Chapter 3
The paramedics cut my jeans open.
My leg was already swelling.
The pain made my teeth chatter.
One officer photographed the rolling pin.
Another separated Ryan and Diane.
Diane kept insisting I had lunged at her.
Ryan kept saying, “It happened so fast.”
I lay on the stretcher and watched my marriage become a crime scene.
Then Dad arrived.
He came through the door in his old navy coat, face pale, eyes sharp.
When he saw me, something broke in him.
Then it vanished.
He handed a folder to the officer.
“Laura Bennett. Emergency room records. Protective order petition. Police report that disappeared after Diane’s brother spoke to someone at the department.”
Diane whispered, “You had no right.”
Dad looked at her.
“You lost the right to privacy when you put my daughter on the floor.”
Ryan reached for the folder.
The officer pulled it back.
“Sir, step away.”
I was loaded into the ambulance.
Dad climbed in beside me.
He took my hand carefully.
“I should have told you sooner.”
“Told me what?”
He closed his eyes.
“I knew about Laura last month.”
My heart clenched.
“What?”
“I hired an investigator after you called me crying and said Diane controlled your bank card.”
I remembered that call.
I had laughed afterward, embarrassed.
Told Dad I was fine.
I had not been fine.
“The investigator found Laura,” Dad said.
“She’s alive?”
“Yes.”
My breath caught.
“Where?”
“In a long-term rehabilitation center outside Madison.”
The ambulance lights flashed across his face.
“She never abandoned Ryan, Emily. She ran from Diane. Then something happened to her before the divorce was final.”
I swallowed hard.
“What happened?”
May you like
Dad looked at my leg.
“The same pattern. The same excuses. The same son standing nearby, saying his mother only lost control.”
