I got off the plane and made my way to the baggage carousel. There was a man in a suit holding a sign with my name on it. I got my suitcase, ignored the man, and made my way outside where I called an Uber.
It was petty, and maybe stupid, because it’s not like Arthur wouldn’t see the record on his credit card statement, although he wouldn’t necessarily know where I’d gone. Still, refusing his assigned driver felt like a rejection of him and that felt good.
I’d listened to him cry outside my door for hours last night, saying he was sorry. Then early this morning he’d knocked, and, since I knew I had to face him at some point, I opened the door.
“Did you use to hit my mother?”
It was the first thing I asked him, because it was the one thing I’d wanted to know as I lay in bed listening to him cry. It occurred to me it wasn’t a natural thing for a man to hit a woman. There was so much conditioning around the fact they were physically stronger and had to check that strength around women.
Violence toward women was a major social taboo, which, of course, a lot of men broke. But in my opinion, it wasn’t something a man did only once. If you were the kind of person who decided hitting someone else was okay, then you hit people. If you were a man who could kick your daughter while she was on the floor, then maybe you’d also done that before.
His face had gone white in that moment. I could almost see the age he tried so hard to hide fall over his face.
He swallowed and told me about a resort in Sedona instead. I didn’t know if he couldn’t answer because I’d shamed him horribly, or because he was guilty.
He told me a car was coming to pick me up. He’d booked a one-way flight to Phoenix. A driver would be waiting to take me to the resort. This would be good for me, he’d said. Good for us. His way of apologizing, while giving me the space I needed to find forgiveness.
All I heard was…away.
Where George wouldn’t see the bruise on my cheek. Where I couldn’t deal with Marc.
The Uber driver pulled up to the sidewalk and got out to open his trunk.
“It’s a six-hour drive,” I reminded him as he stuffed my suitcase into his trunk. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”
Miguel, according to the app, simply smiled. “Yeah, I figure there’s got to be a hell of a tip in that for me. And I’ve got nothing to do today.”
I smiled back and got in the backseat. It felt like freedom. Arthur wanted me to go to Sedona. But I wanted to go somewhere else. Somewhere I chose.
It’s not like Arthur would even care.
“You know they have airports in San Diego,” Miguel said, smiling in his rearview mirror.
“I wanted to take the scenic route,” I said.
“Yeah, well, I hope you like the desert because that’s about all you’re going to see for a long time.”
I looked out the window at the vastness of the space and sky. Brown and flat as far as the eye could see. So different from green New Jersey, it felt like I was in another country.
“I love it,” I said.
Then I laid my head back against the seat, closed my eyes and wondered what came next.
I didn’t like that I was running away. George needed me. Marc needed me. Arthur, because that’s how I would refer to him in my head for the rest of my life, also needed me.
What he’d done was unforgiveable, but he’d been drunk. I couldn’t discount that his impairment had played a factor in his actions. Something had been off with him for months, I knew that. Was it just the alcohol, or whatever had driven him to the alcohol? If I was any kind of daughter, I would try to help him. I was the only family he had.
Right? .
Did he hit my mother? The thought whispered to me from the back of my brain, justifying my decision to walk away from an alcoholic or not.
It didn’t seem rational. He was older than her by almost twenty years. She’d been his second wife; he’d had no children with his first. I was fairly certain he didn’t want me at first, based on comments he’d made in the past about me being a sudden surprise.
My father was stiff. Formal. Absent a lot. Not once had I ever seen him violent.
I was four when my mother died. Arthur said it was complications due to medicine she’d been taking.
God, now that I thought of it, did that mean an overdose? Suicide?
These scary facts had always been right there and I didn’t once, never once asked anyone the hard questions.
Because I was a princess sheltered in my castle.
That’s what Marc would have said. I hated he was right.
My phone started buzzing in my purse. I pulled it out and saw it was Arthur. The driver must have reported my absence. I didn’t answer. Not because I was trying to hide from him, I just wanted space. My space. Not his space.
A trip to San Diego, not Sedona. Something I chose for myself instead of what he wanted. I’d booked a last-minute VRBO condo in the Gaslamp Quarter and was going to stay for however long I wanted to stay.
Let my cheek clear up. Figure out a way to move past what Arthur had done. Then I would go home and start college in the fall.
With Marc.
Marc, who’d had a series of fuck-ups last night. He didn’t even know how much those fuck-ups changed my life. Least of which was ruining my prom.
Landen estate, Harborview
Marc
This was killing me. I was walking around the property to blow off steam. George had complained my pacing around the carriage house was annoying the shit out of him. Except I couldn’t stop. I kept going over and over the whole day. What I’d screwed up. What I should have done differently.
I’d borrowed the fucking car to avoid any risks of delayed trains. I’d been thinking about not screwing it up. Before I screwed it up.
She wouldn’t call me. She wouldn’t text me. It had been twenty-four hours. I felt in my gut something was up. This didn’t feel like Ashleigh. Whenever I’d pissed her off before, she fired right back at me. She was not someone who ran off crying in a corner.
Except for that one time when I almost killed her.
Still, that was years ago. This version of Ash was made of sterner stuff. Which is why the whole premise of needing a trip to get away from what I’d done didn’t make sense.
I asked her why she left. I asked her where she was.
Nothing.
Then when George got home last night after preparing Landen’s dinner, he’d told me Landen had been asking him strange questions.
Questions like, had Ash mentioned visiting any place in particular? Or had she told George where she was going? Had she been in contact with him?
It was like Landen didn’t have a clue where she was. Which was not the impression he’d given me yesterday.
Now it was almost noon the day after she’d left, and still nothing from her. I walked to the rise at the rear of the property and sat on our hill. The hill we’d used for sledding any time it snowed.
I’d stopped sledding with her when I was sixteen because that was kid stuff. Which was why she’d stopped going at fourteen, because sledding wasn’t fun alone.
That’s what I needed to do. I needed to play the one card I knew would work. I pulled my phone out of my pocket.
Me: Ash, you know this is killing me. You know it. Which means you’re deliberately hurting me. ME! CALL. ME.