If I don’t stand up to Steve, he will return again and again. And someday he’ll kill me. And maybe them first just to make me suffer for choosing them over him. Which is why I had to go. So he’d see that I didn’t choose them, either.
Jenna stopped, staring at the wall in front of her. Her hands trembled and she drew in shaky breaths. She should never have left the Stand that day. It had been too soon.
She wasn’t ready.
Thankfully her housemates had been out when she’d returned a little over an hour before. She’d avoided the sidewalks that meandered through the property and walked between buildings to get to their bungalow and then come straight to her room.
They’d be expecting her to have dinner with them, though. They’d raided the shelter’s pantry together the evening before, choosing what they needed to prepare a Sunday dinner together. Each of them had chosen a favorite recipe. Her potato casserole, Carly’s parmesan chicken breasts, and Latoya’s dirty pudding, minus the gummy candies because they couldn’t find any.
And while the pantry was there for anyone to take what they needed, Jenna had left money in the donation box from her stash of cash after the other two had left the room. Too many women needed the free facilities offered at the shelter—those who had no money whatsoever because their abusers controlled all of their income. And while The Lemonade Stand had enough to go around, she wasn’t going to take from someone who was more in need.
Now she wished she’d never agreed to the dinner. How on earth she was going to keep up appearances, or be of any benefit to the two women sharing her space who were hurting so badly, she had no idea.
Jenna was strong. Capable. Tonight she just felt broken.
She’d slipped through the buses as soon as Caleb started toward her that afternoon. She’d run as fast as she could without drawing undue attention to herself. And as she’d rounded a corner, heading toward a bus stop she knew of on the next block, she’d tripped and fallen. She was fine. Picked herself up. But not before a police officer had seen. Stopped her and asked if she was all right.
She’d tripped because she hadn’t seen the uneven crack in the sidewalk. Because she hadn’t been able to see much of anything through her tears....
She’d been a fool to go.
And couldn’t afford to be a fool twice.
* * *
“YOU NEED TO EAT, son.” Max sat at the kitchen table with Caleb on Sunday evening. He’d only been able to convince the toddler to sit at the table when he’d moved the booster seat to Meri’s chair.
“Mama,” Caleb said, his eyes big and moist as he glanced at Max. It was the only word the little boy had said since leaving the beach.
“You love hamburgers and French fries,” Max said, pointing to the opened paper wrappings spread in front of Caleb. He had his own disposable container in front of him. And took a bite of a sandwich he didn’t want, chewing on the cardboard-tasting substance, to convince his son that it was the thing to do.
And wondering when Chantel would call. Another day had passed. With Meri still out there.
“After you eat, we’ll go get ice cream,” he said, pulling the words from the pool of desperation settling in his midsection. He’d been an active dad from the moment of Caleb’s conception—eagerly sharing in every part of raising him that he could, from bringing him into the world to midnight feedings, first bath, first everythings....
He’d thought himself fully capable of every aspect of parenting.
He’d never realized how much Meri had done without him even being aware. He’d never realized quite how much her nurturing had filled up their son—and him, too....
He jumped when his cell phone rang, eager for news about his wife.
And then he saw who the caller was.
“Hi, Mom,” he said, answering because he knew she’d worry if he didn’t. “How was your week?”
He patiently half listened as she told him about her doctor’s visit, about his father’s refusal to slow down, and about a country-and-western show they’d seen at the clubhouse of their San Diego resort community the night before.
“How are Meri and Caleb?” she finally got around to asking the question he’d been dreading. He’d been debating what to tell his elderly parents, who’d taken Jill’s death hard. Because they took anything and everything hard if it had to do with their only son—a late-in-life baby that they’d never expected to have.
“They’re fine,” he said. “Busy as always.” And what in the hell was he going to do if she asked to speak with Meri?
“Did you go to the beach today?”
“Yes.”
Caleb was quietly eating his French fries now. Wonder of wonders. So Max continued, “We built a castle and then found things in the sand to serve as fish for the moat.”
“Any new words this week?”
Not unless you considered hearing Mama screeched over and over again with heartache. “No.”
“Dad and I would sure love to see you,” she said next. “It’s been a couple of weeks since you came down and kids grow up so fast....”
“We’ll talk it over and set a date,” he said, hating the lie, and the desperation pushing him into it. If he told his folks Meri was gone, it would be an official part of their family memories.
He wasn’t ready for that.
Or for the myriad questions her disappearance would raise. He didn’t have any answers to give them.
He couldn’t afford to worry about them worrying....
“I know Meri has a client going in for surgery this week and she’ll want to be around afterward, for as long as the recovery takes.”
“Is that the throat therapy she was talking about?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that little girl needs her,” his mother said. “Just let us know and we’ll put you on the calendar,” she said, easily enough.
His mother, who would be eighty on her next birthday, generally went with the flow. Unless she was worried.
