The Lion's Den (Faraway Book 2) (29 page)

Brad made us breakfast. The kids chatted and debated as if their father’s lover hadn’t put a bullet in her head in front of me. I wanted to scream at them to shut up, but that would let the disgustingness of my marriage affect their lives, and I would do whatever I could to avoid that.

I was right about everything. I was a
Dateline
episode. I was the town scandal. I was a whore—even if no one else knew it but the colonel and me. The thought of him made me cry. I stood in the center of my closet, looking for something to wear to church and crying because I was in love with a man I would never be worthy of. He deserved so much better than me.

“Hurry up.” Brad’s voice was soft. He was tender, the way he’d been when my father had died. Brad was going to take care of me. “Hey. Are you crying?” He stepped into my closet and tilted my head up to face him. I dropped it to his chest and cried some more. “Shh. I promise we’re going to get through this.”

“I don’t want to get through this,” I said, and I wasn’t sure what I meant, but I wasn’t going to let him make it all better. I should have to wallow in it. I deserved to suffer. She wasn’t even thirty, for God’s sake, and she’d taken her own life because she’d been involved with us.

“Meredith. You didn’t do this to her. She did it to herself.”

“Please, stop talking.” I moved away from Brad, slipped a jersey dress over my head, and spotted the dress I’d worn to Brad’s holiday party. It was hanging on a hook on the wall, safe in its dry cleaning bag, and I wanted to burn it. I wanted to erase every memory of Dharma. I looked at Brad. Disgust filled my soul. How could he move? How could he speak? Did she mean nothing to him?

“Mommy, I’m ready.” Liv with her blue-streaked hair bounced into my closet. She was wearing a summer dress with suede boots and a down coat more suitable for cold weather. Something wasn’t right about her outfit. Everything was wrong with her mother.

“Is it warm enough for that dress?”

“It’s really hot out,” Liv said, and I questioned whether I’d ever comprehend the weather again.

“Well, you look beautiful,” I lied.

We walked into church as a family. We were the biggest lie to ever walk through the door. Brad’s phone was silent. There was no one left to text him. We signed the kids into Sunday school and found the only two seats left in the sanctuary. They were on the aisle, about five rows from the front. I lowered my head and begged my mind to stay silent. Why couldn’t I lose my memory today?

Brad took my hand and held it on his lap. I let him. I didn’t have the strength to fight with him, and frankly I didn’t care. I hadn’t cared about him touching me in years. I glanced up—right into the eyes of Vincent Pratt. He, his oldest son, and Lynn were walking through the aisle, searching for seats. He was staring at my hand, and when he finally looked at me, his eyes were filled with questions. I had no explanation. I had no secret gesture or tiny smile. I was empty like Dharma’s eyes the night before.

The colonel’s family kept walking. They probably found seats behind us, but I didn’t turn around to see where. I didn’t care where he was either. I didn’t care where any of us were. The sermon began. The pastor talked about finding time for the relationships in our lives that mattered and Brad squeezed my hand in his. We sang. We prayed. Brad dropped an envelope in the offering basket, and then we collected Liv and James and left.

We walked out into the glaring sunshine and the heat of the first warm day of the year. I squinted and searched through my purse for my sunglasses. It was too bright out. A young girl had taken her own life last night. She’d spent the day walking and talking. She’d put a gun in her bag and had gone to a restaurant, and then I’d said something and she’d pointed the gun at her head and killed herself. How could it be so fucking sunny?

Brad drove us home, and we spent the day with our kids. They were delighted their parents were playing with them. Soccer, tennis, board games, we did it all. Liv commented at dinner that it had been her favorite day so far, and Brad looked at me, hopeful that this was a fresh start.

He was a monster. He’d forgotten about Dharma faster than she’d pulled the trigger.

I’D SEEN DHARMA’S STORY ON
the news one time. One lousy time it was mentioned that a woman had taken her own life in a trendy Italian restaurant in Center City. It was replaced by other tragic headlines before the next day, as if no one in the world except me was willing to take a minute out of their schedules to acknowledge the fact that she was gone. That she’d ever been here in the first place.

Monday morning, I said good-bye to Brad and dropped the kids off at school. I drove to the police station and the job that had made me fall in love with this town. Or was it the colonel? I parked next to his truck, but I couldn’t go in. I couldn’t face him. He was too good.

I put my car in drive and headed east toward the shore. I lost track of the roads and the time, and before I knew it, I was parking on a side street at The Point. I had my purse, my wedges, and the black shirtdress I’d put on that morning. I didn’t care. I just needed to hear the ocean.

I locked the Escalade and climbed over the dune. It was windy. The soft sand swirled on the top of the beach and blew my hair into my eyes. The tiny particles pelting me were like sandpaper dragging across my skin, and I deserved it. The ocean would force me to feel something. It wouldn’t let me just be.

