Chapter 22
Ignoring Daniel’s instructions to stay in bed, I made my way downstairs with Mochi perched on my shoulder.
Anxiety churned in my gut. My thoughts wouldn’t settle, just kept darting from one dark corner in my mind to another.
I needed something to do, anything to keep my hands busy.
Even making breakfast felt like a mission.
“You have to get her out of here,” Hudson’s voice warned in a low rumble just as I reached the kitchen door. “A huge storm is coming.”
I stopped cold, staying out of sight.
“And how am I going to do that?” Daniel snapped in a low voice. “I tried. Every day. She refuses to leave.”
“Try harder.”
“Try harder?” His voice rose with disbelief. “Like how, Hudson? Drag her out by her hair?”
Silence followed.
“You kidding me?” Daniel’s voice cracked sharply.
“Daniel. She needs to leave. For all of our safety. Now. By whatever means necessary. Use the storm. Tell her it’s not safe here. It’s a big one. She’ll believe it.”
“She isn’t scared of storms.”
“Then use your dead parents if you have to, and lie like you’ve never lied before. Tell her the storm brings up trauma. That you need to leave. For both of your sakes. She’s getting worse here. Spiraling into darkness.”
“You think I don’t fucking see that?”
“Then do something about it! The police were just here. Use it. With her history, it can’t be that hard to get a judge to declare her insa—”
“Good morning!” Mochi chirped, loud and oblivious.
I moved instantly, stepping into the kitchen with a smile plastered on my face like nothing had happened. The room smelled of sausages and fruit. Hudson and Daniel stared at me, startled, their eyes wide and unsure.
“Good morning,” I echoed, still smiling. “Phew, looks like a big storm is boiling out there.” I nodded toward the window.
Outside, the sky had turned a strange shade of grayish-black. Clouds hung heavy and low, bruised and rolling like they were angry.
I made my way past them to the coffee maker and slipped a pod into place. The machine sputtered to life with a low hum, hissing steam as it brewed. The scent of fresh coffee filled the kitchen, sharp and cozy. Mochi repeated good morning a few more times from my shoulder like the perfect alibi.
“The weather forecast said this storm will be really bad,” I said casually, picking up the mug once the coffee had filled it halfway. I added some milk from the fridge before taking a sip. Bitter. Hot.
Hudson and Daniel exchanged a quick glance. I pretended not to notice.
“Honey, I wanted to talk to you about the storm,” Daniel began.
“Thank God we’re in a house like this,” I cut in, still cheerful. “It feels so much safer inside a real stone building. Was that a generator I saw out back? Does it kick on automatically when the power goes out?”
Daniel ran a hand through his hair. Clearly, he was frustrated.
“It might not be safe out here during the storm.” Hudson jumped in to rescue him. “It would be better if you and Daniel left before it gets really bad in a few hours.”
I waved him off. “That’s sweet of you to worry, Hudson, but I feel pretty safe here.”
“It’s not, Emily,” Daniel said, his voice sharper now.
“Storms out here on the coast can be brutal. And this one’s expected to cause serious damage on the mainland.
If something happens, help could take hours, maybe days, to reach us.
Especially when the waves start crashing over the road that leads back to the mainland. ”
“Rescue could take just as long on the mainland,” I countered.
“We lost power in Maryland once during a storm at my grandma’s house.
It took over a week to get it back. If the rain gets any worse, it won’t be safe to drive on the highway either.
” I nodded toward the window, where the first drops were hitting the glass with soft taps, like the storm had decided to argue on my side.
“You could stay at a hotel in town,” Hudson offered.
“Yeah, we could,” I said lightly. “But why would we do that when we have a solid stone house with a backup generator?”
Daniel moved to the kitchen island and gripped the back of a chair with both hands. His knuckles turned white. “We need to leave, Emily. Remember my parents and what happened to them—”
“I’m sorry, Daniel,” I interrupted, calm but firm. “I know that must be hard for you, but I don’t think I can take on more trauma talk right now. Not with everything I’m already working through. And I don’t like the thought of leaving Hudson here.”
Daniel’s grip on the chair tightened, silent and shaking. “Emily,” he mumbled.
“I’ll be fine,” Hudson said.
“Then we will be too.”
“Emily, we’re leaving the Breakers.” Daniel’s voice now sounded like a threat. Dangerous.
“You can,” I said calmly. “But I’ll stay here.”
“Emily,” Hudson tried again, his tone anxious. “Please listen to Daniel. It’s really not safe here during a storm like this.”
“I think it’ll be fine.” I met his eyes and held his gaze. “Or is there something else I should know?”
Daniel stared down at the table, his jaw tight, his knuckles white against the wood. He looked like he was wrestling with something that didn’t want to come out.
“Daniel,” Hudson warned.
Something shifted. I didn’t know exactly what, but I felt it.
It was the crack of an opening. I knew my husband.
He was hiding something. The question was: Was he trying to protect me, or was he trying to protect others from me?
Was I the danger in this house? The one no one wanted to be trapped with once the storm cut us off?
