“Mom, stop! It’s not that. I swear, it isn’t. Peter and I are fine. We’re great. I swear.”
She pulled a bowl from a cabinet, opening the carton of eggs without looking at me. “Then why are you here when you have a perfectly good home thirty minutes from here? Why are you here when you’ve only brought those children into my home when I force you to?” She waved an egg in the air—midcrack—pointing toward the top floor. “You’re lying to me, Ainsley, and I want to know why.”
I placed my head in my hands, my shoulders drooping. What more could I say? What could I say to my mother or my children? What could I tell them?
For so long, all I’d wanted was a life without secrets and lies, and now, thanks to Peter, I’d found myself being the one doling them out the most. Who had he turned me into?
I inhaled deeply, working to keep my tone even. “You’re right.”
“Of course I am.” She didn’t miss a beat.
“Peter and I are…having problems.” Sweat beaded at my hairline, my entire body revolting against the truth. I hated myself for admitting it. I hated it for being true.
“An affair?” she asked. “Financial problems?”
“No. Nothing like that. Things have just gotten…stressful.”
“As they do.”
“And we agreed we needed some time apart.”
She cracked another egg, still listening.
“Which was why I took the kids to Florida. But then, he texted me and asked me to come back and talk to him.” I lowered my voice. “I don’t want the kids to know any of this.”
“Of course not,” she vowed.
“Dad either,” I added.
She paused, apparently deciding how to feel about that, before giving a small smile. “Of course, dear. I can certainly understand why you’d trust me more than your father with an issue like this. I’m happy to watch the kids while you and Peter work on whatever is going on.” She turned to the refrigerator, retrieving the spinach and transferring it to a strainer. “He’s one of the good ones, you know. You two will work it out.”
I nodded, feeling nauseous. “I’m… I’m going to check on the kids, okay?”
“Take your time. Freshen up. Breakfast will be ready when you are.”
I slid off of the barstool, making my way across the hardwood floor slowly. I hated being back in this house, but I couldn’t focus on that. Now that the kids were safe, I needed to move on to the next step in my plan.
It was time to find my husband.
CHAPTER THREE
AINSLEY
The shower did little to make me feel refreshed. Though my skin and hair were now free of sand and salt, I’d been unable to wash the disgust from my body so easily.
I was repulsed by myself in a way I didn’t know was possible.
As someone who’d always lacked the sort of self-love women write memoirs about, this was a new low, even for me. I hated whom Peter had turned me into. Hated how far I’d let myself fall. Not in the way my mother thought I’d let myself go. At that point, I couldn’t bring myself to care less about the wrinkles forming near my eyes or the extra weight the stress had added to my hips.
I was disappointed—no, not a strong enough word—I was furious with myself for ever letting a man—a monster—control me. For ever letting him make me think my only choice was to do whatever it took to keep him in my life. For ever letting him believe I was something less than whole without him.
I was a whole person before Peter.
I could be whole again without him.
I would be whole again without him.
The sight of the end of our long gravel driveway caused my chest to grow tight. I swallowed, trying to collect saliva in my too-dry throat.
He wasn’t going to be there.
He was probably still trying to figure out where we were.
Nevertheless, I reached for the chef’s knife I’d stolen from my mother’s house, sliding it out of the passenger seat and gripping the handle firmly, eyes peeled for any sight of him.
I eased the car up the driveway slowly, my breath catching in my throat. I had no idea what to expect.
Would the house still be standing?
How much damage had the fire done?
Had he managed to put it out before it took down everything?
Do I hope he did?
The thought appeared as if it were smoke—displaying in my mind for a brief moment and disappearing just as fast.
Did I hope the house was still standing? If I managed to get Peter out of our lives for good, could I ever see moving my children back into it? Could I live there without him, with all the memories we made within those walls?