Charlene took a cab to Jake’s house to fetch her car. She did this on the sly, without Dennis knowing, although she expected the whole scenario might eventually come up for discussion. Maybe Stephanie would make some innocent remark about where Charlene was found, or perhaps Charlene herself would bring up the subject, just to make it appear less forbidden. For the moment, she was opting for discretion, though the word that should probably have come to her lawyer’s mind was indiscretion.

The cabdriver was singing along with Smokey Robinson. “I did you wrong, my heart went out to play….”

“Would you mind turning that off, please?” she asked.

“Whatsa matter, lady? You don’t like Smokey?”

“It’s getting on my nerves.”

“Hey, you’re the fare,” he obliged, clicking off the music.

Heart went out to play, indeed.

It wasn’t Dennis she was worried about. He was as solid as a rock, without a jealous bone in his body. She did this for herself, knowing she could only confront one issue at a time. So, when Dennis went to work in the E.R., she walked out the hospital door, through the parking lot and down to the convenience store on the corner. From there, she phoned for a cab…and waited forty minutes.

It was almost 8:00 a.m. by the time she got to Jake’s, and it was immediately obvious he wasn’t letting her get away with anything. He had his garage door open and he was sitting on a lawn chair on the driveway. He wore his sweats—old ones—and held a steaming cup of coffee. Beside him was an empty lawn chair, he was that sure she’d come alone.

She approached him with caution. He watched her walk toward him and didn’t move. Nothing moved. His eyebrows didn’t lift, his lashes didn’t flutter, his lips didn’t twitch. She stood before him, contrite. “Sometimes I don’t think,” she said.

Silence hung between them. He watched her face, but couldn’t look into her eyes because they were downcast. He let the silence stretch out; he had a lot of experience with this sort of thing from interrogations. It was especially tantalizing when you knew more about the situation than the suspect, but the suspect didn’t know how much you knew. His favorite opener had always been, Why not go ahead and try the truth first, because you don’t know how much I know. “Coffee?” he finally asked the suspect.

She raised her eyes. “Jake, I came to say I was sorry.”

“You came to get your car,” he said, standing up. “And you promised you’d talk to me about our…what should we call it, Charlie? Our relationship?” He walked into the garage, toward the door. She didn’t want to notice the way his sweats fit so keenly over his muscled butt. He stayed in shape, that was for sure. He had chopped off the sleeves of his sweatshirt and she hated noticing his biceps.

“That was before Peaches got hurt,” she said to his back.

He made a half turn. “Cream and sugar?”

She sighed. “Black,” she said. She had no intention of drinking another cup of coffee.

She tapped her foot nervously while she waited for him. She wanted to get home, shower, clean up, make a few calls, go over to Peaches’s house to see how bad it was. There were clients who were not going to be pleased to have their cases delayed or pushed off on an associate, but there wasn’t much she could do about that right now. She had a million things on her mind, making it difficult to sort out priorities. But that was what she was best at—prioritizing. Right now her number-one priority was getting the hell out of here. Where was he? How long was he going to drag this out?

He finally reappeared, carrying two mugs. “Here,” he said. “You can’t drink it black.”

She looked into the mug; it was milky. Cream and sugar.

“Sit down, Charlie. Tell me about Peaches.”

For that she could sit. She told him what the doctor had said, that Peaches would be discharged by noon, that she was awake, alert and stable before Charlene left her, and that the days, months and perhaps years ahead were probably going to be very challenging. “Do you want to hear something astonishing? The doctor said that people who read a lot are less likely to get Alzheimer’s. And he hopes that means that if Peaches does indeed have Alzheimer’s, it will be less severe. And also, that the later the onset, the slower the progression. Surprising. So, there will be several doctor’s appointments in the coming days and weeks, I suppose. More tests, et cetera.”

“Are you scared?” he asked her.

“Scared? No. I’m concerned.”

“Ah. And sorry.”

