I saw Branch start backing up away from the bed and I knew he was there before I even saw him. Danica stopped talking and smiled as she backed up as well. Then I saw him, holding B with one arm as they approached the bed. “There she is, bug. Just like you said. Tell Mama hi.”
“Hi, Mama.”
“Hi, baby.”
Brooks reached down and grabbed my hand. He immediately had tears in his eyes. “Don’t you ever do that to us again. My heart can’t take it.”
I began to cry again. “I’m so sorry. I just wanted to get him away. I didn’t mean to cause the accident.”
“What do you mean? Bobby was intoxicated; way over the legal limit. He shouldn’t have even been conscious.”
“I hit him in the face with the bottle of bourbon. He was hurting me and threatening me, saying he was going to take B away. I just wanted him to let me go. I wanted it to stop.”
“You stopped it alright, and almost died doing it. You weren’t even wearing a seatbelt,” Branch added.
“I’ve got this, bro. Why don’t you take Mom for a walk and give us a minute?” Brooks looked at me the whole time he spoke and I didn’t like the look he had on his face.
Branch and his mother left the room. When the door shut, Brooks pulled up a chair and let B down. He handed her a small bag of crackers and she was spinning around shoving them in her mouth.
“You know I’m mad, right?”
I shrugged and could feel the muscles in my body aching. “I had my reasons, Brooks. I didn’t want him in your parent’s house.”
He closed his eyes like my explanation pained him or something. “Kat, I got out of that pool and B jumped back in. I had to retrieve her before I could get a towel and come inside to look for you. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I never assumed that Bobby had driven all that way to kidnap you.”
“I’m sorry,” I cried. “I didn’t know what to do. All I could think of was getting him away from you and B. I knew she was safe, no matter what happened to me.”
“Listen to yourself. What about me, Kat? Did you ever consider how you being gone would affect me? Do you even think that being without you again would kill me? We’re a team, remember? No more lies or secrets. You promised.”
I shook my head. “I did what I had to do, whether you believe me or not. I wanted you to save me, but I didn’t have time to think about it. I had to get him away from our family.”
“He could have killed you, Kat. Tell me something. Did those marks on your face and arms come from him, or the accident?”
I cried more, knowing he was right. I should have called for help. I could have stalled him until Brooks came into the house. I should have done a lot of things different, especially the decision to marry him in the first place. “Please don’t hate me.”
He squeezed my hand and looked right into my eyes. Tears ran down his cheeks. “Have you ever felt so happy that you’re almost wondering when something bad is going to happen?”
I knew exactly how that felt, so I nodded.
“Then you know what it was like to pull up to that accident and know that I could have prevented it.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
Brooks looked at B and then back to me. “It doesn’t even matter anymore. He won’t be bothering you again.”
“Did he get arrested? Is he going to jail?”
“He didn’t make it, Kat. He passed on during surgery.”
I felt like my heart stopped beating. The room began to spin and my monitor starting beeping rapidly, setting off an alarm.
This couldn’t be happening to me. Brooks had to be joking. There was no way that Bobby was gone. There was no way that I’d killed him.
This couldn’t be happening to me.
I was trying to get free, not end someone’s life.
How was I ever going to live with knowing that I’d caused that accident? I’d caused Bobby to become the man that he was and I’d been the reason that he was lying in a body bag with no future.
Chapter 52
Suddenly my prognosis seemed irrelevant. I needed to know if I'd killed Bobby; if I'd killed my own husband who'd only put himself in the dire situation because of me. Just weeks ago we were seemingly happy, even moving forward with our feelings and our family. Being with Brooks had changed everything. It had destroyed a man's life and cost him his existence. All I could do was sob, not for the husband who'd become violent or possessive, but for me, the wife, that had caused his plummet and then eventual demise. I felt like my own devil, as if trying to justify what I’d done would only make that fact truer. I wanted to close my eyes and take it all back. I knew there could have been better choices that weren't made out of desperation.