by Cole McCade
She should be grateful.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
The nanny glanced at her, then smiled and smoothed Elijah’s hair back. “Willow.”
“Did he shout at you, Willow?”
Her smile faded. She peeked over her shoulder as if she expected Jacob to step from the shadows, then admitted, “A little.”
“I’m sorry. That my grand little caper got you in trouble, I mean.”
“I…I didn’t know you were Elijah’s mother. Not then.”
Leigh shrugged. “No one did.”
Willow rose and settled on the bed, sitting shoulder to shoulder with Leigh. Together they watched Elijah as he snuggled into the pillow with his little pink lips parted on a sigh.
“Why did you leave him?” Willow asked.
“I thought I was doing what was best for him.”
“Then…why did you come back?”
“I…” Leigh closed her eyes. “I hoped I was doing what was best for both of us.”
Willow made a soft, sympathetic sound. Leigh opened her eyes to watch the girl toy with a small pendant around her neck: a delicate butterfly in silver filigree, with three increasingly tiny diamonds studded down its body. “It seems like life is all about sacrificing one kind of happiness for another,” Willow murmured.
“For us, maybe.” Leigh touched her arm. “You’re too young to know that already, Willow.”
“Some of us get our life lessons at an early age.” Willow breathed in heavily, offering a rather tight, almost desperate smile. “Did you want to sleep here?” Leigh nodded, and Willow’s smile brightened as she stood. “I’ll fetch you something to sleep in.”
“Thank you.”
Willow bustled from the room. The girl couldn’t be older than twenty-two, twenty-three, but she carried herself like someone ten times older. Someone who had carried a great weight on her shoulders—and now she was taking on the weight of protecting Leigh. She hadn’t had to ask to make it clear she understood.
Leigh wondered if tending to battered wives was in the girl’s job description.
She looked down at her son—to find Elijah’s eyes open, clouded with sleep. His small fist curled against his mouth, thumb probing at his lips as if he wanted to suck it but had been told not to and was fighting the urge. Leigh smiled and reached down to take that little hand in hers, curling it around her first two fingers and stroking his knuckles.
Elijah yawned deeply, then mumbled, “You’re staying with me?”
“I am.” Leigh squeezed his hand. “Are you okay with that, little man?”
“You’re nice. You smell good.” His eyes were drifting closed again, but he snuggled closer to her, tucking his head against her hip. Before she could say anything else, he was gone again, quiet as a kitten with his dark hair spilling over the pillow. Leigh chuckled under her breath.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” she whispered, and snuggled in to wrap herself around him, holding him close to her heart. He was worth this, she told herself. He was.
He had to be.
Because without him, her will wasn’t strong enough to stay.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
SHE WOKE FEELING AS IF she’d been hit by a truck, then mounted herself on its tailpipe.
Falling asleep last night had been easier than she’d expected. Staying asleep had been another matter. She’d jerked awake at every creak of the floorboards or clank of settling pipes, clutching Elijah close and watching beneath the door for the passage of stalking feet. But they never came, and each time she’d drifted off until, near dawn, she hadn’t woken up again until her battered, sore body was good and ready.
Last night she hadn’t quite felt the pain, too high on adrenaline and endorphins. But with the morning light pressing against her eyelids and turning them translucent pink, delicately webbed with little branching capillaries, the idea of standing—of even moving—made her want to cry when her every muscle throbbed. The bruises on her face, her wrists, her ankles, and deep inside burned in bands of fire wrapped around her flesh. She rolled over with a groan, reaching for Elijah, needing his soft warmth for comfort.
Elijah wasn’t there.
Her eyes snapped open. She sat up quickly, biting back a scream as pain grated down her insides; a fresh wet burst, likely blood, flooded clammily against her flesh. She needed a doctor, but what she needed more was to know where her son was. She’d apologize to the nanny for ruining her borrowed pajama pants and panties later.