“Of course I’m sorry! I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, least of all my own—” She stopped. That wasn’t what he meant.

Jake watched her face, her eyes, her grip on the mug. By now he had pieced together her childhood from a combination of his own remembering and what Stephanie had told him last night…or rather, early this morning. How had he gone twenty-five years without knowing the accurate details of Charlie’s childhood? And why had she kept these details from him? Was she ashamed of her father? Her childhood?

Charlene had been raised in a household of confusion, with a father who was in and out like their house was a train station. And not even the fact that her mother was always there, a constant source of love and support, was enough to eliminate Charlie’s abandonment and control issues.

In the few short hours since Stephanie had filled him in, he’d realized a few critical things. One, when he married Charlie twenty-six years ago, though he loved her madly, he’d been twenty-four and stupid and hadn’t paid attention to what was going on around him. Some of that couldn’t have been helped; twenty-four-year-old men tend to think with their peckers and have the maturity of rock stars. He hadn’t realized that, when he acted like an undependable jerk, Charlene was naturally afraid that she’d married a man like her father. Second, when her father actually died, and she conveniently never told him the truth about the man or his death, she went into a serious tailspin…and incredible denial. She wasn’t going to have the kind of life her mother had; she wasn’t going to put up with that irresponsible crap from anybody, especially not a man.

Third, she hadn’t fallen out of love with Jake when she divorced him twenty-five years ago. She’d merely run out of courage. And faith. She wasn’t brave enough to chance that theirs could be a marriage more successful than her parents’, and she had utterly no faith in Jake. Or herself.

Jake had thought through the whole thing—including the many times he and Charlene ended up in bed together over the years, and then she tried to pretend it hadn’t happened when he tried to discuss it. Probably the most important conclusion was this: Charlene was headed for a meltdown. Mega.

“So. Tell me what you think we should do now, Charlie.”

“Nothing. We do nothing at all. I’m sorry, I know better. I knew better. I think it was stress.”

Stress? his lips silently questioned. He didn’t laugh, but his mouth might have quivered with the desire.

“Don’t laugh at me, you bonehead.”

He leaned his elbows on his knees and held the coffee cup with both hands. He allowed himself a chuckle. “Look, there’s a lot more going on here than we can untangle right now, or even over breakfast. But there’s one thing you should look at, Charlie. This is a bad time to be getting married. Give yourself a break.”

“How would you know?” she asked angrily.

“Oh, man, I am an expert on that, okay?”

“If I don’t know after five years that I love Dennis, when am I going to know? Huh?”

“Maybe when you stop crawling into your ex-husband’s bed.”

She shot to her feet, indignant. Her coffee slopped onto her suit. “You jerk. Now look what you did!” She brushed impatiently at the stain.

Jake didn’t stand. In fact, he leaned back and stretched his legs out lazily. “Somehow I knew that was going to be my fault.”

“It was an accident! And I’m not talking about the coffee. It was an emotional night. I was tired, stressed out, very grateful to you for the way you…you…. I don’t know. I admire your compassion…I told you that. We’re not meant to be together, we’ve proven that. But not everything about our relationship was terrible. It’s a curse that we always had it good in bed! A goddamn curse!”

“That kinda depends on your perspective,” he said.

“I made a mistake, and I’m embarrassed. Leave me alone about it.”

“You’ve made that mistake a lot over the years. Have you been embarrassed every time?” he asked, knowing the answer already.

“This was the first time I was planning a wedding.”

“That’s what I’m saying, Charlie. Red flag.”

“But he’s good for me,” she said, and her voice had grown whiny. Wheedling. “He’s very stable—”

“Steady.”

“Yes. Steady. Like a rock. He doesn’t have a whole trunkful of character flaws, he delivers on all his promises and he doesn’t mind that having things tidy and well organized is important to me. We don’t fight. We don’t even argue. I don’t ever have to wonder where he is, when he’ll return, whether he’s faithful.”

“No,” Jake said, slowly coming to his feet. “You have to wonder those things about you.”

