‘Marianne, stop it. Shshsh! Sweetheart, you’ll wake up Keni. Now hush! We can deal with this. Downstairs.’
‘Deal with it? Like we always do, Aaron? Hmm? You’ll say you’re sorry and I’ll believe you and forgive you until the next one of your little whores comes along?’
‘Shshsh! Marianne, shush now, shush.’ Her father’s voice had been so even, so calm, as though he had been the reasonable one, as though he was calming an angry child or soothing away a nightmare. Her mother’s voice was only slightly less than hysterical and, for a split second, Kendra was frightened for her, frightened that something serious had happened, that her mother was sick or injured. She had slipped from her bed and peeked around the edge of her door. She could hear her mother’s muffled sobs. She could just make out her back, wrapped in the lilac chenille bathrobe her father had gotten her for Christmas. Her father was still dressed in his suit. He still looked immaculate, like he always did. And so handsome. She remembered how handsome her father looked, how powerful. She remembered because that was the night she stopped thinking of him as handsome. On the floor in shattered bits, Kendra could see the Tiffany lamp that had always sat on the hall table.
‘Please, Marianne, sweetheart, I know you’re angry, and rightly so, but let’s discuss this downstairs. Let’s not do this here.’ Even as he spoke, he slid a powerful arm around her mother’s shoulders and guided her down the staircase. And Kendra knew then that he had won, no matter what her mother said from that point on.
Quietly, on tiptoe, Kendra had eased herself outside her room and into the hall, careful to avoid the shards of glass on the carpet. They were so caught up in their discussion they hadn’t even thought she might eavesdrop. She’s followed silently down the stairs, holding her breath, listening, not wanting to hear and yet not able to turn and run back to the safety of her room. What was the point? There was no unknowing what she now knew. From the foot of the stairs just around the corner, out of their line of sight, she listened, hands clenched in tight, painful fists at her side.
‘It was Sadie, wasn’t it?’ her mother was saying. ‘Sadie Myers. I know it was, I saw you with her, and people talk. God, Aaron, I’m not stupid. You used to try to hide it, so at least I wasn’t humiliated in front of all our friends, all our neighbors.’
From around the corner in the stairwell, Kendra watched as her father stooped to kiss her mother. ‘I’m sorry darling. I’m so sorry. I’m not strong like you are. I’ll make it up to you. I promise. It won’t happen again.’
But it did. Of course it did.
‘Mom, why do you let him do it?’ she’d asked once when the bastard had actually had the balls to bring one of his bimbos home and pass her off as a colleague. ‘Why don’t you leave him? You’ve got a degree, you can find work. You don’t have to put up with it.’
Her mother had pulled her into her arms and offered the sad little smile she always did. ‘He’s a good provider, Keni, and he loves his family. He just needs a little extra, that’s all. More than I can give him. Someday when you get married and have children of your own, you’ll understand, sweetheart. It’s not always as simple as what you read about in those novels.’
Simple? It had never been simple. Kendra always knew that. Kendra always knew who had the power and who was willing to sacrifice what. It was like a game of advance and retreat. There was an endless stream of women, and Kendra and her mom got things – a new car, holidays in Spain, nice clothes, new furniture. There was never a lack of things. Ever. And Kendra knew, as well as her mother did, how to manipulate her father for a new outfit, a new computer, new boots. It was control. The only control she had, and she used it. Even when there was nothing she needed, even when she had her own money from her after-school jobs, she never, ever let him forget he owed her, he owed both of them.
As for her mother, well, Kendra was always apathetic toward people who didn’t stand up for themselves. Her mother was weak. Her mother was willing to settle. Kendra promised herself early on that she never would. Kendra promised herself she would always be the one in control. And she had always kept that promise until last year, until she’d been forced to sell the Ryder Agency and flee. Even as terrifying as the whole situation had been, it was still the loss of control that bothered her more than anything else. It was the memory of walking away when she didn’t want to, of being frightened, truly frightened for the first time ever, and not being brave enough to stand and fight, that tore at her. For a moment, for a dark, despairing moment, she had been her mother’s daughter, and it had been the worst moment of her life.