Chapter 12 The Answer
Summer
I stop at a gas station to pee and refill my coffee.
The first thing I see is the tag.
I stare at the notification for a long time.
I don't open it.
I close my eyes. In through the nose. Hold. Out through the mouth. I count down from five.
I open the post.
Photo one. Wide shot. The whole team at a long table at what looks like The Butcher Block. Sonny at the head. Calloway laughing. Colt next to my father-in-law, laughing too. Cheyenne next to Colt. Hand resting on his forearm. Caption: TIDEWATER CLOSED. CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR DREAM TEAM.
Photo two. Colt with his arm around Cheyenne's shoulder. They are both laughing. He has the smile he doesn't give me anymore.
Photo three. Cheyenne leaning in. Her mouth at his cheek. Could be a kiss. Could be her saying something into his ear. The caption could be anything. The photo says one thing.
Photo four. A bar I don't recognize. Music venue. Dark walls. They are standing close. Cheyenne is tucked under his arm like she lives there.
Photo five. Cheyenne whispering into his ear. His head is bent down to hear her. His eyes are closed.
Photo six. Sonny shaking Colt's hand. Approval shot. Father and son. The handshake my husband has been chasing his whole life. He looks almost ready to cry from relief. I can see it from here, from this gas station.
Photo seven. Cheyenne kissing the side of Colt's head as he laughs.
Photo eight. A limousine. Colt getting into the back seat. Cheyenne falling onto him. His hand on her waist. They are both laughing.
The carousel ends.
I scroll back to photo one. I scroll through them again. I take a screenshot of all eight. I don't know yet what I will use them for. Maybe a lawyer. Maybe to remind myself, later, when I am tempted to soften, exactly what I saw.
I sit in the parking lot of a gas station and I don't cry.
I am not going to cry here.
I am not going to cry anywhere a stranger might think it is about a flat tire.
I call Autumn.
She answers on the second ring. "Where are you."
"On I-95. Coming home."
"Don't go to that house tonight. Stay at my place."
"You've already seen them."
"I've already seen them."
"Are they real?"
"Three locations. The firm's official account. They are real."
"Okay."
"Summer. I mean it. Don't go to that house alone."
"I have to go to the house first."
"For what?"
"For my things. I am not leaving any of it with him."
A pause. Autumn knows me. Autumn doesn't waste her breath telling me to do the easier thing.
"Be careful. I'll meet you there if you want."
"No. I want to be alone for this."
"Call me when you're done."
"I will."
"Summer."
"Yeah."
"You aren't crazy. You aren't reading too much into anything. They are exactly what they look like."
"I've been so stupid Autumn. I'm just done."
I drive the rest of the way to Charleston in silence. I don't listen to anything. I don't roll down the windows. The marsh is dark. The jasmine is in the vents. I need to get a plan together.
I drive home.
***
The house is dark.
His car isn't in the driveway.
I sit in mine for a minute. Long enough to know that I am alone in this. That whatever I do in this house in the next thirty minutes, I will be doing without him there to interrupt, apologize, beg or charm me out of it. He hasn't even come home yet.
He is probably still wherever the limousine took him.
I get out of the car. I unlock the door. I go inside.
***
I go upstairs and get the suitcase down and I start throwing things in it.
I'm not folding anything. I take fistfuls out of drawers and shove them down and when the lid won't close I put my knee on it and force it. The cocktail dresses stay on their hangers. I don't need to look brave for anybody anymore. Cheyenne can do that now.
Laptop. Hard drive. The first edition Jake gave me. The notebook. I grab it and shove it in with the rest. I'll deal with what that means later. I'm not leaving one single thing in this house that he gets to hold and feel warm about.
I'm moving fast. If it's mine and it's in reach it goes in the bag, and if I have to think about it for longer than a second I leave it, because I am not spending one more minute of my life standing in this bedroom deciding what I'm owed.
Then I see the photographs on the dresser and I stop.
I want to put my fist through every one of them.
I want him to come home to broken glass.
And that is exactly why I don't, because broken glass is something he could tell himself a story about.
