19. Carrie
— ? —
Carrie
The next day crawls by in a blur of doctors and tests and hushed conversations.
Tom drifts in and out of consciousness, each waking moment a little longer than the last. The doctors say he’s doing well, better than expected, given the severity of the burns.
They’re optimistic about his recovery, though they warn that skin grafts might be necessary, that physical therapy will be required, that the scars will be permanent.
I don’t care about the scars. I just want him back.
My parents have been in and out, bringing coffee and food that I barely touch.
Eleanor came by this morning with a lawyer, talk of pressing charges, of restraining orders, of making sure Ulises can never hurt us again.
I nodded and signed where they told me to sign, but none of it felt real.
And none of it has teeth yet: no arrest, no signed order, my statement about the fire taken down with the polite blankness police give a woman they half-suspect is imagining things.
On paper, Ulises is still my husband, still free to walk into any hospital in the city.
Martha hasn’t returned. My father told me she left the city, went to stay with a cousin in Seattle, trying to get away from the fallout. Good. I hope I never see her face again.
It’s late afternoon when I finally can’t take it anymore.
The hospital room is suffocating. The beeping monitors, the antiseptic smell, the constant fear that Ulises is going to walk through that door again, it’s all too much. I need air. I need space. I need five minutes where I’m not watching Tom breathe and praying he doesn’t stop.
Don’t leave this room, Tom said. Promise me.
I promised. But the courtyard is only twenty feet from the hospital entrance. I can see his window from there. I’ll just be a minute.
I slip out of the room and down the hall, past the nurses’ station where no one looks up, past the elevator bank and through the automatic doors.
The courtyard is small, a few benches, some struggling flowers, a fountain that’s been turned off for maintenance, but the air is fresh and clean, and I gulp it down in greedy mouthfuls.
Just a minute. I’ll only be a minute.
I walk to the edge of the courtyard, near the trees that line the parking lot.
The sun is warm on my face. Birds are singing somewhere overhead.
For one brief moment, I can pretend that everything is normal.
That my husband isn’t a monster. That the man I love isn’t lying in a hospital bed with burns covering a third of his arm.
That I’m not pregnant with a child who might never know their father if...
The hand closes over my mouth before I can scream.
“Don’t make a sound.” Ulises’s voice is in my ear, his breath hot against my skin. “Scream and I’ll hurt the baby.”
I freeze.
His other arm wraps around my waist, pinning my arms to my sides. He’s strong, stronger than I remembered, and he’s pulling me backward, toward the parking lot, away from the hospital.
No. No no no.
“That’s it. Nice and easy.” His voice is calm now, controlled, worlds from the wild-eyed madman in Tom’s room. “Just keep walking. We’re going to take a little drive.”
I try to struggle, but his grip is iron. I try to bite his hand, but he anticipates it, pressing harder against my mouth until I can barely breathe.
Stay alive, I tell myself. Keep the baby alive. Tom will come.
He drags me to a car parked at the edge of the lot, a rental, I think, not the sleek sedan he usually drives. He opens the back door and shoves me inside, slamming it shut before I can scramble out. The child locks are engaged. I pull at the handle, pound on the window, but nothing works.
Ulises slides into the driver’s seat.
“Settle down.” He catches my eye in the rearview mirror. “It’s a long drive. You’ll want to save your energy.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“Somewhere he won’t find you.” He starts the engine. “Somewhere we can talk without interruptions.”
“Tom will come for me.”
“I’m counting on it.”
The car pulls out of the parking lot. I twist in my seat, watching the hospital disappear behind us, watching my last chance of rescue fade into the distance.
Tom. Please. Please wake up.
We drive for hours.
I lose track of the turns, the highways, the mile markers.
He doubles back, takes exits and abandons them, driving like a man making certain no one could ever follow, until a trip that should take minutes has swallowed the whole afternoon.
Ulises doesn’t speak. He just drives, his eyes fixed on the road, his jaw clenched so tight a muscle jumps in his cheek.
Every few minutes he glances at me in the rearview mirror, making sure I’m still there, still compliant, still too scared to try anything.
I keep my hands pressed to my belly.
Please, I think. Please let the baby be okay. Please let Tom find us. Please let this not be how it ends.
When we finally stop, it’s dark outside.
The motel is on the edge of nowhere, a shabby two-story building with a buzzing, half-dead vacancy sign and a parking lot empty except for two other cars. A place where no one asks questions. A place where people disappear.
