CHAPTER SIX
SYDNEY
Ipacked the same way I had packed when I left Finnegan.
Quickly. Quietly. Without letting myself think farther ahead than the next thing my hands needed to do.
Clothes for Tyra. Clothes for me. Birth certificates. School records. My driver's license. Cash from the safe. Medication. Chargers. The stuffed rabbit Tyra had finally outgrown but still kept at the back of her closet.
I picked her up before the sleepover started.
"Mom?"
"Family emergency."
She studied my face as she climbed into the car.
At seven, Tyra had already learned too much about adult moods. She did not ask another question until we were back at the house.
I moved through the bedroom Tobias and I had shared for four years and tried not to look at anything for too long.
His reading glasses sat on the nightstand.
A shirt he had worn that morning hung over the back of a chair.
Our wedding photograph stood on the dresser.
I took off my rings.
For a few seconds, I held them in my palm.
Then I set them beside the photograph.
I went downstairs and sat at the kitchen island where Tobias made pancakes every Sunday.
I wrote a note because disappearing without one felt cruel, and I was determined that whatever Tobias had done to me would not decide what kind of person I became.
Tobias,
Tyra and I are safe. I need you to know that first.
I was coming to tell you everything tonight. I heard what you said before I got the chance.
I don't need an explanation right now. I need space, and I need whatever happens next to be something I decide for myself.
Please don't look for us.
I loved you completely.
Sydney
I read the note twice.
My hand hovered at the bottom of the page.
I'm pregnant.
Three words.
I could have written them.
I did not.
The baby was the one thing his parents had not yet managed to touch in my mind. The pregnancy belonged to me for those first hours. I could not bear to hand it over to a man who had just said marrying me might have been a mistake.
I folded the note and propped it against the fruit bowl.
Tyra waited in the car.
When I slid behind the wheel, she looked toward the house.
"Are we coming back?"
The question nearly broke me.
"I don't know, baby."
"Did Dad do something bad?"
I gripped the steering wheel.
"He said something that hurt me very badly. I need time to decide what it means."
Tyra frowned down at her hands.
"He always says sorry when he does something wrong. Remember my volcano?"
I did.
Tobias had knocked over her science project the night before it was due and stayed up until two in the morning rebuilding it with her.
"I remember."
"Maybe he'll say sorry."
"Maybe."
"Then we can go home?"
I reached into the back seat and found her hand.
"Sometimes sorry doesn't fix something right away."
"How long does it take?"
"I don't know."
She accepted that answer with the solemnity only children could manage.
We drove until familiar streets disappeared.
At a gas station an hour outside the city, Tyra fell asleep against the window while I filled the tank.
Cold air hit my face, and for the first time since the Lewis house, tears came.
I cried silently beside the gas pump, one hand over my mouth, until the machine clicked off.
Then I wiped my face, got back into the car, and kept driving.
I had left a man once because staying meant teaching my daughter that love required endurance without limit.
I would not teach her that lesson now simply because this man was richer, kinder, and far more difficult to stop loving.
We spent the first night in a motel.
Tyra woke at two in the morning and crawled into my bed.
"Are you and Dad getting divorced?"
I stared at the dark ceiling. "I don't know."
"My friend Lily's parents got divorced and her dad lives in an apartment with a pool."
"That's useful information."
"She gets two birthdays."
I turned my head. "She does not get two birthdays."
"Two parties."
"That's different."
Tyra was quiet for a while.
"I don't want two parties."
My throat tightened. "Okay."
"I want Dad."
I pulled her closer. "I know."
I wanted him too. That was the first time I admitted it after leaving.
The next morning, Tobias had called eleven times. I listened to none of the voicemails.
I sent one message. We are safe. Please respect what I asked.
His response came almost immediately. I will. I am sorry. I love you both.
I turned the phone face down.
For the next several weeks, I moved carefully. I used money from an account Tobias could not access. I did not expect him to stop me; I needed to know I could support our decisions without asking permission.
Karen entered our life during that period. I met her at a temporary job placement office after she heard me arguing with a clerk about childcare hours.
"You need a sitter?" she asked afterward.
"I need several miracles."
"I can offer one teenage niece and a very nosy aunt."
I laughed. That conversation became a friendship.
When I learned the pregnancy was healthy, I sat alone in the parking lot outside the clinic and cried. I wanted Tobias beside me so badly I almost called.
Then I remembered his sentence.
I put the phone away.
Every month that passed made telling him harder. By the time Patrick kicked hard enough for Tyra to feel it, my silence had become another wall I did not know how to dismantle.
Pregnancy made hiding from Tobias harder in ways I had not anticipated.
Every appointment form asked for the father's information. Every ultrasound made me think of the hand that should have been holding mine.
At twenty weeks, the technician asked whether I wanted to know the sex.
Tyra sat beside me swinging her legs.
"Boy," she announced before the technician answered.
"How do you know?"
"I asked the baby."
The technician laughed.
Tyra was right.
A boy.
I cried in the parking lot afterward.
"Are you sad it's a boy?" Tyra asked.
"No. I'm happy."
"Then why cry?"
"Sometimes happiness has other feelings mixed into it."
She accepted that more easily than most adults would.
We settled on Patrick's name together.
Tobias had once mentioned liking the name during a late-night conversation about hypothetical children. I remembered that while looking through a baby-name book.
For two days I refused to use it because it felt like giving him something when he was absent.
Then I admitted the baby should not lose a name I loved simply because I was angry with his father.
Patrick became Patrick.
That was one of the first ways Tobias remained present despite not knowing it.
I changed my phone number two weeks after leaving.
Before I did, I saved every message Tobias sent.
He never threatened. He never accused me of stealing Tyra or demanded to know where we were.
Most messages were variations of the same thing.
I'm sorry.
I love you.
Please let me know if you need anything.
Tell Tyra I love her.
One message arrived after midnight.
I know you asked me not to look. I'm trying to respect that. I don't know how to live with not knowing if you're okay, but I'm trying.
I read it three times.
Then I changed the number anyway.
Sometimes a boundary hurts both people and still needs to remain.
The first apartment I rented after leaving Tobias was worse than the one above the laundromat and far more expensive.
I took it because the landlord accepted cash and did not ask many questions.
Tyra hated the brown carpet.
"Dad would hate this too," she said.
I nearly snapped at her.
Then I stopped.
"He probably would."
We bought a bright rug from a discount store and covered as much brown as we could.
That became our first attempt at making the new life ours instead of merely temporary.
When Patrick moved for the first time strongly enough that I could see it, Tyra shouted for me to call Tobias.
She forgot for a second that he did not know.
The silence afterward was terrible. I hugged her and apologized for making her carry a secret that belonged to adults.
From then on, I stopped asking her to protect me from questions about him. She was allowed to miss her dad openly.