“Jake, I’m warning you. You’re really making me mad.”

Making you, period, he thought. Got you figured. Know your number. Have you in my sights. But he said nothing.

She, on the other hand, put her almost empty mug on the driveway and started digging in her purse for her keys.

“You have a song?” he asked her.

“What?” she asked, totally confused.

“You and His Denniship, you have a special song?”

“For God’s—”

“We had a song.”

“We were children!”

“I still hum it. ‘I may not always love you. As long as there are stars above you.”’

“Listen, drop it. I should have my head examined for even letting you bait me for this long.” She resumed digging. Keys were even harder to find when you were pissed off. “Now that I think about it, every time we’ve had this little…indiscretion…you won’t let it go. You always want to talk about it—”

“‘God only knows what I’d do without you,”’ he sang, off tune. “You gonna tell him? Cleanse yourself?”

Her head snapped up and tears came to her eyes. “God…”

“What if I tell him?” he asked.

She stared at him for a long moment, her eyes filling. “You hate me that much?” she asked him.

He stepped toward her and he lifted her chin with a finger. “Hate you? Charlie, I’ve been in love with you since the minute I saw you, all those years ago. You left me with our baby and I was devastated. Hate you?” His finger dropped. He slid his hand into the pocket of his sweats and pulled out her keys. “You left them on the counter last night.” She snatched them out of his hand. “You okay to drive?”

“Damn you!” she snapped, and stomped to her car.

“Postpone the wedding, Charlie,” he said to her back. “Do yourself a favor.”

She reached the end of the driveway and whirled back to face him. “This is none of your business!”

He waited till she got into her car and couldn’t hear him when he said, “I wish that were true.”

 

Agatha moved with ease through a morning of challenges. She began with an emergency fashion alteration as a pregnant maid of honor blossomed out of control with triplets. Next, a photographer had absconded with his deposit and the film from a wedding, so she was working with the videographer to create stills out of movie film to give the bride and groom captured memories of their special day. A florist had made a critical mistake on an order and all the flowers were the wrong color, clashing with the dresses. Agatha had driven to a flower warehouse north of town and filled her trunk with peach roses, carnations and miniature daisies, then delivered them to the church and hired two young women from a competing florist to re-create all the arrangements on the spot. Plus, she managed a substantial refund. But her coup was achieved when she convinced a hotel that had mistakenly double-booked their reception facilities to keep her party in the room they were scheduled to have and move the other wedding party to a smaller and less convenient site. People liked to please Agatha, and promises of future business didn’t hurt.

All this was done with her usual poise and grace, despite the fact that she hadn’t gotten much rest the night before. She and Dennis had sat up and talked in her tiny living room until almost 4:00 a.m. She knew almost everything about him now, from the details of his first marriage and Sarah’s death, through the years that led up to when he met Charlene. She had told almost everything about herself, for there was so much more to her than just the sad tragedy that had robbed her of her children and made her a widow. It had been such a long time since she’d felt such intimacy, such trust. It was as though they’d known each other for years, when it hadn’t yet been a month.

She had always assumed that she’d be too afraid to let down her guard, given her losses. But Dennis had driven caution from her heart, and instead she was filled with longing. She was embraced by his charm. All through her hectic morning she smiled whenever he crossed her mind. Oh, she had fallen for him. Thoroughly.

Before he left her at that wee hour, he as much as said the same. Not in so many words, perhaps. “I don’t know exactly how I’m going to accomplish this,” he had said. “Charlene has trusted me completely for five years, and in all that time, I’ve never even looked at another woman. But we can’t possibly get married now. In fact, I don’t see that we have any future together.”

She told him she hoped it wasn’t anything she had done. He said that in the short period of time he’d known her, he had come to realize that his relationship with Charlene was almost platonic. They were fond of each other, had much in common. The feelings they shared were so comfortable, they could easily be mistaken for love. But now he knew he wanted something more.

