He should have ended it. He can do it now before he does something he can’t take back. He’s not his father, after all. He will never raise his hand to a woman like his father did to his mother. He has got his father’s temper, but his father didn’t have his control. He remembers what his mother looked like, cheap makeup caked on her face as she tried to cover up the swelling, the bruises, the split lip. He remembers thinking, Why don’t you just leave? Why don’t you just run and never look back? And he looked at his father, thinking, I could be you. I know I could. How easy it would be. Because I’m so angry. But I won’t let it happen. I won’t. I won’t.
He owes it to himself. He owes it to his wife. He owes it to Becca, who was two years, two months, and three days when she took her last breath. He was in the room with her, her little hand in his, and he watched her chest rise up, up, up and then down, down, down, and that was all she wrote, folks. Her chest didn’t rise again and the heart monitor starting flatlining, but the nurse was right there to switch it off. They were ready for it. They’d been told it was only a matter of time. Still, when it came, it was something revelatory, because there’d been life in there, in his little girl, as her chest rose up. The little girl who may not have been able to learn many words, or even developed mentally like other two-year-olds, but who would smile at him, a big, goofy smile, and she had this grip, okay? This strong grip, and she’d hold on to his hand like she was afraid he’d leave if she ever let him go.
He didn’t know how to put into words that he’d never let her go. Never. No matter what.
And his little girl was there when she exhaled that last little breath, nothing more than a puff of air. The little girl who couldn’t quite walk, but could crawl for a little while before getting tired, the little girl who spent more time in the Children’s National Medical Center than she did out of it. The little girl who all the nurses knew by name and always cooed over like the good people they were.
And that was it. One moment she was a living person, and the next she was a warm, empty husk who hadn’t opened her eyes in almost three weeks by that point.
Yeah. He sure as shit owes it to her. She deserved better than what she got. So does he. So does his wife.
This is something he can do for her. For both of them.
And maybe his wife will one day lose the wild look in her eyes she’s had since the day of the funeral.
He’s resolute in this. It feels like the first firm decision he’s made for himself in years. Something loosens in his chest. Not completely. Not all the way (he doubts it ever will), but it’s a start.
He sees his wife in the reflection of the window.
He thinks, Oh fuck.
Because she’s got a knife. A ridiculously overpriced Wüsthof Ikon Damascus, something they got as a belated you-eloped-what-the-fuck present. Over three grand for a block of knives, and it was so ludicrous, so over-the-top, that he just laughed and laughed until he thought he was choking.
They’ve never used them.
Until now.
She’s coming quickly and silently up behind him.
He thinks, Oh, you stupid bitch, what the hell have you done?
And she’s almost on top of him then, and he’s spinning, saying, “What the fuck are you—” but she’s already bringing down the knife toward him.
He catches her wrist.
The point of the knife is just inches away from his right shoulder.
She’s screaming at him now, snarling up into his face, teeth bared, a line of spittle trickling down her chin. Her eyes are wide and wet, but he doesn’t think there’s anyone home.
She’s hit him with enough force, though, to make him stagger back. His foot catches on that damn rug she insisted on buying in Chinatown last summer. Their kid was having a good day and they thought, why not, let’s get out, let’s go do something. They rode the Metro down to Gallery Place and walked out into Chinatown, wandering under the ornamental archway, the sidewalks full of tourists snapping photos with their smartphones. She found this shop down an alley and fell in love, the man behind the counter saying, “Good deal, I give you good deal.” His daughter was in a Björn on his chest, and she was grinning her dopey grin, and his wife said, “Look at it, look at it,” fingers trailing along the ornate rug hanging from the ceiling. “Wouldn’t it look good in the living room?” And he thought, It’s hideous, but also, This feels okay, maybe we’ll be okay. So he said, “I guess, are you sure?”
She was sure.
He trips over it now, stumbling back. He’s trying to hold them both up while also trying not to get stabbed because she’s pushing against his grip, trying to force the knife down into him. He’s going backward and she’s going forward, and he’s so mad that it’s gotten to this point, so angry that she’d do something so stupid. He’s sad too, because this isn’t who she is. He knows her. At least he did.
The balcony door is open, but only partway, and the momentum is too strong. His back hits the glass, and he’s a big guy, always has been, pushing two-thirty and muscles on top of muscles. It’s no contest what happens when he meets the glass. It shatters around them, the metal frame twisting and shrieking. It’s safety glass, so it breaks off in chunks, but he still feels little pinpricks on his back, like bee stings.
He lands on his back on the floor of the balcony, glass sprinkling around them. The sounds of traffic below float up around them. She’s on top of him, looking dazed, the knife loose in her grip. He’s reaching up to knock it from her hand when she rears back, the tip of the knife pointed at his throat.
He does the only thing he can.
He punches her in the face.
Bone crunches under his knuckle. A flash of blood. She falls back and he—
—is standing on the road that leads out of Amorea, gasping for breath. He doesn’t kno
w what’s going on, but it’s already slipping from him, he can feel it, can feel it draining out of him. It’s visceral, being on the balcony going through glass, like he actually was there. But the thoughts were not his own, and were foreign, words used he didn’t understand. Had never heard before.