Breathe the Sky

by Michelle Hazen

  Freedom didn’t come for free.

  She knew that, and she was terrified but willing to pay whatever toll she had to in order to get through this, to convince both Brad and herself that she wasn’t his property anymore.

  “You gonna hit me?” she murmured.

  She honestly didn’t know the answer. She knew he was capable of killing her. But she didn’t know if he would. If the person he was right at this moment would cross that line.

  He ducked his head and stuffed both hands in his pockets, the carefully hoarded therapist receipts making a crumpling sound. “No. I’ve changed, Mari. That’s what this is all about. That’s why I’m here. If you’d spend just a little bit of time with me, I’d prove it to you. No strings, no obligations. If you change your mind and want me to leave, I will.”

  “I want you to leave,” she said without hesitation. “Right now. And if you want to do something for me so bad, pay all the medical bills I racked up from all the times you hurt me,” she said. “That would show me you’ve changed. I still won’t come back, but it would ease my mind to know that other women might be safe from you.”

  She let herself into the apartment, her heart racing in the tiny scrap of a second before the door latched and she flipped the dead bolt. It had been so incredibly risky to face him down on her own. She should have run, screaming for any help she could muster, just in case.

  Mari whipped around, nearly sick with adrenaline and fear and pride, and crammed her eye up to the peephole.

  It magnified the view of everything outside, so she flinched when she saw Brad’s face in the fish-eye view, his eyes beginning to glisten. The cookie sheet bit into her ribs as she tried to lean even closer, to be sure what she was really seeing.

  The first tear broke free and disappeared into the deep creases beside his eyes.

  “Mari,” he whispered hoarsely, his shaking hand stretching toward her until it hit the door between them. He leaned into it, as if he couldn’t quite stand on his own.

  Her throat clamped closed. The last time she’d seen him cry, it was when his father had stabbed him in the hand with a fork, for reaching for the last piece of chicken without permission. He was fourteen.

  She’d comforted him that time, and washed his wounds, but this time she was the one causing his pain. In his slumped shoulders, she could see so clearly the boy he’d been, and the hopeful young man she’d married.

  Her free hand curled around the doorknob, and it wasn’t until she felt the cold metal that she realized she was doing it. She hated when people were upset with her; she couldn’t stand to hurt anyone. She felt sick when his shoulders started to shake.

  It would have been a thousand times easier to turn him down if he’d punched her.

  But then again, Brad knew that. Knew her and all her soft spots. He was using them against her now, as clearly as if he’d used her hair to drag her down the street and into his car. After all, if things had been all bad between them, she’d have left him ten years ago.

  It had never been the threat of violence that held her. It wasn’t as if she was safe even if she didn’t try to leave. Fear, even extreme fear, could be faced. Bones could be healed. Scars could be endured. It was his love that crippled her. And it was the good times that kept her doubting herself until it was almost too late.

  Mari closed her eyes.

  She leaned her head against the door and listened to the quiet huffs of her ex-husband crying on the other side. Slowly, the fingers of guilt eased their grip on her heart. It didn’t really matter if his tears were genuine or calculated. Either way, they were a lure that would only draw her back to a place she never needed to be again.

  When she heard his footsteps shuffle outside, she ducked over to the window to make sure he wasn’t about to take a run at the door. Instead, Brad’s back filled her view, retreating down the sidewalk.

  Holy shit. He’d listened to her. He was walking away.

  She just stared, clutching the cookie sheet to her chest with every emotion of seeing him again catching up all at once.

  She could hardly believe he’d just listen and stay gone, but what if he did? She walked slowly into the kitchen, setting down the cookie sheet with a clang of metal that sounded loud in the empty house.

  The job was over. She and Jack were over. She could move back into her pickup and hike and read and listen to the empty wind until she found more work, but the thought of the solitude she’d once craved now stuck in her throat like a sob. On this job, she’d finally found the friends she’d always wanted, and it had steadied something in her, shifted something about the person she thought she was.

  The whole time she’d believed no one liked her enough to get close, it turned out they were worrying the same about her. She wondered how many other potential friendships she’d let slip away.

  Not only that, she’d stopped feeling guilty for every man who got mad at her, and figured out what was beneath all that shouting: insecurity and fear. For decades, she’d let men like her stepfather and Brad and Rod make her feel like she spoiled everything, and she could never have a home with people she cared about. But she was done waiting for other people’s approval before she could have the kind of life she’d always secretly dreamed of. Probably, it had been there for the asking all along. Just like everything else.

  Mari slipped her hand into her purse, took out her phone, and made the call.

  “Hi, Harriet,” she said. “Have you filled the biologist-in-residence job yet?”

  35

  The Yellow Cottage

  The wind was calm today, the sun gentler than usual. Mari couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day as she threaded her way through the Joshua trees alongside the national park employee.

  “We’re so glad you changed your mind about the position.” Harriet smiled. “It’s been surprisingly hard to fill. We wanted someone with experience with all the desert species we run across here in the park, but all the desert biologists we’ve talked to have been very hesitant to sign the one-year commitment.”

