When I'm Gone: A Novel (23 page)

Pills and alcohol? No wonder the guy was passed out. He had to get Annie out of here. They’d deal with the disaster of a room later.

“Luke,” Annie whispered through the crack in the door, “is he okay?”

After all this, how could she still be concerned about Brian?

“Yeah, he’s sleeping.” Luke grabbed the wastebasket wedged between the bed and nightstand. It had a few used Kleenex but was mostly untouched. With one sweep he tossed the contents of the tabletop into the shiny black bin. The bottles clanked together in the bottom of the bin liner. Luke yanked the bag out by the edges and tied it at the top. He wasn’t going to help Brian, but he wouldn’t leave him to accidentally overdose either.

Luke took one more look around the room. Annie couldn’t clean this up alone. She’d need help, maybe even professional help. There wasn’t any time to make those plans tonight. He needed to get Annie somewhere safe. He was going to take her home with him.

CHAPTER 23

“Let me get you some clean clothes. Do you want some pajamas?” Luke flicked on the cylindrical hanging light in the front hall. Annie flinched against the brightness of the hundred-watt bulb after the darkness on the car trip over. Luke had to hold back a gasp when he saw her in full light.

Her usually tidy hair was disheveled. Along her collarbone and right cheek, thin lines of blood had dried where fractured glass must have sliced her when Brian sent it exploding behind her. Across her right forearm was a reddish bruise that looked like she’d fallen against something straight and hard. And her eyes, her eyes were the worst. Swollen from crying, red-rimmed and bloodshot, they told of the pain she was feeling even more than the blood or bruises.

“Yeah, maybe I should.” She fingered a slash in the thin fabric around her ribs.

“Why don’t you go lay down on the couch? I’ll grab some clothes, then make you something to eat.”

She nodded and popped the tennis shoes off her feet, the only thing she’d grabbed during their mad rush out of the house. When Luke pressed his body through the crack in the bedroom door, leaving half-naked and totally zoned-out Brian behind him, his only thought was to get Annie out of that house. Reluctant but dazed, it only took a little encouragement to get her out the door. He told himself they could talk about the drugs and the violence when there were miles, not feet, between Annie and Brian.

Luke headed toward the stairs, and Annie’s head shot up like she thought of something. “Nothing of Natalie’s, okay?” she yelped. “A pair of your old sweats or something is fine.”

“Okay,” Luke said, unsure if it was stranger having Annie wear his wife’s pajamas or his. For a moment he considered searching through May’s drawers to see if there was anything in there that could work, but quickly reconsidered.

In his room, Luke pulled out his nicest pair of plaid flannel pants and a soft gray cotton T-shirt that had shrunk in one of his first solo laundry attempts. He stacked them on top of his dresser and quickly changed out of his date-night clothes and tossed them in his laundry pile. Normally during the summer he’d sleep in his boxers, but tonight he decided to go for something more conservative—cotton pants and a larger version of the shirt he’d picked for Annie.

“I hope these fit,” Luke called out as he rounded the corner. Sitting on the couch with her back to him, Annie didn’t seem to notice his entrance. He placed the pile of clothes on the kitchen counter and approached Annie from behind. Face down on her hands, her shoulders shook with silent sobs. He slowly placed his hand on her back, sliding it across the ribbed fabric of her shirt.

“Hey,” he whispered. “It’s okay. You’re safe now.”

Annie lifted her head out of her hands. The rivers of tears on her face joined together into an ocean, her cheeks shimmering when the light hit her skin. Using her shaking hands, she swiped at her face as she sat up. Luke grabbed a tissue out of the box on the coffee table with one hand while leaving the other in the space between Annie’s shoulder blades. They regularly ran out of every other paper product, but Luke made sure to always keep enough Kleenex in stock.

“Thank you.” She took the tissue and wiped under her eyes and nose. Her breaths came in short puffs, and Luke was sure he’d interrupted a much-deserved breakdown. The last thing she probably wanted was Luke in her face as a reminder of her secret world being exposed.

“If you want to be alone, I understand,” Luke muttered. “Your pajamas are on the counter.” He leaned back and let his hand fall off her back. They could talk in the morning, or next week, or whenever she wasn’t feeling so broken that any of his words would inflict more pain. “Let me know if you need
anything
.” Luke stood to leave, but Annie grabbed his hand in both of hers.

