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Authors: Carter Wilson

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BOOK: The Comfort of Black
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Hannah looked at the shattered photo on the floor. The picture was from Bora Bora, when they had sailed around the Tahitian islands on their honeymoon five years ago. She had taken the picture herself: the shot was from the front of their beach villa, which had been so close to the water the morning-tide waves had licked their feet just a few steps out the door. The Pacific Ocean stretched out endlessly in the photo, the water smooth and the blue color of a robin's egg. They had made love right before the photo was taken, and every time she looked at the picture on the wall she could feel him inside her, which always made her feel wanted.

Hannah bent down and reached out to Zoo. “We're leaving, Zoo. Stay close.” Then Hannah picked up the longest of the broken shards of glass. The side of it was sharper than she expected, and it nipped her skin, cutting her hand. A small droplet of blood grew until it ran down her palm. She made her way back into the bathroom and grabbed a white washcloth hanging near the sink. She covered all but the top few inches of the shard in the cloth and then secured her grip around it. She held the piece of glass upside down. Dagger-like.

Hannah returned to the bedroom and again looked at the doorway into the living room. Zoo, as commanded, remained close. Again, only the sound of the TV. She could do this one of two ways. She could go slowly, peering around the door, assessing
his position, and try to sneak out quietly. Or she could just go. Not even look at him. Just walk quickly to the entryway, grab her purse, and get out of there.

She took a deep breath, counted to three, and walked into the living room. Hannah's gaze locked on the front door. Dallin wasn't blocking it. And her purse was there, right where she had left it. She headed directly for it, not turning her head to look where Dallin was. If she saw him, she might lose her nerve. She might get scared, and maybe he would sense her fear and would pounce.

Ten steps. She counted them as she walked as fast as she could without running.

Nothing.

On her tenth step she grabbed her purse and yanked open the front door. Zoo bolted into the hallway.

Hannah chanced a glance back into the room. Dallin was exactly as her mind pictured, on the couch, back turned toward her. He seemed oblivious that she had entered the room, or was on her way out. It was as if, for him, Hannah had simply ceased to exist.

Zoo's toenails clicked on the wood floors of the condo corridor as they walked away from her home and toward the elevator. She pushed the button to go down and waited a lifetime for the elevator cab to arrive at her floor. The whole time, she expected Dallin to come storming from the condo towards her, face twisted in rage, ready to attack.

Leave me? I don't think so
.

But he never did. The empty corridor remained empty. As the elevator finally arrived and its doors opened, Hannah looked down at the glass shard in her hand. Her grip on it was slightly loosened, and the small cut on her hand had oozed more blood onto the white washcloth, the stain spreading and growing like an oil slick on a lake.

Hannah stepped inside.

CHAPTER EIGHT

She stared out the restaurant window, through the gray of a fall day in Seattle, to the electronic readout board on the bank across the street. Fifty-two degrees outside. Just after eleven in the morning.

The waiter set a glass of ice water in front of her and Hannah shivered, wanting nothing to do with anything else cold. She noticed the wedding band on the waiter's finger and wondered what kind of husband he was, then decided she didn't care.

Justine, sitting across the booth from her, ordered them both coffee while Hannah stared at the top of the table. When the waiter left, Justine leaned in.

“Hannah, what's going on?”

Hannah had told her nothing on the phone, not because she was worried about privacy, but because she didn't think she could do it without crying. She cried now.

Justine came to Hannah's side of the booth and held her. Hannah didn't want to cry any more, not because she was stoic, but because it exhausted her. Justine squeezed her sister.

“It's okay, Hannah. Whatever it is, I'm sure it'll be okay.”

No it won't
, Hannah thought.

Hannah wiped her face and then eyed the waiter coming toward them with their coffee. She felt embarrassment for her tears and then anger at her embarrassment. She looked down as he set the coffee on the table and walked away without saying anything.

Hannah lifted her head and looked into her sister's eyes. “I don't know. It's just…Jesus, you left work and everything.”

