“Come in.” I pushed my messy hair behind my ears and cringed inwardly. I’d worn makeup to school this morning, but I had a feeling most of it had crusted under my eyes by now.
“You okay?” he asked, his head tilted.
I nodded.
He opened his arms and I stepped into them, accepting a quick hug. I wanted to cling to him, to beg him to help me put Donny and all this nastiness behind me.
“So,” he said as he released me. “Hypothetically, if you were a bit tense and needed a break…”
Stepping back, I looked up at him.
He held up his hands. “Hypothetically, of course.”
That comment only made me suspicious of his motives here. So I crossed my arms and cocked a brow, readying to argue.
“Maybe I could take the kids outside to play street hockey for a while. Give you some quiet.”
My body deflated. Oh. God, this man was so sweet. “That would be okay,” I said. “But Maggie and Julian don’t have sticks.”
“Um.” Ducking, he shuffled his feet. “I bought them some.”
“Josh.”
“So we can all play. You know, a big family game.”
The word “family” snagged on something sharp inside me. Because it was easy to imagine how good things could be. What Josh and I could build over time. Love, trust, security.
I blinked back tears, quickly collecting myself. I was too busy to break down, and I didn’t need him asking more question or looking at me with pity. Like a victim.
“Okay.” I nodded. “That would be helpful. I just need an hour to…” I waved a hand at my laptop. “To finish something.”
In a matter of minutes, he’d rounded up the kids, found Julian’s blue fleece hoodie, and headed out for street hockey.
“You sure you don’t need me?” Ellie asked through the open door. Her siblings were already halfway down the road.
“I’m good,” I said, my heart panging with gratefulness as I shuffled onto the porch. “You go have fun.”
She bounded down the porch steps, suddenly seeming somuch more childlike than she had in years. There had been a time when Ellie was bubbly and outgoing. Silly and creative. But when things got bad with Donny, the light inside her had gone out.
It was flickering back to life now. Between new friends, robotics club, and playing hockey with Josh, she was finding herself again. I wiped away a tear. I couldn’t backslide. We’d come so far.
My phone buzzed in my hand, so as I stepped back inside, I scrolled through the latest texts in the group chat. The girls were making Halloween plans, and Callie was checking in for my upcoming IEP meeting. Chloe had texted again too, with reminders and legal suggestions.
I sat on the couch, breathed in, breathed out, and just typed.
Yes, I was nauseous.
Yes, my hands shook.
But I had to get this out.
I started with the incident. The impact it had on me. On the kids. I dug around in my files to find the reports from the child psychologists and the court advocate.
Robotically, I laid it out from beginning to end. I wasn’t a victim. I was someone with essential factual knowledge. I had a duty to share it.
The emails were next. Those from Phyllis and those from an anonymous email account. The hang-up phone calls. The strange packages and notes in the mail.
A retelling of the time he sent one of his drinking buddies to “check on us” when we were living in Portland and the man had kicked in the door of our apartment.