“Wait.” She tugged him down and moved over to her left, leaving an empty spot. “Please stay.” He hesitated. She’d been there for him countless times over the past eight months. He wanted to help her, to save her, but all the things he needed to say would do nothing but hurt her. Annie squeezed, and Luke lost his interest in altruism. He settled into the empty space beside her and was surprised when she didn’t let go, even after he was settled into his spot. Instead, she hugged his hand against her side.

Holding Annie’s hand was very different than holding Felicity’s. Felicity’s hand was small, soft, and gave him a sense of comfort and companionship he’d missed since Natalie. But Annie . . . her long, cold fingers somehow burned his skin, making him want to let go and hold on forever at the same time. Her touch scared him more than comforted him. His heart pounded, and with each beat he thought:
Run away!

“Thank you for coming for me. You’re the only person I can trust.” Her voice hitched, and she paused to clear her throat. “I heard what Andy said about your dad. You know what it’s like to have someone who loves you hurt you.” She said it like he was going to agree, but his hand closed around hers, squeezing firmly.

“My father didn’t love me,” he said flatly. “Annie, what happened tonight, that’s not love.”

Annie stiffened beside him. Luke was prepared for her to get defensive and shut down.

“No,” she answered, letting out her breath in one big quavering sigh. Luke braced himself for the rest of her sentence. “I guess it’s not.” She rested against him and put her head on his shoulder. Luke was too relieved to be uncomfortable. “Will you tell me what happened with your dad?”

Luke licked his lips. Tell her? He’d never told the story to anyone but Natalie, and that was more than twenty years ago, in their hideout. Every time he was sent to a new foster home, the foster parents would try to get the story out of him. They already knew what happened—it was in his permanent file—but for some reason people thought he needed to say it out loud. It was different with Annie. He knew her secret; it was only fair to share his.

“You heard what Andy said; he was a drunk. My whole life. My mom used to say he loved too much and that’s why he’d get mad. I believed it until I was about ten. I started to notice I was the only kid sitting out at recess because my back still hurt from where my dad whupped me with his belt buckle.” Annie flinched. He wondered if she knew what that felt like or if Brian had ever tried to harm their son. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t been home since the start of the school year.

“What he did to me was nothing like what he did to my mom. He’d come home late, calling her vulgar names I’d never heard before. If she was lucky, he’d stop with the slurs; if she was unlucky, or left something out of place, or said the wrong thing at the wrong moment, he’d beat her. I prayed every night someone would save us, that God would strike my father dead. Unfortunately my father went on breathing.” Luke shook his head, still angry that he’d once believed in a God who would care about one child out of billions.

“What’s worse,” he continued, absentmindedly placing his head on top of Annie’s, “everyone in town knew he hit her. Terry knew; she’s told me that before. It was like this big extended family of enablers. No one called the cops, least of all my mom. I think she was far more scared of my father getting arrested than any physical harm he could do to her. When I was fourteen, she got pregnant. She’d had a tough delivery with me that ended with a midline cesarean. The doctors told her because of the damage from the emergency surgery, she might never have another child.

“Violet was a miracle from the day we found out about her in more ways than one. My dad stopped hitting my mom, he drank less, stayed home more, and by the time my mom was six months pregnant, he was interviewing for a new job. It seemed like baby Violet put our lives back on track. For a little while I let myself believe we were going to be a real family.”

“I didn’t know you had a sister,” Annie whispered.

“I don’t.”

“I thought you said Violet was your sister?” Annie pulled their intertwined hands on her lap, drawing in closer to Luke’s side.

“She was,” he answered, dreading what he had to say next. “But she’s dead now.”

“Oh,” Annie said softly. “I’m sorry I made you tell me this. You can stop.”

“I don’t want to stop. I want you to know why I worry . . . about you.” When she didn’t respond, he continued with his story. “My father didn’t get the job. He went to the bar to drown his sorrows. That’s when he saw Alex Kerks, one of the supervisors over at his old job. Alex made the mistake of asking how things were going and mentioned he’d heard my mom was expecting. I still don’t know what happened, but my dad left convinced my mom was sleeping around and the baby wasn’t his.

“I’ll never forget the slam of that door; it shook the whole house. I knew, I just knew, everything was going to go back to the way it had always been. It didn’t take long, a few shouts, several well-placed hits, and one last swift kick before he ran out the front door. It was enough. My sister was born that night in the hallway by the kitchen. She was already dead.” A lump rose in Luke’s throat. Until now, he’d been able to maintain a monotone delivery, telling the story as though he was recounting a movie plot. Annie was still beside him, the warmth of her body seeping through his T-shirt.

