He Called My Brain Injury a Hunger Strike, So I Forgot Him novel · Chapter 17 of 24
Chapter 17: Family Values
I packed in four minutes.
The camel coat, the gray cardigan with its eight pills in the lining, the burner, and my mother's ring.
I carried it all down the front stairs in one hand, and Roland was waiting at the bottom.
He had unlocked the study.
He had also, I saw, turned the deadbolt on the front door and put the key in his pocket.
"Where do you think you're going?" he said.
"Out."
"You're ill."
"Then let me walk out ill."
"Leah." He came one step closer, and the smell of scotch came with him. "Listen to me. Everything I've done, I've done to keep you safe."
"From what?"
He opened his mouth.
I watched him not say it.
"Give me the key, Roland."
"This is my house."
"There are two neighbors on their porch across the street," I said. "I can see them through the glass. Open the door, or I'll open the window and ask them to call the police."
He looked at me for a long time.
I had always thought he was a big man.
He was, but I had never before noticed how much of him was the hallway and the good suit and the habit of being obeyed.
He took the key from his pocket and put it in my hand.
His fingers shook.
I opened the door myself, and the afternoon air hit my face.
Erik's flatbed was already turning into the driveway.
Roland said nothing as I went down the steps.
I did not turn around, and the face I couldn't remember stayed on the porch behind me, blurred and small.
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