Of course Mattie knows none of this. She believes Hadley is a terrible mother who does nothing to stand up for her. She’s right about the first part; no good mother would have allowed things to go this far.
She stops chopping and leans against the counter, the knife trembling in her hand. And now Skipper is leaving. Without Mattie knowing it, Skipper is the one who has protected her.
Yes, Frank yells, says horrible things, has a temper, and throws things. He might even have gone so far as to chop off Mattie’s hair. But he’s never physically hurt her—a mercy bestowed on her by Skipper simply being who he is.
Shortly after Skipper started preschool, his teacher called Hadley and Frank in because she was concerned about something Skipper had said—a strange story about a coach locking someone or something named Blue in the bathroom and not letting them out. Coach of course was Frank, and Hadley was Blue, but the teacher had no way of knowing that.
Frank sweet-talked his way out of it, blaming it on a nightmare and the overactive imagination of a four-year-old, but it was enough of a scare for Frank to realize that, unlike Mattie and Hadley, Skipper couldn’t be controlled—his artlessness as much a part of him as the color of his hair.
From that day on, Frank constrained his violence to the master bedroom, a place children weren’t allowed, which has spared Mattie from the worst of his rages.
When Vanessa called, it was Hadley’s first thought. No! You can’t take him. How will I protect Mattie? She straightened the thought immediately, realizing how wrong it was. She was the one who was supposed to protect Mattie. She just had no idea how she would manage it without Skipper.
Then, suddenly, as if some guardian angel had been listening, the chance she’d been praying for was in front of her, the smallest sliver of opportunity opening with Vanessa’s change of plans. The only question: Was Hadley brave enough to take it?
“So, Freeway Series tomorrow?” Frank says, bringing her back to the moment. His tone is light, as if nothing’s happened, but she knows by the way he shifts in his seat that he’s uncomfortable, worried he’s upset Skipper. “Wilson versus Kershaw,” he goes on when Skipper doesn’t answer. “A good matchup. Definitely don’t want to miss that.”
Skipper turns, his saucer eyes unblinking.
Frank smiles warmly. “Blue can stream it for you on her iPad so you can watch it in the car.”
Skipper tilts his head, absorbing the words a beat late; then his mouth twitches with a grin as he nods. Frank relaxes, and Hadley exhales as well.
She carries the salad to the table as Mattie slinks into her chair, her face scrubbed clean and the earrings gone. She folds her arms across her chest and looks at her plate.
Hadley sits across from her, and Frank bows his head.
“Bless us, oh Lord, and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ, our Lord. Amen.”
“Amen,” they say together.
Frank grabs the salad, and Hadley returns to the kitchen for the pizzas.
She sets them on the table, then goes back for the drinks.
She is pouring Skipper’s milk when Frank’s wineglass whizzes past to smash against the wall. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
Her face snaps up, and the milk sloshes out of the glass as her hands fly in front of her.
“What the hell is this?” He holds up a slice of his pizza. It sags from his hand like a limp rag. “I work my ass off so we can have a nice life, a nice home, a goddamn world-class pizza oven, and this is the thanks I get, oven-baked shit?”
Hadley’s heart scatter-fires in her chest as she continues to cower. “I’m sorry,” she stammers.
I should have remembered to buy wood.
I shouldn’t have made pizza.
I should have . . . I should have . . . I should have . . .
He drops the slice back to the pan, then hurls the entire pizza at her as well.
She coils her arms over her head as it smashes into the cabinets behind her.
Beside her, Prince Charles pushes to his feet, and Hadley lunges for him with her free hand, getting hold of his collar as he goes for the pizza, worried he will lap up glass. She tugs him back as her mind continues to spin with regret . . . and confusion. Frank never behaves this way in front of the kids. Only a moment ago, he was worried he’d crossed the line with Skipper.
She looks through her brow at him, then at Skipper, and with a jolt, realizes what’s happened. In the time it took for him to regret blowing up at Mattie because it might have upset Skipper to the time she set the pizza in front of him, he figured it out. Skipper is leaving, and the power he has over Frank is leaving with him. And already, it’s started, the self-control Frank has maintained for over four years gone and his newfound freedom intoxicating.
“I’ve got him,” Mattie says, taking hold of Prince Charles, her voice trembling.
Hadley looks up, and their eyes lock, and Hadley knows, as long as she lives, this moment will never be forgotten, the moment her daughter realized just what a coward she is.
“I’ll make something else,” Hadley manages, her heart hammering so hard the words echo in her ears.
She turns toward the cabinets, terrified of what else Frank might throw. Amazingly, it is Skipper’s voice, small and tight, that breaks in to save her. “Coach, do you know how many games Kershaw pitched this year?” Hadley glances back. Skipper’s face is sheet white and his pupils reduced to pinpoints, but he pushes the words out. “He pitches like all the time.”
Frank’s glare continues to skewer her, and Skipper tugs at his sleeve. “Coach, did you hear me?”
Frank turns. “Yeah, Champ, I heard you. Kershaw? All the time? How much is all the time?”
Hadley nearly whimpers with relief as she turns to fill a pot with water for spaghetti.
