When I’d seen Neil this morning in the kitchen, he tried to do the thing where he puts a tender knuckle to my cheek, like my counseling offer was
some meaningful moment of forgiveness from me. I smacked his hand off me and grabbed the Keurig from the kitchen, marched it to my bedroom, and locked the door.
I had to come back down a minute later to shove coffee pods into the pockets of my robe, so the gesture lost a little momentum, but I think the message was pretty clear. If he wanted to talk, he could talk to me in four months after he’d jumped through all my hoops—which I half expected him to not do. But at least it would get Dad off my back long enough for me to breathe.
Now it was almost seven o’clock and dark already, and I was twenty minutes away from Wakan.
I’d lost a patient today.
I lost patients all the time. It was the nature of the work I did. But this one bothered me more than usual.
I felt eerily numb afterward, like I’d officially hit my capacity to process crappy things. The dinner with my parents, Derek’s disownment, deciding to end it with Daniel—it was all too much. I hoped the emotional disconnect lasted. I just wanted to get through my last night with Daniel in one piece and ugly cry when I got home.
I listened to Lola’s fifth album on the way down. It was sad. The whole thing reminded me of Jewel’s song “Foolish Games.” Made me wonder what Lola had been going through when she wrote it.
Sometimes I tried to line up her albums with what I could find about her online. There was a rumor she had been dating one of her backup dancers around the time she recorded this. Maybe it had to do with him.
I think Lola had a hard life. I hoped it was easier with my brother in it. I bet it was. No—I knew it was. Because I knew how much my brother must love her, and when my brother loved someone, he did it with all of himself.
I hadn’t talked to Derek since he left. There was a twelve-hour time difference with Cambodia, and he was in a rural part of the country where phone access was hard. But I could feel my brother, and I knew he could feel me. I was sending him and his wife so much love.
If Derek said Lola was worthy, she was. Simple as that. His word was all I needed. I wished it was that way for our dad, that I could just show up with someone like Daniel and Dad would know immediately that he must be exceptional if I’ve brought him home.
But my father didn’t measure people that way.
It was funny that someone as horrible as Neil could have Dad’s respect, and someone as good as Daniel never would. All because Daniel didn’t have the right education or job or family.
My brother was a cautionary tale. Not about disobeying my father. But about falling in love with someone he didn’t approve of, that made disobeying him necessary.
When I got to the Grant House, Daniel was waiting for me outside like he always did. He didn’t have Chloe. She’d gone back to the farm yesterday since she was off the bottle.
Change was inevitable. Only today it made me deeply, deeply sad.
I sat in my car for a moment longer than usual just to take it in—because it was the last time Daniel and Hunter would be waiting for me.
When I got out, Hunter plowed into me, then Daniel came at me with the same energy, wrapping me in one of his big bear hugs. They were both always so excited to see me.
Neil had never greeted me like this. Maybe it was a maturity thing. I remembered what Bri said about men being puppies at this age, and it felt true. Daniel had this pure happiness about him every time I showed up.
I closed my eyes and breathed in and just melted into his kiss.
He pulled away enough to look at me. “You ready for dinner?” he asked. “I thought we could walk over. It’s a nice night.”
I peered up at his smiling face and sniffled. “Yeah. Let’s walk.” He tilted his head. “What’s wrong?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
He peered at me, his warm hazel eyes looking into my soul. “It doesn’t feel like nothing.”
“I lost a patient today.”
His handsome brows drew down. “What happened?”
I paused a moment. “It was a seventeen-year-old. His kayak flipped. No life jacket.”
Daniel studied me wordlessly.
“You know what’s so dangerous about drowning?” I said, looking up at him. “It’s silent. So unless someone’s paying close attention to you, no one saves you.”
He brushed my hair off my forehead. “I see you. I would save you if you were drowning.”
It was sweet, but he wouldn’t. Because I wasn’t drowning here with him.
I was drowning two hours away from here, alone.
“Let’s go eat,” I said, changing the subject.
He nodded. “Okay. Let me just put Hunter inside, and we’ll get going.” A few minutes later we turned onto the bike trail that went to Main
Street, and Daniel threaded his fingers in mine.
