage to stand, nod good night to the hostess, and we walk into the darkness.
The chasm moves with us from the restaurant, down the street, and into the car. Gordon doesn’t mention the money again, but instead whistles softly as he drives, perfectly content.
He’s up to something, and as always, he’s a step ahead, and I’m left stumbling to catch up. The only thing for certain is that I will pay for my dissension and that somehow he’ll get the money.
We drive toward our home, toward the wreckage that still litters the bedroom floor, and as we get closer, the truth rises like the sun, glaring with such intensity that by the time we pull into the garage, it can’t be ignored.
“I need to leave,” I say, not necessarily to him.
He holds out the keys. “Pick up some milk while you’re there. Addie drank the last of it this afternoon.”
“Leave you,” I clarify.
“Oh.” He pulls back the offering and stares at the steering wheel, mulling over the idea. He hasn’t been drinking, so as I wait, I’m only a little scared.
“Have you taken a pregnancy test?” he asks.
The question throws me, and it takes a second for me to process the words.
Unable to figure it out, I shake my head.
Something’s wrong.
The future is not what it used to be.
He returns to his contemplation as I sit beside him, unsure what’s turning in his head.
A year ago, he would have killed to keep me.
But time passes, and each new moment replaces the moments before until so much has changed, you can’t remember what was so important or why it was important at all.
I’m uncertain what’s changed for Gordon, but something has.
He’s concerned if I’m pregnant, but doesn’t care if I leave.
Without a word, he opens his door and steps from the car. I follow, and we meet at the tailgate. The Land Rover key has been pulled from his key ring, and he holds it out.
Still not understanding, I take it, then follow him toward the house. Before I make it through the door, it closes, and the lock bolts.
Confusion confounds me as I try to understand what just happened.
Our babysitter walks from the front door and saunters down the street toward her home half a block away. I recoil into the shadows so she won’t see me in the garage.
I consider knocking, but that makes no sense since obviously he intended to lock me out. I could pound, but that would only wake the kids. I could call the police—and say what?—my husband’s agreed to allow me to leave him, but now he won’t let me into our house.
Instead, I climb into my car and pull from the garage, unsure where I’m going.
For an hour, I drive aimlessly, then stop at the grocery store to pick up a toothbrush and a cheap pair of tourist sweats advertising Laguna Beach.
At the Best Western on the Coast Highway, the clerk slides my credit card, then hands it back. “I’m sorry, there seems to be an issue with this card.”
I hand her a second, then a third, then my ATM.
“Insufficient funds,” she says, no longer apologetic.
Gordon must have the credit card companies and the bank on speed dial.
When I return to my car, it’s almost ten. Gordon works tonight. He can’t leave the kids alone. I drive back home.
I expect my knock to be answered by my husband; instead the chain allows the door to only open a sliver, and what it reveals boils my blood—every part of me on fire, from my face, to my chest, to the palms of my hands.
Claudia stares at me. She wears an oversize USC sweatshirt and boxer shorts that show off toned, smooth legs that testify to a privileged life of working out and lounging at the spa.
Her scent washes over. “Let me in,” I seethe.
Her beady eyes grow large, her head shakes twice, then the door closes and the bolt locks.
L
ife is one thing, then it’s another.
Claudia’s in my house watching my children. I wonder where her own son is.
I hate her and feel sorry for her at the same time. She has no idea who Gordon is, thinks she’s won the love lottery. He has a way of making you believe that, the way he looks at you in the beginning like you’re the only woman in the world, making you believe you’re more beautiful, more special, than you are.
A honking horn snaps me back to the present, and I realize I’ve stayed too long at the stop sign. I rub my eyes with my hand and focus on the road ahead.
The recollection of my own fairy tale turned Grimm nightmare hurts to remember.
Even now, I’m surprised at the depth of his cruelty, amazed how irrelevant I’ve become. Even as I hate him, I’m hurt by him, and a perverted part of me wants him to still love me.
I check off my options: hotel—no, no money; my parents—after what happened a year ago, definitely not; Jeffrey—I pause, consider his embrace and love, but tonight I can’t deal with any more emotions. I turn the car around and head to Irvine, to the only option that remains.
