8. Scarlett
— ? —
Scarlett
I start packing at midnight.
Just the things that matter. Josie’s clothes, her favorite blanket, the stuffed horse she can’t sleep without. My clothes, enough for a week. My mother’s saddle, the one thing I brought to this marriage that was truly mine.
Ines finds me in the closet.
“Mrs. Cooper.” Her voice is quiet. Careful. “What are you doing?”
“Packing.”
“I can see that.” She stands in the doorway, her robe pulled tight around her. “Where are you going?”
“Lucy’s.” My sister, in Dallas. The only person in the world who warned me about Beck Cooper and loved me anyway when I didn’t listen. “Just for a few days.”
“Does Mr. Cooper know?”
I pull a sweater off a hanger. Then another. “He will.”
Ines is quiet for a long moment. Then she says, “I heard what happened. With the radio.”
“Everyone heard what happened.”
“I’m sorry.”
I stop packing. I turn around and look at her, this woman who has worked for the Cooper family for thirty years, who has seen everything and said nothing, who knew about Camille and Salt Fork before I did and couldn’t find the words to tell me.
“Are you?”
She flinches. “Mrs. Cooper…”
“You knew.” I don’t say it with anger. Just this hollow exhaustion that makes my bones feel heavy. “You knew he was going out there. You knew about Camille. You knew, and you didn’t tell me.”
“It wasn’t my place.”
“Whose place was it, Ines? Whose place was it to tell me my husband was spending half his time with another woman? His mother’s? His? Because they sure as hell weren’t going to do it.”
She doesn’t have an answer. I didn’t expect one.
I go back to packing. Ines watches from the doorway for a while longer, then disappears. I hear her footsteps on the stairs, heading down to the kitchen. Probably to make coffee. That’s what Ines does when she doesn’t know what else to do.
By two in the morning, I have three bags packed and sitting by the bedroom door. Josie’s things, my things, the saddle. That’s it. That’s all I’m taking from two years of marriage.
I go downstairs to write the note.
The kitchen is dark except for the light over the stove. I find paper in the junk drawer, a pen in the cup by the phone. I sit at the counter, in the exact spot where Beck lifted me up and made me forget what I was asking, and I write.
You said it on the radio so I’ll say it on paper.
I don’t know what you feel about me either.
Taking Josie to Lucy’s. Don’t send Manny.
I read it, it’s not enough. It doesn’t say everything I want to say, all the hurt and the anger and the betrayal. But I don’t have words for that.
I put the radio next to the note. The one from my office, the one that’s been sitting on my desk for two years, the one that let me hear exactly what my husband thinks of me.
Then I take off my ring.
It’s harder than I expected. Not physically because it slides right off. But there’s something about seeing it sitting there on the counter, this diamond that cost more than most people make in a year, that makes everything real.
I’m leaving my husband.
I’m taking our daughter and I’m walking out the door and I’m not coming back until something changes.
Maybe not even then.
I go upstairs to get Josie. She’s asleep in her crib, one hand curled under her chin, breathing soft and steady. I stand over her for a long moment and think about what I’m doing. Taking her away from her father. Taking her away from the only home she’s ever known.
But then I think about growing up in this house, with a father who says things like easy keeper about her mother. Growing up watching her daddy fly away to another woman every other day. Growing up learning that this is what love looks like.
I can’t let her learn that.
I pick her up carefully, holding my breath, but she doesn’t wake. Just burrows into my chest, her fist finding my shirt and holding on.
“It’s okay, baby,” I whisper. “Mama’s got you.”
I carry her to the rocking chair in the corner. I sit down with her in my arms and I look out the window at the dark ranch and I wait.
I don’t know what I’m waiting for. Morning, maybe. The courage to actually walk out the door. Some sign that I’m making the right choice.
The hours pass and Josie sleeps. I don’t.
I watch the black window and wait for it to go gray. For first light. For the hour when leaving looks like a decision instead of running.
Morning isn’t what comes.