“So how was your day?” I asked, wanting to talk about anything that wasn’t me.
“Well, let’s see,” he said, talking to the trail ahead of us. “Hunter ate a ChapStick. Kevin Bacon got out again. This time, he let himself into the pharmacy and ate all the candy bars by the register. Scared the crap out of Mrs. Pearson.”
I laughed weakly. “Doug isn’t going to eat him, is he?” He shook his head. “No. Doug’s a vegetarian.”
I wrinkled my forehead. “Really?”
“Yup. Doesn’t drink either. Kevin Bacon has a long life of frightening the villagers ahead of him.”
I laughed.
“Then I spent some time down by the river,” he said. “Swimming?”
“No. Too cold still. I was looking for something for you, actually,” he said, letting go of my hand to dig in his pocket.
He pulled out something and put it in my palm. It was a rock about the size of a walnut, smooth and gray.
“It’s shaped like a heart,” he said. “Took me two hours to find it.”
My heart disintegrated. It broke from the inside out and crumbled in my chest.
I loved it. I loved it more than I’d ever loved anything.
It wasn’t flashy. It cost him nothing but his time—but that was the gift. Daniel didn’t have time. That was his most valuable commodity right now,
and he’d given it to find me this?
It made my chin quiver. It felt like the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for me, which was ridiculous because it was just a rock.
When I didn’t say anything, he spoke. “I’m sorry. It’s dumb. I thought you might—”
“I love it so much. I love it so much I don’t even know what to say.” I blinked up at him with tears in my eyes.
He looked almost hopeful. “You like it? Really?” “I love it. Thank you.”
This gentle, thoughtful, sweet boy.
I reached up and hugged him, and he folded around me like he always did. Only there was something almost rooted about his arms this time, like he was trying to keep me from drifting off.
Or sinking.
I was always going to keep this gift. Even if I married someone else. I would keep it until the day I died.
I had an eerie premonition of relatives going through my belongings after my funeral, just like we’d done a few weeks ago for Aunt Lil. They’d find this rock and wonder why it was in the single shoebox I’d taken with me to the retirement home.
I wondered how many of the little trinkets I’d found in Aunt Lil’s box were like this. The remnants of small moments in her life that stayed with her forever. Proof of a thumbprint on her soul.
It’s amazing how someone can touch you, even if you only know them for a moment in time. How they can change you, alter you indelibly.
Daniel had altered me. I was already better for knowing him. Which made leaving him all the more bitter.
I pulled away and wiped at my eyes, and Daniel looked at me gently before taking my hand again.
When we got to the VFW, there was a sign out front that said CLOSED FOR PRIVATE PARTY. Daniel stopped me at the door. “Okay, so I need to warn you about something.”
“What?”
“I wasn’t totally honest getting you here. They wanted me to keep it a secret. There’s a little thing in there for you.”
I pulled my face back. “What thing?”
He didn’t answer me. He just opened the door and led me inside.
The place was packed. It looked like standing room only. And when they saw me come in, everyone started to cheer and clap.
A big sign hung over the bar: THANK YOU, DR. ALEXIS.
I blinked at the room with my hands over my mouth. “Daniel, what is
this?”
Liz, Doreen, Doug, Pops—everyone was here.
Then Emelia and Hannah cut through the crowd. Hannah had the baby in her arms, and I knew instantly what this was about.
Daniel leaned down and whispered in my ear. “Something about the cord was wrapped around the baby’s neck? Emelia had a nurse on a video call through the delivery. She said you saved Lily.”
I started to tear up.
I got thanked often in my line of work. But never by an entire town.
Hannah smiled at me as she approached, and hands were slapping me on the back and people were grinning at me and clapping.
It filled me up. It was like all the things my dad and Neil drained out of me, these people tried to put back. They dropped love and appreciation and acknowledgment into my empty well, one smile and thank-you at a time.
“We just wanted to say thank you,” Hannah said, smiling. “Lily might not be here if you didn’t come.”
I wiped under my eyes. “It was my pleasure to be here.” “Do you want to hold her?” Emelia asked.