* * *
I’m relieved that the light still glows beneath the door, then mortified when a man other than Connor answers it. The bronze-skinned Adonis in the doorway wears nothing but God’s gifts and a pair of boxers, and he’s so beautiful that he looks airbrushed.
“Jinks, that you?” Connor says, squeezing between the stud and the door frame to greet me. “What are you doing here?”
The specimen steps aside and I follow Connor into the condo.
“Jinks, this is Pete.”
My hackles rise, and immediately I hate the man. For a year, Pete has yanked Connor’s emotions around like a yo-yo.
Pete smiles, and it’s such a sweet smile that, although I don’t want to, I hate him a little less.
Connor wraps his arm around me and leads me to the guest room. I carry my pathetic grocery bag of clothes and toiletries.
“Sleep,” he orders. “We’ll talk in the morning.”
Despite my exhaustion, my sleep is haunted. First with Claudia, then Gordon, then with Michelle’s infuriating, knowing, sympathetic face. She nods with concern, confused as to how I ended up this way.
It wasn’t always like this
, I try, then amend it to
I wasn’t always like this
.
Michelle’s wise eyes squint.
You’re sleeping in your best friend’s guest room in grocery store sweats, locked out of your house by your husband, while your husband’s lover sleeps in your bed.
I nod.
She doesn’t understand.
No one would understand.
I
t’s seven in the morning. I stumble from the guest room wiping dried tears and sleep from my eyes. My head is full of cotton, my body and emotions numb—too many circuits misfiring.
Connor sits at the kitchen counter, alone, reading the paper. I plop down beside him, and he pours me a cup of coffee from the carafe in front of him.
“Where’s Pete?”
“Went home last night.”
He sets down the newspaper and offers a sympathetic frown.
“Looks like I need a divorce after all.”
“Okay.”
“And I need sole custody and one of those things that keeps Gordon away from me and the kids.”
“A restraining order?”
I nod.
His eyes narrow. Then I don’t know what they do because all the courage I mustered to get out of bed this morning has evaporated and I can no longer look at him.
“Has Gordon hurt the kids?” Connor’s normally smooth voice is tight.
I shake my head, and my hands twist in my lap.
“But he’s hurt you?”
My head reverses direction, stopping with my chin against my chest.
“Christ, Jinks. For how long?”
I snivel and my shoulders quake and I bite my lip to keep the impossible truth and the shame from tumbling out.
“That son of a…”
It’s no use. I can’t breathe; tears and mucus run together and my chest and stomach spasm and I double over with my fists pressed to my eyes, everything I’ve been holding in for nine years pouring out like demons exorcised from my soul.
“Okay, shhh.” Connor stands from his stool and hugs me to his chest, his hand rubbing my back. “It’s okay. We’ll figure it out. Are Addie and Drew okay?”
My skin prickles at the thought of them, and my collapse intensifies. I wonder if they will ask about me this morning. I wonder what Gordon will tell them. I wonder if Claudia will make them breakfast, get them dressed, pack Drew’s lunch, drive him to school.
I gulp air, sucking in broken breaths, attempting to regain my composure. “He won’t hurt them,” I stammer, “but I need to get them away from him. He…he’s…I…” My voice trails off, the truth of the nightmare I’ve lived behind closed doors impossible to put into words.
Connor continues to placate me with soothing, empty promises that it will be okay.
Mortified by my breakdown and feeling very sorry for Connor stuck beside me, I command myself to pull it together, swallow the hysterics, straighten myself, and pull away. “I’m okay.” I sniffle.
He stands and leans against the counter. “Do you have proof he abused you?”
I seam my shirt up my ribs to reveal the yellow splotch beneath my bra. “It’s from a few days ago. There’s also a bruise on my leg.”
“Is the bruise on your leg worse?” he asks, obviously not impressed with the wound, and for a moment, I almost wish my olive skin didn’t conceal so much.
