Stone Cold Fox (96)

Of course, an internal debate like this was futile because Mother would take the lead and I would follow. She knew I didn’t have the strength to defy her when my only option was Gale’s demise and she would not do it for me under any circumstances, even the most dire, because she wanted to teach me a lesson. Always the hard way. The lesson was that I needed her, that I was just like her, and once I admitted that, she’d take care of me once again.

She thought that was what I wanted, too.

She’d be in charge again. She said she’d let me take the lead with the Cases, but I was no idiot when it came to Mother’s ways. She would know how to manipulate me, and through me, she would learn how to manipulate them. All of them. Would she hurt them, and not just financially? Would she hurt Collin? For her own thrills, to satiate her own sick appetite? When it came down to it, when I really thought hard about everything, for all of the Cases’ faults, they didn’t deserve that. I wanted to protect them from Mother, their demise too big of a price to pay for my own preservation.

Even Gale Wallace-Leicester’s.

Right?

And what would be left of me to preserve if she was back in my life?



* * *



? ? ?

    I STUDIED COLLIN’S face that night for hours. I wanted to memorize him, just in case it would be over for us. The cut of his jaw, the bow of his lips, the cowlick in his hair finally grown out to perfection. His eyes, always tender and loving toward me. Those teeth. Those gargantuan teeth of his showing out. He was jovial again, shaking off the day and its harrowing events. He had no idea. Openly adoring me as I put on my nightgown. Rubbing my shoulders. Rubbing my belly. Talking about baby names again. What would we call her? Or him? He reminded me that we were being surprised because he told me you don’t get many surprises like that in life. The really wonderful ones. The kind when you’re so utterly surprised and you’re happy with either outcome. Why take that away from us? He didn’t know I hated surprises. He was trying to be the man he thought I wanted him to be. He was the man I wanted him to be. Safe. Secure. Reliable. He really believed all of our worries were behind us and if anything else surfaced, we would be able to overcome it together, no problem, because our marriage had been appropriately tested in the first year thanks to Gale Wallace-Leicester. We had passed and now we could celebrate together forever.

I watched Collin through the mirror as we brushed our teeth at the same time. His taking much more effort of course. He smiled at me as we conducted this nightly ritual and I caught my own full-body reflection, one I’d been avoiding for weeks now, but why? It was Bea’s reflection, and she was radiant. The pregnancy glow wasn’t a myth. The bump, for all of its faults in my mind, looked, well, rather cute in the mirror. And my skin was downright ethereal, as if this warmth was emanating outward from deep within me, within the child. I hadn’t really seen it before. Collin had always seemed to see it somehow.

I imagined Collin with the baby when they arrived. Their first moments together, father and child. I’d be watching them from the hospital bed, probably feeling absolutely horrendous, but Collin would look over at me and tell me I was beautiful. Look at our beautiful baby. Rocking back and forth. Coming together as three. A family of three.

I could see the whole thing.

And I wanted it.

Something normal, something nice.

Would I still be able to have it?

Collin thought there wouldn’t be other surprises.

Neither did I.

And yet . . .



* * *



? ? ?

COLLIN’S ALARM WENT off the next morning at 7:25 a.m. We always woke up to his alarm; it was louder than hell, these aggravating, piercing chirps from his phone. He said a calming tone wouldn’t be able to rouse him from sleep so it had to be the violent kind that was bad for one’s cortisol levels so early in the morning. I loathed it but he never pressed snooze, which was the mark of a true keeper. Someone considerate toward their partner.

Collin looked very well rested, unlike me. He practically shot out of bed like a firework, ready to amble downstairs with a bounce in his step and pour us both a cup of coffee, the timer already set the night before. He really had no idea what was coming. I could scarcely believe it myself. I hadn’t slept a wink, my mind elsewhere.

I had stayed up all night, mentally practicing what I would say to him and how I would say it, specific words carefully chosen, annunciations planned at opportune moments. When I would cry, when I’d be strong, when I’d make eye contact, when I’d look away from him. So much rehearsal, lying completely still in my marital bed all night long, preparing to tell him the whole truth. I was going to share everything, but it still needed to be a show. I didn’t know any other way. Perhaps that’s who I always really was and so I was going to go out with a bang and finally do what scared me the most.

Not just for Collin, but for me. For Bea.

And I kept watch all night long.

Was she coming?

Collin’s phone rang before he left the bedroom.

If I was going to do it, I had to do it now.

It had to come from me, not from her.

It was the only way we could make it.

Bea and me.

“Babe, wait! I need to tell you something. It’s important.”

I reached out for him in a panic. I wasn’t ready at all, but I knew who was on the other end of the line. It had to be Gale Wallace-Leicester, released from Mother’s clutches because I failed to do her bidding.