  Mari smiled back. “We’re a nomadic bunch, it’s true.” She nodded toward the yellow cottage. “Do you mind if I take a look around? It’s been a while since I’ve seen the place.”

  “Of course. I’ll be in the office whenever you’re ready to sign the paperwork. Take your time.”

  She waited a second for the other woman to start walking away before she turned to face the cottage. A lizard darted across the porch steps, and she tried to ignore how washed out the place looked in the flat midday light. The last time she was here, it had been nearly sunset, and buttery light had poured out of the windows like a beacon. Now, the glass looked flat and translucent, neutrally gray except where it caught the light of the sun and beamed it harshly back at her.

  Mari ignored the wisp of pessimism and marched toward the steps. It felt odd and fancy to be dressed in her best white shirt, no hard hat or safety vest in sight. Her slacks clung in places her cargo pants never did. One of the other employees must have commandeered the rocking chair since she was here last, because the porch was bare, and narrower than she had thought. The door was unlocked, and opened with only a slight creak. It was clean, though, the stale ghost of Pine-Sol stinging her nose.

  The house was smaller than she remembered, too. It had a nook next to the kitchen with a table and chair, an armchair tucked in a corner that was really too small for it so it partially blocked the doorway. And then the bedroom, a bare mattress standing white and square in the middle of the room.

  Two rooms and silence.

  It was too much like the moment after Brad left Rajni’s apartment, when Mari tried to think of what was next for her, and came up blank. But this was her life now. It wasn’t perfect, no, but it was a good job, and more importantly, a place where she could build a community. It was the first place she’d ever had that could be just hers, and nothing insid
e its walls had to please anyone but herself.

  She headed for the kitchen, determined to recapture some of the daydreams she’d had of pumpkin pancakes and zucchini bread. Crackling brown roast chickens and brownies that were gooey in a way that was nearly impossible to achieve in a solar oven.

  All she found were a few mouse turds in one corner and a skim of dust across the plain Formica counters. The oven was missing one knob.

  Mari stood alone in the center of the room, an odd emptiness growing under her skin.

  This place had represented everything she finally dared to dream of, but now it seemed like the “before” picture in one of her HGTV shows. Before the family moved in with their cozy furniture and made it a home.

  It hadn’t really been the solid walls and electrical plug-ins she’d been hoping for, after all. It had been the soul of a place where there was love, and people, and safety, and a house wasn’t any of those things. It was just a house.

  It was more than what she had now, sure, but it wasn’t enough.

  But what other choice did she have? Her friends were mostly unemployed now, surfing and living on bean burritos, passing time in their trucks and sending out résumés on free Starbucks Wi-Fi.

  Mari reached into her purse, either to call Rajni or maybe to just take a second look at the dancing leprechaun GIF that Gideon had sent her for luck this morning. She wasn’t quite sure yet. But instead of her phone, a tiny square of paper nudged her fingers, and she drew it out. It was the price sticker for Jack’s new seat covers, the ones he’d bought special for their first date.

  Her knees trembled and she sank down onto the armchair in the corner, hardly noticing when dust whooshed out from the cushion. Every time the thoughts rose in her head, she slapped them away, but she couldn’t stop remembering, not really. How bashful he’d been on that first date, with his too-fresh haircut and clean truck, and seat covers with the tags still on.

  She’d stopped herself a thousand times, but she was weak in the moment and she let herself click her phone on and open her pictures. She had only a handful of Jack: working on his bike, climbing a lattice tower. One of his Good Mood Scowls where his eyes were twinkling a little even as he grumped at her for taking his picture. She even had one terribly awkward selfie of them on his bike on their last day off together, both of them with helmet hair, sweaty foreheads, and shy, ebullient smiles.

  A pang twisted in her chest.

  She’d never felt like this about anyone, not even during her most infatuated early days with Brad. That pull to be near Jack, and that settled feeling, like she could truly rest once they were side by side. Not to mention how bold she became in bed, his shyness somehow bringing out her wild side . . . Mari flushed and glanced toward the bedroom, but the bare mattress quelled the heat rising in her veins.

  She clicked off her screen, because it was pitiful to pine like this. He hadn’t wanted her enough to try, and that hurt. The memory squirmed in her belly. Maybe she wasn’t special enough to be worth fighting for. Or maybe she’d been wrong to tell him he couldn’t interfere in how she did her job. She didn’t want to believe those things about herself anymore, but the empty spot where Jack used to be screamed for an explanation. As hard as she tried to tell herself this was his fault, that didn’t feel true, either.

  What felt true was that things shouldn’t have ended between them so fast, and she didn’t quite know how they had.

  Mari flipped her phone over in her hand, feeling its smooth edges. Once, just once, she’d believed that what she wanted was hers for the asking. She’d made the call, and she got everything she’d asked for. But a permanent job and a cute little yellow cottage weren’t actually what she’d wanted after all.

  She wanted a home. And this wasn’t it.