I sniffed and nodded. “Can I?”
Hannah leaned in and put the baby in my arms. I pulled the blanket down and looked her over. She was perfect.
I rubbed a knuckle on her little pink cheek. She was almost two weeks old now. She’d probably be getting her first shots soon, and her belly button scab was getting ready to fall off. She was bigger.
This was the one negative side of working in emergency services. Most patients—with the exception of repeat offenders like Nunchuck Guy—were in and out and I never saw them again. I never knew how they did, if they got better, if they got worse. My job was to get them stable and process them to the doctor they needed to see to get well.
Sometimes I did wish I got to see my patients again and again. To see them grow up, stay with them through their lives and witness the changes.
“Are you nursing?” I asked Hannah, talking to her but smiling at the baby. “I brought you some formula if you need it.”
“I am nursing,” Hannah said. Then she lowered her voice. “Actually, I was wondering if I could talk to you about that. My boob really hurts and it’s kinda warm?” She tugged at her bra strap uncomfortably.
I smiled. “I can have a look at it.” Hannah looked relieved. “Thanks.”
I handed Lily back to her mommies, and Daniel took me to a table with Doug at it. The music started playing, and the party got started. It was a buffet spaghetti dinner, and Doreen had made a huge chocolate sheet cake
with Thank You, Dr. Alexis on it. Daniel sat next to me and held my hand on the seat between us.
I felt so…loved. By all of them.
I’d had dinner with my own parents last night and I didn’t feel this loved. They made me feel like crap, actually.
Someone brought me a heaping serving of spaghetti and a salad. Daniel got me a glass of wine and kissed me on the side of the head when he sat back down. The room was alive with laughing and forks clinking on plates, friendly faces looking my way and beaming.
Jake was in the bar. He was wearing his uniform and laughing a little too loud with someone over by the pool table. Something about him rubbed me the wrong way, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Doug leaned in while I was watching Jake. “Can I ask you a question?” I wiped my mouth with a napkin. “Sure.”
“What happened with the delivery?” he asked. “They said the cord was wrapped around her neck and you delivered her right. How did you do it?”
“I somersaulted the baby to keep the cord from tightening.” “Will you show me? How you did it?” he asked.
“You want me to show you?”
“Yeah. I don’t like that I could have messed that up. If it happens again, I want to know how to do it.”
I nodded. “Okay. Sure. Oh, which reminds me, I have a stitch kit I want to give you.”
He lit up. “Really? A kit?”
“Yeah. No more fishhooks and gin.”
Daniel laughed and picked up my hand and kissed it.
Liz made her way over with a Coke for Doug. “Another wine?” she asked me.
“No, I’m good. Thank you.” I smiled.
Daniel nodded at the empty seat next to Doug. “Sit with us.”
“Can’t, I’m on shift,” she said. “Where’s Brian?” she asked, looking around.
“On a date,” Doug said. “Rochester.” Liz’s smile instantly fell. “Oh.”
Daniel looked at his watch. “He should have been back already. Must be going well.”
“Right,” Liz said, looking away from us. “Well, let me know if you guys need anything else.” Her voice had gone flat.
I watched her walk back to the bar. The guys didn’t seem to notice the shift.
“Did Liz and Brian ever date?” I asked.
Doug scoffed. “Nah. He’s not her type. She likes assholes,” he said, talking into his soda.
I watched her wiping down the bar, her smile gone.
“Nobody likes assholes,” I said quietly. “Sometimes that’s just what you think you deserve.”
After dinner, I showed Doug how to somersault a delivery using a rolled- up sweater baby with a phone charger wrapped around it. Then I did a breast exam in the bathroom and prescribed Hannah antibiotics. “Prescribed” being me telling Hal, the pharmacist, who was eating a slice of cake at the next table, what she needed and him walking across the street to open the pharmacy to give it to her.
When I finished, I went looking for Daniel and spotted him leaning on the bar talking to Liz. I stopped and watched him for a moment from across
the room.
This was the place I met him. Really met him. I was sitting on that stool.
He was standing in the same spot. Only everything was different now.
