Chapter 6
I went home with Dad.
Not to Ryan’s house.
Not to Diane’s house.
Home.
The small brick house in Nashville where my childhood bedroom still had pale blue walls.
Dad drove carefully because every bump made pain shoot up my leg.
Laura came too for the first two nights.
She said she wanted to make sure I did not answer Ryan’s calls alone.
I wanted to tell her I was stronger than that.
Then my phone buzzed and I reached for it without thinking.
Laura gently took it from my hand.
“See?”
I cried.
She sat beside me.
“It’s not weakness. It’s conditioning.”
Ryan sent flowers.
Dad threw them away.
Ryan sent a letter.
Nora read it first.
He wrote that he loved me.
That Diane was old-fashioned.
That Laura was poisoning me.
That I should remember our vows.
Nora circled one sentence.
If you come home now, we can keep police out of this.
“Not an apology,” she said. “A containment strategy.”
Laura smiled faintly.
“She’s good.”
“She is expensive,” Dad muttered.
Nora looked at him.
“So am I worth it?”
Dad said, “Every terrifying penny.”
The protective order was granted the next morning.
Diane could not contact me.
Ryan could not come near me except through attorneys.
The court also ordered him to surrender financial records.
That was when he panicked.
He called Nora’s office fourteen times.
By evening, detectives found why.
Ryan had opened a credit card in my name.
Diane had used it for medical bills, jewelry, and a cruise.
The cruise photos were still on her Facebook.
May you like
I stared at them.
She had smiled on a ship while I worked overtime to pay what I thought were household debts.