Then he had taken her hands very gently into his and said, “It was everything you’ve done—the way you smile, the light in your eyes, the ripple of genuine pleasure in your laugh, the curve of your neck, the small crease of concern between your pale eyebrows when you’re unsure.” And this had made her heart hammer in her chest. Oh, she had fallen badly.

She couldn’t deny it or stop it. Once she felt his affectionate gaze touch her face, she was lost. It had been so very long since there’d been love or passion in her life. Truthfully, she hadn’t thought there would be again. What she’d been trying to do was live her lonely life as gracefully as possible.

He had kissed her goodbye, and in that kiss was all the promise of wonderful nights and weeks and years to come. She was as foolish as any thirteen-year-old girl.

She was thirty-three and he was fifty. Ordinarily she would take the age difference quite seriously, but after what she’d been through, she couldn’t imagine giving it a second thought. If Agatha had learned anything, it was that life was not to be taken for granted, and to be twice loved was rare. This was so much more than she dared hope for. It was unimaginable that she’s quibble about something so inconsequential as their ages.

They hadn’t made any plans to see each other again. She had no idea what to expect, for that matter. However, when he walked into the shop at noon, it was as though they’d planned it. Her schedule miraculously cleared. She was usually booked solid through the day but she saw that there were no more commitments until 2:00 p.m.

She beamed, inside and out. “What perfect timing!” she said. “It happens I have a break. I hope you’re free for lunch.”

The look was still there in his eyes, that look of deep affection, but there was a slant to his mouth and wrinkle on his brow that hinted at sadness. She had a glimmer of intuition—Oh no, he regrets this!—but she beat it down.

“I have deli sandwiches in the car,” he said. “Can we go to your house, so we can talk undisturbed?”

“Of course,” she said, ever accommodating. But she felt a surge of panic.

“I don’t have much time. I have to get back to the hospital. Do you mind if we take two cars?”

“That’s fine,” she said, forcing a smile. “I’ll meet you there.”

Once she was driving, she decided it was a good thing she had a little time alone in her car. Even though it wasn’t far to her house, she needed that time to compose herself. Be gracious, she told herself. You were attracted, but he didn’t make any promises. You fell for him, but it was your own doing. He didn’t seduce you unawares. Be adult—people move in and out of relationships all the time. It was just a few evenings spent together, a few hours of chat, and no matter how intimate it might have felt, it was certainly not a betrothal.

And, she reminded herself, the complication is that the betrothal lay elsewhere. She comforted herself that if this experience happened only to show her that it is still quite possible to find love and happiness in this world, that would be enough.

She unlocked the door for him and walked ahead of him into the house. She tossed her purse and keys onto the coffee table. “Shall I get us sodas?” she asked.

“Please,” he said, and proceeded to set out place mats on her table, placing the sandwiches and napkins on top of them.

It took her only seconds to bring back the drinks and sit down. “Tell me at once, Dennis. I can see it in your eyes…something has gone wrong. Don’t make me wait.”

“That’s exactly what I have to do, Agatha—is ask you to wait. To be patient with me. I’m afraid something has come up.”

“Oh…?”

“It turns out that Charlene had a very good excuse for not making our appointment last night. Her mother was involved in a house fire and was taken to the hospital.”

“Oh, no!”

He nodded. “While I so cavalierly turned off my phone, in a huff because she was doing work for her ex-husband, she was sitting vigil at her mother’s bedside. When I turned on my phone and collected my messages, she had left several. She was frantic, verging on hysteria. And I wasn’t there for her.”

“And is her mother going to be all right?”

“Yes, thank goodness. She forgot she was cooking, fell asleep, and was rescued by a neighbor. She’s going to be discharged today. She’s had symptoms of confusion and forgetfulness lately. She’s seventy-eight.”

“The poor darling,” Agatha said, not thinking of her own disappointment at all, but rather of her own mother’s aging, fraught with hardship and loss. She found herself thinking she must plan a trip to see her parents soon. “At least she’ll recover. Charlene must be so relieved.”

