Chapter 2

2: 2

Behind me, my mother-in-law's voice rang out. "Sullivan, where do you think you're going?"

She'd seen me wheeling my suitcase, and she knew I really meant to leave.

Peggy stood rooted where she was, tears falling harder than before.

"If you leave, what happens to me? Everyone's going to think I drove you out. How am I supposed to live after that? I didn't do anything."

"If you really walk away, then I might as well just die."

Her crying softened the old women around her.

"Peggy's mom, say something to her, please."

"Maria's still pregnant. What would it look like, going back to her parents' like this?"

"Exactly. Family doesn't hold grudges overnight. Talk it out and it's done."

My mother-in-law took my hand.

Her strained voice was pitched just loud enough for every gawker around us to hear.

"Sullivan, this family isn't whole without either of you, you or Peggy."

"One is Brent's little sister, the other is his wife. If you really leave today, how do you think he's going to feel?"

"When he gets back from his trip and finds out you were forced back to your parents' house, how is he supposed to face that?"

Brent was my weak spot.

My mother-in-law knew it too well.

In my last life, Peggy had pushed me to the point of wanting to go home too, and every time I backed down over these same few sentences.

I'd tell myself Brent was away on the road for long stretches, that he couldn't even be there to look after me while I was pregnant, and that if I really went back to my parents, he'd be hurt inside even if he never said it.

So I swallowed everything, the whole pregnancy, just to spare him.

The day my water broke in that other life, Peggy snatched my phone away and wouldn't let me call our mother-in-law. She said it was the first time she'd ever mopped the floor and she wanted it to be a surprise.

She even locked the door from the inside, said she was afraid I'd go out and tattle.

I bore down against the contractions for two hours, my breathing heavy as if my chest were packed with sawdust, until my water broke and the pain drove me down onto the floor, crawling for my phone, begging for help.

And she stood there crying, saying it was the first time in her life she was learning to mop, and I just had to relieve myself on the floor to humiliate her, asking whether I was trying to hound her to death.

Later I lay flat on the floor, both hands clamped hard over my belly, gulping for air, the blood pouring out of me and not stopping, until I lost consciousness for good.

This life, I wasn't walking that road again.

I pulled my hand out of her grip.

"Mom, you know perfectly well what's really going on between me and Peggy."

"Don't use Brent to pressure me. From now on, no one can force me to swallow anything I don't want to."

The people around us traded glances.

Peggy stopped crying.

The way she looked at me was the way you'd look at a criminal who'd driven her to the edge.

She suddenly rushed right up to me.

"Why do you have to push things until they can't be fixed?"

Her voice wasn't loud, but it carried a lofty, accusing edge.

"If you'd just target me a little less, run a few less of your schemes right out in the open, we could get along in peace."

The whispers around us started up again.

I took a step back.

"Stay away from me. That green-tea act of yours makes me sick."

Peggy's eyes went wide, tears spilling over at once.

I reached out and shoved her aside, then turned with my suitcase and walked off, ignoring the talk swelling behind me.

At the entrance to the complex, I flagged down a car and went straight home to my parents.