This place didn’t look tired and old to me anymore. I didn’t even notice the worn seats and the mismatched chairs. This bar was the heart of this community, I realized. It was where they celebrated and gathered. And it was where I learned his name. Touched him for the first time. Even the way the place smelled made me feel nostalgic now.
And Daniel wasn’t just some random guy in a bar anymore.
He had become the brightest light in my life, what I looked forward to every day. The man who spent two hours down by a river trying to find me the perfect rock.
He saw me. And I believed him when he said he wouldn’t let me drown. My heart tugged.
And tomorrow morning, I would drive out of this town and never come back. I wasn’t going to see him again. Any of them.
Daniel turned and looked for me, and when his gaze met mine, he lit up.
One of his adorable, dimpled grins, his hazel eyes creasing at the corners.
My heart cracked right down the middle.
He pushed off the bar, closed the distance between us, and slipped his arms around my waist. I was so proud to be the woman here with him tonight. To be his date, the one he chose. It was an honor. Not because he was the mayor or the most handsome guy in the room but because he was the best person in the room.
“Ready to go home?” he asked.
I had to muscle down the lump in my throat. No. I wasn’t ready to go home. But I’d have to.
We said good-bye to everyone and started the walk back.
Before we left, Daniel had walked me around the VFW, showing me the yellowing articles framed on the walls with stories of his family’s contributions to the town. There was the Spanish flu save and the Prohibition story he’d already told me about. Then there was a newspaper clipping, printed by the Wakan Gazette, about Daniel’s great-grandfather John, who started a human chain to lead children out of the schoolhouse to safety during the deadly 1940 Armistice Day Blizzard. His wife, Helen Grant, used the Grant House’s large wood-fired oven and baked off a hundred loaves of bread and sent it with her husband via sleigh along with medical supplies and firewood to every house in town. Neither of them slept for three days. Survivors recounted tears of joy as John arrived with the care packages. Wakan didn’t lose one person.
There was an article about Daniel’s grandfather William, who came to the rescue in 1975 when a fast-moving wildfire threatened to burn down the town. He coordinated a response team and worked through the night to create a firebreak that saved the town before the blaze reached Wakan. Linda, Daniel’s grandmother, took charge of the evacuation efforts and ensured everyone made it to safety. The Grants were the last people to leave.
After the F2 tornado of 1991, William and Linda Grant set up a generator and a soup kitchen in the VFW to make sure everyone was fed during the cleanup. Then they advocated and won when the county wanted to divert the highway in a move that would have decimated the summer tourism. They kept the town clean and proud and safe. They were Wakan’s first and last line of defense, in all things.
There was story after story.
The Grants were groundskeepers, I realized. Humble royalty. They tended to Wakan and its people with the same care that Daniel tended his garden and his house. It was bred into him, like medicine was bred into me. His kingdom was smaller and his legacy was different, but he was tied to his birthright just like I was tied to mine.
It was funny to think that for the last hundred and twenty-five years our two families had existed at the same time, doing the same things they were doing now. The Grants gave their lives to Wakan and the Montgomerys gave theirs to Royaume.
I bet abandoning his calling never once crossed Daniel’s mind.
I felt guilty wishing I wasn’t who I was. I knew the importance of the Montgomery legacy. I knew what I could do with it, how many people it saved, and how much difference it made in the lives of those it served. But I wished it wasn’t mine. I wished it belonged to someone who knew how to use it. I didn’t, and so I couldn’t honor it the way I knew I should.
Everyone would be waiting for me to become something exceptional, do something huge, make my mark. And I had no idea how.
I had a feeling I never would.
“Hey, you want to see something?” Daniel asked, breaking into my thoughts.
“Sure.”
We cut through the park next to the river and stopped at a statue of a man in the middle of the square. Daniel nodded up to it. “This is my great-great- great-grandfather. He founded the town.”
I looked up at the regal bronze figure. The plaque under it said JOSEPH GRANT.
The resemblance to Daniel was eerily strong. The same kind eyes and steady gaze.
Daniel stood there, peering up at it, and I studied the side of his face.
