Morgan left the bathroom. Birdie stood for a moment, alone with what she’d just done. She turned to face herself in the mirror. Her eyes were sunken and her skin dull. She’d been working too much. Doing too much for Tom, she thought.
Her life had become so inextricably woven into the fabric of his, she wasn’t sure where to begin unraveling it. She twisted the knob of the faucet and rolled up her sleeves. She splashed water as cold as she could get onto her face. The sensation grounded her, making her little altercation with Morgan seem far away.
She collected herself and went back out into the hallway. She walked back into Tom’s office and took her seat at the window-side desk that he’d provided for her. She shoved a stack of papers to the side and grabbed her planner, scanning it for any remaining events before the weekend.
Tom was gone. She was alone.
She turned to grab something off of his desk and caught sight of herself in the glass of the lawyer bookcase. At first, seeing the reflection out of her peripheral vision, she’d thought it was Morgan, having followed her into the office. But she recognized herself quickly.
It dawned on her that even though she’d seen that face staring back at her from the mirror all her life, she’d never known what it was capable of—what kind of bile those lips could spew—until just now. She dropped the stack of papers she’d grabbed from Tom’s desk and they spread out like leaves ripped from their tree in a storm.
She wondered what had really happened between Tom and Morgan in that room.
She stared at herself.
And she knew.
Part Three
VANESSA
“Let me go with you,” Ione pleads.
Vanessa’s eyes dart to the door, cracked open just enough that the scream echoes into the room.
Vanessa is on her feet, bolting for the door when Ione stops her. A hand grabs her wrist, twisting, burning the skin.
“Please,” Ione begs.
“No!” Vanessa shouts. “Don’t you think you’ve done enough?”
The question hangs in the air between them with a weight of its own. Ione is stunned into silence and led into remembering. At least she hopes she remembers because there are things Vanessa can never forget.
Ione lets go and Vanessa squeezes out of the narrow slit between the French doors. She turns and secures the lock that Tom installed months ago. Ione’s shadow approaches the frosted panes, growing longer with each step. Vanessa recoils from the door. For a moment forgetting her purpose.
Then Birdie screams again.
She darts to the stairs, grabbing the bannister and swinging around to the steps. She takes them two at a time. At the doorway of the bedroom, she meets Tom. He looks at her, panic-stricken. He pauses just long enough that she takes the lead, opening the door ahead of him. Like a deluge, they pour into the room together.
Vanessa looks at the girl, standing next to the bed, supporting herself on the brass bed frame. Crimson stains the long white undershirt she wears beneath her flannel. It climbs up from just below the girl’s waist. The blood comes not from her shoulder but instead from between her legs.
She looks at her face, contorted with pain. Vanessa rushes to her side and in her haste kicks a piece of the glass from the shattered oil lamp. It tumbles across the floor and Vanessa thinks the girl must have knocked it over getting out of the bed.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
The baby is coming, Vanessa realizes. The baby is coming and there’s no force here that can stop it. No matter what Tom thinks he can do with his will. She grabs Birdie by the arm, supporting her.
“Get back in bed,” Vanessa commands the girl.
“No!” Birdie shrieks.
She bats away Vanessa’s helpful embrace. Tom paces in the corner. Vanessa looks at him. A sheen of sweat covers his brow and darkens the neck of his shirt. He brings a hand to his jaw and rubs it anxiously.
Vanessa wants to roll her eyes. She would if she had the time. But instead she turns back to the girl before her, pregnant and bleeding, about to lose this child and possibly her own life. She looks at Tom.
“We have to do something!”
“I know!” Tom roars, throwing his hands up. He brings them to his face again and runs them down his cheeks, stretching the skin and for a moment looking ghoulish.
Vanessa rushes toward him and grabs his hands.
“Tom,” she says.
He shakes her off.
“Tom!” she shouts.
“No!” he cries back.
Vanessa slaps him with the back of her hand as hard as she can. The ligaments connecting her fingers to her wrist ripple and ache against the bony surface of Tom’s cheek. He reels from the impact and rushes a hand to his mouth. He draws it back, blood staining his fingers.
“Get your shit together,” Vanessa growls at him. “I’m taking her to the hospital.”
Tom staggers backward, suddenly seeming unsteady on his feet.
“Go to the study and call out. Tell them I’m bringing the pregnant girl to the gate in a Jeep. And get me the keys,” Vanessa commands him.
Tom looks at her, his eyes weary. The wear and tear of the last week apparent in all aspects of his appearance. Vanessa wonders if there was any piece of him that thought things could end this way. Weakness reeks out of him like rotten eggs in a lunch pail left in the backseat of a car.
She turns away from him and back to Birdie.
“Go. Now!” she barks.
Tom leaves the room, the door swings back and slams into the wall behind him on his way out. She hears his footsteps scurry down the stairs and into the study below them. She can hear his voice muffled through the air vent, placing the call as she instructed.
She looks around the room