“Screw work.
What's going on?

Deep breath. Then tell it straight. Just as it happened.

Justine's eyes widened as Hannah's words came forth, and her mouth opened to interject, but Hannah stopped her.

“Let me just talk. Please.”

Justine nodded.

When she finished, Hannah stopped crying.

“What a fucking
monster
,” Justine said.

Hannah let her gaze fall to the table.

“I can't believe this,” Justine added.

“I know,” Hannah said. “It made me think…you know. Of the night with Billy. I don't think I've been this mad since back then.”

“You need to go to the police. He
assaulted
you.”

“I…I know that. But then I was thinking how that never did any good for Mom.”

Three times the police had come out to their small Kansas home when Hannah and Justine were just girls. Three visits, all from phone calls placed by Hannah. Three raps at the door, three light interrogations of the man of the house, asking if everything was okay. Always talked to Billy, never to Hannah's mother, who remained in sight but never spoke unless spoken to. And each of those three times the police walked away without doing a goddamned thing.

And why should they have, Hannie? There weren't no bruises on her face. No blood to be seen. Just one big happy family. Well, maybe not happy all the time. I was the only rooster in that henhouse, and that means I had to keep order, didn't I? You was way too eager to call 9-1-1. But it didn't do you any good, did it?

“That was in Kansas,” Justine said. “Not here. And that was a lifetime ago.”

“Justine, I don't know what to do.”

“He
hurt
you, Hannah. If he's capable of that, who knows what he might do next.”

Hannah knew.

“You have to leave.”

The words made Hannah dizzy with disbelief. “I've…we've been married five years. Together for longer. This isn't him. I
know
him.”

“Apparently you don't. He's
cheating
on you, Hannah. And he hurt you. He
strangled
you. Are you fucking kidding me?”

The family in the booth behind them spoke excitedly of a trip to Disney World they were planning for Christmas. The boy wanted to go on the Haunted House ride. The little girl: Teacups.

Hannah flagged down the waiter and ordered a Jack and Coke, and Justine thankfully said nothing about it not even being noon yet. Coffee just wasn't enough right now. “I feel like I'm not even sure this really happened.”

“I can see the marks on your neck, Hannah. It happened.”

Hannah looked outside and toward Zoo, who was leashed to a small tree in front of the restaurant. He caught her eye and gave her his vacant stare, but was soon distracted by a passerby stooping to pet him. Hannah hadn't taken his leash when she left the condo, so her first stop was a boutique pet store two blocks from her building. Strange how her whole world disintegrated in minutes and the first thing she thought of when leaving was needing a leash for her dog.

“Can I stay with you, just until I figure things out? I know I could afford a hotel, but I don't know what to do with Zoo. And I don't think I want to be alone. I know Aikman is allergic, but maybe we can—”

“Of course you can stay with us. Don't worry about Zoo. We'll think of something. Hell, he's small enough we can keep him in a bag or something. Aikman won't be able to pet him that way.”

Hannah laughed, not because the thought of her dog suffocating in a bag was particularly funny, but because laughing was cheaper relief than crying.

Justine gave her another squeeze and then returned to the other side of the booth. “Hannah, this is not a marriage-counselor kind of situation. This is a get-the-fuck-out kind of situation. It'll be messy because of all the goddamn money you two have, but you need to get out.”

“This is crazy. We have a
good
marriage. We're planning a family.”

“Hannah, how many times over the past two years have you told me about fights you've been having? About the second cell phone, the late nights, his lack of communication? It seems like every month there was something new.”

Hannah squeezed her temple with her right hand. “Things were good for the last few weeks. It felt like it was at the beginning. Before—”

“Before the money?”

Hannah felt her back muscles tighten.

“I was going to say before he had to start traveling so much. Right after we got married, it was perfect. It was feeling like that again. He's been leaving me notes, we finally had sex after six weeks, and we—”

“You're trying to rationalize an irrational situation, Hannah. Mom did that for years. If she was here, she would tell you the same thing. Get out before it gets worse. Hannah, he could be Daddy.”

