I slam the album shut and stick it back in the drawer. Forget money. I’ll call a cab and pay when I get to my parents’ house, or wherever I’m going. I haven’t thought that far.
I run down the staircase through bolts of morning sunlight. Hands trembling, I go from room to room in search of a phone. Nothing.
Okay. I’ll set out on foot. Maybe I’ll get lucky and a cab will drive by.
I find a woman’s coat in the closet by the front door. It’s a little too big, but it’s warm. I shove my arms into the sleeves and wrap it around me.
I’m two seconds from freedom when I see the blinking alarm on the wall by the door.
The breath rushes out of my lungs. My hope is crushed. I can’t get out. The whole house is a prison, wired to go off if I escape.
Unless.
I run back up the stairs, searching for a window. I don’t care how high it is. I’ve jumped for my life before. If I die trying this time, so be it.
I almost laugh when I see it. The slider in Bram’s bedroom that leads to a deck. The big oak tree with the branch hanging over the railing.
With a leap of faith and a prayer to James, I crawl onto the deck railing and grab the branch. It’s slippery, but thick and strong. The bark scrapes my legs as I shimmy toward the trunk and down to the ground.
I take off running toward the road. “I’m sorry, Bram,” I whisper, though I can’t say what I’m sorry for.
The thrill of freedom has turned to low, grinding panic.
I’ve been walking for an hour. In all that time, four cars have passed.
I haven’t been out here since just after James died. I forgot how remote it is. The road is narrow, forcing me to walk in the ditch by the shoulder. The ankle I thought had healed is aching again.
Dark clouds rush in from the horizon. Just when I thought I’d have a sunny day for my escape, the rain is back. Big droplets pelt my head. I raise my chin and keep going.
This is who Bram was training me to be. Resourceful and disciplined. He should be proud of me for breaking out. I didn’t let him stop me, and now I’m on the brink of escaping him forever.
A strange sadness arcs through my soul. Escape, forever. Bram out of my life. Back to the role he used to play, the demon I blamed for everything. My grief, my drinking, my bad dreams.
Blaming him won’t work anymore. I know that. He’s too real to me now. He touched and fed me. He brought me back from the dead.
If Bram’s heart were that black and rotten, he wouldn’t have protected me. He’d have let me die.
I look over my shoulder, but the Bristol Mansion has disappeared. For the first half hour I could see it, black and forbidding against the blue sky, and a shameful part of me longed to run back. My battered spirit imagined the bed where Bram spanked me and made me come, and craved the security of his arms.
In a perverse way, he gave me of glimpse of what I never had.
The longing will pass. It’s just a sign of my sick addiction to his body. I had to get away from him. He’s a dream and a nightmare. He’s everything that can’t come true.
I blink back tears when I see a gas station in the distance. Sadness and joy battle in my heart, until the tears spill over.
Life as Bram’s captive was easy in a twisted way. I’ll miss it.
There are no cars at the gas station. My cheeks are dry when I walk inside and approach the counter. The woman at the register looks over from the TV.
“Help you?”
“I’m wondering –” I clear my throat. “Is there a phone I can use?” My voice echoes in my ears. I haven’t spoken to anyone but Bram and Coral in two weeks.
She shakes her head. “Not for the public. Sorry.”
“The thing is, I don’t have a phone and I’m…stranded.” Memories of Bram dance in front of my vision. The idea that I might blurt out his name terrifies me.
“Stranded,” she says, in a distracted monotone.
I nod. “I don’t have any money, either.”
She throws her eyes toward the corner near the bathrooms. “ATM’s over there.”
Holding out the remote, she turns up the TV. The anchor is announcing Powerball winners.
She glances at me again, her gaze cutting through my defenses. It’s as if she can see what Bram did, and who he turned me into.
She wouldn’t believe what some men do, and how some women come to crave it. I’m no different from the girls in the halo pictures, except that I almost envy them. They were part of something that fascinates and scares me. I long to know what it was.
