“What happened?” Willow asked as she caught up behind me.
I put my head down and walked faster, tripping every now and then on raised bits of grass.
“Ellie—” She reached for my arm and turned me to face her. “What happened out there?”
“We shouldn’t have gone out. He did this. On purpose. He wanted to scare me. Damn him . . . he . . . he knows I’m afraid. Damn him!”
Willow’s gaze lowered over my shaking, wet body. I was smeared with blood. I had to look as drunk as I felt. I probably appeared to her like a loose cannon, a wild madwoman dangerous to my own husband and to myself. Someone you shouldn’t take out on a boat alone because she would cause trouble. They could all see it—that was the message they were getting. That was the message Martin was screaming about down at the launch—Ellie the lunatic. Ellie the psycho. Ellie with an addiction problem. They would all have seen the empty cooler bottles rolling around in the bottom of the boat. And one thing I was learning fast about Martin was that he had pride. Arrogant, alpha-male, chest-thumping pride. And God help anyone who undermined that and made him look foolish. He was the kind of man who blamed his tools or his employees—or his wife—when he got a hook in his neck because he had foul-hooked a fish and screwed up. As nice as he’d seemed back in the Cook Islands lagoon, he actually got off on making me scared.
I took in a deep and shuddering breath and said, “I . . . I’m sorry. I need to be alone right now.”
She eyed me in silence for a moment. Then quietly she said, “Why don’t you come and see me tomorrow, okay? Or whenever. Because you look like you could use someone to off-load on.” She glanced over her shoulder at the small crowd gathering around the Abracadabra at the boat launch, and I sensed her assessing the situation, computing. She turned to face me. “I’m trained, Ellie. I can help.” She paused. “At the least, I can help you get help.”
I stared into her clear eyes and wanted to cry. I wanted to fold myself into her and let her hug me. And just hold me. Like I’d wanted someone to hold me when my mom had died. I missed Dana. I missed my old friends and my old life. I even missed my goddamn father, which was pathetic. Because he’d failed to hug me all those times I’d needed him most after my mom overdosed. I swiped moisture from my eyes with a trembling, bloodied hand and nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
“But you’re okay right now?” Willow asked. “Physically—you’re not injured anywhere?”
I shook my head. My hand wasn’t badly cut. It wasn’t even worth a mention.
She moistened her lips. “How about emotionally?”
Tears suddenly streamed down my face. I didn’t trust myself to speak.
“Let me walk you home.”
I took a step backward, shook my head, and held up both my hands, palms out, and I turned and staggered toward home.
She called out behind me, “Come and see me, Ellie! Or call. Anytime. I mean it—day or night, okay?”
I nodded and kept going.
When I blundered down our driveway, I saw the curtains in the window next door twitch. A shadow moved. That woman in the window again.
Watching.
THEN
ELLIE
I entered through the open garage door, palmed off my Nike ball cap, and threw it into the corner, onto the concrete floor. I kicked off my bloodied sneakers, shucked out of my bloodied and wet windbreaker, and tossed them into a crumpled heap on top of the cap. Breathing hard, I wriggled out of the bloodstained pants and threw the pants onto the pile. Heart thudding in my chest, I marched out of the garage’s side door wearing just my panties and damp T-shirt. The woman watched from the window as I crossed the lawn. I flipped her a finger. She ducked back into the shadows.
Inside the house I marched straight for the wine fridge. I uncorked a top-of-the-line sauvignon blanc and filled a big glass. I gulped down half the contents of the glass, refilled it, then carried the glass and bottle into the living room. I plopped my butt down onto the sofa, drank deeply, topped up my glass again, and reached for the remote. I clicked on a mindless Netflix series and thought of Dana and began to cry. I finished my drink and poured yet another, desperate to get numb, to blunt the images of blood flashing through my brain, to quell the rage in my heart that was tipping me toward violent and heinous thoughts of stabbing Martin to death. I was frightened of myself, of my own mind. My own thoughts. I wanted to hide from me—this terrible me who was emerging like a demon inside my own body.
I considered taking another pill, then recalled I’d left some pills in the pockets of the pants in the garage. I decided against going outside to retrieve them. I refused to allow that freak woman in the window to see me stumble drunkenly over the lawn. Instead, I fetched another Ativan from upstairs, came back down, finished the bottle of wine, opened another, and settled back into the sofa, still in my panties and damp T-shirt. Finally a calm descended on me, and I began to feel as though I could manage myself.
That’s when Martin came in the front door. I didn’t even tense. It was like he was in a time and place removed from my present.
He walked slowly into the kitchen, eyes fixed on me as he set his keys on the granite counter. He stared at the drink in my hand; then his gaze went to the empty bottle on the counter. His mouth tightened. He had a fresh bandage on his neck. I saw another bandage around his arm where the knife had cut him. He
