Page 83 of His Loving Wife

I run to Willow.

I pull her in for an embrace, turning her body so she doesn’t have to see Dan on the floor. Noah is standing in front of his seat, staring at the scene, stupefied. I grab him, forcing him to turn around, too. They whimper against my chest, and for a moment, remind me of much smaller children.

“Vincent!” Andrew scolds. “What did you do?”

“He didn’t leave me any choice,” Vincent says, wiping the knife clean with the edge of his shirt. His eyes land on me. “Kate pulled him into something he had no business being a part of.”

“Why did you do that?” Willow shouts, her voice thick with fury.

Vincent takes a step closer. We all flinch, but he stops just in front of us. His brow is free from any creases.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he says, his eyes bouncing between Willow and Noah, ignoring me. “I promise. Neither of you have a reason to be afraid.”

I pull them behind me, so that I’m now only inches away from Vincent’s face.

“Let us leave. We won’t tell anyone what happened here. We won’t tell anyone we’ve seen you.”

Vincent’s eyes lock on mine, but they’re dark, vacant. I can almost see my reflection in his pupils. The left side of his mouth ticks upward, and he scoffs.

“None of this is about me.” He turns, walking back to the kitchen. “This is about your family.”

I look to Andrew. The expression on his face is hard to read. There’s a mixture of disgust and triumph. Nothing is going to plan, but all these mistakes will be ending soon.

“What is he talking about, Dad?” Noah asks, his voice weak.

“I wanted to come here to protect you,” Andrew says. “To keep us together as a family.”

“The way Vincent kept his family together?” I cut my eyes across the room.

“Everything you’ve experienced the last year, you have to believe me when I say I understand. I was right there with you. With Andrew,” Vincent says. “There was a time when I felt like I was losing my own family. The world was taking them away from me, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. My girls were trying to heal themselves with boys and parties. My wife all but shut me out because her sickness had taken over. And there was nothing I could do about any of it. I couldn’t make my girls see the error of their ways. I couldn’t cure my wife’s disease.

“Then I realized I did have some control. I could do what they were unable to do for themselves. I could put them at peace.”

He won’t say the words, but I know what thatpeacemeans: he murdered his family.

“You’re still here. You didn’t do anything for them, only for yourself. And now you’re trying to justify your actions by encouraging others to make the same horrible mistakes you did.”

“There’s no right or wrong way to make sense of this, Kate.” He raises his hands in front of me. “Each family has their own path. My girls are in a far better place than they were here. I don’t deserve the peace they have now.”

“What the hell is he talking about?” Willow cries.

I shush her, patting her head like I did when she was a child. “You don’t have any business being here,” I say to Vincent. “You think you’re helping Andrew, but you’re not. You’re taking advantage of him, filling his head with ideas he’d never consider on his own.”

Beside him, Andrew stares at the ground.

Vincent looks at him. “Is that true? Do you not want any of this? All I’ve ever tried to do is help you.”

Andrew is silent, then slowly nods. Vincent turns to me again, his face beaming as though he’s won a great debate.

“I know your husband. I’ve been in his very same position, and I’ve had to make hard decisions.” He pauses. “That’s what Andrew is doing now. He’s trying to protect you.”

“If you want to protect us, let us go,” I plead with Andrew.

He stares at that same spot on the ground, as though there’s a sensible response written there, and he can’t yet decipher it. Finally, he whispers, “How am I supposed to go through life with someone I can’t depend on?”

“What?” I ask in confusion.

“That’s what you said to me after Noah fell off the boat.”

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