Daniel had to be here when the town needed him. Eventually, he would be needed, just like all the Grants before him. Because hardship was inevitable, and nobody cared more for Wakan than this family. That’s why they’d always risen to the occasion. And that’s why one always had to be here.
He had to be here. And he had to be in that house.
I knew in my soul that’s part of what gave him strength to do what he had to do. A Montgomery working in any other hospital would still be a Montgomery, but it weakened us, made our influence thinner. I had to be at Royaume, and he had to be within Grant House.
I was talking before I even had a chance to think about what I was saying. “If you need the money, I can loan it to you,” I said.
He turned to me and drew his brows down. “What?” “The fifty thousand dollars. I can loan it to you.”
He blinked at me. “You have that kind of money?” he asked. I nodded. “Yeah. I do.”
And it wouldn’t be a loan. It would be a gift. A parting gift.
If he knew I didn’t want it back, he wouldn’t accept it. He was too honorable. But I wanted to do this for him.
Maybe this was the reason I’d driven through this town all those weeks ago. The reason a raccoon ran my car off the road and a handsome stranger had rescued me. Maybe Popeye was right about the town getting what it needed. And it needed Daniel. I couldn’t stand to see him lose his castle, and I could make sure he didn’t. I was probably the only person here who could.
But he shook his head. “Alexis, I appreciate the offer. I really do. But I can’t.”
“Why? You’re working so hard. I have the money. Let me help you.”
He let out a long breath and looked away from me. When his eyes came back to mine, they were steady. “You’re not a bank, Alexis.” He closed the gap between us and slipped his arms around my waist. “But thank you for offering. It means a lot that you did.”
I shook my head. “There were people who helped me to get to where I am, and now I can help you. I wish you would let me.”
But his face was resolved.
I pressed my lips together. “Promise me if you can’t raise the money that you’ll let me loan it to you. Don’t lose your house.”
He let out a resigned breath. Then he nodded. “Okay. I promise.”
But I knew he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t because he wouldn’t take anything from me if we weren’t together.
And after today we wouldn’t be.
He hugged me. Then he started laughing a little. I pulled away. “What?”
He shook his head. “It’s nothing. It’s just I offered you a rock and you offered me fifty thousand dollars.”
I snorted.
“Come on.” He chuckled.
He threaded his hand in mine, and we strolled out of the park onto the moonlit bike trail leading to the Grant House.
The night was beautiful. The walk was lined with apple trees in full blossom. White flowers in the thousands arched over the path and ensconced us in their light fragrance. It was gorgeous and surreal. We made our way slowly, looking up, our hands clasped between us.
Daniel stopped. “Hey, look at that.”
He nodded to a break in the trees at the full moon, framed between cloudy apple branches. It looked bigger than usual. Closer. I stared up at it, and a warm breeze rolled through the canopy and loosened a snowstorm of petals that drifted down around us.
It was like the universe had dipped a snow globe. Only the petals didn’t fall. They floated like dust motes. Flower fairies, twinkling in the moonlight.
“Do you see this?” I said with wonder.
Daniel was looking around, his mouth open. “It’s like…magic.”
It was gentle and ethereal and soft, and they hovered around us, moving in slow motion. Daniel put up a finger to touch one, and the disturbed air swirled the petals like snowflakes in a flurry.
“Have you ever seen anything so perfectly beautiful?” I breathed.
I turned to Daniel. But he wasn’t watching the petals anymore. He was looking at me. “Yes…” he said quietly, holding my eyes. “You.”
Then he slipped warm hands onto my cheeks, and in front of the moon and the heavens and the magic that was swirling around us, he kissed me.
The world stopped turning.
We were suspended in frozen animation. A moment so perfect it couldn’t be real.
And I realized then that it was too late.
I was in too deep. The time to walk away had ended. I think it was over the moment it began.
Wakan and Daniel were planted inside of me and they were growing there, like a garden bursting into life. Roots plunging and anchoring me, vines twisting and flowers pushing from the earth and blooming in my soul, filling me up.
And I never wanted to leave.
Forget wanting to end things. I couldn’t even picture getting in my car tomorrow to drive home. Everything that wasn’t this felt hollow and meaningless. I couldn’t be the one to end it.