“As you can imagine, I feel like a complete cad.”

“Oh, Dennis, don’t be too hard on yourself. We all make misjudgments from time to time. But at least…”

He waited expectantly. She seemed to struggle with the words.

She took a bolstering breath. “At least you found out before it was too late.”

“Too late for what?”

“You must know I wouldn’t hold you to anything muttered at four in the morning. Especially given that you were under completely misguided impressions.”

“Agatha, wait. You don’t understand. This doesn’t change the way I feel. It only changes my circumstances for the moment. I had fully intended to tell Charlene today that we have to call this whole thing off. We’re not meant to be married. But after listening to her desperate messages, I didn’t have the heart. I rushed to the hospital and found her more vulnerable than I’ve ever seen her. Because this is a medical crisis, she relies on me completely.”

She couldn’t believe her ears. He meant it? That he was changing all his plans because of her?

“I’m going to have to help her through this. I owe her that much. Please understand.”

“But Dennis—” she began. “Do you mean to say—” She stopped again. She didn’t want to get ahead of him, didn’t want to make assumptions.

He covered her hand with his and gave it a squeeze. “I told her that her mother’s health is the priority issue right now, that we can worry about our plans later. One thing at a time. And of course she agreed. But then the very next thing she said was, ‘I would be so completely lost without you.’ I’ve never seen Charlene like this. It’s very unusual. She’s extremely independent, incredibly unsentimental. Sometimes she’s a little too tough, if you know what I mean.”

Agatha nodded, but she wasn’t really listening. His voice started to fade from her ears after he said he was going to have to help Charlene get through her crisis. There was such a vagueness to that, an indefinite quality that indicated he might linger in this limbo for a while. Tell him you can’t do it, her common sense was urging her. Just tell him that you understand, but that you can’t see him until he finishes his business with Charlene. Nothing personal, no hard feelings, but it would be wrong to have these little dinners, ice creams, intimate discussions that reach deep into the morning hours and end with kisses so promising, they made her ache for hours afterward. He’ll understand. He’s a perfect gentleman. He wouldn’t want you to compromise any values.

It would simply be safer, she was telling herself. Why get so thoroughly involved? Agatha was not so far past reality that she had forgotten that once one makes an emotional commitment of the heart, no matter how far the body had gone, turning back without great pain was impossible.

Tell him, Agatha! Just tell him you can’t see him again until he’s past this crisis with his fiancée!

“Charlene is usually very practical. Very sensible. And certainly not dependent. In fact, I would say she’s always taken our relationship for granted, a thing that I was forced to admire while at the same time it irritated me. She’s frightened, that’s all. I don’t think it will take much more than a medical report, a plan of action and a good support system for the care of her mother before she’s on her feet again, solid as a rock, and forgetting we even had a dinner date. A couple of weeks, perhaps. Or, it’s possible I’ll find her back to her old self in just days.”

Tell him, Agatha! If not for the sake of your poor, battered heart, then for the sake of propriety.

“I hate to ask this of you, Agatha. I think you know…I’ve…well, even though it’s crazy and unexplainable, I don’t want to be with anyone but you from this moment on. I don’t know how or why this happened, but there it is. I think I’m in love with you.”

Be that as it may, her sane mind was saying, we have a slight complication, and that is that you have a fiancée who depends on you and I won’t allow you to lie to her, so we must not be together again until you’ve resolved this—

“A few days, a couple of weeks. I swear to you, I won’t let this drag on. I only want to do the right thing. I’m going to end my engagement with Charlene as soon as possible. It’s never been my style to lead anyone on. Two women is one too many.”

Oh, Agatha, are you crazy? Speak up! This script was last heard on a Dynasty rerun! He’s about to have his cake and eat it, too.

“I’m sorry for the complications,” he said, touching her cheek tenderly with one knuckle. “I am so grateful for your patience.”