  Maybe if they’d hired Rajni or Hotaka for the botanist position, she’d have felt better, but she doubted it. What she wanted was Jack, peeking shyly around the corner into the bedroom, and grousing about the wiring to hide how much he liked the place. But Jack built things for a living, and this was a national park, set aside from the relentless growth and development of the rest of the world.

  Tears clamped her ribs tight over her lungs, and she hiccupped but didn’t cry. She’d told herself she deserved better, that she wouldn’t chase a man. That if he wanted to talk to her badly enough, he’d find her number. But none of those things mattered as much as holding him again. Making sure he knew that when she told him to get out that night, she’d never meant for it to be for good.

  She’d wanted him to fight for her, but he’d actually shown her more respect by doing as she’d asked when she demanded he give her space. She’d been hurt and expected him to somehow mind-read that she needed space, but also needed reassurance that she meant as much to him as he did to her. She’d been wrong, and the thought of him out there somewhere, lonely and hurting, was harder to swallow than her pride.

  His number was still in her phone, but no semi-awkward phone call could cover everything that had happened since they’d been apart. Or the total insanity of trying to snatch a future together when they were both unemployed and qualified only for the kinds of jobs that moved to a new place every few months. Plus, Jack was the actions-speak-louder-than-words type. Which meant if she wanted to see whether what they had could be repaired, she needed to do it in person.

  Mari grabbed her car keys.

  36

  Scent of a New Life

  “Mari Tucker has never had a room here.”

  The twentysomething kid on the other side of the motel desk had a fat head, a skinny neck, and nose hairs nearly as thick as said neck. Jack figured there ought to be plenty of room inside that head for a brain cell or two, but so far that wasn’t looking to be the case.

  “Not a room for tonight,” he explained patiently. “But before today. Say, last week.” The job had only ended yesterday, but perhaps she’d gotten laid off early.

  The kid clicked the mouse for his ancient desktop computer. Click. Click. Click.

  “Nope.”

  Jack fought the urge to smack his hands down on the counter.

  “Listen, kid, you remember me? Lived here for weeks, gave you more of my hard-earned money than this place deserved?”

  The kid nodded.

  “Well, I happen to know Mari lived here, because I lived here. She was in room 106. Stayed here for months. Probably moved out sometime last week.”

  “Oh! Why didn’t you just say so?” Clickclickclickclick. “Denise Trinity. Room 106, all paid up. She moved out two weeks ago, though, not last week.”

  “Denise Trinity? That can’t be right. Are you sure you didn’t write it down wrong?”

  The kid gave him a disgusted look. “She signed it that way, too, so no, I didn’t write it down wrong every single time she paid her bill.”

  Jack chewed the inside of his lip. There were only a few reasons to use a fake name, and if rule-loving Mari was doing it, it had to be because of her ex. His pulse picked up. Had the ex shown up and she’d had to run? The clerk said she’d checked out right around the same time her phone number had stopped working. Jack had already been to the only phone store in town, but they’d been very protective of her private information. Hadn’t told him a thing, unlike this ass clown.

  Jack grabbed the kid and hauled him halfway across the counter. He yelped. “Hey, that hurts! What’s the—I told you what you wanted!”

  “Ain’t anybody ever told you motel information is private?” he growled. “Don’t you ever—and I mean until your last pitiful day—ever give a lady’s name or information to some asshole who comes in here asking questions about her. This is the kind of place a woman goes to hide from assholes.” He dropped the kid, who slid back to his feet and rubbed his belly from where it had scraped over the edge of the counter.

  The clerk scowled at him. “Don’t go getting pissed at me for telling you when yo
u were the one who asked.”

  Jack threw down one of his business cards. “Call me if you ever see her again, unless you want me to get pissed for real. You hear?”

  “What happened to protecting ladies from assholes?”

  He ignored that and strode out of the motel office.

  Mari had told him not to call her, not to chase her down and try to win her over with persistence. But he knew how uncertain she could be, and there was a good chance she was just too shy to reach out after the blowout they’d had. Jack thought they deserved one more chance, more of one than they’d had in that rushed early-morning phone call after their fight. If he was being honest, he thought he deserved one more chance. He’d never pressure her, though. If she still wanted him to go, after all this time to cool off and think things through, then he’d go.

  But before he gave up, he’d make sure she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was wanted. That he’d do anything and give everything to give her the kind of life she deserved.

  To do that, he needed to find her. He could call the crew, ask them when she’d stopped coming in to work or if they knew where to find her, but he didn’t expect Mari would have confided in any of them. No, he’d wanted to find her on his own and avoid the stomach-curdling embarrassment of telling somebody else she wasn’t speaking to him. But if her ex might be involved, if she might be in trouble . . . he couldn’t wait.

  He pulled out his phone and called the only person who might know how to find her.

  * * *

  —

  Don’t yell.

  Don’t yell.

  Do not yell.

  The reminder pounded through his head with every thump of his boots against the sidewalk as he approached Marcus’s rental house.

  Two days ago, when he’d called and asked for Mari’s new number, Marcus had said no.