“I’ll be right back,” I say.
I turn and go to the bathroom. The disinfectant smell turns my stomach. Shutting the door, I stare at my fluorescent-lit reflection.
Who am I? Where’s my voice? The old me would have insisted on using the phone. I’d have screamed that I’d been kidnapped. I’d have gone to the first house I passed and banged on the door. I wouldn’t have protected Bram.
But even the thought feels wrong, like the worst kind of betrayal. Two weeks in his prison have changed me. I’m not Grace anymore. I’m a slave who loves her master’s attention. Who can’t conceive of hurting him.
I scrub the tree sap off my hands and take deep breaths. I have to do this. There’s no going back.
I open the door and walk up to the counter. The cashier is stocking the water case. The TV still blares.
I’ll wait until she comes back. I won’t leave until I’m rescued.
I’m sorry, I don’t have my ATM card. I need your help. Please call 911.
My heart is pounding. My throat is cracked and dry. Every moment feels like a hallucination. There’s too much noise, too many colors. I crave my isolation. My thoughts, my silence, him.
I’m going to scream if she doesn’t turn the TV off. All I can hear are jumbled words. The people on the screen look weird and contorted.
I squint. Something tells me I should recognize them. I blink hard until their faces become clear.
I stare at them numbly. My parents. Isaac. The police.
This isn’t real.
I want to laugh. The only thing that makes sense is the headline at the bottom of the screen. Local woman reported missing.
Isaac stands with his hands clasped in front of him, his flat face smug. He can barely keep from smiling. My mother huddles beside my father, who speaks woodenly into a microphone. We’ve called her friends. No one has heard from her in almost two weeks.
I’m actually seeing this. It’s really fucking happening.
A desperate cry chokes in my throat. They know I’m not missing. I told them not to look for me. I made my choice, compromising and wrong as it was.
Funny how they didn’t tell the police why I ran. Just as I was running back to them, they betrayed me.
I stand at the counter with my mouth open. I can’t cry. I can’t even move.
I’ve ruined everything. Bram’s trust. The chance to help James’s father. The opportunity to heal and move on.
I look down and realize I’m ripping at my bare thighs with my nails. My lungs are too tight to take a breath.
I hate what I’ve done.
I can’t go to my parents. I can’t bring this nightmare on Stephanie or James’s father. I won’t. I’d rather die.
And Bram… Even if he wants me, he’ll destroy me. I’ve seen the pictures. I know what he’s capable of.
But I have no choice. He’s all I’ve got.
He’s protected me this long. If I can just convince him to take me back. To let me try again.
The cashier shuts the door to the water case. “ATM on the blink again?” she says, walking back behind the counter. She turns toward the TV screen, where my mother is holding up my high school graduation picture.
By the time she turns around again, I’m gone.
Bram
I get to the restaurant before Miriam does. The host seems to know exactly who she is, and who I am, and he leads me to a booth in the corner by the window. I
take the side facing the bar, where a muted television plays sports highlights to the lunch crowd.
I order a pint of beer and skim the menu. Whoever this new Miriam is, who laughs on the phone and orders me out to lunch, I hope she doesn’t have the waiters bring cake with a candle and fucking sing to me.
But Grace. I love her singing voice. I think I’d like it if she sang me to me, and tied a balloon to a dining room chair, and cooked me something really simple and not even particularly good, but that she put her whole heart into.
When I get home, I’m going to tell her it’s my birthday. I’m going to apologize for being so quiet this morning, and keeping her isolated for a week while I tried and failed to become her whole world.
I may never be her world. She may never care about me beyond the limits of our arrangement. I feel sick at the thought, but even if I push her to her limits, it might not be enough.
It’s not her fault. She loved hard and lost, and she can’t get over it. Maybe she never will.
But I can give her something fun and sweet. I want to see the little girl in her eyes tonight, just for a minute.
I sip my beer and try to decide between cottage pie and a Reuben. I glance at my phone to see the little icon of Indira’s video in my messages. I haven’t thought of her once since I watched it this morning. When I was twenty-five, all I wanted was for her to choose me.