Crazy. Emotional. She lost it. He doesn't get that.
He gets to come home to a room where nothing is wrong except that I'm not in it.
So I slow down.
I take them off the dresser. The wedding portrait. The one at King's Diner where I'm laughing so hard I look like I'm crying. The beach trip with the stupid hat. I lay them face down in the wastebasket, frames intact, and they don't get to watch me do the rest of this.
I sit at the dresser.
I take off my engagement ring and then my wedding band and I set them next to each other where he'll see them.
I find my yellow legal pad and tear off the top sheet.
I write three sentences.
Guess I got my answer.
My lawyer will be in touch.
Don't contact me. Don't look for me.
I look at the paper. I add one more line.
PS. I left my cocktail dresses in the closet, Cheyenne may need them.
I fold the paper in half. I set it on the dresser between the rings.
I stand.
I look at the room one last time. The bed we picked out together. The dresser. The window. The view of the magnolia I planted our second summer here, that hasn't bloomed yet but will.
I don't say goodbye to the house.
The house didn't do anything.
I pick up the suitcase. The laptop bag. I walk out of the bedroom. Down the stairs. Through the kitchen. Past the patio doors I will never look at again.
Out the front door.
I close it behind me.
I don't lock it.
He can lock his own door now.
***
The porch light is on at my parents'. It is always on. Mama and Daddy leave it on every night because they believe a light left on is a promise. We're here. Come home. The door is open.
I sit in the car for a minute. Two. Three. I watch the porch light through the windshield and I think about the girl who left this house with a boy's ring on her finger and the unshakable belief that love, if you held on tight enough, would never let you fall.
She was wrong.
I knock. Because even though I have a key, it is past midnight, and the knock is a warning. I'm here. Something happened. Brace yourselves.
Daddy opens the door.
Plaid pajamas. He takes one look at my face and his expression does something I have never seen. It empties. Every emotion drains out like water. What's left is something ancient and terrifying. The face of a father calculating who hurt his daughter and what he is willing to do about it.
He doesn't ask.
He opens the door wider.
Mama is in the hallway. Robe. She sees me and she doesn't ask either. She just opens her arms.
I walk into my mother and I shake. Full body. I don't cry yet. The tears are still trapped behind the ice. But I shake. Like a fever. Like something trying to break free.
Mama holds me. Daddy stands behind me with his hand on the back of my head.
Nobody says a word.
***
I make two calls before I try to sleep.
Jake first. He answers on the second ring.
"I'm okay. I'm safe. I'm at my parents'. Don't ask me questions."
Long breath. "What do you need?"
"I need you to know I'm alive. And I need you not to ask me where I'm going next."
"Going? Summer..."
"I'm leaving Charleston. I can't stay. I need you to trust me."
"I trust you. But if he hurt you..."
"Don't. Not now."
"Okay." His voice is rough. "You call me. Anything. Three in the morning. I don't care."
Autumn. The harder call. She'll hear what I haven't said yet.
She answers immediately. "You're at your parents'?"
"Yeah."
"Did you find what you needed at the house?"
"I left him my rings. I left him a note. I left him a wastebasket of pictures."
"Good."
"Autumn. I'm not staying here. I can't be in Charleston while he figures out how to apologize. I'll be at my parents' tonight. Tomorrow I'm gone."
"Where."
"I don't know yet. North. Anywhere I'm not Mrs. Bennet."
A long breath. The sound of someone trying to hold steady for me. "Call me when you stop driving. I don't care what state. I don't care what time. Call me."
"I will."
"I love you, Summer."
"I love you too."
***
I plug in my phone. Set my alarm for five.
I lie in my childhood bed. Same twin mattress. Same quilt Mama made. Same bookshelf full of paperbacks with cracked spines.
I let one thought through the wall.
Eight photos. Posted by the firm where his father is the patriarch and his mother is the queen. They wanted me to see. They wanted me to know.
The thought sits in my chest like a coal.
I don't cry.
I set my alarm.
I'm gone before sunrise.