She opened her mouth to tell him that, while she understood completely, she thought it imperative that they stay apart until he had finished his sad business. “Will I see you tonight?” came out instead.

 

From where Grant sat on the sofa in his living room, he could see the mound of linens in the bedroom move slightly. Stephanie was beginning to wake. He could also see the pile of dirty clothes on the floor at the foot of the bed, the school papers and books stacked high on the dining table and the dishes and pans in the sink and on the counter. The kitchen had been clean when he’d left for work, dirty when he got home—as usual. The kitchen and bathroom were perpetual messes that he’d long since given up hope he’d ever get control over, or that Stephanie would ever pitch in. Sometimes the simple task of putting soap in the dishwasher and turning it on took more domestic talent than Stephanie could muster.

Grant hadn’t slept at all last night. He’d been doing a lot of thinking, trying to figure out what to do. Stephanie might have unknowingly brought the conflict to a head when she introduced Fast Freddy into the scenario, his sudden and discomfiting presence a direct result of Stephanie’s constant dissatisfaction with Grant. When Stephanie had shrieked, “This would never have happened if you worked a normal job with normal hours like a normal guy!” Grant knew they were doomed. From this point on it could only get worse.

Stephanie moaned and rolled over, twisted in the sheets and quilt. She was slowly coming around and it was almost noon. It had been a late night. Or rather, an early morning. She had left a message on the school district’s voice mail that a substitute would be needed for her class due to a family emergency. What she didn’t know yet was there was about to be yet another emergency—their separation.

Grant loved her, there was no question about that. In fact, it had pretty much been love at first sight. Here was a young woman so full of love and life and laughter, she was irresistible. Added to that her natural compassion, the patience she used to teach surly teenagers and the devotion she had for her family.

But she was also spoiled, selfish and shortsighted.

To see Stephanie out in the world, the perfectly put-together beauty that she was, it was impossible to imagine what an unbelievable slob she was. He hadn’t seen the bathroom counter since she moved in. Grant was a long way from fussy, but this amount of disorder put him on the defensive, had him fighting for his life in the squalor that was supposed to be their happy home.

But that was only one issue, and there were many. The constant bickering was killing him—about his schedule, his plans for the future, her loneliness, and, not the least, marriage. How anyone, especially a young woman whose parents were divorced before her first birthday and whose grandparents allegedly lived together about a month a year, could introduce the idea of marriage as a cure into a relationship as troubled as this one was beyond Grant.

She moved again, moaned, and Grant knew that the time had come. He had to get this over with. He went into the kitchen, poured coffee into the two cups he had searched for and washed that morning, and took them into the bedroom, where he sat on the edge of the bed. “Steph?” he urged. “It’s almost noon. Time to wake up.”

“Hmm? Can’t I sleep a while longer?”

“I have to talk to you before I leave.”

“Leave? For work?”

“Sort of. Here, I brought coffee.”

She smiled sleepily, but the sight of her swollen eyes from last night’s crying was almost enough to make him lose his nerve. She took the coffee cup, hummed appreciatively and said, “You are too good to me, Grant Chamberlain.”

“I love you,” he said.

“Aw,” she returned, placing the palm of her hand against his cheek. “That’s so sweet. See, I think we’d do a lot better if we just had more time together. You’re usually asleep when I get up and I’m asleep when you get home, and it just can’t—”

“Stephanie, I have to tell you something and you have to be quiet and listen. It’s real important that you listen and not fight with me. Just this once.”

Her swollen eyes opened fearfully. “What is it?”

“I love you. I always have loved you and I’m a little afraid that maybe I always will. But I can’t marry you. You know why?”

“Why?” she asked weakly.

“Because we’re not happy. You’re not happy with me.”

