Chapter 5: The Coffee Shop on Birchwood
I called Sally the next morning and I kept my voice light.
"I thought we could have coffee.
Just us.
That little place on Birchwood you used to like."
A pause.
Long enough to hear her thinking.
"Greg's working from home today," she said.
"I know.
That's why I thought this morning would be good.
Emmy's in preschool until noon, isn't she?"
Another pause.
"Mom—"
"Just coffee, sweetheart.
I haven't had you to myself in months."
She came.
She was already at a corner table when I arrived, hands wrapped around a mug, wearing a light cardigan with the sleeves pushed up to the elbow.
A deliberate choice, I realized.
She was showing me her wrists.
Both clear.
I sat down.
Ordered.
Smiled at the waitress.
When the waitress left, Sally said: "He texted you, didn't he."
It wasn't a question.
"He texted your father."
She closed her eyes.
"I'm sorry.
He shouldn't have done that."
"No," I agreed.
"He shouldn't have."
"Mom, I need you to understand something." She leaned forward.
"What you saw last night — I know how it looked.
But Greg is under enormous pressure right now.
His firm is restructuring.
He's been passed over twice for a promotion he was promised.
He's not sleeping.
He's not himself."
"Sally."
"I'm serious.
He's been in therapy.
He's working on it."
"Sally, look at me."
She looked at me.
"Is he hurting you?"
Her jaw tightened.
"It happened once."
"That's not what I asked."
She looked down at her mug.
"He controls what I eat," she said finally.
Very quietly.
"He checks my phone.
He has opinions about which friends I see and how often." She stopped.
"But he hasn't — it hasn't been physical again.
Not since that night."
"What night?"
She shook her head.
"Sally.
What night?"
"It was February.
We'd been at a party and I'd had two glasses of wine and he thought I was flirting with someone and when we got home—" She stopped.
Pulled her sleeve down, even though there was nothing there to hide.
Habit.
"It doesn't matter.
It was one time."
"It matters to me."
"Mom, if I leave him, I lose everything.
The house.
Half my time with Emmy.
He has a better lawyer than I could ever afford and he knows it and he has reminded me of that more than once."
I reached across the table and covered her hand with mine.
"What if the lawyer wasn't the problem?" I said.
She frowned.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean what if you had someone in your corner who knew exactly what to do?
Someone who has done this before?"
She stared at me.
"Mom, I can't ask you and Dad to—"
"I'm not talking about money," I said.
"I'm talking about Renee Calloway."
Sally went still.
"She knows people," I said.
"Quiet people.
People who handle this without it becoming a war that you lose before it starts."
Tears came to her eyes.
She didn't let them fall.
"He'll know," she whispered.
"If I start making calls, he'll know."
"He won't know," I said.
"Because I'll be making them."
She looked at me for a long time.
Then she said something she hadn't said to me in years.
"Mom.
I'm scared."
I didn't tell her not to be.
I didn't tell her it would be fine.
I said: "I know.
And I'm here.
And we're going to do this carefully."
She nodded.
Wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
Her phone lit up on the table between us.
Greg's name on the screen.
She looked at it.
Then at me.
"Don't answer it," I said.
May you like
She turned it face-down.
It was the first time in two years she had done that.