“Were you there?” she asked, shuddering. He could feel her eyes on his, but he tried not to look at her because he didn’t want to cry.

“Uh-huh,” he grunted, barely able to hold back the burning in his eyes. He had to keep going. She had to know the risks of staying when you should run. “I left after Violet was born; I went and hid in the shed in Natalie’s backyard. In the morning she came and found me there. The whole town was out searching for me and my dad.”

“Your mom called the police?”

Luke shook his head slowly and turned to meet Annie’s gaze. The swelling was going down, and the whites of her eyes now looked like porcelain. Several crimson scratches lined her face, as if they’d been drawn on carefully with a colored pencil. A sliver of glass was entwined in the tangles of her hair. He reached out and gently worked the shard out of its resting place.

“She didn’t call the police,” he said, sweeping his gaze over her face as she stared at the glass he had removed from her hair. “Natalie’s father did. He noticed our front door gaping open the next morning. When he went inside to check on us, he saw the blood, followed the trail into my mom’s room, and found her and baby Violet in her bed.”

“So he called the authorities.” Annie took the glass from his hand and held it in her own. “Was your mom scared?”

“No, Annie, she wasn’t scared.”

“Oh?” She looked up in surprise.

“She was dead.”

“What?” It took a few seconds for the shock to register on her face.

“She bled out while she was sleeping.”

“Oh my God.” Annie gasped and dropped the glass on the carpet as though it had cut her.

“They all thought I was dead too. But Natalie figured out where I was hiding. The way she kissed me when she came through the makeshift door told me more than words. We hid in the shed together for hours. CPS came for me a few hours later, and I never spent another night in that house.”

“So, you think
that
could happen to me?” There were tears in her eyes, but they were different than the torrent when he’d found her just a little while earlier. These tears collected slowly on the rims of her eyelids, still, like a pool or a lake.

“I’m not afraid Brian’s going to kill you.” Even as he said the words, he wasn’t sure he believed them. “That’s not true. After what I saw tonight, I’m scared as hell I could lose you. But what scares me almost as much as you dying like my mom is you living like her.”

It seemed like Annie hadn’t taken a breath in over a minute. When she blinked, twin tears fell down her cheeks, one running over her top lip. Luke wiped it away with his fingertips. Annie closed her eyes and leaned in, her breath coming a little faster. He’d never noticed how soft her lips looked; he’d never considered what it would be like to press his mouth against hers, to put his arms around her waist, pull her against his body and never let go.

Oh no, no, no. He couldn’t have these thoughts about Annie. Not only was she still in a very committed, though abusive, marriage, she was also his wife’s best friend.
His
only real friend. Luke yanked his hand back and stood suddenly. Annie slipped to one side, her head nearly hitting the armrest. She brushed the wet trails off her face and looked up at him, startled.

“You okay?”

“It’s getting late, and I’m sure you’re tired. We can talk more in the morning.” His bare feet smacked at the cold tile in the kitchen. He patted the pile of clothes as he spoke. “Um, so, here are your pajamas, and you are welcome to sleep in May’s room if you like. Probably safer than Will’s habitat.” He waited for her to laugh but realized too late that laughter was out of the picture tonight. “I’ll put a toothbrush in the kids’ bathroom and a towel. Anything else I can get for you?”

Annie sat upright and ran a hand through her hair. It had a little curl to it tonight, flipping up at the ends instead of hanging evenly above her shoulders.

“That’s fine,” she answered. “But I think I’ll sleep down here if it’s all the same to you.” She rolled her head back and forth, stretching her neck. Luke couldn’t help but notice the slope of her shoulders, the curve of her neck. How could he turn this new voice off inside his head? The only plan was distance. Putting a whole floor of house between them should help. It had to help. He was tired, overwhelmed from the events of the night. He’d be back to normal in the morning. They’d have a nice quiet Sunday morning and then figure out what could possibly come next.

“Yeah, of course.” He took another step back, eager to be within the confines of his safe, welcoming bed. “Make yourself at home.”

“Don’t I always?” A trace of a smile tickled the edge of her mouth. Wobbling as she stood, she braced herself on the back of the couch. “Guess I’m more tired than I realized.”

She rounded the couch. Luke waved as he backed down the hall toward the front door and said, “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Okay.” She gathered the pile of clothes into her arms. They looked very masculine next to her pink and black pajama pants and the frill around the neckline of her shirt. “Hey, Luke?”