Chapter 2
How I got home, I don't remember.
I only remember that the whole way I howled out loud—alone, in the car, gripping the wheel until my fingers went numb.
I ran red lights without noticing; at one intersection a car nearly plowed into me, brakes screaming, someone shouting in my window—and I didn't so much as turn my head.
My body drove the car home on its own, down the familiar road.
Carol opened the door for me—I didn't even realize at first that I'd left my keys in the car.
She was saying something, reaching for me, searching my face, but I didn't hear a word; I pushed her away and mumbled, "Go, just go home," and shut the door in her face.
I didn't care. I'd stopped caring about anything.
And then I tore through the apartment, ripped our wedding photo off the wall—him, young, laughing, carrying me in his arms—and wanted to smash it, and couldn't. I stood there staring, shaking.
That man in the photo and the one who, an hour ago, had another woman pinned in a restroom—how could they be the same person? How?
I didn't understand what was happening to me. Later I'd learn the name for it—but that night it just felt like I was losing my mind. Truly, finally losing it.
He came home near dawn. Calm. Sated. A stranger. He hung up his jacket, yawned, walked past the broken cup into the kitchen as if it weren't there. And that calm of his—that was what tripped the last breaker in me.
"Where were you?!" I flew at him from the doorway. "Where were you all night—answer me!"
"Keep it down." He grimaced. "The neighbors—"
"I don't care about the neighbors!" My voice cracked into a shriek. "I saw you! In the restroom! With her! You had your hands on her, you were kissing her, right in front of me—you hear me?!"
"So you saw." He poured himself a glass of water, calmly, like we were discussing the weather. "And now what?"
"'And now what?!'" I choked. "You're cheating on me! Eight years, two kids, and you—!"
"Have you ever once asked yourself—why?" He set down the glass. "Why I can't stand to be home? Take a look at yourself. Look what you've turned into."
"Don't you dare!" I screamed. "Don't you dare turn this around!"
"I gave you two children!" I was shaking. "I didn't sleep for years! I washed the shirts you wore running to them! I kept your dinner warm while you—!"
"There it is," he cut in coldly. "Dinner, shirts, kids. And where in all that is the woman? Where's the one I married? You buried yourself in pots and pans, and somehow I'm the one to blame."
"You—!" I couldn't find the words. "You—!"
"I'm a living man, Leah. I need to be wanted. And for years you pushed me away. So yes—I found it somewhere else. And I'll keep finding it. Get used to it."
"And if you don't like it—leave," he went on in that same level, reasonable tone that made me want to climb the walls.
"Just a reminder: the apartment's mine, the car's mine, the money's mine.
You leave—you leave with nothing, with the kids, into thin air.
And the court, rest assured, gives the children to the one with a home and an income, not to an unemployed hysteric.
So think before you go throwing the word divorce around. "
He said it calmly, like explaining the rules of a game to a child. He was simply bored.
The words ran out. I choked on them, on the air, on the tears. And then I threw myself at him.
Fists, nails—at his chest, his shoulders, his face, wherever they landed. I raked his cheek, saw blood—and didn't stop.
"Would you cut it out, you idiot!" He shook me, then grabbed a fistful of hair at the back of my head and shoved my back into the refrigerator. The door shuddered; the kids' drawings and magnets scattered to the floor.
I still lunged at him. And then he hit me. Backhanded, open-palmed, across the face—once; and when I didn't stop, again. My head snapped sideways, my ear rang, my mouth went salty with blood.
For a second, everything went still. And then it swept over me again, harder.
My legs gave out. I slid to the floor and broke into sobs I couldn't stop.
He stood over me, dabbing his raked cheek with a handkerchief, and looked down at me—with disgust, like at a spill somebody hadn't wiped up.
"See where it got you," he said calmly. "Look at yourself. Certifiable. They ought to lock you up in a ward—and even that'd be too kind."
"I'm pregnant!" I screamed from the floor, gagging on the words. "You hear me?! Pregnant! I was being sick in that restroom while you had your hands on her! It's your baby, yours!"
He didn't even crouch down. Didn't even lean over.
"And what now—am I supposed to drop to my knees?" He stepped over my outstretched legs like they were a sack and opened the fridge above my head. "Get rid of it. Not the time. Last thing I need is another mouth to feed. And knock off the theatrics—you're not on a stage."
Get rid of it. The word split me open, throat to belly.
Just that morning I'd been holding that test in my fist, imagining how happy he'd be, how everything would change. And now the father of my child stood over me and spat out: get rid of it. Like it was a wart.
Something in me snapped for good. I jumped up—I don't know where the strength came from—and grabbed the first thing I could: his shoe by the door.
I hurled it at his back. Missed. A plate shattered on the wall above his head.
I grabbed things off the table, off the shelves, whatever there was, and threw them, threw them, screaming that I hated him, that I'd kill him, that he'd be better off dead, that he could rot along with his whore.
The kitchen became a battlefield: shards, food smeared across the floor, an overturned chair.
He didn't dodge. Didn't shout back. Didn't rush to shake me. He just calmly, without turning around, brushed a shard off his shoulder and walked into the bedroom. And shut the door behind him. And clicked the lock from the other side—softly, neatly. The way you lock yourself away from a rabid dog.
That quiet click finished me more surely than any slap.
"Mom?..."
A tiny, terrified little voice.
I lifted my head. In the kitchen doorway, barefoot, right at the edge of the broken glass, stood Noah. Watching me—his mama, thrashing on the floor, bloodied, monstrous, a stranger. His chin trembled. He started to cry—quietly, helplessly, understanding nothing.
And that was the worst of all. Worse than the slap, worse than the affair, worse than get rid of it. My four-year-old son had seen me like this.
"Stay there!" My voice broke. "Stay, bunny, don't come here, there's glass. Mama's got it."
I crawled toward him on my knees, over the shards, afraid to stand, afraid to frighten him worse. I scooped him up, carried him out of the kitchen, held him tight.
"It's okay," I rasped through split lips. "It's okay, Mama just dropped some dishes. Don't be scared. Don't be scared, baby."
He wrapped his arms around my neck and started stroking my head with a tiny hand—a four-year-old comforting his mother.
The worst part wasn't even that he'd cheated. Or that he'd hit me. The worst part—was that I wasn't going anywhere.
I wiped my face with the back of my hand, smearing blood and mascara.
I stood. Carried the sleeping Noah to bed, tucked him in.
And went to the kitchen—to sweep up the glass.
At half past five in the morning, pregnant, my lip split, I swept the shards of my own life across the floor and swept them into the dustpan.
And that wasn't even the worst night. There was no bottom. The bottom was still waiting for me—and it was far blacker than this.