Walter was by no means soft, but he had grown up with a mother who adored him. Even when she was deep in the bottle, Celia Collier had been a pleasant kind of drunk, given to spontaneous hugs and kisses. Dinner was always on the table at six o’clock. There were snacks in his backpack to take to school. He’d never been forced to wear dirty underwear or beg strangers for money to buy food. He’d never hidden under his bed at night because he was afraid his mother would get drunk and knock the shit out of him.
Leigh loved countless things about Walter Collier. He was kind. He was brilliant. He was deeply caring. But most of all, she adored him for his relentless normalcy.
“Sweetheart,” he said. “I thought we were working.”
Leigh smiled. “That’s not how you say it, sweetheart.”
Walter chuckled as he typed.
Leigh opened her book. She had told Walter she needed to familiarize herself with the updated guidelines to the Americans with Disabilities Act in regards to disabled tenants but, secretly, Leigh was looking into the limits of spousal privilege. As soon as she and Walter returned from their honeymoon, she was going to sit him down and tell him everything about Buddy Waleski.
Maybe.
She leaned her head back on the couch, staring up at the ceiling. There was not much about Leigh’s life that Walter did not know. She had told him about her two stints in juvenile detention and exactly why she’d landed there. She’d described her terrifying night in county lock-up for slashing her sleazy boss’s tires. She had even told him about the first time she had realized she could fight back when her mother attacked her.
Each time she unburdened herself, each time Walter absorbed the details without flinching, Leigh had to fight the urge not to tell him the rest.
But the rest was too much. The rest was such a burden that her sister would rather shoot herself up with poison than live with the memories. Walter had never touched a drop of alcohol, but what would happen if he learned exactly what his wife was capable of? It was one thing to hear about Leigh’s distant, violent past, but Buddy Waleski had been chopped up in his own kitchen less than seven years ago.
She tried to walk herself through that conversation. If she told Walter one thing, she would have to tell him everything, which would start back at the beginning when Buddy had rested his fat fingers on her knee. How could someone even as understanding as Walter believe that Leigh had let herself forget about that night? And how could he forgive her if she could never, ever forgive herself?
Leigh wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Even with spousal privilege, was it fair to make the only man she would ever love a conspirator to her crimes? Would Walter look at her differently? Would he stop loving her? Would he decide that Leigh could never be the mother of his child?
The last thought opened the floodgates. She had to stand up to find a tissue so that he didn’t see her fall apart.
“Baby?” Walter asked.
She shook her head, letting him think she was upset about Callie. She wasn’t afraid of Walter turning her in to the police. She knew that he would never do that. She was afraid that his legal mind would understand the difference between self-defense and cold-blooded murder.
Leigh herself had known the weight of her sins when she had put Atlanta in her rearview mirror. The law twisted itself into knots over the question of intent. What a defendant was thinking when they committed a criminal act could be the deciding factor behind anything from fraud to manslaughter.
She knew exactly what she had been thinking when she had wrapped the cling film around Buddy Waleski’s head six times: you are going to die by my hand and I am going to enjoy watching it happen.
“Sweetheart?” Walter asked.
She smiled. “That’s going to get old pretty fast.”
“Is it?”
Leigh walked back to the couch. Against her better judgment, she sat in his lap. Walter wrapped his arms around her. She pressed her head to his chest and tried to tell herself that she didn’t cherish every second of being held by him.
He asked, “Do you know how much I love you?”
“No.”
“I love you so much that I’ll stop talking about my dream job in Atlanta.”
She should’ve felt relieved, but she felt guilty. Walter’s life had turned upside down when his father had died. The union had saved his mother, and he wanted to pay back that kindness by fighting for other workers who found their lives thrown into chaos.
Leigh had been drawn in by Walter’s need to help other people. She had admired it so much that, against her better judgment, she had gone out on a date with him. In a week, she had gone from sleeping on his couch to curling alongside him in bed. Then they had graduated and gotten jobs and gotten engaged and both of them were ready to start their lives—except for Leigh holding Walter back.