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A sharp, electric pain shoots down my right leg, which has been happening to me more and more lately. The doctor told me it was something called sciatica, caused by an irritated nerve in my spine.
No, the reason my coat doesn’t close anymore is that it no longer fits over my distended belly. I am nearly eight months pregnant.
He is not, by the way, the father of my unborn child. He’s not my boyfriend either.
Soon, I’m going to be rich beyond my wildest dreams. And it’s all because of the baby growing inside me.
“It’s very selfish of you to bring a newborn into a community that is mostly adults.”
This lady for real? Why doesn't SHE move out then?
But the fact is I did get pregnant at age twenty-two. It was a one-night stand. And up until recently, I didn’t know who the father was.
that’s another weird thing. I often imagine that my baby is speaking to me from within my womb.
Despite the fact that I didn’t recall a wedding band on his finger that night, Simon Lamar was very much married. Not only was he married, but he had two little ones of his own, and he had absolutely no interest in any illegitimate children. Nor did he want his beloved wife of ten years to discover his infidelity—or the press, for that matter.
Simon was very clear about the fact that I was not to receive a penny until the contracts were signed, but then Jackson started showing up with those envelopes containing small amounts of cash, and I assumed Simon changed his mind. But now I wonder if Jackson has been giving me money out of his own personal accounts this whole time.
Dennis works as a skiing instructor upstate at a resort aptly named Snow Mountain. He has loved to ski ever since I can remember. He almost became a professional skier—he’s that good. But then he broke his leg when he was in his early twenties and instead fell into a cushy job working as a ski instructor.
when I put it on at home, I looked a bit like a whale wearing florals.
Lmao
There’s only one person I’ve dressed up for, and it’s not Simon. It’s a man I’ve been seeing quite a lot lately and have become quite fond of, who I’m worried I might never see again after I scribble my name on the dotted line.
It’s a blank. Almost like someone took an eraser to my brain. The only thing I can remember are the nightmares of his face that have been haunting me with increasing frequency.
Did he drug and rape her?
The nondisclosure agreement is the part of this contract that makes me the most nervous. If I sign, I can never tell anyone that Simon is Little Tuna’s father. It won’t be on the birth certificate. I cannot tell a soul—not ever. I won’t even be able to tell my daughter, or else Simon could sue my pants off.
I close my eyes for a moment, and I see his face hovering over me like I do in my nightmares. But this time, it’s different. Instead of just seeing his face, I can also see his naked body. On top of me. And there’s a hungry look in his eyes that terrifies me. No, I manage to say with a tongue that feels like dead weight. I don’t want to. No. No! Simon rolls his eyes. Didn’t you finish your beer? Go back to sleep, Tegan.
Yep he def SA-ed her
Simon’s gaze snaps over to Jackson. “You told me you were handling her.” I feel a surge of disgust for these two men. Simon for what he did to me. And Jackson for trying to cover it up.
I expect the driver to kill the engine, but instead, they flick on their high beams. Bright light floods the car, and all of a sudden, I get an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“I don’t know if the power is still on, but my wife is keeping the fire going, so it’ll be warm.” I feel a sudden rush of relief. “You have a wife?”
“We should put her in the basement.” An alarm bell goes off in the back of my head. “The basement?” Maybe it’s my imagination, but there’s a flicker of fear on Polly’s face, although it quickly vanishes.
there’s another odor that lingers in the room. One that’s hard to put my finger on at first, but then I finally figure it out. It’s the sickening smell of decay. Like someone died down here.
What if this basement was used for a different purpose? What if I am not the first visitor to lie in this bed? I wonder if the last person to occupy this bed made it out alive.
She reaches over to take the glass from me, and that’s when her sleeve slides back to reveal a deep red bruise on her wrist. The appearance of it is shocking. It’s the sort of angry bruise made by somebody clamping their hand around a wrist and squeezing as hard as they can.
But as I search the depth of my handbag, I notice one other thing that’s missing. My pepper spray.
I had thought I’d left my phone behind in the car by accident, but I’m not so sure anymore. I always keep that pepper spray in my purse, and the fact that it’s gone means someone took it out. When Polly was down here talking to me, Hank must have gone through my purse and removed both my phone and my pepper spray.
“I don’t work full-time. Or…at all. Not at the moment anyway. Hank… He wanted me to stay home. He prefers it that way.” An alarm bell is sounding off in my head. Isn’t that what abusive, controlling men do to their wives—force them to give up their jobs so they don’t have their own source of income?
She seems quite upset over what is just a silly game of gin.
I often hear voices coming from upstairs but rarely that loud. Hank is shouting at his wife, and it’s not for the first time. Even with a wall between us, he sounds furious. Polly says something back. I can’t make out her response, but there’s a tremor of fear in her voice that makes me cringe.
I had attributed the sour taste I had in my mouth to our conversation, but now I’m not so sure. Is it possible she slipped something into my lunch, and that’s why I slept so long? Is she capable of doing something like that?
Polly has purple bruises under both her eyes. Hank’s temper is truly out of control. But then she comes closer, and I realize that she doesn’t have bruises under her eyes after all. It was just a trick of the shadows in the room.
When you have children, you’re going to be such an incredible mother.” She freezes in the middle of folding one of the blankets. Her face stiffens but then finally relaxes into a smile.
“But what about the phone lines?” “Still down.” She avoids my eyes when she says it, and I can’t help but wonder if she’s lying. What if the phone lines actually are working? What if the area around their cabin has already been plowed?
a sudden terrible certainty goes through my head: I’m going to die here.
Sadie’s father specifically told me he didn’t want her to come here after school, but I’ve been letting her do it anyway.
“If you light a candle before you chop onions, it burns off the toxins so your eyes don’t water.”
some big merger from a businessman I’ve never heard
Simon?
I notice the angry purple bruise encircling her upper arm. It’s the exact shape and size of a man’s hand.
Hank doesn’t talk much. He doesn’t like to say something if he doesn’t feel like it’s worth saying, and in his opinion, not much is worth saying.
The one silver lining to The Incident that caused me to lose my job is that when my mother was diagnosed with an aggressive breast cancer two years ago, I was able to be there for her.
cell phone echoes through the first floor.
So she does get cell service
My index finger hovers over the words “block this contact.” Then I press it. I’m not interested in talking to Angela again.
“You think I don’t know how you went to the crazy house two years ago? I know. Everyone knows. You’re the last person I want around my kid!”
My husband is not a violent man by nature, but that rule doesn’t apply when it comes to protecting me.
Hank is staring up at me, and it hits me at this moment that my six-foot-four, two-hundred-and-fifty-pound husband is scared. He’s scared of what would’ve happened if he hadn’t come home when he did. He’s scared of what might happen the next time.
“Also…” He shoves his hands into his coat pockets. “I think she’s scared of me.” I nearly laugh out loud at that one. I admit it must have been scary to be stranded in a busted car in a snowstorm and then catch a glimpse of my yeti of a husband coming toward her.
You’ll take good care of my Polly, won’t you? For the rest of my life, he promised. He’d said those same words at our wedding, but somehow it meant more now, at my mother’s deathbed.
She knew about my infertility problems, of course. Aside from Hank, she was the only person who knew all the sordid details. But unlike Hank, she believed that someday, I would get my baby.
