The Liar

“I didn’t have the money because if I managed to tuck a thousand dollars away, he’d find it, and he’d take it. To invest, he’d say, because I didn’t have a head for money. I had charge accounts, didn’t I, if I wanted to buy clothes or some other toy or outfit to spoil Callie with so I didn’t need cash money. And what was I complaining about, I had someone to clean the place, someone to help with Callie, someone to cook because I didn’t know anything but country cooking. I should be grateful. And I couldn’t take off to Tennessee every time somebody died or got married or had a birthday. He needed his wife home.”

“He cut you off from your family, your friends. He whittled your world right down, didn’t he, and hammered at you to be grateful for it.”

He had, of course he had. She hadn’t seen it happening because it was so gradual—until it was just her life.

“Sometimes I thought he hated me, but he didn’t. He didn’t feel that much for me. The first few months, even the first year, it was exciting and full, and he made me feel so special. I let him run everything. I was along for the ride, and I was carrying Callie and so happy about it. After she came, he . . . it was different.”

She took a breath, let herself settle into it.

“I thought it was different,” she said slowly, “because a baby changes things. He never paid much attention to her, and if I said anything about that, he’d get angry or act insulted. He was making sure she had a good life, wasn’t he? I didn’t want to travel so much with the baby, and he didn’t push. So he was gone a lot. Sometimes he’d come back and things would be good for a while, sometimes not so good. I never knew which it was going to be. I couldn’t anticipate how it was going to be, so I tried to make sure everything was the way he liked it. I wanted my girl to have a peaceful, happy home. That was the most important thing.”

“But you weren’t happy.”

“It was the life I’d made, Emma Kate. The choices I’d made.”

“You chose to be abused.”

Her spine went stiff and hard. “He never laid a hand on me or Callie in anger.”

“You’re smart enough to know that’s not the only kind of abuse.”

Though her tone was brisk, no-nonsense, she kept it low, under the other chatter. Even in a noisy restaurant people often heard what you’d rather they didn’t.

“He made you feel less, feel small and stupid and obliged. And he cut you off as much as he could from people who’d make you feel whole and special and really happy. And from what I’m hearing, he used Callie to keep you in line.”

“Maybe he did. He’s dead now, so it’s over with.”

“Would you have stayed with him, just stayed living like that?”

Frowning, Shelby ran a finger around the rim of her glass. “I thought about divorce—I’d be the first in our family, and that was a weight. But I thought about it, especially when he went on this last trip. It was supposed to be the three of us, a family vacation. A few days in the warm, but when Callie got sick and we couldn’t go, he went anyway. He left us in the awful house the day after Christmas, where I didn’t know a soul, and our girl was running a fever.”

Now she looked up, and some of the bottled rage gleamed out. “He didn’t even say goodbye to her, in case she was contagious, he said. I thought, He doesn’t love her. It’s okay if he doesn’t love me, but he doesn’t love our daughter, and she deserves better. She damn well deserves better. I thought about a divorce, but I didn’t have money for a lawyer, and I thought he had so much money he might go ahead and get the divorce, and what if he took Callie to spite me? I was thinking what to do, how I could do it, when they came to the house, the police. They said there’d been an accident down in South Carolina, the boat, and Richard was missing.”

She picked up the wine now. “He’d called in an SOS, said he was taking on water, and the engine had gone out. They were talking to him, getting the—what do you call it?—bearings or headings or whatever it is, sending out a rescue boat, but they had lost contact.

“They found the boat, all wrecked, and they searched for him, for almost a week. They found some of his things. His windbreaker, all torn up, and one of his shoes. Just one. They found one of the life preservers. They said the boat capsized, and he got washed away and likely drowned. So I didn’t have to think about getting a divorce.”

“If you feel guilty about that, you are stupid.”

“I stopped being guilty about it.”

“There’s a lot more, isn’t there?”

“There’s more, but can this be enough for now? Just enough for right now?” Needing the contact, she reached over to grip Emma Kate’s hand. “I’m sorry for hurting you, and I’m sorry for not being strong enough to stand up for what I knew was right and best. I just . . . God, I need some water.” She glanced around for the waitress, then pushed out of the booth. “Wait!”

When she rushed off, skirting around tables, trying to get through the crowd at the bar, Emma Kate got up to follow.

“Are you sick? The bathrooms are the other way.”