Katie spun around. "Lock the door!" she screamed, and this time it was Kristen who moved first, even as she screamed.
The crowbar had fallen to the side and Kevin struggled to roll over and stand. Katie raised the gun, pointing it as Kevin finally made it to his feet. He swayed, almost losing his balance, his face a skeletal white. He seemed unable to focus and Katie could feel the tears in her eyes.
"I used to love you," she said. "I married you because I loved you."
He thought it was Erin, but her hair was short and dark, and Erin was a blond. A foot lurched forward as he almost fell again. Why was she telling him this?
"Why did you start to hit me?" she cried. "I never knew why you couldn't stop even when you promised." Her hand was shaking and the gun felt so, so heavy. "You hit me on our honeymoon because I left my sunglasses by the pool … "
The voice was Erin's and he wondered if he was dreaming.
"I love you," he mumbled. "I've always loved you. I don't know why you left me."
She could feel the sobs building in her chest, choking her. Her words flooded out in a torrent, unstoppable and nonsensical, years' worth of sorrow. "You wouldn't let me drive or have any friends and you kept the money and made me beg you for it. I want to know why you thought you could do that to me. I was your wife and I loved you!"
Kevin could barely stay upright. Blood dripped from his fingers and arm to the ground, slippery and distracting. He wanted to talk to Erin, wanted to find her, but this wasn't real. He was sleeping, Erin was beside him in bed, and they were in Dorchester. Then his thoughts leapfrogged, and he was standing in a dingy apartment and a woman was crying.
"There was pizza sauce on his forehead," he muttered, stumbling forward. "On the boy who was shot, but the mom fell down the stairs and we arrested the Greek."
She couldn't make sense of what he was saying, couldn't understand what he wanted from her. She hated him with a rage that had been building up for years. "I cooked for you and cleaned for you and none of it mattered! All you did was drink and hit me!"
Kevin was swaying, like he was about to fall. His words were slurred, unintelligible. "There were no footprints in the snow. But the flowerpots are broken."
"You should have let me go! You shouldn't have followed me! You shouldn't have come here! Why couldn't you just let me go? You never loved me!"
Kevin lurched toward her, but this time he reached for the gun, trying to knock it away. He was weak now, though, and she managed to hold on. He tried to grab her, but he screamed in agony when his damaged hand connected with her arm. Acting on instinct, he threw his shoulder into her, driving her against the side of the house. He needed to take the gun away from her and press it into her temple. He stared at her with wide, hate-filled eyes, pulling her close, reaching for the gun with his good hand, using his weight against her.
He felt the barrel graze his fingertips and instinctively scrambled for the trigger. He tried to push the gun toward her, but it was moving in the wrong direction, pointing down now.
"I loved you!" she sobbed, fighting him with every ounce of rage and strength left in her, and he felt something give way, momentary clarity returning.
"Then you never should have left me," he whispered, his breath heavy with alcohol. He pulled the trigger and the gun sounded with a loud crack and then he knew it was almost over. She was going to die because he'd told her that he'd find her and kill her if she ever ran away again. He would kill any man who loved her.
But strangely, Erin didn't fall, didn't even flinch. Instead, she stared at him with fierce green eyes, holding his gaze without blinking.
He felt something then, burning in his stomach, fire. His left leg gave way and he tried to stay upright, but his body was no longer his own. He collapsed on the porch, reaching for his stomach.
"Come back with me," he whispered. "Please."
Blood pulsed through the wound, passing between his fingers. Above him, Erin was going in and out of focus. Blond hair and then brown again. He saw her on their honeymoon, wearing a bikini, before she'd forgotten her sunglasses, and she was so beautiful that he couldn't understand why she'd wanted to marry him.
Beautiful. She was always so beautiful, he thought, and then he was tired again. His breaths became ragged and then he started to feel cold, so cold, and he began to shake. He exhaled once more, the sound like air being released from a tire. His chest stopped moving. His eyes were wide open, uncomprehending.
Katie stood over him, shaking as she stared down at him. No, she thought. I'll never go with you. I never wanted to go back.
But Kevin didn't know what she was thinking, because Kevin was gone, and she realized then that it was finally, truly, over.
41
The hospital kept Katie under observation for most of the night before finally releasing her. Afterward, Katie remained in the hospital waiting room, unwilling to leave until she knew Alex would be okay.
Kevin's blow had nearly cracked Alex's skull, and he was still unconscious. Morning light illuminated the narrow rectangular windows of the waiting room. Nurses and doctors changed shifts, and the room began to fill with people: a child with a fever, a man having trouble breathing. A pregnant woman and her panicked husband pushed through the swinging doors. Every time she heard a doctor's voice, she looked up, hoping she would be allowed to see Alex.
Bruises mottled her face and arms, and her knee was swollen to almost twice its usual size, but after the requisite X-rays and exams, the doctor on call had merely given her ice packs for her bruises and Tylenol for the pain. He was the same doctor who was treating Alex, but he couldn't tell her when Alex would wake and said that the CAT scans were inconclusive. "Head wounds can be serious," he'd told her. "Hopefully, we'll know more in a few hours."
She couldn't think, couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, couldn't stop worrying. Joyce had taken the kids home from the hospital and Katie hoped they hadn't had nightmares. Hoped they wouldn't have nightmares forever. Hoped Alex was going to recover fully. Prayed for that.
She was afraid to close her eyes because every time she did, Kevin reappeared. She saw the smears of blood on his face and shirt, his wild eyes. Somehow, he'd tracked her down; somehow, he'd found her. He'd come to Southport to take her home or kill her, and he'd almost succeeded. In one night, he had destroyed the fragile illusion of security she had managed to construct since she'd arrived in town.
The terrifying visions of Kevin kept coming back, recurring endlessly with variations, sometimes changing entirely; there were moments she saw herself bleeding and dying on the porch, staring up at the man she hated. When that happened, she instinctively groped at her stomach, searching for wounds that didn't exist, but then she was back in the hospital, sitting and waiting under fluorescent lights.
She worried about Kristen and Josh. They'd be here soon; Joyce would bring them in to see their father. She wondered if they would hate her because of everything that happened, and the thought made tears sting her eyes. She covered her face with her hands, wishing she could burrow into a hole so deep that no one would ever find her. So that Kevin would never find her, she thought, and then remembered again that she'd watched him die on the porch. The words He's dead echoed like a mantra she couldn't escape.
"Katie?"
She looked up and saw the doctor who was now treating Alex.
"I can bring you back now," he said. "He woke up about ten minutes ago. He's still in ICU, so you can't stay long, but he wants to see you."
"Is he okay?"
"Right now, he's about as good as can be expected. He took a nasty blow."
Limping slightly, she followed the doctor as they made their way to Alex's room. She took a deep breath and straightened her posture before she entered, telling herself that she wasn't going to cry.
The ICU was filled with machines and blinking lights. Alex was in a bed in the corner, a bandage wrapped around his head. He turned toward her, his eyes only half open. A monitor beeped steadily beside him. She moved to his bedside and reached for his hand.
"How are the kids?" he whispered. The words came out slowly. Labored.
"They're fine. They're with Joyce. She took them home."
A faint, almost imperceptible smile crossed his lips.
"You?"
"I'm okay." She nodded.
"Love you," he said.
It was all she could do not to break down again. "I love you, too, Alex."
His eyelids drooped, his gaze unfocused. "What happened?"
She gave him an abbreviated account of the past twelve hours, but midstory she saw his eyes close. When he woke again later that morning, he'd forgotten parts of what she had recounted, so she told him again, trying to sound calm and matter-of-fact.