And after her bypass surgery the year before, he didn’t want to worry her at all.
He asked about his father. Watched Caleb eat over half of his hamburger, squeezing the bun between his fingers, and getting mustard on everything he touched.
Meri knew how to get mustard stains out.
And the internet would know, too.
Telling his mother he loved her, sending love to his father, and promising to share their love in return with Caleb and Meri, he rang off, hoping against hope that he’d bought himself another week before he’d have to answer to his mom again.
And that by the time that week had passed, his wife would be home to do the answering for him.
* * *
RENEE WASN’T IN Jenna’s group counseling session. Nor was she in the class Jenna had signed up to take on the basics of business management, in an attempt to appear to be a normal resident. Then again Renee didn’t have a husband with his own medical practice who might benefit from the class.
The older woman didn’t have a child who stuttered and so wasn’t involved in Jenna’s first professional sessions at The Lemonade Stand, either.
And yet, over the next couple of days, Jenna saw as much of Renee as she did anyone else, her housemates included.
Renee sought her out. And maybe she sought the other woman out, too.
“I’m worried about the bruise,” she told her new friend as they sat together at the kitchen table in Renee’s bungalow. Renee had three other women living with her, but they had all gone to a fashion show at the main building on Tuesday evening, leaving Jenna and Renee to have a quiet dinner of salad and iced tea together.
Renee glanced at the expanding mark on her forearm, one that was turning a dark red instead of changing to purple and yellows as it healed, and shrugged. “It’ll heal.”
“I think it’s more than a bruise,” Jenna continued. It was the first time she’d seen Renee without sleeves, and only then because the bungalow was warm enough that Renee had taken off the cardigan sweater she’d had on that day. “Brian did that to you, didn’t he?”
Renee’s silence was answer enough.
“When?”
The other woman poked her fork around her salad. Jenna suspected then that the bruise wasn’t healing because it was new.
“You saw him on Sunday, didn’t you?” She’d looked for Renee after her stint at the library. And again later that evening when, after her dinner with Latoya and Carly, she’d felt like taking a walk on her own. The other woman hadn’t been on the grounds as far as she was aware.
Dropping her fork in her bowl, Renee laid her arm on the table with obvious care and looked up. “I called him,” she said. “I asked him if we could meet together with the head pastor of our church.”
From what she’d read, when it came to abusers and victims, attending counseling sessions together wasn’t recommended. At least not in the beginning.
“And?”
“He agreed to meet. I told the pastor what had been going on in our home and asked him to help us.”
Jenna held her breath.
“Brian responded with contrition and shame and asked for a sabbatical from the church so that he could enter an abuse counseling program immediately.”
Renee shifted in her chair and Jenna’s eye fell on that bruise at the same time her heart sank.
Renee’s eyes had filled with tears, though the older woman wasn’t crying. Jenna recognized the look. The pain was there, but buried so deeply it couldn’t be released.
“Thinking that all was well, the pastor left. We’d met in the public park by the amphitheater downtown and....”
She could have filled in blanks. “There were people around. I thought I was safe....”
“What did he do?”
“He grabbed my arm.” Renee was looking at Jenna, but her arm jerked on the table, as though remembering....
“He told me that I was a traitor to him, to his father, and to God. He said that I was evil for trying to come in between him and God’s work. And he said that if I didn’t want to end up in a home for the elderly, I would never, ever embarrass him like that again.
“He also told me that I could expect to pay all of his bills until he could get back to work.”
Glancing at Renee’s arm, Jenna asked, “He did that just by grabbing your arm?”
Renee gently covered her bruise with her free hand. Did she think she could make the problem disappear if she could just stop feeling the pain?
Did Jenna?
“He gave my arm another hard squeeze for each accusation.” Renee’s throat caught on the words. “I felt something snap. I think he may have cracked the bone.”
Jenna’s chair scraped across the floor as she stood up. “We’ve got to get you to the clinic. You need to have that set or it won’t heal properly. It’ll hurt you for the rest of your life. It also might continue to bleed and cause more problems.”
She wasn’t a medical professional, but she was married to a doctor and knew enough to know that Renee’s injury could have serious repercussions.
“I can’t.” The other woman shook her head. “If I go to Lynn, she’ll be under obligation to inform the police and I’m not going to have my son arrested.”
Lynn Bishop—the newly married chief medical officer at the Stand—was a nurse practitioner. Jenna had met her briefly her first day at the Stand. And had seen Lynn and her little daughter Kara walking across campus a time or two. She’d yet to meet Lynn’s new husband, the man apparently responsible for the beautiful grounds at The Lemonade Stand. He and his older brother also lived on the property.
And Renee’s son deserved to be arrested...and worse.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Renee said, her expression ancient, yet calm, as she glanced up at Jenna. “I’m not excusing his behavior, but I know my son. If I have him arrested he’ll only get angrier. And blame me rather than taking accountability for his own actions.
