Page 64 of The Wives of Hawthorne Lane
“He got into a fight. With Lucas Corbin.”
“Corbin? Is that the kid down the block?”
“Yes.”
“Is Sebastian hurt?”
“No, but Lucas is.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“The problem,” Georgina explains, irritation rising in her own voice now, “is that our son hurt someone and he doesn’t seem to care.”
“He’s a boy, Georgina. This is what they do.”
“I don’t think it is, Colin. I don’t think this is normal kid stuff. Sebastian, he’s…so angry. All the time.”
Colin rolls his eyes, pulls a T-shirt over his head. “That’s a tad dramatic. The boy is perfectly fine.”
“He’s not. I’m telling you. He…he pushed me today.”
“Pushed you?”
“I was trying to talk to him about what happened with Lucas and he turned on me. It was like he just snapped.”
Colin looks Georgina over, his eyes scanning her from head to toe. “Well, I’ll have a chat with him if you want, but you seem fine to me.”
“That’s not the point!” Georgina is shouting now, unable to hold back her anger, her incredulousness that Colin isn’t seeing the same warning signs that she is.
“Watch your tone, Georgina.” The words curl from Colin’s lips in an angry growl.
But she can’t rein it in anymore, her anger, her disappointment, her driving need to help the son she’s so bitterly failed. “I’m his mother, Colin, and he put his hands on me! I was frightened of my own son today. We’re destroying him, don’t you see that?”
“I don’t have the faintest clue what you’re raving about. Now this ismyfault?”
Hannah’s words float to the surface, bubbling up from somewhere in the back of Georgina’s mind:Living with a man like that, it does things to a kid.Georgina thought she’d spared them from knowing what their father was like behind closed doors. She thought that this was her own private hell, but now she sees the truth. The evil in him has infested her home—it’s leaked under locked doors, traveled through the walls. Her children were never safe from it; they were raised on it. Steeped in it. And it changed them, harmed them in ways she wasn’t ready to see. Until now.
“Yes, Colin. It is your fault. Your anger, your violence—”
Colin steps toward her, his jaw clenched. “I’ve never laid a hand on those children.” The words are pushed out from behind his teeth.
“You didn’t have to. You damaged them just the same.”
“This is your friend, isn’t it?” Colin’s eyes narrow in anger. “That nosy bitch that moved in across the street. She’s putting all this shit in that stupid fucking head of yours.” He taps her on the temple. “I don’t trust her. This whole friendly-neighbor act. Everyone has something they’re hiding, Georgina. Some are just better at it than others.”
Colin unclasps the silver watch on his wrist. “I saw you with her again, you know. Even after I told you to stop talking to that woman.”
“No.” Georgina shakes her head. “No! I see what you’re doing. You’re trying to manipulate me, to change the subject. You don’t get to twist this around and make it about some perceived infraction of mine to take the focus off you and what you’ve done to this family. I—”
The back of Colin’s hand collides with Georgina’s cheek before she can finish getting the words out. Her mouth fills with something warm, a metallic taste twisting on her tongue. She swallows it down. “Does that make you feel like a strong man, Colin? Does it?”
This time his closed fist lands a blow to her stomach, knocking the air from her lungs.
Georgina doubles over, gasping for breath. She knows she should stop, that she’s outmatched. But there’s more she needs to say. More he needs to hear. She’s feeling emboldened by the pain, the anger she feels toward him, toward herself, for the way they’ve failed their children. It’s as if she’s taking his blows and harnessing their power for herself. It’s been a long time since she stood up to Colin, and now that she’s started, she can’t seem to stop. The words come in a wheeze, but she pushes them out. “Is this the kind of man you want your son to be? Because it’s what you’re turning him into.”
Colin grabs her by the throat, his fingers digging into the pale, delicate flesh. “Shut the fuck up.”
Georgina can’t speak, she can barely breathe, but she shakes her head:No.