It would have to be him.
I’d have to tell him that this was a dead end and let him decide if he wanted to stay the course. I decided this all in a split second of Daniel’s lips on my mouth, everything changed.
He broke away from the kiss, breathless, and looked at me with his hazel eyes. He licked his lips, and his mouth parted like he was about to say something—and then screeching wheels snapped us out of the moment. A police cruiser had skidded to a halt at the end of the block diagonal from us.
The petals turned to stones and they fell.
Liz was in the passenger seat. Jake had the back of her head by the hair. My stomach plummeted.
We watched in horror as he shoved her sideways by the nape of her neck, flung his door open, and stormed around to the passenger side of the car. He yanked her out by the arm, and she fell hard on her knees. “Fucking walk home,” he growled, jerking her up to her feet and dragging her to the side of the road.
He pushed her into the curb and left her there.
It was over in less than thirty seconds, and by the time he was peeling out, we were already running.
Daniel flew to her side. “Liz!” He gathered her up as the sound of wheels on asphalt faded into the distance.
She trembled almost uncontrollably, choking on her sobs. “Let me have a look,” I said, crouching in front of her.
Daniel shook his head. “Jesus Christ, Liz. He’s gonna fucking kill you.” His voice cracked.
“He’s done this before?” I asked.
Liz couldn’t answer. She was trying to catch her breath. But Daniel made eye contact with me and gave me a look that told me everything I needed to know.
Of course Jake had done this before.
Before Neil I hadn’t known about the kind of abuse that could be whispered. But I knew about this.
I saw this all the time. Every day. It came in and out of my ER. And sometimes the ambulances didn’t bring patients. They brought bodies.
I gave Liz a quick once-over. She had road rash on her knees and a little gravel in the palms of her hands. I flexed her wrists for pain. She didn’t have any. I needed to get her home to clean her wounds.
“Daniel, I need to get her back to your house. Should we pick up her car?”
“She doesn’t have one.” Daniel stood and dragged a hand through his hair. “I’m calling the police in Rochester.”
Liz snapped out of her hysteria in a split second. “No! Daniel, you can’t!”
He shook his head at her. “Liz, enough. He’s never gonna stop, we have to do something.”
She looked panicked. “I just need to go home. He didn’t do anything. He was mad, but he didn’t do anything.”
I dipped my head to look her in the eye. “Liz, you’re bleeding. We were here for the whole thing. We can tell them what we saw.”
She looked at me, her eyes wide. “I fell. I fell getting out of the car. That’s all. He didn’t hit me. I just fell out of the car when he was helping me out.”
I wanted to put my face in my hands.
“Is there anywhere for you to go?” I whispered.
Her chest was rising and falling like she was riding the edge of hysteria. “No,” she said. “He would find me.”
We walked Liz back to Grant House. I cleaned her up and checked her over more thoroughly. She had fading bruises on her left arm in the shape of a handprint. Probably from a week or so ago. A healing cut on her neck. One of Doug’s fishhook sutures? She must have been pretty desperate to let him sew her up in such a sensitive area without lidocaine. But going to an urgent care would mean questions and a paper trail.
I didn’t even need to see one to know what an X-ray would show me. Healed fractures. Bones set wrong or not at all because she was afraid to go to the ER—or Jake was. He wouldn’t want there to be evidence.
I gave her some Advil and we put her in the living room with some ice packs for her knees. Then we went to make her some tea.
As soon as we were alone in the kitchen, Daniel wiped a hand down his mouth. “We need to call the police.”
“Are there cameras on that street corner?” I whispered. “Does Jake wear a body cam?”
He shook his head. “No…”
I pressed my lips into a line. “She’s not going to be a willing participant, Daniel. You call the police and you know what she’s going to tell them? That she fell. That he never touched her. It’ll be our word against hers.”
I could see by his defeated expression that he knew I was right. He shook his head. “He’s going to kill her. This shit’s been going on for years. It’s only getting worse. She won’t let us help her, she won’t go to the police.
She fucking defends him, like she deserves it,” he whispered. “Why the hell is she like this?”
