Chapter 14: The Mortgage

I went upstairs for my grandmother's ring, and my mother followed me.

Nate stayed at the bottom of the stairs.

Lucy stayed with him, still holding the tape.

The ring was in the jewelry box on my side of the dresser, under a pair of earrings Conway had given me for our second anniversary.

I put it on my finger.

Behind me, Carol sat down on the end of the bed I had slept in for five years.

"I saw her do it at the reception," she said.

I kept my back to her.

"Conway was holding a champagne flute, and Diane took it from him and poured it out behind the cake table. Then she filled it from a steel bottle."

"And you asked her why."

"I did." Carol twisted the strap of her purse. "She said the world forgives a drunk. It does not forgive a man who is just cruel."

I turned around.

"She said that to you," I said. "At my wedding."

"She said she wanted me to understand what I was protecting."

"And you understood."

My mother looked at the carpet.

"I thought she meant the first time he lost his temper," she said. "I thought he would stop."

"And the second time?"

"Honey."

"The wrist, Mom. The second Christmas. You told me to ice it."

"I know what I told you."

"Then say why."

"The roof leaked," she said. "The bank was sending letters. I have lived in that house thirty years, Jean."

It was not a reason.

It was a roof, and she had put it above her daughter.

I walked past her to the dresser and took the last of my clothes out of the drawer.

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