Gritting her teeth, she forced herself from the bed and to her wobbling feet. Her vision swam, but she pushed on. Gabriel wouldn’t let his leg keep him down. She was just as strong as Gabriel. She was. And with his voice in her head, telling her I know you won’t quit, little mouse; I know you’re too stubborn, she staggered to the door and dragged it open.
The house was quiet. The color and brightness of the light spilling into the hall said it was late morning, and a particular calm told her Jacob was gone, likely to work, where he’d have to make up a lie for his smashed face and swollen nose. She leaned hard against the doorway, breathing roughly. Elijah’s laughter floated into the house, filtered from a distance and through walls, glass. Outside. He must be outside with Willow. Leigh’s legs nearly fell from beneath her as relief took the strength from them, but she forced herself down the hall and to the glass patio doors. Just far enough to see, with her own eyes, that her son was all right, happy and gifting Willow with one of his rare smiles as she swung him around and around and around.
Leigh’s eyes stung. Thank God. She’d had a momentary flash of Jacob stealing Elijah while she’d slept, and disappearing. If he took Elijah from her, she’d never see her son again.
She withdrew to the guest bedroom. The ghosts of last night drifted from wall to wall: the stains of blood on the bed, the echoes of her screams, the thick musky scents of Jacob’s rage and his lust. She looked away, squeezing her eyes shut, and dragged her bag into the bathroom.
She soaked in the bath until the heat penetrated to her bones and she no longer felt the pain down to the tips of her fingers, though no amount of hot water could ease the sandpapered feeling inside. She cleaned herself internally as best she could, well aware she was washing away the evidence and feeling like she was washing away any hope that anyone with the power to do anything would ever believe her. Not that she’d had any hope, but maybe today she could sneak out to a hospital and at least get some treatment. Check in anonymously, and hope no one gave her that look; just something to ease the pain.
Her fingers started to prune, and she climbed out of the bath, dried herself off, and dressed in her winter jeans and her hoodie, wincing when the jeans pressed up against her crotch and the maxi pad she’d used to absorb any more bleeding. A few Advil from the medicine cabinet made walking easier, and her head cleared with some apple juice and a few slices of bread and turkey from the fridge. She curled up in the corner of the couch, watched her son play with Willow, and told herself she would go to the hospital soon, even as she found her eyes growing heavy, the world hazing as she drowsed and tried not to think of Jacob’s hands on her, slimy thick hot maggots of fingers crawling over her flesh.
She jerked awake when the patio door slid open and Willow and Elijah stepped in, hand in hand. Willow stared at her, then smiled, washed-out and sad.
“We’re going to the park,” she said. “Do you want to come?”
Leigh wanted to—God, did she. Wanted to be on the other side of that fence, pushing Elijah on the swings and showing him how to swing higher and higher until it felt like flying. But right now, even standing hurt.
“I…I don’t think I can make it today.” She offered a wistful smile, then held out her arms. “Tomorrow. I promise. Come give Mommy a hug, Elijah.”
He looked up at Willow, then pulled his hand free from hers and ran to Leigh, climbing up on the couch and tumbling into her lap with a quiet, accepting trust that nearly killed her. She wrapped him up tight and squeezed him cl
ose, breathing in his scent one more time.
“That’s my little man,” she whispered into his hair. “I’ll read you a bedtime story tonight, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Have fun at the park.” Reluctantly she set him down, stroking her fingers through his hair. “Be good for Willow.”
“He’s always good—aren’t you?” Willow scooped him up and tickled him, prompting a giggle; she laughed, then turned a warm smile on Leigh. “We’ll be back in a few hours. Will you be all right alone?”
“Have been for a long time.” She shrugged, forcing a laugh. “Don’t worry about me. I’m okay.”
Willow looked like she didn’t believe her. Probably because she didn’t believe herself. But with another wan smile, the nanny turned and left, pausing only to snag a hefty bag next to the door and murmuring to Elijah in her soft, sing-song voice.
