Woman on the Edge(37)

“I’ll call you after Ben leaves, okay?”

“Do you promise you will?”

“Sure,” Nicole said. She hung up and crouched with Quinn against her chest. Her throat felt tight, and she dry-swallowed the tablet, hoping it would take effect immediately. She knew she was taking too many pills, but she couldn’t let Ben see her have a panic attack. What would Tessa do if she were here? Nicole sat down and laid her hand on her belly. Five deep breaths in. Five slow exhales out.

She calmed herself enough to stand up and walk back into the living room, as steadily as she could. “I’ve run out of coffee.”

Ben pushed his too-long hair back from his forehead, worry crossing his boyish face. It hit her suddenly that her brother, at thirty-nine, was a year younger than their father had been when he died.

“How’s Greg?” he asked.

Nicole decided she wouldn’t tell him Greg had left them. “Greg’s fine.”

“But you’re not,” he replied.

All her past misery and resentment bubbled to the surface. “You’re not responsible for me anymore!” Nicole blazed with anger. She leaped off the couch, Quinn’s head banging hard against her chest. Her daughter wailed.

“Nicole! Her neck!”

“Ben! Do you think I don’t know how to take care of my daughter? Is that why you came? To criticize me?”

She felt sick. Their relationship hadn’t always been fraught. She missed the boy who’d walked her home from school every day, carrying Band-Aids in his pocket because she’d always run ahead of him, trip, and scrape her knees.

“You asked me to come, and I came! Jesus, I never get it right with you, do I? You’ll never forgive me no matter what.”

Her insides were on fire. She steeled herself, just in case he said her name. Amanda. She waited, but he didn’t say it. Not that it mattered—it was there between them forever. “Just leave. We don’t need you.”

Ben tugged at his hair. “Nic, I’m here because you asked me to be. And now that I see you, I’m concerned. You look thin. And that Xanax you had me pick up? Just know that lorazepam might be better for you right now, given that you have a newborn.”

“You’re not my doctor, Ben.”

“You’re right. Have you seen your doctor recently?” He stood and moved closer to her. “Look, Nicole, we see this all the time at the hospital. It’s not uncommon for new mothers to experience difficulties after they give birth. I can easily get you in to see someone in my hospital, maybe a pediatrician. Or a psychotherapist? I can get you an appointment today.”

She backed away and spit out a dark laugh. “Fuck you.”

His face fell, like the little boy who cried and cried when their father had given away his Star Wars action figures because he said Ben was too old for them. Nicole refused to feel bad.

He stood. “Okay. Okay. I’m sorry. I’ll leave you be, but if you need anything, I’m here.” He looked at Quinn, and his eyes softened. “I’d like to be in her life. Your life. We’re all the family we’ve got.”

She gestured to the door. He walked toward it but stopped suddenly. He bent down and picked something up from the marble floor. Then he turned around, and on his face, she saw horror and fear.

“Why do you have this?” He held out a yellowed newspaper clipping.

Nicole didn’t know what he was talking about. She took the clipping, and her stomach flipped. Amanda’s obituary. Had it been in the box with the blanket?

They locked eyes. In his Nicole saw disappointment and blame.

“Nic. You’re not well. I can help. I understand more than anyone what you went through.”

“No, you don’t.” She held the obituary out to him. “I don’t need this. Take it.”

He looked at the obituary being waved in his face, then at Quinn. Was he afraid to leave Nicole alone with her?

“The past is the past. It’s over, Nicole. It was a tragedy. An awful tragedy, but it’s been almost twenty years. It’s time to let it go.”

“Take this. Get it out of my house. Do this one thing for me.”

He nodded and accepted the clipping. With his hand on the doorknob, he said, “I love you, Nic. I always have. I always mess it up with you, but it’s not because I don’t love you.”

He opened the door, turned for a last look at her and then the baby, and walked out. She twisted the dead bolt and pulled the doorknob five times to make sure it was really locked.

She cradled her daughter’s small body and looked in her eyes. “You don’t need anyone else to fulfill you. You’ll do that all by yourself.”

Her eyes landed on the peg by the door where she kept the extra keys to Ben’s house, the keys she’d never once used, the keys he insisted she keep, in case anything happened.

And now the keys were gone.





CHAPTER NINETEEN MORGAN




I’m furious when Martinez adjusts the jacket of her black pantsuit and strides into the kitchen toward me. I whip my head at Ben and hiss, “How dare you try to trap me?”

Ben holds up his hands. “Look, I don’t think you did anything, and that’s why I called Martinez. So she can hear all of this herself, from you. If I told you, you would have left and been in danger.”