As she makes a second meal, Skipper continues to talk, rambling on about the Dodgers’ pitcher and talking in a way Skipper never talks, the words tumbling out. Not all of them make sense, but on and on he goes in a heroic effort to distract Frank, and her heart swells with his gallantry, tears of love mixing with those of her terror and shame.
“I’m going to watch the game,” Frank says, pushing away his empty plate.
The kids skulk off to their rooms, and Hadley sets to work cleaning the kitchen.
When she is done, she packs the car.
She closes the hatch on the final load, then leans against it and runs the plan through her head one more time. When she’s certain she hasn’t forgotten anything, she returns inside and stops outside the home theater. Behind the door, she hears the game playing, and for a long minute, she listens.
Finally, with a deep steeling breath, she steps inside.
Frank sits slumped in the middle recliner of the eight-seat theater. The TV flickers in front of him, the sound muted for a commercial. He looks up through drunk eyes, and she glances at the whiskey in his hand.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hey.” He reaches for her hand.
She takes it and sits beside him. He takes a sip of his drink, then looks at her, deep regret etched on his face. It’s the part of the sickness she has never understood, how genuinely sorry he feels after, like he didn’t mean it at all and has no idea why he acted the way he did. He says it’s because he loves her—as if his fury and devotion are interwoven like raveled poison vines.
He brings her hand to his face and holds it to his cheek, the whiskers thick and rough from the day, and for a long moment, that is how they remain, silent, his eyes closed as he holds her hand against his skin and as she gives him the acceptance and forgiveness he has come to expect.
“I’m going to miss you while you’re gone,” he says finally, opening his eyes and looking at her. He brushes a kiss across her knuckles before letting their hands drop to the armrest between them. “The house is going to be lonely without you.”
“You’ll still have the dog.”
“Great. Me and the prince.”
> “You know,” she says, careful to keep her voice even, “I was thinking you might have been right about it being better for us to leave tonight instead of in the morning.”
His eyes squint, looking for a manipulation or some sort of deception, and she lowers her gaze, praying he believes her and doesn’t see the fear that is driving her. “But only if you think it’s a good idea.”
He looks back at the television and turns on the volume, and she sits beside him, silent.
The game comes back on, Astros versus the A’s, the A’s ahead by a dozen runs in the bottom of the eighth.
At the next commercial, he says, “The pasta was good.”
“Thanks,” she says. “I probably should have just made that in the first place.”
He watches the flickering screen awhile longer before finally saying, “You have the itinerary?”
She works hard not to react as her heart jumps in her chest. “I printed it, and I also have it on my phone.”
“Don’t take the 5. It’s under construction.”
“No. I’ll take the toll road.”
He turns to her. “If you get tired, pull over.”
“Of course.”
“You need to watch out for big rigs. They can’t see you.”
“I’ll be careful.”
He nods, finishes off his whiskey, then, with pure devotion in his eyes, looks at her and says, “Nine days. I don’t know how I’m going to live without you.”
She leans in and kisses him softly. “Somehow you’ll manage, and before you know it, we’ll be back.”
At the door, she stops. “Do you want to say goodbye to Skipper?” she asks.
He shakes his head. “I think it will just make it harder on him.” He glances down, then back at her. “He knows I love him, right?”
“Of course.”
“And he won’t just remember how I acted tonight?”
“He will remember what a great dad you were to him.”
Five minutes later, they are on their way. She glances at Mattie beside her and Skipper behind her, unable to believe it, stunned that it is happening. For fifteen years, she’s been searching for a way out, and now, just like that, she is doing it, driving away with the kids. Her heart pounds with adrenaline and a small sense of pride.
“We’re not going back?” Mattie says, startling Hadley from her thoughts.
“You packed your mom’s apron,” she says to Hadley’s surprised expression.
Hadley swallows hard, wondering if her last-minute decision to shove the keepsake in her bag will tip Frank off as well. The apron is hand embroidered with daisies and stained in a dozen places; her mother wore it almost every day of Hadley’s childhood, and it is one of the few things of her mom’s she has left.
“Don’t worry,” Mattie says, reading Hadley’s fear. “Dad never goes in the kitchen drawers.” And all the pride Hadley felt the moment before deflates, knowing how much she has failed her daughter all these years.
A minute later, Mattie asks, “Who will take care of Prince Charles?”
“Your dad,” Hadley says, and Mattie turns away. It’s not a good answer. Frank will not love him the way Mattie does. He will not look after him the way Hadley does. He will not play with him the way Skipper does.
Mattie’s almost silent tears twist Hadley’s heart. She had no choice. They couldn’t stay for the dog.
Half an hour later, they pull into the parking lot of a hotel beside the freeway.
“Why are we stopping?” Mattie asks.
“There’s something I need to do before we leave,” Hadley says. “We’ll stay here tonight and get an early start in the morning.”
She uses cash to pay for two rooms, gets the kids settled, then returns to the car and drives back the way they came.
Twenty minutes later, from the loading area behind Frank’s office, she calls the Hilton in Victorville, the hotel they are supposed to be staying at tonight, and she books a room.