“She has battered women’s syndrome. It’s a cycle of abuse, and it’s going to be very hard for her to break, especially with her circumstances. Jake has all the power,” I said quietly. “He’s made sure of it. She doesn’t have a car or anywhere to go. He probably keeps all the money. She may think the police won’t do anything because he’s a sheriff. And she might even be right about that.”
I looked him in the eye. “Believe me when I tell you that there’s nothing you can say to her to make her leave if she’s not ready. If you force her into going, she’ll only come back, and when she comes back, it’ll be worse. And if he catches her leaving…” I shook my head. “The most dangerous time in an abusive relationship is when you leave, because when you do, the abuser has lost control.”
He studied me. “What do we do?” he asked.
“Give her a way to escape. Money, a car, a place to go. So when she’s ready to leave, she can really leave.”
He nodded. “Okay. Okay, I can do that.”
“We need to get her a cell phone. One Jake doesn’t know she has, so she can Google resources, look for an apartment or a lawyer. She can keep it in the safe at work. He cannot know we’re helping her. If he thinks anyone else is involved, he’ll make her cut ties. He might make her quit her job so he can further isolate her, alienate her from her friends. We can help her, Daniel. We can set her up and give her all the tools. But we can’t save her unless she’s ready to save herself.”
But I could tell from the look in his eyes that she wasn’t. And he didn’t know if she ever would be.
I drove Liz home. Neither of us wanted to take her, but when we refused to drive her, she started to walk, and she was in pain. I got the sense she needed to talk and would be more open with me than Daniel, so I didn’t let him come.
Liz and I pulled up in front of her tiny house. The lights were off, and the cruiser wasn’t in the driveway. She said Jake worked until midnight, so we weren’t expecting him.
“Can we just park for a second?” she asked. “I’m not ready to go in there. I just need a few more minutes.”
She was calmer now. She’d cleaned up her face and stopped crying, but she was still visibly shaken. “I need to smoke.”
We went outside and sat on the curb.
I knew Jake wasn’t coming, and he’d likely maintain his good guy façade in front of me even if he did, but I kept checking the street for police lights anyway. It was the first time in my life I was actually scared of seeing them.
Liz pulled out a smashed-in pack of Marlboros from her jacket pocket. She must have fallen on it. When she opened it, loose tobacco spilled out. She picked through it until she found the least damaged cigarette, put it to her lips, and lit it with shaking hands. “I don’t normally smoke,” she said. “Carl left them on the bar. Now I can’t stop.”
Picking up unhealthy habits to cope with abuse wasn’t unusual. I’d done it myself. I did it every time I woke up before Neil to put makeup on. I couldn’t even imagine what else I would have done to escape my reality if I hadn’t escaped it in person.
Liz stared out into the night. “He dragged me out of the VFW parking lot,” she said.
“What happened?”
She blew smoke, holding her elbow by the hand. “It was dumb. It’s always dumb.” She sniffed. “It was about Brian.”
“Brian?”
“He just…he has this thing with Brian. It’s this stupid thing, and he can’t let it go.”
“What thing?”
She took a long drag on her cigarette and blew it out shakily. “We kissed once, when we were fifteen? Me and Brian?” She looked over at me and chewed nervously on the side of her thumb. “Spin the bottle. But you’d think we had some steamy affair by the way Jake acts.” She ashed her cigarette. “After you guys left, I said something about him being smart to open the drive-in to supplement his income, and it went from there.”
I licked my lips. “Liz, I want to tell you something. Something I wish people would have told me once.”
She looked over at me, waiting.
I held her eyes. “I believe you. I can handle anything you need to tell me. You don’t need to protect me from the truth and I’m here to help you in any way I can. It’s not your fault. And you don’t deserve it.”
I saw the words crash over her. Her chin quivered.
There was so much power in those words, I realized. I wondered how much sooner I would have found the strength to leave if someone had been saying those things to me when I needed to hear it—and I’d believed them.
I went on. “When you’re ready to leave, we will help you.”
She sat quiet for a moment. “I can’t,” she whispered. “There’s no way.” “I know it feels like that. Trust me, I do. But you can, and you will. Start
taking the steps now.”