I stepped forward, my eyes still locked on Hudson. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”
Nobody answered.
Hudson’s gaze stayed on Daniel. “Daniel, don’t,” he said.
Daniel shook his head. He seemed torn up by thoughts burning behind his eyes.
“Emily,” he said, sounding like a man confessing something dark.
Like cheating. Or worse. Something that might get him killed if he said the wrong thing.
At this point, anything felt possible. The woman in the basement.
Or maybe I really was some violent lunatic.
Maybe I stabbed dogs. Maybe I’d hurt someone next.
A deranged woman, like the ones in movies with titles that give the twist away.
Silence fell over the room. Even Mochi was quiet.
“Emily,” Daniel said again. His voice cracked.
“No,” Hudson warned. “You can’t. It’s too much.”
This seemed to hit. Daniel turned his head slowly, then looked right at me. “We . . . need to leave,” he finally said. Clearly hiding what he was really about to say.
At that simple sentence, something inside me snapped. Maybe because it meant I was no longer someone whom my husband trusted with the truth. Or maybe I was just at a breaking point.
Either way, it felt like betrayal.
“I’ll stay.” That was all I said. Short. Cold.
Daniel stared at me like I’d smacked him.
“Goddamn it, Emily!” he suddenly screamed.
In a burst of rage, he grabbed the kitchen chair and hurled it across the room. It slammed into the cabinets with a deafening crash. Doors flew open. Cups shattered as they hit the tile floor, exploding into countless white shards.
Mochi launched off my shoulder, his feathers hitting my face as he took off into the hallway.
My heart heaved into my ribs. The whole thing felt like a scene from a domestic violence movie.
What. The. Fuck.
Who was this man?
I stared at him, stunned, barely breathing.
In an instant, his body language shifted. His hands flew up, palms out, like he was trying to undo what had just happened.
“Honey, I’m sorry, I—”
“Fuck off,” I said and stormed after Mochi.
If this was his idea of keeping me from going full Jane Eyre attic woman and burning the place down, it wasn’t working. I was shaking with rage. But beneath that, I felt heartbreak.
How could he?
He was all I had left—him and my bird. And now it felt like even that was slipping away.
“Mochi?” I called out, my voice soft and sweet—the kind of sweet that was fake as hell because I was one second away from crying.
“Monster,” Mochi answered from somewhere down the hall. “Monsters. All of them.”
I followed the voice into the library and spotted him on one of the bookshelves. He was too high for me to reach. His message was clear: Stay away.
“You’re right,” I said quietly, reaching out my hand anyway. “That was bad. Really, really bad.”
Down the hall, Daniel and Hudson were arguing again. Their voices came in waves, but I tuned them out.
“Come here, Mochi,” I whispered.
“Monsters,” he repeated, pacing along the shelf like a frantic little sentry. His feathers puffed. His eyes darted. He was scared.
“It’s me, Mochi,” I tried again.
He slowed, pausing to look at me.
“Monsters,” he said once more, robotic and unsure.
“I know,” I murmured. “But I’m not a monster, Mochi. I’m Mommy.”
The second I said it, doubt cracked through me like a hairline fracture. Was that even true? What if I was the monster who hurt dogs? The reason they wanted to leave and sent Tara away.
“I’m not a monster,” I repeated, my hand still stretched out toward him. Then I pulled it back slightly. My fingers curled. I felt like a liar.
“Or am I?” My voice barely came out. My eyes searched Mochi’s. “Am I the monster, Mochi? Did I hurt Rascal?”
He stared at me, head tilted.
It hurt. Because in that moment, I truly didn’t know what his silence meant. Animals sensed things. They just knew.
But then, like a beam of sunlight cracking through clouds, Mochi launched off the shelf and landed gently on my hand.
“I love you,” he said. “I love you.”
He was just a bird, sure, and maybe he loved me anyway, even if I was a monster. Maybe he loved me the way animals did, without conditions, without questions. Always forgiving.
But for a moment, I felt like the old Emily again.
“Let’s go, Mochi.”
I set him gently on my shoulder and headed upstairs toward the bedroom. My feet felt heavy, but I knew what I had to do.
It was time.
Time to find out who I really was.
And the only people I knew who could help me weren’t anywhere near the Breakers.
They were hundreds of miles away, in Florida, where they’d moved after my dad had inherited a trailer from a distant, childless aunt.
Before I realized it, I was sitting on my bed, the door shut and locked: a Daniel-free zone.
Mochi flew into his cage on his own, fluttering to the little mirror and pecking at the seed-stick like nothing had happened.
I held the phone in my hand. The number was one I’d memorized years ago. I’d almost dialed it a hundred times. A thousand.
But this time, I pressed call and put it on speaker.
The phone rang.
“Hello?” my mother answered, her voice raspy with the smoker’s cough I remembered from childhood.
“Hello?” she asked again.
Another moment passed. It stretched and wavered. I could still back out.
“Emily. It’s you, isn’t it?”
Another cough.
“Yes, Mom,” I finally said before she could hang up. “It’s me.”