When she hangs up, she looks again at Frank’s itinerary, checking it carefully for anything she might have missed. For her to pull this off, she needs to consider everything and not make any mistakes. Frank is paranoid, neurotic, and brilliant. One misstep and it will be over. Fairly certain she hasn’t screwed up yet, she slides the phone into her pocket and climbs from the car.
The lot is empty and the buildings around her dark and buttoned up for the long weekend. An American flag flaps from the flagpole near the street, left flying in honor of Memorial Day.
Using Frank’s spare keys that she still has from driving his truck, she opens the back door and quietly steps inside.
8
GRACE
Grace cuts the engine and looks back at Miles, who is sound asleep in his car seat behind her, his chest moving in steady rhythm with his breath. She watches him for a long time. It’s nearly ten. God willing, he will sleep until midnight.
She turns back to look at the entrance to Aztec Parking. Other than the light beside the door, the business park is dark. Through the window, she sees the faint glow of her computer monitor, and she stares at it until her eyes blur, waiting another long minute to roll the decision around one more time in her head.
If she does this, there will be no turning back.
Again and again, the answer circles back. If she doesn’t do this, then where will she be? She looks again at Miles, thinks of Jimmy and what he’s done, and squeezes her eyes tight. As much as she loves him, this is no longer about that. She can’t continue to risk her future and Miles’s future and to live with the uncertainty of whether they will have rent money or food.
Her stomach rumbles, weighing in on the decision, and yet she waits a minute longer, knowing what she needs to do but dreading it just the same. One of those moments, she thinks, the fork in the road you recognize, knowing it will irrevocably change your life.
Finally, with a deep breath, she lowers the window an inch and eases from the car. She locks it, scans around her one more time, then walks to the door and lets herself in.
The contract for Jerry’s lot is still on Frank’s desk. She tucks it in the empty diaper bag slung over her shoulder. If Frank wants to make a deal with Jerry, he can make it himself.
She opens the door that connects Frank’s office with the hall leading to the common areas of the building—the storage room, lockers, restrooms, and employee lounge. It clicks closed behind her, and she squints to adjust her eyes to the darkness, the only light borrowed from the thin halo of moonlight that shines through the window in the door that leads to the back parking lot and a sliver of fluorescence glowing beneath the storage room door because someone forgot to turn off the light.
Though her heart pounds, she is not scared. For the past three months, she’s spent more time inside these walls than she has her own home.
She reaches for the light switch when a noise freezes her. Her face snaps to the storage room door, and her eyes fix on the strip of light beneath it. She stares so long and hard her eyes buzz but, after a long moment and nothing, wonders if she’s only imagined it.
With a deep sigh, she reaches again for the switch, her fingers finding it at the exact moment a shadow crosses the sliver of light.
Her heart lurches into her throat, and she falls back and spins. She fumbles with the keys and, finding the right one, jams it into the lock. It sticks, and she wrenches it free with too much force, and the ring flies from her hands and sails over her head to land impossibly loudly on the ground somewhere behind her.
9
HADLEY
There’s a noise. In the hallway. The sound of metal clanging. Hadley stands stock still, a box of paper towels in her hands. Perhaps the building has a security system and she’s triggered the alarm. Though, if that’s the case, the response time is horribly slow. She’s been here nearly an hour and has been through every room in the building twice.
Her ears strain, listening for more. After several seconds, she sighs and slides the box back onto the shel
f.
She leans against the rack and closes her eyes. She is not made for this—deceit and deception, plotting and lies. She was so sure she had this part figured out. She knows Frank hides money, and she was certain this is where he stashes it. He paid for his truck with cash, and he paid the contractors who worked on the yard under the table. Before he bought the truck, he stopped at the office. On the days he paid the contractors, he came straight from work. He has mentioned a safe, so she knows there is one, but she’s combed every inch of this place and can’t find it. All her search has yielded is a petty cash drawer in Frank’s desk with less than a hundred dollars in it.
Something moves in the hall, and she opens her eyes, the sound very slight, more like a shifting than a noise, but Hadley’s hearing has always been exceptional.
She listens closer, then pushes off the rack, nudges open the door, and pokes her head out. She looks left toward the back door, then right. At the end of the corridor, a shadow crouches, petite, with a wild head of hair.
“Grace?” she says, squinting into the darkness, confirming that she is, in fact, looking at Frank’s assistant.
The figure bolts upright. “Mrs. Torelli?” Grace says.
Both look at each other curiously. Hadley last saw Grace this morning when she was dropping Frank off so she could use his truck. Grace was heading into the office wearing the same outfit she has on now, a plain white blouse and baggy gray slacks, loose on her thin frame.
“What are you doing here?” they say in unison, both their voices pitched high.
Hadley holds Grace’s stare. After all, she is Frank’s wife, and that gives her the right to be here. There are a dozen reasons she might have needed to stop by the office. Frank left something he needs. She’s taking some of the commercial cleaner for her driveway. Frank asked her to stop by and pick up traffic cones for one of the lots.
Meanwhile, she can’t think of a single reason why Frank’s assistant would be skulking around the office on a Friday night in the dark.
Hadley & Grace Page 4
