Page 85 of Lady and the Butcher
I stopped walking. The world tilted. Dad’s hand landed at the curve of my arm.
“Who’s that from?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Wrong number.” It was not a lie so much as a plea.
We walked back along the seawall. The Bridge of Lions blinked green. Boats shouldered under her and were gone. The men from the beach were nowhere. Or everywhere. Every man in sunglasses became a threat.
Dad steered us home the long way, past the lighthouse—white-red-white-red, unbothered—and the ice cream shop with a chalkboard that said,FLAVORS: Toasted Coconut, Bourbon Pecan, Forgiveness.
At the cottage he checked the windows, the back latch, the lock with the sticky tendency. He did it like he was watering plants. Ordinary. Necessary.
We sat with the grapefruit and salt, a little ritual we always did when life got too sharp. The juice made my mouth pucker. The salt made it sweet again. Grandpa told a story about falling out of a pecan tree at thirteen and the lightning that hit the ground ten feet from him two summers later, and how “the Lord had a good aim for missing me twice.” He was talking about luck. He was telling me he knew the shape of fear and that it passed through.
After they left, the cottage went quiet, but not empty. Dad turned on the porch light though the sky still held blue. He rinsed the knife. He said, like he was asking if I wanted tea, “Do I need to be worried about a man?”
“Yes,” I said, because it was time to stop insulting him with half-truths.
He nodded like he’d suspected as much. He didn’t ask for a name. He didn’t ask if this man loved me or if I loved him back. He just said, “Then let’s be smart,” and got a second hammer out of the hall closet like that was how love worked in his language.
I showered again because the day felt sticky on my skin. In the back room I stood with my towel clutched and my phone in my hand and typed:
I needed space. I came to my dad’s in St. Augustine. I’m safe. I didn’t tell you because I needed to do one thing without you. I’m sorry. I’m not running from you. I’m trying to find where I end and you begin.
I didn’t send it. The cursor blinked like a heartbeat and I stared until my eyes watered. Then I backed out of the thread and opened another. Stephen.You okay? Darla says you’re gray. Don’t mess with me, I’ll drive you to the dr myself.
Dots. Then:I’m okay. Promise. Just tired.
You sound wrong, I wrote.
He sent back a thumbs-up I hated on sight. I typed,Call your doctor, and he typed,Yes, ma’am, and I felt like I was holding down a lid on a pot that wanted to boil over.
At dusk, Dad went to drop off a cooler at Grandma’s. I was alone in the cottage with the porch light pooling warm and the radio finally settling on Sam Cooke. I told myself to read. I told myself to breathe.
In and out.
A scrape sounded at the back window.
Not the oak. Not the squirrel. Metal against wood. Then the faintest rattle at the screen, like fingers testing.
Every hair on my arms lifted. I stood without meaning to and was halfway to the kitchen before my brain caught up. The kitchen had a drawer with a lot of useless things—rubber bands, matchbooks, a screwdriver that refused to grip—and one useful thing: the big chef’s knife Dad sharpened on Saturdays. I pulled it free and the weight steadied my hands.
The scrape came again. A whisper of fabric. A murmur.
Not one voice. Two.
“Hey!” I yelled before fear could steal my voice. “Get off my porch.”
Silence. Then the ghost of a laugh that wasn’t amused at all.
I backed into the hall with the knife held stupidly at my side and my phone already dialing 9-1-1. The operator answered in a calm that made me love her. I gave the address. I said, “Someone’s at the back window.” She said, “Units on the way. Stay on the line.” I said, “Okay,” and didn’t feel the word land.
Footsteps sounded on the side path—too soft for Dad’s boots, wrong cadence. The knob on the back door twisted once, slow, like a joke.
A shadow crossed the lit square of the window. Another.
Then the front lock turned.
I hadn’t heard anyone on the front porch. The lock turned like a key was in it.
