Chapter Twenty

At four in the morning, I got a call from a county road crew to let me know that the campground had been plowed. Tom could go home. I drove him out there in the darkness, and we said little along the way. I suppose he expected me to talk about when we would see each other again, but I didn’t do that. I knew he had other responsibilities in life and no room for me. He’d given me one night as a woman in the arms of a good man, which was the only thing I’d asked of him. I’d never experienced a pleasure or closeness like that before.

I never would again.

We parted without saying much to each other, but not awkwardly. The situation between us was simply understood. He kissed me, he held me, he got in his pickup truck, and he was gone. I stood there in the empty parking lot for a long time, savoring what I felt inside myself, feeling warm and happy on a cold, black night. The storm had cleared, leaving behind stars. The wind had settled into a perfect stillness. I hummed, I sang. I blew a kiss to the owl, wherever he was.

Then it was time to go home.

I had to rejoin the world, after a night that felt like an intermission from it. I didn’t know if Ben Malloy had taken it upon himself to send the sheriff’s department out to the lake to find Jay’s body, but either way, I needed to change back into my uniform and do everything that I’d failed to do hours earlier. I was ready to take charge of my life and become a deputy again.

It took me an hour to get back to my house. The roads were slippery, but I admit, I was distracted by my thoughts of Tom. I could still smell his presence in the car and taste him on my lips. We’d held hands as I drove. I knew the time we’d spent together would be a jewel I’d remove from a velvet case in my memory for years to come and polish up until it was sparkling and new again.

I got home to a deserted street and darkness. Dawn didn’t break in January until much later. The sweet smoke of the fire we’d made lingered in the air, and the driveway was covered with snow, so I parked on the street. As I walked toward the front door, as I let myself into the house, part of me was still floating. I didn’t turn on any lights. I hung up my coat. I didn’t—and this is important—I didn’t have my gun with me. It was upstairs, where I’d left it with my uniform.

I went into the living room. Blindly, without seeing anything, I gathered up the clothes I’d shed there, as well as the robe and the blanket from Tom. I inhaled the scent of the robe as I held it. So many thoughts raced through my mind: thoughts of Tom, thoughts of my body and the things I’d been missing, thoughts of my job, my childhood, my mother, my father, my brother. The one thing I didn’t think about was the danger I should have remembered. I didn’t think about Ricky. I’d forgotten all about him. At that moment, my husband didn’t exist. I hadn’t left the lights on or checked the lock on the door or any of the windows.

Of course, that was a terrible, terrible mistake.

He came at me from nowhere, an invisible man bursting from the shadows. One moment I had clothes in my arms, and then the next moment I was literally flying through the air as Ricky threw me across the room. I’m not heavy; he had no trouble launching me off my feet. I hit the wall and smashed into a glass picture frame that broke, spraying shards that sliced open my face and arm. Before I even fell, he grabbed me and threw me again, this time full speed into the brick hearth of the fireplace. My head struck stone. Pain erupted like the burn of a flame behind my eyes. I slumped to the carpet, tasting blood in my mouth.

“You whore! You goddamn whore!”

He bent over me, shouting in my face. I was on my back, but I couldn’t focus on the dark shape over me, because I was caught in a tornado of dizziness and hurt. I put up my hands in a feeble effort to push him away, but he twisted my left wrist hard, and I heard the bone snap like a broken pencil. I couldn’t help myself; I screamed in agony. He drove his knee into my chest, making me choke, and then he leaned his whole weight into me. Next he used his fists on my face, over and over, and with each blow, my skull slammed into the floor. He broke my jaw. He broke my nose. Blood from my head ran into my eyes.

I wanted to die to make the pain go away. I begged for mercy, pleading with him to stop.

He just hit me harder.

He hit me and hit me and hit me and hit me until I finally lost consciousness there on the floor. That emptiness was a gift. I had no dreams. I had no awareness of what he was doing to me.

Thank God.

By the time I awoke again, hours had passed. The sun had risen. Outside, it was a beautiful morning, the snow and clouds forgotten. A winter cardinal trilled at the feeder beyond the window. Bright light streamed through the living room and across my body on the floor.

I was alone. The house was silent. Ricky had gone.

Everything in my world was pain; every movement stabbed me like a sharp knife. I tried to push myself up, but I’d forgotten my broken wrist, and my arm collapsed under me as another shiver of lightning seared through my nerves. I lay on my back.

For a long time, all I could do was cry.

Cold air through the chimney chilled my skin. I managed to sit up, swallowing down nausea as my vision spun. My eyes were practically swollen shut, making me squint. I could see just enough to realize that I was naked. My clothes, ripped and torn, lay around me, along with buttons that lay on the floor like acorns. I was completely covered in bruises that made me into a horrible rainbow. Blood had dried on the floor around me and all over my face and chest.

There was so much pain it was hard to isolate any one area, but one thing I knew was that the hurt was between my legs, too, a hurt that went deep inside me. When I touched myself down there, I winced, and I knew what he’d done. That was the final insult. The final humiliation.

I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m so, so sorry to lay this burden on you. I didn’t want to tell you any of this. I thought I could leave it out, thought I could spare you the ugly details, but you have to know the whole truth of what happened that night. You need to know the horror I faced. Otherwise, how can you understand?

That was the night you were conceived, the night that brought you into this world. That’s where your story began.

Were you brought to life in love? Were you the product of those few blissful hours I spent with a man I’d just met?

Or were you born out of a violence that changed me forever?

I don’t know. To tell you the truth, I never wanted to know, never wanted to find out. Maybe I couldn’t bear to hear the wrong answer. I can’t tell you whether your father was Tom Ginn or Ricky Todd. Sadly, you weren’t in my life long enough for me to see the answer as you grew up. The only person I ever saw in your eyes was me. When I held you in my arms for the first time, I saw this perfect, beautiful, miniature version of myself looking up at me.

You were my daughter.

I knew that, I felt that, I sensed the connection we had. I loved you with all my heart, a love that seemed impossible to me because it went so deeply into my soul. I loved you more than I’ve ever loved another human being, then or since. You have to believe that, sweetheart. I loved you.

But I had to send you away.