Page 50 of Good and Gone

“You’ve been to see Eddie?” I ask, knowing by his appearance he’s just come from his father’s.

“Yeah.” He nods, and I notice the smile does not fade. “He had a lot of work he needed help with…”

“I can see that.”

“I guess I should have gone home and showered. But I need to talk to you, and it can’t wait.”

“Are the kids—?”

“The kids are fine.”

“Then what is it? Did they—”

“Everything is fine,” he says, holding his hand in the air. His smile fades. “Relax, okay?”

I roll onto my side, and then sit up in bed. "What time is it?"

“A quarter to six.”

“How’s Eddie?” I ask. “Good?”

“Same as usual.” Tyler stares numbly at his phone as if he forgot what he was looking at and then shoves it into his pocket again. "He says to tell you hello—that he'd come visit, but he doesn't want to intrude."

“You smell like the farm,” I tell him. The scent conjures up all kinds of memories. Early on in our marriage, if we'd had a fight, if it had been a particularly heated argument, Tyler always left and went to his dad’s. He said he needed to remind himself that things could always get worse. He'd come back happier, quieter, a different person. “I miss that place.”

“Not much has changed.”

"My mom said the kids are having a blast staying over."

He gives me a serious look, a look that makes me wonder what he saw on his phone that completely shifted his mood. It’s that or the talk of his father. “We need to talk, Hailey.”

I look out the window again. The sky is a dark navy blue. It has started raining. "I know."

“I'm not going to pretend that I'm not deeply disappointed,” he says. “I feel betrayed that you’d try to take your life. Not only that—I feel hurt and embarrassed.”

“I wasn't trying to betray you, Ty—or hurt you. I was trying to find a way out of this mess.”

Anger passes over his features. “I’ve never known you to be a coward.”

I sigh. My husband has always excelled at reserving his blows until his opponents are most vulnerable. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I don’t either,” he tells me. “But now’s not the time to argue. We have to be thinking about what's next.”

I study the dark blotches of raindrops on the glass pane. "You mean with the pregnancy?"

"No, I mean with us." He stands and slides the chair closer to the side of the bed and sits down. "We have to decide what to do. We have a limited amount of time before this guy comes back for you."

What he’s saying hits me out of the blue. I wasn’t sure Tyler believed me. I still have my doubts about whether heactuallybelieves me, but given I tried to kill myself, I suppose his back is against the wall.

"I'm not going to have the baby," I say. "I don't see how I could."

“Hailey—stop.”

“Stop what?”

“You're on step three when we need to be thinking about step one.” He glances up at the clock. “I think our first point of action should be to—”

I cut him off because I realize what he’s about to say, and this isn’t the time or the place. I should have known this would happen, given his visit with his father. “Our first point of action should be to move away from here. We need to take the kids, and we need to leave. We can live anywhere, just not here.”

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