23. Willow
— ? —
Willow
Four days after the voicemail, when nothing has come of it and we’ve all started breathing again, she shows up.
I’m alone when it happens. Corey ran to the pharmacy for my prescription, the heartburn has been brutal this week, and Mrs. Potts is at lunch.
I’m on the couch with my feet up, reading a baby book and pretending I’m not thirty-four weeks pregnant and exhausted beyond all reason, when the doorbell rings.
I heave myself upright, one hand braced on the arm of the couch, and waddle to the door. The journey takes longer than it should, my center of gravity has shifted so dramatically that every step requires careful planning, and by the time I reach the peephole, the doorbell has rung twice more.
I look through.
The woman on my doorstep is somewhere in her fifties, hard-worn in ways that have nothing to do with age.
Bottle-blonde hair with dark roots growing in, heavy makeup that doesn’t quite hide the lines around her mouth, a smile that shows too many teeth.
She’s dressed in clothes that are trying too hard, fake designer bag, knockoff shoes, a blouse that’s one size too small, and there’s a cigarette tucked behind her ear like a promise of smoke to come.
Dena.
I could pretend I’m not home. I could call Corey, tell him to come back immediately, hide in the bedroom until reinforcements arrive.
That would be the smart thing to do. The safe thing.
The thing any reasonable person would choose when confronted with the woman who spent fourteen years abusing her husband.
Instead, I open the door.
“You must be Willow.” Her smile widens, predatory. “I’ve heard so much about you. My son talks about you like you hung the moon and stars personally. Sweet of him, really. He always was a romantic, even when he was sleeping in my backseat.”
“I can’t say the same.” I don’t move from the doorway, don’t invite her in. “Corey’s told me the truth, all of it, but he never had much to say about who you are as a person. I suppose that says enough.”
Her eyes flicker, surprise, maybe, that I’m not cowering. Good. She expected to find a timid little society wife she could intimidate into submission. She found me instead.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” She tilts her head, affecting concern. “You look like you’re about to pop, honey. You should be sitting down. Resting. Not standing in doorways having uncomfortable conversations.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No. You’re not coming into my house. You’re not meeting my daughter. You’re not getting a single thing you came here for.” I fold my arms over my belly, planting myself more firmly in the doorway. “Say what you came to say and then leave.”
She laughs, a harsh sound like gravel scraping.
“Pretty little thing with a spine. I can see why he likes you.” She takes a step forward, and I hold my ground.
“Fine. Here’s what I came to say: your husband cut off my money.
Money I’m owed, after everything I did for him.
Everything I sacrificed to raise that boy. ”
“Everything you did for him was abuse and neglect. He doesn’t owe you a cent.”
“Is that what he told you?” Another laugh, uglier this time.
“Let me tell you about your perfect husband, princess. Let me tell you about the little boy who used to steal from my purse to buy food because I couldn’t be bothered to feed him.
Let me tell you about the nights I locked him in the car because he was in the way, and he never once complained, just curled up in that backseat with his little blanket and waited until I let him back in. ”
“I know all of this already.”
“Did he tell you the car had wonderful heating? Because it did. State of the art. He was fine out there. Probably more comfortable than he would have been inside, honestly. At least in the car, he didn’t have to listen to…”
“Stop.” My voice cuts across hers, hard enough to stop her cold.
“Stop talking about him like he was an inconvenience you had to manage instead of a child you were supposed to love. Stop trying to make yourself the victim when you’re the one who locked a six-year-old in a car because you wanted to entertain men. ”
“I was doing what I had to do to survive…”
“You were doing what you wanted to do because you didn’t care about anyone but yourself.
You had a child who needed you, who loved you, who would have done anything for one moment of genuine affection, and you threw him away like garbage.
And now you have the nerve to show up on his doorstep demanding payment? ”
Her face has gone ugly now, the pleasant mask stripped away entirely. This is the real Dena, the one who locked a little boy out in the cold and told him it was his fault for being born.
“You don’t know anything about what it was like…”
“I know everything I need to know.” I step forward, into her space, and whatever she sees in my face makes her actually step back.
“I know that your son is the best man I’ve ever met.