Ulises drags me out of the car and into a room on the ground floor. He throws me onto the bed and locks the door behind him, pocketing the key.
“Now.” He turns to face me, and he’s almost calm now. A calm that scares me more than the madness did. “We’re going to have a conversation.”
“About what?”
“About what you owe me.”
“I don’t owe you anything.”
“You owe me everything!” The calm shatters. He’s pacing now, running his hands through his hair. “I gave you everything, Carrie. A home. A name. A life. And you threw it all away for my brother.”
“You gave me nothing but misery.”
“Misery?” He laughs. “You had everything a woman could want. Money. Status. Security. And what did you do? You complained. You cried. You made everything about babies and fertility and your broken fucking body.”
“My body wasn’t broken. The doctors said.”
“I don’t care what the doctors said!” He spins on me, and there is nothing controlled left in him.
“You ruined me. Do you understand that? By noon the whole city had seen what you put in front of them. My grandmother called to tell me she is cutting me out of the will, that I am not welcome in the house I grew up in, and then she hung up on me like I was a stranger who knocked on the wrong door. My own mother will not pick up the phone. Every friend I have stopped being my friend before lunch.” His laugh has nothing human in it.
“Forty years of being the Donnelly who mattered, gone in a single afternoon. Because of a story you invented in a hospital bed.”
“You lost everything because of what you did.”
“What I did?” He moves closer, looming over the bed.
“I did what any man would do, stuck in a marriage with a woman who couldn’t give him what he needed.
You think you’re so special? You’re not.
You’re ordinary. Forgettable. The only thing remarkable about you is your ability to make everyone feel sorry for you. ”
“If I’m so ordinary, why did you refuse to give me the divorce?”
That stops him. His mouth works, but nothing comes out.
“You could have let me go,” I continue, my voice steadier than I feel. “When I asked for the divorce, you could have said yes. You could have walked away, married Martha, started over. But you didn’t. You said I belonged to you. That I’d never be free.”
“Because you’re mine.”
“I was never yours. Not really. Not the parts that matter.”
His hand connects with my cheek before I can react.
The slap sends me sprawling across the bed, my face burning, tears springing to my eyes. I taste blood, I’ve bitten my tongue, and for a moment all I can do is lie there, stunned.
“Don’t.” His voice is quiet now. Dangerous. “Don’t push me, Carrie. You won’t like where it leads.”
I push myself up slowly, my hand pressed to my stinging cheek. “What do you want?”
“I want you to sign over the divorce settlement. Everything. The money, the assets, all of it.”
“That money is mine. From before we were married.”
“I don’t care. Sign it over, or...” He stops, his eyes dropping to my belly. “Or I start with the baby.”
Ice floods my veins.
“You wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t I?” He crouches down so we’re at eye level, and there’s nothing human in his expression. “I’ve already lost everything, Carrie. My reputation. My family. My brother. What’s one more thing?”
“Ulises.”
“Sign the papers.” He stands and pulls a document from his jacket pocket, tossing it onto the bed beside me. “Sign them, and I’ll let you go. You can run back to Tom, have your baby, live your pathetic little life in whatever shack he builds for you. All I want is what’s mine.”
“And if I refuse?”
He smiles. “Then we wait for Tom to come looking for you. And when he does...” He pulls out his phone. “Let’s make sure he knows the stakes.”
He snaps a picture of me, bruised cheek, terrified eyes, hands pressed protectively over my belly. Then he types a message and hits send.
“There. Now he knows exactly what happens if he brings the cops.”
“What did you say?”
“Come alone. No police. Or I start with the baby.” He pockets the phone and moves toward the door. “I’m going to get some supplies. You stay here. Think about what you want to do.”
The door opens, closes, locks.
I’m alone.
I curl up on the bed, my arms wrapped around my belly, and let the tears come. Everything hurts, my face, my heart, the terror clawing at my chest.
Tom, I think. Please. Please come.
Somewhere in that hospital, I know his phone is buzzing. I know he’s seeing that picture, reading that message. I know he’s going to come for me, because that’s who he is. Because he promised to protect me.
I just have to survive until he gets here.
My hands press tighter against my belly.
“It’s okay,” I whisper to the baby growing inside me. “Your daddy is coming. He’s coming for us.”
I just pray I’m right.