I dipped my head to look at her. “Are you on birth control?”
He’d get her pregnant to trap her. Make her more dependent on him. And she’d never be in more physical danger than she would be when pregnant.
She shook her head. “No. He won’t let me.” She sniffed. “I asked Hal if he could get me the pill, but he said he can’t do it without a prescription. That if Jake found out he’d get his license revoked. I can’t get away for three hours to see a doctor in Rochester. Jake always goes with me, and he never lets me go in alone. Every month I pray for my period—”
“I can prescribe something for you.”
She let out a shaky breath through her nose. “Thank you.” “Liz, I’d like your permission to file a police report.”
She jerked away from me. “What? No!”
“Yes. You should have something on record. You don’t need to have anything to do with it. You can say you didn’t know.”
She shook her head at me, incredulous. “And what do you think this is going to accomplish?”
“They’ll investigate—”
“And then what?” she snapped. “He’s gets fired and gets twenty-four hours in jail before they let him out again? And now I’m more fucked than I already am? He’ll blame me. I already work two jobs, we barely pay the bills, and at least when he’s at work I get a break. Don’t.”
Her eyes begged me.
“Please,” she said. “I know he’ll apologize. I know he feels bad. He always regrets it. Promise me you won’t, Alexis.”
I looked at her, my eyes sad.
If I filed a report against her wishes, she would never come to me with another injury. She wouldn’t feel safe going to anyone. And she was right. Jake would blame her for the investigation, even if she had nothing to do with it.
Jake was like Neil. He couldn’t accept responsibility for himself. It would make things worse for her, and there would be no resolution anyway if she wasn’t going to cooperate. But the idea of not calling the police made me feel like an accomplice to his crime. I didn’t want to be a bystander to this, and I didn’t know what to do.
“Okay,” I said. “I won’t call. But I’d like your permission to document everything that I saw. Let me take pictures of your injuries. And I want you to write down what he’s done.”
“No—”
I put up a hand. “I won’t give it to anyone. I promise. But you need to have this. You might want it one day. We document tonight and then I want you to keep a diary of anything he does from this point on. Anything. If he punches a wall or breaks something, take a picture if your phone is safe and send it to me. Then delete it. If he makes a threat, you write it down. He hurts you, you write it down. And write down anything else that you remember, as far back as you can. You can leave it at Daniel’s, we’ll keep it safe. It could help you in court.”
She studied me for a moment, like she was deciding if she could trust me.
“Okay,” she said reluctantly. “I’ll do it.”
We sat there quietly for a few minutes while she smoked. Then she stubbed out her cigarette and put her chin on her knees.
“What about your family?” I asked. “Do they know?”
She laughed dryly. “They wouldn’t even believe it if I told them. They love him. Every time we go home, he brings my mom flowers. Fixes the hot rod with my dad.” She paused for a moment and wiped her cheek. “I wasn’t always like this, you know. I didn’t grow up seeing this. I know they say if you see abuse it makes you more likely to accept it, but my parents were in
love. My dad didn’t even spank us. All my sisters are in good marriages. My brother doesn’t do this. It’s so embarrassing. I feel like such a failure.” She choked on the last word. “Like if they knew, they’d think I brought it on myself or something, because why else would Jake lose it on me?”
“Yeah, well. I know about that,” I said quietly.
She looked over at me. “Your boyfriend hit you?” “He was emotionally abusive. He still is.”
She shook her head. “But…but you’re so smart…” I scoffed. As if smart has anything to do with it.
I dragged a loose hair on my cheek with a finger and stared out into the street. “I saw this documentary on a tsunami once,” I said. “When it’s coming, it pulls the water away from the beach. Pulls it lower than sea level so the ocean floor is exposed. You can see all the sand and shells and coral, so people go in to look at it. And then the tidal wave comes, and it’s too late to run. It already has you.”
I looked her in the eye. “They lure you in. They make you feel like you’re the best thing to ever happen to them, like you’re the most special woman in the world—like you’re seeing something rare. But that’s the trap. It’s how they get you close enough to drown you. And Liz? Nobody can save you until you’re ready to save yourself.”