I know that he’s spent the last six months tearing himself apart to become better, not for me, not for himself, but for the daughter he hasn’t even met yet.
I know that he’s going to be an incredible father because he knows exactly what kind of father not to be, thanks to you.
And I know that you will never, never, have the chance to poison our child the way you poisoned him. ”
“You stupid little girl.” Her voice has gone venomous.
“You think love is going to be enough? You think he’s not going to turn on you the second things get hard?
I know my son. I know what’s inside him.
He’s got the same darkness I do, the same meanness.
Give it time. Give it stress. Give it a screaming baby and sleepless nights and a wife who doesn’t look the way she used to.
He’ll show his true colors. They always do. ”
“No.” Corey’s voice comes from behind me, cold and steady. I turn to find him at the end of the walkway, pharmacy bag forgotten on the ground, his face carved from stone. “No, I won’t. Because I’m not you. I never was.”
He moves past me, puts himself between Dena and me, a wall of muscle and protective fury.
I can see the tension in his shoulders, the clench of his jaw, but his voice stays level.
Controlled. The voice of a man who’s spent months in therapy learning how to feel his emotions without being controlled by them.
“You need to leave,” he says. “Now.”
“Corey, baby…”
“Don’t.” The word cracks like a whip. “Don’t ‘baby’ me. Don’t pretend you have any claim on me. Don’t act like you ever loved me, because we both know you didn’t. I was a burden to you from the day I was born, and you made sure I knew it every single day of my childhood.”
“I did my best…”
“Your best was leaving me to sleep in a car while you entertained strangers. Your best was making sure I knew I was in the way, unwanted, a burden you couldn’t wait to be rid of.
” His voice doesn’t waver, doesn’t crack.
“I spent my whole life being afraid of becoming you. Afraid that I’d inherited whatever broken thing made you incapable of love.
But I didn’t. I’m not you. I never was.”
He turns to look at me, and his face softens.
“Willow showed me that. Every day, for twelve years, she showed me what love actually looks like. And you tried to convince me I didn’t deserve it, but you were wrong. I do deserve it. I deserve her. I deserve the family we’re building. And I am done, done, letting you make me feel otherwise.”
He turns back to Dena.
“Get out of my house. Off my property. Out of my life. You don’t exist to us anymore.”
For a moment, I think she’s going to fight. I can see it building in her face, the rage, the wounded pride, the desperate need to lash out and hurt someone because she’s been denied what she wanted.
Then her shoulders drop, and the fight drains out of her.
“Fine,” she says, and her voice is different now, smaller, older, almost tired. “Fine. You want to pretend I don’t exist? Go ahead. But when that baby comes and you realize you have no idea what you’re doing, don’t come looking for me.”
“We won’t,” Corey says. “I promise you that.”
She turns and walks down the path, her knockoff heels clicking against the concrete. At the sidewalk, she pauses, looks back.
“You know what the funny thing is?” she calls. “I actually did love you. In my own way. I just didn’t know how to do it right.”
“That’s not funny,” Corey says quietly. “That’s just sad.”
She disappears around the corner. I hear a car door slam, an engine rev, tires squealing as she drives away.
Corey’s shoulders sag. I wrap my arms around him from behind, press my face into his back, feel his heartbeat gradually slowing from its adrenaline-fueled race.
“It’s over,” I murmur. “She’s gone.”
“Yeah.” His voice is rough. “Yeah, she is.”
We stand there in the doorway, holding onto each other, letting the adrenaline drain away. The afternoon sun is warm on my face. The baby kicks against my belly, strong and insistent, a reminder that life goes on even when everything else feels like chaos.
Then I feel it.
A sudden rush of wet heat between my legs. A cramping pain low in my belly that steals my breath and buckles my knees.
“Corey…”
He turns, sees my face, and goes pale.
“What’s wrong? Is it the baby? Willow, talk to me…”
I look down. There’s red on my dress. Not a lot, but enough. Bright against the pale blue fabric, impossible to mistake for anything other than what it is.
“Something’s wrong,” I whisper. “Something’s really wrong.”
The world tilts sideways, and Corey catches me as I fall.