“But Grant—”

“No! You have to listen. I know all couples have their problems. I know everyone argues sometimes, and even have some real huge battles. But there isn’t hardly anything about me that you like. You don’t like my job, my goals, my dreams. When I’m not home you complain, and when I am home we fight. We’re opposites to the core. I like it tidy, you wouldn’t know tidy if it bit you in the butt. To tell you the truth, Steph, I don’t know if you’re going to find a guy who will be able to hang around, spend a lot of time with you, have plenty of money on hand so he doesn’t have to work long hours, and will be happy about all the housework he’ll have to do just to keep from attracting the health department.”

She sniffed loudly and lifted her chin. “It’s the new millennium, Grant. The woman doesn’t have to do all the—”

He tipped his head and grimaced at her ridiculousness. “I’m not going to argue about that again,” he said. “I work full-time, go to school full-time, and if anything gets done around here, it’s because I—” He caught himself. There he was, doing just what he said he wouldn’t do. “Stephanie, you want a baby, right? If you had a baby, you think you could even find it in this mess?”

“That was just mean.”

“Steph, last night put the cap on it, so to speak. When I came home to find you hysterical because that asshole, Freddy, had been pestering you, scaring you, I realized our problems are out of control. Bigger than we are. You’re not happy. You’re worse than not happy, you’re miserable. You think if I change my work schedule, you’ll be happy. Or if I decide not to be a cop, like your dad, you’ll be happy. Or maybe if I don’t complain that I have to dig around in a mound of dirty dishes to find a cup to wash every morning, you’ll be happy. All problems considered, you still think we should go ahead and—”

He stopped talking as her eyes welled up and one large pitiful tear spilled over and rolled down her cheek. He wiped it with the knuckle of his index finger.

“I work hard, Steph, and I plan to keep working hard. I don’t just want to be a cop, I want to be the chief of police. Maybe the commissioner. I’ve wanted that since I was about four. Nothing’s going to change that.

“I’m going to leave, Steph, and give you your life back. Give you a chance to find out what it takes to make you happy. Because, baby, happy people just don’t live like this. And when I do get married and have a family, it’s gotta be with someone who is on my team, who is proud of what I’m doing, and who I can’t wait to get home to. And to someone whose team I can get on. I just can’t get on this team. It’s a goddamn wreck. You’d expect this from a teenager,” he said, throwing his arm wide to indicate the unkempt bedroom. “Not a grown woman.”

“Leave?” she choked. “You’d do that to me?”

“Yeah, I’m afraid I’m going to do that to you. Oh, I’ll pay the rent and leave the furnishings that are mine. At least for a while. But my advice? I think you should go move in with your dad. Charlene would never put up with this mess, and your dad will make you feel safe.”

“With Freddy stalking me and Peaches in the hospital, you’d—”

“I’m going now, before this gets any worse. Every week I stay we fight more and this place makes me angrier. It’s gone too far. I don’t want a life like this. Not with every day being miserable. Not with complications like other guys.”

“But I would never—”

“Steph, I don’t have any more compromises in me. Maybe with me gone, you’ll figure out what you really want.”

“So you’re going to walk out on me, leave me to handle this lunatic who’s putting roses on my—”

“Not to worry, baby. Fast Freddy isn’t going to bother you again. I guarantee it. Meantime, think about moving in with Jake. He’ll spoil you, make you feel like a little girl. You’d like that.” He walked to the bedroom door. “Or you could live on your own, get your life under control. And maybe grow up.”

“Grant, please don’t do this to me,” she said, her voice trembling. “Please don’t go.”

He left the room. At the apartment’s front door sat two stuffed duffel bags. He was leaving behind his TV, furniture, dishes and linens. He didn’t think he’d ever get that stuff back, but it didn’t matter. If she needed it to get by, she could have it. He looked over his shoulder and saw her standing in the bedroom door frame, comforter wrapped around her, tears streaking her face.

“If you need me, I’ll be at my folks’.”

“I hate you,” she said in a mean whisper.

It made him stiffen in hurt, even though he knew she didn’t mean it. She loved him, but she only loved him best when she got her way. Just the same, he said, “I know. That’s why I’m going.”