Page 95 of Stone Vows

“That’s good,” I say, impressed he remembered the sign. “I know you are asking a question about milk, but without an accompanying sign, I’m not sure if you’re asking me if Iwantit or if Ihaveit. We’ll get to that another day. Today I’m going to show you the alphabet. I also have a ton of books you can borrow if you ever want to practice on your own.”

“I know,” he says, stretching his back as if in pain. “I carried them up here a few days ago.”

I laugh. “See, you used body language to get your point across. That’s good. Body language is how you make one sign different just by how dramatically you sign it. For instance, the sign ‘mad’ can also mean ‘really mad’ or ‘furious’ based on bigger gestures and more emphatic body movements. And the difference between ‘happy’ and ‘ecstatic’ would be demonstrated by the amount of joy in your expression when you sign the word ‘happy’.”

Ellie pulls a pen off the coffee table and puts it in her mouth. I take it from her. “No,” I say, closing two fingers to my thumb as I shake my head back and forth and give her a hard stare.

Kyle mimics my sign until he gets it right.

I spend the next half hour teaching him all the letters of the alphabet. Sometimes I have to manipulate his fingers into the proper position. Whenever I touch him, he looks at my face, as if my touch is doing something to him that he can’t quite figure out.

“What’s the sign for ‘friend’?” he asks, at the end of our lesson.

I show him and he signs it back to me. He signs it back to me using crystal clear facial expressions to get his point across. Facial expressions that tell me he’s sorry, but a friend is all he’s willing to be.

The kitchen timer goes off and Kyle hops up to take the Lasagna out of the oven for me. Then he sets the table. Then he gets the salad I made out of the fridge and slices the hot bread, putting it into a basket before he carries it all to the dining room.

I walk into the kitchen and perch on a barstool, mesmerized by watching a man serve me dinner.

He notices me as I regard him. “What was it like with him?” he asks, reading the expression on my face.

I put Ellie in her highchair and grab a few jars of baby food. Then I sit at the table as Kyle dishes me out some dinner. “Pretty much the opposite of this,” I say.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it,” he says.

I take a bite of salad, contemplating what or how much to tell him. The first night I was here, he heard the gist of it. He knows Grant hurt me. But that’s not what he’s asking me now.

“He wasn’t always a monster,” I tell him. “In fact, he was pretty charming in the beginning. We met on spring break in Myrtle Beach when I was nineteen and he was twenty-five. I was a sophomore at the University of Maryland and he was on vacation with a few of his policeman friends.”

I turn my attention to Ellie to give her a few bites. “Yummy carrots,” I say and sign, watching Kyle mimic the gesture in my periphery.

“We hit it off right from the start, spending the entire week together. I remember my friends were so mad at me for going off with this random guy who I didn’t even know. But he made me feel special.” I sigh, berating myself for being so gullible. “My mom didn’t bring home the best role models,” I tell him. “Her boyfriends and husbands treated her terribly. And they treated me like I didn’t even exist. So, when Grant swooped in and made me feel like the most special girl on the planet, I fell for him instantly.

“After I went back to school, he sent me love letters every week. He came to visit me for long weekends in the summer. The next fall, he started flying me to Chicago over my school breaks. He was always giving me gifts,” —I bow my head in shame— “and I was all too eager to show him my appreciation.

“I was young and naïve. I didn’t even realize a cop shouldn’t be able to afford such things. Not an honest cop, anyway. And then when my mom died junior year, he stepped up and paid for me to finish college. He even paid some expenses for Caden, who had earned a baseball scholarship, but was still in need of spending money. Grant took care of everything when I had nothing.”

Kyle puts his fork down in disgust. I think he gets where this is going. “Jesus, Lexi, and then I went and paid for your hospital stay.” He runs his hands through his hair. “When did you realize he wasn’t who you thought he was?”

“When I graduated, there was no home for me to go back to. Mom’s fourth husband, the one she was married to when she died, sold their house and moved away. So, when Grant proposed and asked me to move to Chicago to live with him, it seemed the right thing to do. And it was great for a while. He told me to take my time, plan the wedding, get used to the city before I ran out and got a job. So, I did what he asked.” I shake my head at myself and how stupid I was back then. “I always did what he asked. Right up until a month after our wedding when he found out I’d lined up some job interviews. He didn’t want me to get a job. I told him it was my life and I needed something for myself, apart from him. He didn’t like that very much, so he made sure I couldn’t go to the interviews.”

“How did he make sure, Lexi?” Kyle asks, his hand balling into a fist.

“He said nobody would hire a woman with a messed-up face.”

Kyle violently pushes his chair away from the table. He gets up, walks to the kitchen, and throws his plate into the sink. “Fuck!” he yells, facing the other direction as he braces his arms against the counter.

He takes a few deep breaths before turning around. “By then, you felt like you were trapped.”

I nod. “It took me another two years to build up the courage to leave him.” I look down at my daughter. “It was Ellie. She’s what gave me the courage to leave. I’m not sure I would have if it weren’t for her.”

“I have to ask,” he says, looking curiously at me. “Were you and Grant trying to have a baby?”

I shake my head. “No. In fact, I was pretty opposed to it, which wasn’t a problem considering he didn’t want me to‘ruin my body’with a pregnancy.” I look over at Ellie as she mashes a few Cheerios into her mouth. “It was my own fault, getting pregnant. I used to swim a lot at the local YMCA and I ended up with a bad ear infection. I stupidly didn’t use backup birth control. I didn’t even think about it.”

Kyle looks annoyed. “Your doctor should have warned you that antibiotics can reduce the effectiveness of the pill.”

“Yeah, I realize that now.” I laugh.

---