“He agreed, in front of Pastor Johnson, to go through the recovery program. Pastor Johnson will see that he does so. If he’s in jail, that won’t happen. If he’s in jail, he’ll have much less hope of ever getting back to preaching. And if he doesn’t see that as his goal, he’s not going to be influenced by Pastor Johnson....”
Renee had good points. And obviously had given the matter a lot of thought. Clear thought.
“I’m under no illusions where my son’s treatment of me is concerned,” she said as Jenna continued to stand over their half-eaten meal. “But neither can I walk away. He’s my son.”
Jenna had fought too hard and too long to accept that there were options other than leaving. Hope kept you captive.
“Do you have any children?”
The question shot at her out of the blue. Two days after she’d nearly fallen apart at the sight of her son.
And she realized too late that her silence was answer to Renee just as earlier Renee’s silence had been answer to Jenna.
“One? Two?”
With her hands gripping the back of her chair she said, “One.”
“Boy or girl?”
“Boy.”
“Is he safe?”
“Yes.” She answered with absolute conviction. And as long as she stayed away, Caleb would continue to be safe.
“And if he wasn’t, you’d do whatever it took, sacrifice your life if that’s what it took, to try to help him to safety, wouldn’t you?”
Jenna knew by the knowing look in Renee’s eyes that Renee knew she’d won this round. The older woman just had no idea how close to home her words had hit.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“WE HAVE TO get that arm looked at,” Jenna picked her half-eaten salad and bowl off the table and carried it to the undermount stainless-steel sink in the bungalow’s decent-size kitchen. Granite countertops completed the elegant space.
Shaking her head, Renee stood, too, though a bit more stiffly than Jenna had, more stiffly than a woman in her mid-sixties should have needed to, and Jenna figured she was witnessing years’ worth of beatings in the other woman’s slow-to-move body.
Renee’s abuse had to stop. The woman deserved so much better.
“You’ve been at the shelter for how long? Six weeks?”
“About that.”
“And no one knows you saw Brian Sunday.”
“That’s right.”
“So why would the shelter’s nurse have to report an injury sustained while you were apart from your abuser?”
“She’s going to ask what happened.”
“From the way Carly talks about her, I don’t think Lynn will press for any answers that aren’t critical to your immediate safety and physical health.”
After they rinsed their bowls and Jenna helped Renee straighten up the rest of the kitchen, Jenna hung up her towel and looped her arm through Renee’s good one. “Come on,” she said. “I’ll be there with you and I’ll answer anything you can’t.”
Lynn didn’t press Renee for any answers she wasn’t willing to give. She’d gone to the park in town Sunday afternoon and come back with an arm that needed attention, and no, she didn’t need to have the police called. There had been no surprise visits from her abuser. And her injury had been caused by pressure to the arm. She’d gone on to say that perhaps she had osteoporosis, a hypothesis that Lynn didn’t react to one way or another as she x-rayed and taped Renee’s cracked, but not broken, bone.
Lynn’s parting remark, “Make sure you bring up the incident in your session with Sara this week,” was the only indication that she suspected the whole truth wasn’t being told in that
room that night.
Jenna walked Renee home and wondered if any of them would ever live a life free from the secrets they all kept safe.
* * *
MAX PRETENDED TO himself that he was surprised when Chantel showed up shortly after he’d put Caleb down for the night on Tuesday. He’d known his first wife’s best friend was off duty at three that afternoon.
“If you’d said you were driving all this way, I’d have told you not to,” he said in greeting as he opened the door to her.
She came into the house as though she’d been doing so for years, the bag over her shoulder telling him she was planning on staying the night.
“Why do you think I didn’t let you know?” she asked, dropping her duffle bag on the floor of the living room.
“You’ve heard something, haven’t you?”
She nodded. “This afternoon. My friend on the Santa Raquel force, he called and said he’d been talking to another guy in the locker room this morning. He’d just asked the guy to keep an unofficial lookout for Meredith. He showed him her picture, and the guy recognized her. He’d seen her at a bus stop on Sunday not far from the beach.... She had on a hat, but he was sure it was her....”
Chantel continued to talk as all of the blood drained from Max’s face. He felt it go. And could count his pulse without feeling for it, as it roared through his ears.
She’d been there.
Caleb had seen his mother. “She’d been running, Max, and tripped.”
Running because Caleb had seen her? Or running because someone was after her?
He was elated—surely it hadn’t been a coincidence that she’d been at the beach during their regularly scheduled family time. And he was also more worried than ever—she’d been running from something.
“Did he see where she went? Who she was with? Did he talk to her?”
Chantel sat on the edge of the sofa that Meri had picked out and, with her fingers lightly threaded together said, “He asked her if she was okay, she said she was, and ran off to catch the bus.”
So she’d been running for the bus? Not running from something?
“Which bus? Where was it headed?”
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