Leigh stared at the door for a long time. Hours, maybe. She had no sense of time, right now. Then she dug her notebook out, taped the pages from Gabriel’s stolen notepad inside, then stared at that, but she didn’t know what to write. What to say. What to think. She knew it was shock, keeping her frozen, numb. Everything inside her was screaming at her to get up. To run. Save herself. Without her, Elijah would still grow up with nannies to love him and a father to shape him. Jacob might shout, but she didn’t think he’d ever hurt Elijah. No, that was reserved for women he’d bought and assumed were his property.
If she stayed, she was staying for herself, not her son. He…he’d been fine without her. She hated to admit it, but he had. The thought brought that wet burning sting back to her eyes; her son didn’t need her. She’d run away out of selfishness, and now she was staying out of selfishness, because he didn’t need her but she needed him.
But she saw the years ahead, if she left. Saw Elijah growing up with only Jacob to teach him right from wrong; saw her son developing his father’s easy, confident smile, that dull, unseeing self-absorption in his eyes, and that particular smug tilt of his head. And one day there would be a girl or a boy, probably in high school, who didn’t know what she or he wanted when they said No, Elijah, I don’t think I’m ready but knew it wasn’t lips against their throat and a crooning voice purring Why not? Don’t you love me? I love you. It’s all right if we love each other, baby.
And one day he would go to work in a suit and tie, and come home to a house just like this one. A house full of objects. Possessions. Trophies that proclaimed his worth, because Jacob would teach him that was all that mattered. Owning things. Owning people. Leigh stared bitterly at the paintings on the walls, stared at the glass shelves, and wished she could just set it all on fire. Her fingers trembled against the pen clutched in her fist, and she scratched out on the page:
burn it all
Over and over, digging in until the letters stabbed in scribbles of ink and the page tore and still she dug it in, breathing harder and harder until she finally let go of the scream in her throat and let it fill the house as she flung the book across the room. It struck one of the shelves. Several of the art deco pieces toppled over, tumbled to the floor, and shattered in satisfying, jangling sprays of glass. She stared at the reflective, sharp edges.
“You smug bastard,” she whispered. She was hardly aware she was standing until she was on her feet, drifting across the room, feeling like something was pulling her step by step. “You don’t understand. You don’t understand anything!”
She curled her fingers around the metal support poles of the shelf, cold against her palm. It wobbled, so close to falling over.
And she pulled.
The shelf came crashing down, glass splintering and breaking apart with a resounding clatter, objects possessions things spilling everywhere. Every last one of those things felt like a piece of her hate, her impotent rage, flying with the force of her fury. Leigh whirled away, grabbed the frame of a painting, ripped it down from the wall, and flung it to the floor.
“You’re so blind,” she panted through her teeth. “So complacent. So stupid.” Another painting, torn from the wall so hard the frame snapped as she pitched it to the ground. “You’ve always known there was a place for you, and always known what it would be.” She shoved another shelf, rocking it, then swept a row of expensive books and pretentious antiques to the floor. An ugly pewter frog went smashing into the glass coffee table; the atomic clock followed. The table buckled like the epicenter of an earthquake, and the glass fell into the frame. “You’ve always known you’d have control over how other people judge you—by what you did instead of what you were and what you wore and who you slept with and who you married. You have no idea—no idea how it feels to be so caught up in this machine until you have no control over…over anything!”
She was screaming now, sobbing, the words thick and grating in her throat as she picked up his golden baseball and threw it as hard as she could. It bounced along the counter and smashed into the blender, the Keurig, the toaster, toppling them all over. She glared through her tears, then turned and shoved the shelf over with all her strength. Once again the glass cracked and snapped apart in crackling shards as it landed on the couch, sharp points stabbing into the white leather and ripping deep.