It’s proof that love dies. If it happened for me, maybe one day it will happen for Grace.
I hear Miriam’s voice from across the pub. Straightening my tie, I stand and wait for her. She’ll need help getting into her seat, and someplace to put her walker. Maybe around the end of the bar.
I see her slightly stooped figure across the dining room. She’s wearing a tweed jacket and pants, and her hair is whipped into a conical shape above her head. The pub is dim, so it takes me a second to realize that she’s not alone.
She’s holding onto someone. A girl. Her assistant.
No. Grace.
What the fuck?
My mind races through a hundred scenarios in a split second before drawing a complete blank. There’s no understanding this. No way to even try.
All I know is that Miriam looks like she’s having the time of her life. She doesn’t even have her walker, because she has Grace. She’s leaning on her arm shuffling toward the table while Grace chats about God knows what the fuck in her ear.
“Bram!” Miriam calls out from the end of the bar. “Happy birthday!” Everyone swivels on their stools to look at me.
I stitch on a smile. As Grace gets closer, my eyes drag in every detail. She’s wearing the dress I found her in, and the ballet slippers Coral gave her. She’s got on makeup and the gray coat that’s been hanging in my front closet since a guest left it after a party. She looks pretty and composed, and if it weren’t for the burn in her cheeks, I’d never know she just…what? I don’t even know what the hell she just did.
Miriam’s hooded brown eyes light up as she gets to the table. “How about this surprise, huh? She can’t jump out of a cake but she can have lunch with us, right?”
I grin so wide it hurts. “Right!”
Miriam grips the edge of the table with a gnarled hand as Grace helps her into the booth. Grace won’t even look at me.
“Thank you, hon,” Miriam says. “Now go sit next to your beau.”
Your beau. There’s a story in full fucking bloom here and I’ve got no clue what it is.
Grace hangs her coat on the hook between booths and sits next to me. She stays as close to the edge as she can without falling off.
“Happy birthday,” she says. Her voice catches. Her hand shakes as she reaches for her napkin.
Miriam frowns. “It’s his big day. Aren’t you going to kiss him?”
Grace fumbles her napkin and drops it to the floor. “Oh – yes,” she says. Her face is a picture of smiling misery as she turns toward me. Whatever she did, it was wrong and she damn well knows it.
“How nice that you’re here,” I say in a dark voice, and lean toward her to be kissed. Her lips are dry and hot as she presses them quickly to mine. They taste like a bad girl who’s been making stupid decisions that could blow up my life.
The waiter comes and Miriam orders wine for both of them. Oh, good. Let’s all get drunk in the middle of this disaster.
“So nice of you to invite me out, Miriam, and to bring my…” I glance at Grace and give her a hard stare.
She swallows. “Girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend,” I say. “Right.” I take a long sip of beer and sling my arm over the back of the booth. “How did you happen to bump into each other, anyway?”
Even under pressure in the courtroom, Grace never looked this nervous. Her pupils are so dilated she looks drugged with fear.
“I was dropping off a gift basket for you,” Miriam says. “I know I don’t seem the type, but you could be in charge of my company soon and my husband is always after me to be polite. Anyway, I thought you’d be home on your birthday, and I haven’t seen the Bristol Mansion since you bulldozed it –”
“Renovated,” I pipe up.
“– and I was just pulling up when I saw Grace here trying to find a way in. Poor thing locked herself out!”
“Poor thing,” I say, pushing out my lower lip. “How, honey?”
Grace’s eyes are cold as stone. “Left without my keys, I guess.”
“She was trying to shimmy up a tree if you can believe that, but she’s young and fit, so why not?”
“A tree,” I say, slowly squeezing the back of her neck. “Imagine that.”
“She’s just lucky no one saw her and reported a burglary,” Miriam says. “Now wouldn’t that have been funny.”
Grace snorts a fake laugh.
