Chapter 3
I was still going through Ryan’s nightstand when I heard his key in the front door.
I froze.
Noah was still asleep on the couch.
The last thing I wanted was for him to wake up to more yelling.
I quietly closed the drawer.
I walked out into the hallway.
Ryan was already inside.
He’d locked the door behind him.
He stood there in the entryway, his jacket still on, his face unreadable.
“Sarah, we need to have a calm conversation.”
“Calm?” I kept my voice low, but every word burned. “You want calm? Our son told thirty people that your mother has been abusing him and that you knew about it. And you stood there and let him say it. You didn’t defend him. You didn’t hold him. You just told him he was confused.”
“Because I was trying to protect all of us.” He stepped closer. “If I’d admitted anything in there, the whole family would’ve turned on Mom. Her reputation would’ve been ruined.”
“Her reputation?” I laughed. It sounded ugly. “What about Noah’s safety? What about him? Does he not matter more than Diane’s stupid country club reputation?”
“Of course he matters.” Ryan ran a hand through his hair. “But you don’t understand my family. You never have. We don’t air our dirty laundry in public. We handle things privately.”
“Handle things privately?” I pointed toward the living room. “You call hitting an eight-year-old with a wooden spoon handling things? You call telling him to lie to his mother handling things?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Then what was it like, Ryan? Because I’m dying to hear your version.”
He hesitated.
He looked toward the living room, making sure Noah was still asleep.
Then he lowered his voice even more.
“Okay. Fine. Yeah. I knew she’d gotten physical with him a few times.”
The floor dropped out from under me.
I grabbed the wall to stay standing.
“You knew.”
“Not the way Noah made it sound.” He held up his hands like he was trying to calm a spooked horse. “It was never… bad. She’d swat his leg when he was being wild. Or tap his hand when he reached for something he shouldn’t. All the stuff our parents did to us. Normal stuff.”
“Normal?” My voice cracked. “Noah said she hit him with a wooden spoon. He said you told him not to tell me.”
“Okay, the wooden spoon happened once. Last week. He’d just destroyed her new vase—you know the one, the antique she brought back from Italy. She lost her temper. She swatted him with it. And when I found out, I yelled at her. I told her she was never to do it again.”
“And the part where you told Noah not to tell me?”
Ryan looked away.
“I knew you’d overreact. I knew you’d blow it out of proportion and do exactly what you did today—storm out, cause a scene, involve the cops. I was trying to keep the peace. I was handling it.”
“You call that handling it?” I was screaming now, and I didn’t care. “You call letting your mother beat our son and then threatening him into silence handling it? What kind of father are you?”
“I’m the kind of father who’s trying to keep this family together!” he shouted back. “Do you have any idea what happens if you go to the police? CPS gets called. They could take Noah away. They could put him in foster care because his parents can’t get along. Is that what you want?”
That stopped me.
Not because he was right.
But because he’d thought about it.
He’d actually considered using the system against me.
“You’d let them take our son rather than admit your mother is dangerous?”
“I’m not letting anyone take anyone.” He stepped closer again. “But we have to be smart about this. We go to the police, and suddenly we’re the bad parents. We can’t keep our kid safe in our own home. They’ll ask questions. They’ll want to know why I didn’t say anything. Why you didn’t notice. And then where are we?”
I stared at him.
The man I’d fallen in love with in college.
The man who’d cried when Noah was born.
The man who’d once punched a guy at a bar just for looking at me wrong.
Now he was threatening me with CPS because I wanted to protect our child.
“Get out.”
“Sarah—”
“Get out of my house.”
“Our house.”
“Not anymore.” I walked to the front door and unlocked it. “You have five minutes to pack a bag. Then I want you gone. And if you try to take Noah, I will call 911 and tell them everything. And I will show them the picture I took of his face. And I will tell them exactly how you threatened me just now. Do you want to test me?”
We stared at each other.
For a long time.
I could see the wheels turning in his head.
Calculating.
Weighing his options.
Finally, he nodded.
“Fine. I’ll go. But you’re making a huge mistake. You’re tearing this family apart over nothing.”
He walked past me to the bedroom.
I heard him yanking the dresser drawers open.
Throwing clothes into a duffel.
I went back to the living room.
Noah was awake.
He was sitting up on the couch, his eyes wide.
“Mommy? Is Daddy leaving?”
I sat beside him and pulled him into my arms.
“For a little while, baby. Just until we can figure some things out.”
“Is he mad at me?”
“Oh, honey. No.” I kissed the top of his head. “Daddy’s not mad at you. He’s just… confused. And he’s made some bad choices. But none of this is your fault. Do you hear me? None of it.”
He nodded against my chest.
“Mommy?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“Can I sleep in your bed tonight? I don’t want to be alone.”
“Of course you can. You can sleep in my bed every night for as long as you want.”
Ryan walked out a minute later.
He paused in the living room doorway.
He looked at Noah.
“Buddy? I’m sorry about today. I love you, okay? I love you so much.”
Noah didn’t answer.
He just buried his face deeper into my shirt.
Ryan’s jaw tightened.
He left without another word.
The front door clicked shut.
The lock turned.
I held Noah until his breathing evened out again.
Then I got my laptop.
I opened a new document.
And I started writing down everything Noah had said.
Everything Ryan had admitted.
Every date. Every detail.
Because I was done being naive.
May you like
I was done trusting the wrong people.
And I was going to make sure that no one—no one—ever hurt my son again.