“You don’t know how it feels,” she gasped, and God, she wanted to scream these words at Jacob, carve them into his forehead until he saw them every time he looked in the mirror. “You don’t know how it feels to have no control over yourself, your future, what you do with what’s between your legs!” Nearly shrieking, she shoved the end table over. Books and a porcelain vase went tumbling, pages fluttering, the pretty Chinese patterns on the vase breaking apart. She wanted to destroy it all. Destroy everything he had until all of his possessions were as ruined as she was. “To know if you try…if you try to be anything else, half the world will hate you because they think everything you have should belong to a man. To know it can all be knocked out from under you in a moment, because we…we don’t all have that promise of a future. Not like you. Not like you.” Gritting her teeth, she ripped the swords down from their mounting bracket and whipped the shorter one out of its sheath before stabbing it into the seat of the couch, dragging it with a sheer savage pleasure that still didn’t ease the wound inside. “You,” she bit off, jabbing into the upholstery with every word, “were born promised a place in the world. Promised everything. While we’re born promised nothing but the privilege of competing for a place at your side.”
She ripped the sword from one side of the couch to the other, then let it fall, struggling to catch her breath as she stared through hazy eyes at the destruction she’d wrought. The living room was in shambles, white fluffy puffs of upholstery scattered over broken glass and ceramic and metal, and it still wasn’t enough. Not for her.
“And the worst part?” she whispered. “You don’t even care.”
She stood on broken glass, its sharp edges threatening to cut her feet if she moved an inch, her fists curling at her sides. Pointless. Hopeless. All of this was so pointless.
“I’ve spent my whole life as your victim. As everyone’s victim. I’m done. I’m done, you hear me?” She couldn’t stop the scream, ripping raw from her throat. She was losing her mind, everything inside her cracking apart to let out the fury that had always frightened her so much. But she wasn’t afraid anymore. There was nothing Jacob could do to her that was worse than what he’d already done. Nothing.
“My story is mine,” she breathed harshly. “Mine. Not yours.”
“Mama?”
She pivoted, then cried out as glass sliced razor lines into her bare feet. Stumbling, she sank on one knee to the ruined couch, clutching at the back. Elijah and Willow stood in the doorway, Elijah’s eyes wide, Willow’s face stricken.
“O-oh,” Leigh stammered; her palms tingled, her head felt light, and she thought she might throw up. Her son must think she was crazy. She wasn’t entirely sure he’d be wrong. “Oh God, I…”
“It’s okay,” Willow said just a little too quickly.
“I’ll clean it up. Elijah, baby, stay here.”
Willow released Elijah’s hand and slipped inside on quick steps, skirting bits of broken glass and kneeling to pick up the closest scattered books. Leigh bit her lip and slid gingerly off the couch, stepping over the glass shards and wincing as the carpet bit into the shallow cuts on her soles. As quickly as she could, she minced over the floor and dropped to her knees at Willow’s side, reaching for the books.
“No—no, I should—”
Willow stopped, just looking at her, her eyes dark. “It’s okay,” she repeated softly, and touched the back of Leigh’s hand. “I understand.”
Leigh just stared at her, but she thought…yes. Yes, Willow did understand.
“It’s my mess. Let me help.” Leigh leaned over to right the end table, careful not to touch the jagged glass edges. “Elijah, sweetheart, go get your books. Mind the glass and keep your shoes on.”
“Okay,” Elijah chirped, and tromped around the edge of the living room to the hall. Leigh lifted her head to watch him go until he disappeared into his room, then leaned over to start stacking books, pausing to scrub her cheeks dry with the heel of her palm.
“He…he called me Mama,” she whispered, and Willow smiled brightly.
“Yeah,” she said. “He did.”
Together they set the furniture to rights, and swept up the glass and upholstery. Leigh had broken all the shelves and tables, so they stacked the books and intact curios on the ruins of the couch. Leigh kept expecting Willow to ask her why, but she never did—and Leigh wondered if it was because she already knew, in that way that women often knew without words.
There would come a reckoning when Jacob returned, Leigh thought. And she would take the full brunt of it. She didn’t care. Not anymore.
She couldn’t—wouldn’t—live as a pet in his gilded cage.