“Don't call him that.”

“Okay. He could be
Billy
, and you're just finding out now. Or he could be worse. I know this is hard to hear, but that hooker shit, and the dream? What if he's a psychopath and you're just learning that now? Hell, Hannah, he could
kill
you.”

Kill
. Such a short, simple word. Like
cut
or
run
.

“Mom should have done a better job disappearing with us. Changed our names, even,” Justine said. “We should have driven all the way to California.”

Hannah thought of the night her mother had told the girls to come for a car ride. Billy wasn't home from his construction
job yet. Hannah's mother smiled despite the horror from the previous night, a night of open palms and screams. The station wagon had two suitcases loaded in the back—the large yellow Samsonite ones, their hard plastic exteriors cracked and peeling. Hannah asked what they were for, and her mother had smiled and said they were taking a little trip. Justine asked if Billy was coming, and Mom said he wasn't. That it was a special girls-only trip.

Hannah had been ten.

They hadn't gone far, just a few towns away. Billy found them four days later and used his charm to lure her mother back home. Said he couldn't live without her. Said he would change. Even promised it right there in the dingy motel room, its smell a mixture of cigarettes, trucker cologne, and empty years. Billy was looking at Hannah when he said it, though his words were directed at her mother.
You know I can change. Be a better man. Be the man you need me to be. Ya know I got it in me, babe
.

He did change. He got worse. For some reason he never touched Justine or Hannah, as if that would be crossing some kind of moral boundary. How many times Hannah wished for her skin to tingle with the hot flashes of pain rather than her mother's. But Billy saved his best verbal abuse for Hannah, cutting her into pieces with every sentence directed at her. It took another five years before they finally rid themselves of Billy, and the bitter irony was by that point their mother was so reliant on the abuse, it turned out she couldn't live without it. Today, her mother was dead. Hannah had no idea where Billy even was. Maybe still in prison. Maybe dead. Billy was just the name of a ghost that whispered in her ear from time to time.

“Dallin's never done anything like this before,” Hannah said. “And Dallin isn't like Billy.”

“Holy shit, Hannah. Are you seriously listening to yourself?”

But Hannah didn't hear her sister. She was gazing through her, existing deep within her own mind. She was replaying the scenes over in her mind. Rebecca winking. Dallin leering.
Fighter's stance. The sudden hand to the throat, the slam against the wall. Zoo barking. Glass breaking.

You have no idea what's good for you
.

A thought jolted her from the imagery.

Why had he come back home that morning?
Dallin was usually out the door by eight, and he certainly wasn't home when she had woken. But then, there he was, sneaking up on her just moments after starting to watch the video of him and the web slut.

Justine said something. Hannah only heard sound. She lifted the cocktail glass to her lips.

“What?” she asked.

Justine peered over Hannah's shoulder.

“I said there's a guy over there. Sitting alone. He keeps watching us.”

Hannah felt herself turning but pulled back. “What does he look like?”

Justine kept staring, assessing. After a few moments, she quietly said, “A problem.”

CHAPTER NINE

Hannah turned. The man was three tables away, seated alone at a four-top, a glass of water on the table and nothing else. He was not a small man. His black sport coat was squared sharply at the shoulders, giving him the look of a linebacker. Shaved head, thin, dark goatee, and searching eyes that probably were most comfortable behind sunglasses.

The man sipped his water and offered a single nod at Hannah.

“Who is he?” Justine asked.

Hannah turned back to her sister. “I have no idea.” She was suddenly worried about Zoo, and she looked back outside to find him. He was still there, and now he was facing away from her, staring off toward the street. “But I don't think I want to be here anymore.”

“Agreed.” They didn't bother asking for the check. Hannah reached into her purse and dropped two twenties on the table. As they got up to leave, the man stood.

BOOK: The Comfort of Black
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