Whisper Me This(60)

Fear comes barging in, a big old clumsy bear of it, crashing and rattling the corners of my life. I moved in with Greg before I finished college. I’ve never lived alone. I don’t have a steady job. I sure as hell don’t want to move back in with my parents. How do I think I’m ever going to be qualified to take care of a baby when I’m not capable of taking care of myself? I have to say yes. I’m going to say yes. What other choice do I have?

I open my mouth on the words that want to choke me.

“I . . . can’t.”

Greg’s face turns a mottled shade of red and white. His hands clamp around my shoulders, the fingers digging into my flesh so hard they feel like they’re going to meet, going to separate my bones.

I try to twist away. “Stop it. You’re hurting me.”

He doesn’t stop. Instead, his fingers tighten more, and he shakes me. “You can’t do this. It’s my baby, too. Just as much my baby as yours. Say yes. Say it.”

“No.” My voice is small. It’s hard to get my breath. I say it again, louder, using all my strength. “No!”

He lets me go, and I draw a quaking breath, thinking it’s over. My eyes are closed and I don’t see what’s coming. An explosion of pain jolts my head sideways, lights flashing behind my eyes.

I hear myself sobbing before I’m aware enough to stop it, to clamp my teeth together and breathe against the pain.

“You can’t raise a baby by yourself, Maisey. Let’s face it. You’re a ditz. And nobody else is going to want my seconds, so if you think you’re going to find another father for her, you can forget that idea. You’re pretty enough for a small-town girl but not pretty enough to bank on. This is your last chance.”

“Maisey?”

Not Greg’s voice. Tony’s.

I take a breath, and then another. My hand goes to my face, remembering the shape of the bruise that lingered there for weeks, the one I accounted for by my general tendency to walk into doors.

When I open my eyes, I recognize the expression on Tony’s face. I’ve seen it a hundred times plastered over other sets of features.

“Don’t,” I say.

“Don’t what?”

“You’re about to deliver some sort of lecture or advice or whatever.”

“Are you a mind reader or something?”

“I just know that look. Go ahead and tell me. What did I do now? Or fail to do?”

“You?” Tony looks genuinely befuddled. “You haven’t done anything. I’m just . . . worried. About you and Elle.”

“Greg isn’t going to fly up here and beat me up. He doesn’t do that.”

He only hit me once.

The words flash on my visual screen like one of those LED signs. I cringe, recognizing a phrase I’ve heard on TV, on Facebook, from some of my friends, but never recognized as a resident in my own psyche. I press my back to the door, one knee drawn up on the seat. My arms are folded tight around that ongoing quivering so deep inside me I can’t touch it.

Tony clears his throat. “Good to know. But I was going to tell you about something else. I asked about your mom and the gun at the shooting range on Tuesday. Owner said she started coming in a few months back. Showed up every day and asked questions about stopping intruders and shooting to kill.”

“And?” He’s had this info for a couple of days and hasn’t told me.

“And, put that together with your sister’s hostility—”

“Marley? You think Mom was scared of Marley? She was cold, I’ll grant you that, but I doubt she’s a mass-murdering psycho.”

“You talked to her for all of five minutes. How would you know? You said she knew about you. What if she just now found your mom and was coming after her? Don’t you think it’s a little too coincidental that they played a concert here tonight? That band is too good for Northern Ales. They’ve got bigger gigs to play.”

I can’t think of words to respond to this. The first thing that comes to mind is that Tony is paranoid. What he’s suggesting is something out of a movie script, not the sort of event that happens in a well-ordered, structured life like my mother’s.

But then, maybe her life wasn’t so well-ordered and structured after all.

Tony shifts in his seat. “Look. All I’m saying is, be careful, okay? Lock the doors. Sleep with the phone by your bed. If Marley shows up at your door out of the blue, call me before you let her in.”

“I can pretty safely promise you that, since I’m more likely to get a visit from the pope than from my sister. If either one of them knocks on the door I’ll call you, too.”

“I’m serious.”

He is serious. I can see that. He’s wound up tighter than an overtuned guitar string. One more turn and something’s going to snap. His jaw is so tight, the muscle bunches. There’s a slight sheen of sweat on his forehead. His breathing has sped up to a rate that almost matches my own.

This retriggers my memory of Greg and the night he hit me. Whatever possessed me to talk to him the way I did on the phone just now? I’m terrified by my own audacity, and Tony, my safe protector, seems lethal all at once. Too big. Too male. Too full of untapped possibilities. Where on earth are Mia and Elle? Surely they’ve had plenty of time to inspect every carton of ice cream in the store. A group of teenagers spills out of a car, laughing, shoving. The automatic doors at the front of the store open but disgorge only one old man, bent and shuffling, clutching a brown paper bag.