9. Chapter 9
nine
Afew days later, another trip to the grocery store. Only this time, I’m alone. I left Bowie napping with his Grammy. And instead of going back to the shiny new chain store, I head to Barlow’s, where we shopped all my life.
Maybe loyalty isn’t important to everyone, but it is to me. A few cents higher per item? I’ll support the local business. The parking lot and aisles are empty compared to H-E-B.
Kind of makes my heart hurt for some reason I can’t explain.
Loaded up on all I need, I slide my card into the machine to check out—
“I’m sorry. Your card is declined.” The clerk hands it back to me.
“What?” I look at the screen as I take the card. She’s right. “Okay.” I hand her my credit card. I’m nowhere near my limit.
A minute later, the woman blinks at me. “I’m sorry, ma’am. It’s declined, too.”
That son of a bitch.
I raise my index finger. “Can you hold on just a minute?” Now I’m glad the store’s almost empty, so I’m not holding up other customers as I punch the numbers into my cellphone.
“Bennett Realty—”
“Mercy?” Her real estate office is right around the corner.
“Yeah.”
“I need your help.”
A chair scrapes on her end. “Laurel? You okay.” I can picture her already standing, ready to bolt.
“No.” My throat feels tight, but my voice stays level. “I’m at Barlow’s. Both my cards just got declined.”
A beat of silence.
“Don’t move. I’m not two minutes away.”
“Mercy—”
But she’s already hung up.
I exhale through my nose, slow and steady, the way I’ve had to do so many times with Grant.
The clerk gives me a sympathetic smile that, for some reason, makes everything worse. “Happens more than you’d think,” she says softly. “You’re fine.”
I nod, heat flooding my chest and throat. My hands won’t stop shaking. Sliding my phone into my purse, I rest both palms on the edge of the counter.
I understand why men punch things. I’ve never been this mad in my life.
He didn’t warn me. He didn’t even call. Grant doesn’t care if I can feed our son. He thinks I’ll cave—and why wouldn’t he? I always have before.
He doesn’t know the new me.
The automatic doors whoosh open, and Mercy strides in like she owns the place—sunglasses still on, keys swinging from one finger. “What’s the damage,” she asks the clerk.
“One fifty-five, twenty-seven,” the woman says slowly.
Mercy pulls out her card without blinking. “Run it.”
“Mercy—”
She cuts me a look over her sunglasses. “Not the time.”
“I’ll pay you back.”
A boy at the end of the counter bags the last of my groceries, loading them into the cart.
“We can get those,” I tell him.
“No, ma’am. At Barlow’s, we load the customer’s car.”
They just got my business.
After the kid loads the groceries into my SUV and I slip him my last five-dollar bill, Mercy turns to me with her arms crossed and her jaw tight. “You ready to tell me what the hell is going on?”
“He cut me off.”
“I figured that part out.”
“Two days ago, I told him I wanted a divorce. I should’ve known by the way he reacted that he’d do something like this, but honestly, it never crossed my mind. He must have moved it all when I reminded him I had half of everything.”
Mercy’s expression shifts—less anger, more calculation. Realtor brain. Woman-who’s-seen-some-shit brain. “Okay. We don’t panic. We get strategic.”
“You’re damned right. I’m done being a doormat.”
She opens my driver’s side door. “Laurel, honey… you need a lawyer. Follow me.”
“It’s a hundred degrees, Mercy. I’ve got frozen stuff. Besides, I know a lawyer who absolutely despises Grant Prescott. I’m giving her a call.”
By the time I get the groceries put away, my blood pressure is high enough to erupt like Mount Vesuvius. With Bowie still napping and Mom in one of her many flowerbeds, I find the name I never thought I’d use—the Nashville attorney who can’t stand Grant Prescott.
My hand doesn’t shake this time. I punch the call button.
Her office answers on the second ring.
I tell them who I am and what I need.
Right away, Adrienne Brack is on the line. “Mrs. Prescott?”
Grant bullied one of her clients during a negotiation, and she’s never forgotten it. She told me so at a cocktail party once. Back then, I didn’t know what to say.
Now I do. “I want a divorce.”
“I’ve been waiting for this day,” she says. “We don’t handle divorces, but I can give you the name of a good friend who makes men like Grant Prescott quake in their boots. I take it he’s being a dick.”
I relay the circumstances of my leaving—I’m not hiding our dirty laundry anymore—along with my conversation with Grant and what happened at Barlow’s.
“She’ll take care of you, trust me. Her name is Meredith Blaylock.”
Before Bowie wakes up and Mom gets back inside, I’ve signed the divorce petition electronically, and Meredith is drafting motions for temporary child support, temporary alimony, and a temporary restraining order on all marital assets. She’s also filing to make Grant pay every dime of her fees.
Take that, Grant Prescott.
“He did what?”
That’s the Dabbo Hayes I grew up with. His voice cracks like a whip, and the vein at his temple pulses hard enough to see. He pushes back from the table and stands.
Mom watches silently.
They knew about his cheating the first time. And the second. They didn’t know about the third. Or him cutting off my cards.
I waited until I tucked Bowie in for the night to break the news to both of them.
“That lowlife—” Dad cuts himself off, clenching his jaw so tight the muscle tics. He drags a hand down his face, then points toward the hallway, to the room where my son is sleeping. “You don’t worry. Your mother and I’ll take care of you and Bowie.”
I straighten, holding my chin high—not defensive, just ready for his objection. “I’m going to work, Dad.”
That sends him to the whiskey. “Where?”
“The school district.”
“Doing what?” He asks as he opens the cabinet and grabs the bottle.
“I’ll be a substitute teacher until something permanent opens up.”
He grimaces, shifting his weight, saying over his shoulder as he pours himself a drink, “Substitute teachers don’t make anything. You can work at the bank.”
“Thank you.” I soften my tone, not my stance. “But I’m an educator.” I rest my hand on the back of a chair, grounding myself. “Who knows, maybe I’ll get my master’s so I can be a principal or even superintendent someday. For the first time in my life, I’m making my own decisions.”
He gives me a long, flat stare, his chest rising once, slow, before he throws the drink back. Then he nods—reluctant, heavy, like it costs him something.
His eyes flick to Mom, who nods, saying, “It’s time, Dabbo.”
I try to soften the blow. “Daddy, you made my decisions for me until Grant did. It’s my turn. Do you understand?”
He draws a deep breath, his nostrils flaring, then lets it out through his nose. “Yes. I do.”
He rubs the back of his neck, looks away, then at Mom and back at me. “But don’t come back here and fall in love with that Boone boy again.”
“He’s not a boy.” I pick up a dish towel, fold it, set it down again—anything to keep my hands busy without backing down. “He’s a businessman. And that ship already sailed.”