My head shakes. After years of marriage to Gordon, I’ve become an expert on bruising, and what I’ve discovered is, the harder the blow, the less I bruise; the damage is deeper and the evidence doesn’t reach the surface. It hurts more, but shows less. The worst visual damage Gordon ever caused was when he choked me. For weeks, my neck was ringed with the imprint of his arm and my eyes bloody from the capillaries exploding. But with his blows to my ribs or legs, the pain lasts for months but the bruises on my skin are faint and fade within weeks.
“Okay. One step at a time. Let’s get your affairs in order, see what’s what, then we’ll figure out how we can get you out of this mess.”
“Thank you.” I gulp, incredibly grateful he believes me.
“Do you want me to go to your house and pick up a few of your things?”
My head moves rapidly side to side. “You need to stay away from him,” I yelp. “If he knows you’re helping me, he’ll kill you.”
Connor laughs. He thinks I’m joking.
I raise my eyes to his. “He. Will. Kill. You,” I repeat without exaggeration.
“I was a DA for eight years. I can take care of myself.”
My chin drops back to my chest, and Connor lifts it with his finger. “Jinks, if you want to keep Gordon from the kids, eventually we’re going to need to confront him. I know it’s scary, but ROs aren’t just handed out. No judge is going to keep Gordon from the kids without something more than a couple barely-there bruises that won’t show up in a photo and which you have no way of proving Gordon caused.”
“So what are you suggesting, you knock on the door and ask him whether he’s been beating me up for the last nine years and hope he confesses?” My voice is shrill, my hands flailing.
Connor is calm, but stone serious. “Not exactly, but yes, we need to hope he gives us something, because if you want custody, we’re going to need some evidence.”
“The only evidence Gordon’s going to give us is my dead body or yours.”
Connor’s smile is patronizing, like I’m exaggerating or being overly dramatic, making me realize that though he believes me, he has no idea how bad it is.
“Well, don’t go there,” I say. “For now, can you just loan me a few bucks so I can buy an outfit for work? Gordon emptied our account and froze our credit cards. I’ll figure out how to get my things another time.”
He fishes out his wallet and sets three crisp hundred-dollar bills in front of me.
“Go. Shop. I’m going to work, and when I get there, I’ll call a friend of mine who specializes in icky divorces.”
Icky divorces.
The words stick like a burr.
He grabs his briefcase and starts for the door. Halfway there, he stops and turns.
“Last night, Jinks, when you told Gordon you were leaving, why didn’t he hurt you?” It’s said sweetly, but underlying is the interrogation.
I shake my head. “I’m not entirely sure. In part, it’s because he wasn’t drinking, but I also think it’s because he was expecting it, like he was waiting for it.” I hesitate, embarrassed to confess the rest.
“And?”
“And I think it might be because he thinks I’m pregnant.”
“Are you?”
I shake my head.
“And what happens when he finds out you’re not?”
I lay my head on my forearms, which are crossed in front of me on the counter. “I don’t know. He might leave me alone, but if I try to interfere with the kids, who knows?”
I
’m at Target browsing the aisles for a suitable outfit for work.
My phone rings the
Grease
tune “We Go Together,” my dad’s ringtone.
“Hi, Pops.” I try to sound normal.
“She found it.”
It takes more than a second for me to realize what he’s talking about, our seventh diorama, the last piece of our twenty-year quest.
It feels like a lifetime ago that I was kneeling among the rubble of the other eleven.
“Did you hear me?”
“That’s incredible.” I put as much enthusiasm as I can muster into the response.
“She’s going to send it today. It should be here in three days. Can I come by the house tonight so we can hang the shelf?”
With his excitement, the dam breaks, and in the underwear aisle, between a clearance rack of polka-dot thongs and bunny slippers, I collapse to the linoleum and sob.
“Jill?” he asks, and the tightness in his voice transforms my grief to worry.
“I’m fine.”
“What did he do?”
I give up pretending. “I left him.”
“About time.”
I breathe.
“Where are you? Come home.”
I shake my head. “I’m getting my own place.”
“The kids are with you?”
“Not yet.”
“So I can’t hang the shelf?”
“Not tonight.”
“Okay. Wow, what a day. Two incredible turns of fortune, the final diorama found the same day you leave the moron. I should buy a lottery ticket.”