I turned my back to the wind and watched the gray surf pound against the sand. It was a violent day at the shore. My father and I would have worshipped the sea from the safety of the beach—we wouldn’t have gone in the water when it was in that much turmoil. I missed him. I missed who I was when he was alive. I lay down with my back on the soft sand and my feet resting above me on the dune fence. I shielded myself from the wind and let the sound of the waves heal me.

The sleep that had escaped me the prior two nights finally took me with it. I dreamed I was in the ocean, alone but not lonely. I floated over the waves with the summer sun pouring over me and the silence of the water surrounding me. I was at peace, but the calm within me was pulled out with the tide.

When I woke up, the sand had covered half my body. If I lay here long enough, I’d be completely buried. I squinted and shielded my eyes from the sun. And then I felt him next to me.

Vince was leaning back against the fence. He was wearing his uniform and a look of deep concern. I didn’t say hello. I didn’t smile. I just stayed still beside him.

“You didn’t come to work today.” I hadn’t called or even bothered to tell anyone where I was. Vince was the only person who cared. “I got Brad’s number from Jenna and called him. He didn’t know where you were.” Vince rested his elbows on his knees and raised his fisted hands to his chin. “He said you’d had a rough weekend, but he wouldn’t tell me anything else.” I stayed silent, not sure of what to say. “Did I ever tell you that I hate your husband?”

I looked down and tried to hide. I wanted desperately to escape his eyes and I didn’t want him to see what was hiding in my own. “No. You never told me that.”

“What’s going on?”

I inhaled deeply. The mix of Vince and the salt air was perfection. I wanted to walk into the ocean with him and swim away from here. I sat up and faced him. “Brad’s girlfriend shot herself Saturday night.” Vince had no reaction. I’d forgotten how good he was at this. “She locked me in a bathroom with her, made me watch a video of Brad fucking her, and then she shot herself.”

“Oh my God. Are you all right?” Vince pulled me onto his lap and ran his hands down my arms and over my legs, checking for any signs of injury, but they were all hidden in my mind.

“She didn’t hurt me,” I said and moved away, settling back onto the soft sand. “She had the gun pointed at my head. She wanted me to know that Brad
loved
her, and I couldn’t let her think it. I couldn’t let her win. I told her he was only fucking her, and then she shot herself instead of me.”

“You could have been killed.”

I stayed still, unfazed by his concern and trapped in his stare.

Vince studied me. His eyes ran over every inch of me and then met my own again. I didn’t look away. I didn’t care. He already knew every horrible piece of me better than I knew myself. “You have this incredible ability to take responsibility for everything and everyone else. You can’t fix the entire world.” I looked away. “And you can’t blame yourself.”

I disagreed. “There is always someone to blame.” The waves were louder, closing in with the coming tide, and the wind whipped the sea spray up on the dune. I closed my eyes and let the mist hit my face.

“So now what?” He could feel my distance, and now, he wanted answers I didn’t have to give.

“I don’t know.”

“I saw you in church yesterday.”

I lowered my head. I was even ashamed of that. I didn’t deserve to go anywhere.

“Are you still hell-bent on not leaving your husband? Out of some convoluted, self-condemnation, are you actually considering
staying
with him?”

“I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Vince was hurt. I could see it in his eyes. I’d left him, and he knew it.

“Everything I’ve already done has been wrong.” I grabbed a handful of sand and let it cascade down through my fingers. The wind caught it before it hit the ground, and it blew toward me. “I don’t want to make any more decisions.” I smoothed the sand beside me and then looked up at Vince. “I’m clearly horrible at it. You were right. I was playing with fire.” A lump lodged in my throat.

“She had a gun and locked you in a bathroom. You put some pictures online.”

I turned away from him and let the wind hit me in the face again. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I ducked back to the shelter of the dune.

“You didn’t kill her, Meredith. You didn’t even know about her until a few months ago.”

“Why couldn’t I just keep my mouth shut?” I was disgusted with myself, and I was no better than my husband.

“And what? Let her kill you instead? You didn’t put the gun in her purse, and you didn’t point it at her head. Everyone has a choice, and just because you posted some pictures online, she wasn’t forced to look at them. She was an adult who made her own choices.

“Vince held out his hand to me. “Come here.” I shook my head and held back the tears. “Come here,” he repeated, and I crawled over to him and laid my head on his shoulder. I wrapped my arm around his chest and I rested there, once again letting Vincent Pratt fix something he didn’t break.

He didn’t tell me everything was going to be all right. He didn’t tell me not to worry about it or that we’d have a fresh start. He only said, “I love you,” and it meant the world to me.

“I know,” I said and somehow moved even closer to him. I closed my eyes and cried on Vince’s shoulder.

“And when you need me, I’ll be here.”

“I know.”

But the best thing I could do for Vince was stay the hell away from him.