Whisper Me This(96)

All the while, there was the fear that Boots would come home before we left the house or would drive down the wrong street at the wrong time and see us walking. I told myself over and over this wouldn’t happen. It was way too early for him to come home after a party. He’d be sleeping until noon; it was only 6:00 a.m.

I told the girls it was a game and that I would buy them ice cream when we finished our walk. They were only two, but bright enough to capture cause and effect. They didn’t get ice cream often, and they loved it. We started out, me with the suitcase in one hand, holding Maisey’s hand with the other. Marley held on to Maisey, and so we went, down the sidewalk, a small human train headed for freedom.

It didn’t work out that way. Boots had found a woman who sourced his fondness for cocaine. Instead of lying on a couch somewhere, sleeping off too much alcohol, he was wide awake and supercharged.

He found us before we’d made it more than a few hundred feet.

That moment, when his pickup truck nosed up to the curb on the wrong side of the street and he stepped out to stand on the sidewalk, blocking our path, has played out in nightmares over and over again. He had the mean look on his face. He stood like one of those western gunfighters, legs spread wide, hand on his hip.

I thought he was just posturing. My fear was solely around another beating. And then he pulled something out of his pocket, and I saw that he had a gun. When he got it, where he got it, I’ll never know, but I will never forget the instant I realized what he held in his hand. The terror of knowing what power he had in that moment to end me, to end all three of us.

“And what exactly is this?” he asked. His voice was too calm. It didn’t match the crazed look in his eyes. There was a little too much white around them. His hair was uncombed. He needed a shave. He looked like he belonged on a street corner.

I set down the suitcase, knelt on the sidewalk, right there, and gathered both girls into my arms. There was no point making up a lie. It would only make things worse.

“I’m leaving,” I told him. “I’m taking the girls.”

“Is that right,” he said. It wasn’t a question. He turned that gun in his hands, pointed it at Marley first, and then at Maisey, before aiming it at me. “I thought it was you and me forever, Leah. Things changed after the girls came along. Maybe it could go back to how it was if they were gone.”

Showing him fear would have been the worst thing I could do. I knew that, but what do you do when a madman has the lives of your children in his hands? I didn’t care about my own at that point. I knew I was going to have to go back. Going to spend the rest of my life in his prison, because I wouldn’t have the nerve to try again.

So it was the girls I was thinking of, their safety. Their lives. If it was just me, I would rather he shot me and got it over with. But for the little ones I was willing to grovel.

“I’m sorry,” I told him. “I was being stupid. Don’t hurt the girls. I’ll go right back home. I’ll never do it again.”

“What makes you think I still want you?” He spat on the sidewalk, as if he had a bad taste in his mouth. “You’re ruined, in case you hadn’t noticed. Stretch marks and fat and useless in bed. No fun anymore. I’ve got a new woman who’s actually worth fucking. So don’t bother ever trying to come home.”

He stepped off the sidewalk, down the curb, and into the street.

I stared at him. At the gun. At the open sidewalk. I got to my feet. Picked up the suitcase. Took Maisey by the hand. Both of the girls were whimpering, but they already knew better than to cry outright when he got like this.

He still stood there, the gun at his side.

I took a step.

“Course, there’s always a price for freedom,” he said. “I’m not about to let you treat me this way and walk off without me having something to show for it.”

“What do you want?” My mangled hope died a sudden, misbegotten death right then. I knew that what he wanted wasn’t going to be simple like money or my suitcase or a final purchased kiss.

But I never could have imagined the sort of devil’s bargain he was about to offer me.





Chapter Thirty

“You calling me a liar?” Boots shouts. “In my own house. In front of my daughters. You can get out. All of you. Just get out!”

“Sure,” Dad says, very quietly. “We can go outside. It’s easier to breathe out there, anyway. Did you want to come, Marley? And I’ll finish telling you what your father did.”

He makes a move to get up, but Boots isn’t having any of it.

“If you’re going to tell lies about me, I want to hear them. You stay right where you are.”

Dad shrugs. “Have it your way, then.” His eyes seek out Marley, and he talks as if she’s the only person in the room who matters. “She meant to take you both. First thing you need to know, she was hurt. He’d battered at her sense of self for years already. First time he hit her, she was pregnant with the two of you. And only sixteen. No parents effective enough to intervene.

“So on that day—the day she left you behind, Marley, there are things you have to know about her. She raised both of you pretty much by herself, sleep-deprived and hurt half the time, while your father went out partying.

“On the day she managed to get away, she had broken ribs—he’d kicked her after he knocked her down. There were two of you, and she couldn’t carry you both.”