“Hilarious,” I say.
Miriam takes a heavy slurp of wine. “I told her who I was, and of course I recognized her from the whole trial nightmare. So when she told me you live together now, you know what I thought?”
My stomach turns to lead. “I can’t imagine.”
Miriam looks at both of us in turn. “That it speaks to your character. To your ability to forgive. Both of you.”
“That means a lot, Miriam,” I say. “Doesn’t it, Grace?”
“Yup,” she squeaks.
“She was so embarrassed that she locked herself out. She was afraid you’d be angry, Bram. Isn’t that silly?”
Grace’s pulse races under my fingers as I squeeze her neck harder. “Ridiculous.”
“It took some convincing but she finally agreed to surprise you. It was her first time in a car with a driver, and it was fun, wasn’t it, Grace? You told me all about party planning, which I’m lousy at. You’ll have to plan my husband’s next birthday, if he lives that long.”
Grace gives such a good imitation of a laugh, it fools even me. Miriam leans across the table and grabs my forearm in a surprisingly tight grip.
“I wish you’d told me you had a girlfriend. I’m a lot less worried about these playboy rumors now. Next thing you know, marriage and children. I know you two had a tough start, but who says things don’t work out for the best?”
“Yup,” I say. “They always do, don’t they?”
Our food arrives and Miriam orders another glass of wine. She digs into her Rueben and talks about her grandson, a smart but rebellious philosophy major who just got his tenth tattoo. Grace chats and asks questions, and even asks to see pictures of Miriam’s family. She’s doing an admirable job of pretending she didn’t do whatever the fuck she did.
I glace at her as she nibbles on her fish and chips. I can’t help admiring her.
My good bad girl. She’s trying so hard. She protected me. She didn’t tell Miriam I kidnapped her, or recite the letter she gave to Fritz. She created a story to save her ass. And she saved mine, too.
It wasn’t all about James today. This time, she thought of me.
I slide my hand down to her bare leg and squeeze her thigh. She looks up at me with
jittery doe eyes. I raise my hand and wipe a tiny spot of tartar sauce from her lip.
“It’s okay,” I mouth. Her smile is small and trembly, but it feels like the sun just broke across her face.
That single moment of connection is so intense, I’m instantly hard. She’ll be lucky if she escapes this pub without a fast, hard fucking in the men’s room.
I hear my phone buzz on the table beside me. Fritz’s name flashes on the screen. I ignore it. Two minutes later he calls again.
He can wait. Lunch is almost over.
Sipping the last of my beer, I sit back and watch the woman who referred to herself as my girlfriend. My secret weapon. Little did I know. Miriam just told us that she always wanted a granddaughter. Maybe she sees a glimpse of her in Grace.
I glance over as two people stand up from the bar. The news is on behind Miriam’s head, and a banner flashes at the bottom of the screen. BREAKING.
I tip back my pint. When I glance at the TV again, my body goes cold. My hand slips from Grace’s knee.
Splashed across the TV are Grace’s parents and some guy in weird clothes. Pictures of Grace flash on the screen.
She sees it at the same time I do. Face draining, she looks at me. She already knows. I can tell.
She didn’t even warn me. She let me sit here for an hour and get ambushed.
She could have dragged me away. She could have asked the waiter for pen and paper and written me a note. Anything but what she did, which was nothing.
Miriam jabbers on while my phone buzzes like an alarm. That’s why Fritz is calling. Because everything just went to shit.
I know, I text him. My phone goes silent.
Of course the waiters come and sing. They put a huge piece of cake in front of me with a flaming candle on top, and Miriam orders Bailey’s and coffee and lunch drags on forever. By the time I thank her a hundred times and help her into her Town Car, I’m about to explode.
I shut her door and wave. The car drives off. When I turn around, Grace is in tears.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“Who have you called?” I bark. “Your parents? The police?” And then I realize what a stupid question I’m asking. She doesn’t even have a phone. And that’s my fault.
Breaking Grace Page 16