Sheltered(44)

There it was, in plain English. He thought this was too much, too weird, and now he wanted nothing more than to cut her off. End it right here, in her suddenly too-dark bedroom.

She’d never be able to remember his face, if her last glimpse of it was in shadows. She couldn’t even remember it now, as her brain fumbled toward some words she could say, some note of protest she could give. Eve could not attend normal life this evening because her father is an asshole. Please excuse her, and be assured she’ll return to it the second she gets the chance.

Only as it turned out, she didn’t need a note at all. A second before he left by way of the window, he said it to her straight.

“We’re never doing this again. The next time I leave, you’re coming with me.”





She told herself the same thing, a hundred times a day. He didn’t really mean it. And then when her brain informed her that he actually probably had, she tried to tell her brain that he’d intended something else altogether.

There were a million things someone might mean by you’re coming with me, after all. Even though she found it very difficult to work out what those things were. Maybe he had tickets to Disneyland and hoped she’d come for a vacation with him?

One on which they’d argue and return early and then threaten to kill each other.

God, she just couldn’t come to grips with it. With him. He offered too much, and took too little. He made promises that thrilled her past the point of bearable, until just the thought of something like that actually happening made her dig her nails into the palms of her hands.

Doing so stopped the thought dead. It blanked her mind, and that was what she needed most of all—a blank mind. No thoughts about Van. No crazy notions about running away with him, because if she thought about it too long she knew she’d want to do it, and what then? What then?

She couldn’t very well tell him that her mother needed to come with them, in case of unfortunate accidents that weren’t really accidents at all.

Though as it turned out, she didn’t really need to. She didn’t have to tell him what had kept her here all these years, because on returning home on Monday evening, she found her reason for staying had gone.

Barely a whisper left. Barely a trace. Just empty hangers in her mother’s side of the closet, and the jewelry box stood open on the dresser. She’d taken everything she needed while her daughter went to college and her husband went to work, and left behind all the things that didn’t matter.

And when Evie finally managed to drag herself downstairs—only to find her father in the kitchen by the counter—she had to wonder. Had her father ever made a deal with her mother, like the one he’d made with her? If you leave, I’ll kill our daughter, she thought, idly.

And then not so idly.

“Sit down, Eve,” her father said, but really he didn’t have to. She knew what his gray, grave expression meant. The game of pretending he hadn’t known what she’d been doing was over. He’d uncovered something, and now she had to step forward to see what it was. Had she left a book somewhere—one that she shouldn’t have been reading? A tissue left too long in her bathroom wastepaper basket?

The undesirable items ranged from the smallest, simplest thing to near unspeakable transgressions, but she had to be honest. She hadn’t really understood what unspeakable was, until right this moment.

The worst thing possible had happened, and her mother had just left her to it.

“Sit down, Eve,” he said again, while that familiar heat spread over her palms. Soon they’d be wet with perspiration, but of course whenever she tried to wipe them on her skirt he’d catch it, and punish her harder.

Good girls did not do things like that. Good girls did not have thoughts about stabbing their fathers. And above all else, good girls did not invite boys with wallets into their homes.

“Are you defying me, Eve?” her father asked, and it was only then that she realized she had absolutely no intention of sitting down. She’d done it a thousand times before and never blinked, never thought there was an option…

But something had changed now.

She could feel it rising inside herself. Could feel it opening its mouth and hear it saying words—If your father kills you now, you’ll never see Van again. You’ll never hold him, never kiss him, never fall asleep on him. You’ll never get that normal life, Evie.

So do what you have to do. There’s nothing here to hold you back anymore. Nothing to stop you—just go. Go on. You’re free. Go.

Though she was more surprised than anyone, when her body actually obeyed. It didn’t even stop to collect itself, or check with her mind that this was definitely the way to go. It just reached forward whip quick, snatched Van’s wallet—that terrible, terrible evidence of her crime—from the counter and then went for the sliding doors, all in one big, juddering rush.