“Sorry,” I mumble. I don’t even know why I do it – I’m not one for standard responses.
“It’s okay; it was a long time coming.” She takes a deep breath before continuing. “My dad loved Will, and I know he wanted us to be together. I think…maybe I would have left him before it came to this if Dad hadn’t loved him so much.”
“You going to tell me what he did?”
“He drinks.”
“You said that.”
“Then he gets mean.”
I wait for her to continue. I’ve already deduced most of this, though alcoholism would have been a guess only. There is nothing about her that points to his drinking as opposed to just him being a dick.
“He did slap me once,” she says quietly. “I mean – it was a while ago – before we were engaged, so it’s not like it would be out of character for him to do again.”
She huffs out a humorless laugh. I found myself wishing the fucker would track her down so I could pick him off from a mile away.
“But even if he wasn’t violent, he was never there. When he did come home, he’d yell at me all the time and tell me what a crappy job I was doing as a housewife.”
Another laugh without heart.
“I was in school, so it’s not like that was all I was doing. We weren’t even married, just engaged. We’ve been engaged for almost four years.”
“Why didn’t you get married?” I ask. I feel her shoulders move up and down in a noncommittal gesture though I keep my eyes on the horizon. Odin is nosing around a creosote bush a few yards ahead of us.
“Lack of funds was always his reason,” she says. “He always said he wanted to give me the perfect wedding even though that wasn’t what I wanted. Dad was all for it though Mom was happy to have us stay as we were. Actually, she’ll be thrilled to hear I’m not going back to him.”
“You aren’t?” I did not want to assume.
“Not this time,” she says softly.
“What aren’t you telling me?” I demand.
She bites into her lip before responding.
“When I told him to pull over, he did,” she says. “He hadn’t actually stopped yet when he reached over, opened my door, and shoved me out.”
Lia goes silent, and I try to stop the feelings of rage inside of me. I haven’t had such feelings in years, and it had taken years for me to get them under control in the first place. I want to find this asshole. I want to annihilate him. I want to tear him to fucking pieces to make sure he can never hurt her again. It would be easy and might even be a decent distraction from hanging around here. She just showed up yesterday – he can’t be that far.
“I took a bunch of Aikido classes in college,” she tells me. “I was always so…ungraceful. I thought it would help, but it never did. I did learn how to roll, though. That’s what I did when I fell out, and I managed to end up on fairly soft ground.”
The edge of her mouth twitches slightly, and the corners of her eyes clench, though it’s barely noticeable. She still isn’t telling me the complete truth, but I am fairly sure she’s holding back some detail
. Did she start the fight? Was he drunk while he was driving her? Why was he so angry?
Why do I give a shit?
I don’t bother asking myself if I do care – it’s so obvious there is no point in denying it to myself. I just can’t figure out why. I haven’t cared about anything since seven men and one woman trusted me with their lives and I failed them.
“I have to go to my mom’s,” Lia finally says. “She never really liked him in my life, and I know she’ll be supportive, and I don’t want her to worry. My cell doesn’t seem to work anymore.”
“It won’t,” I confirm. “Not anywhere near here.”
“I figured.”
“You can still call her,” I suggest as I try to ignore the feeling in my chest when I think of her leaving. It’s ridiculous and idiotic. “There’s no landline here, but I can drive you into Pinon to call her.”
“She’ll still worry,” Lia says with a shake of her head. “Will’s probably called her by now, and God knows what he’s told her.”