“You don’t understand,” Mia told her. “Even if I left, where would I go? It’s not like I could go home—my Granny and my mom are both gone now and my stepfather has remarried.”
“You can move in with me,” Kaylee had offered, very generously, Mia thought. “You can stay as long as you want—no strings attached.”
Mia had loved her friend for the kind and generous offer, but she couldn’t help reflecting that it only went to show that Kaylee didn’t really know Hank—or what he was capable of.
“If I moved in with you, he’d come after both of us,” she told her friend gently. “He might hurt you, Kaylee. You don’t know how he gets when he’s mad.” She’d shaken her head. “I couldn’t let that happen to you—you’re my best friend.”
“Which is why I’m trying to get you away from him!” Kaylee had exclaimed. “What about a battered women’s shelter? I know they have some in Tallahassee—I’ll drive you there myself.”
“Kaylee, he’s a Sheriff—how long do you think it would take him to find me?” Mia had asked patiently. “Not long is the answer and once he got me back here, he’d lock me up and never let me out again! At least now I can go out for work and have students in for lessons at my house. If I ran away and he dragged me back, he’d lock me in the house and I’d be stuck there for the rest of my life.”
Which wouldn’t be very long, whispered that dark little voice in her head. Only until he beat you to death.
And so, she had stayed with Hank. And now that Kaylee was gone, her own dire predictions were coming true, one after another, Mia thought grimly, as she closed the front door after watching the minivan with her last student drive away. One by one, he had had cut off her outside sources of communication. Kaylee had only been gone a month but Hank worked fast. Now he had her “all to himself” as he had always wanted and there was nowhere to run…nowhere to hide.
I guess I’ll sit in the living room and play the piano and clean the house all day, she thought sadly to herself. She loved playing, of course, but she could only play the pieces she truly adored while Hank was gone to work. While he was home, she had to keep the sound to a minimum so he could concentrate on the endless parade of sports he watched on the TV in the adjoining den.
As though the thoughts of her husband had called to him, Hank came out into the living room and frowned at her.
“Heard the door close,” he said, raising one hairy eyebrow in a silent, disapproving question.
“Oh, that was Serena Yates leaving. I…just finished her last lesson.” Mia worked hard not to let her voice break on the words. She loved teaching piano to kids, but she also loved the way having someone else in the house made her safe from Hank’s wrath. Now there was just the two of them.
“Good.” Hank nodded in approval and hitched up the thick black belt that held his brown uniform trousers in place.
His tan uniform shirt was tucked in neatly, straining over his beer belly that had slowly grown over their years of married life. Sometimes, when he was feeling cruel, he would point out that he had a bigger belly than Mia ever had, since she seemed incapable of catching pregnant again.
Over the years, this particular dig had lost its sting, however. Because more and more, Mia was glad she’d never brought another soul into their little world—the world Hank ruled with an iron fist. If there had been a baby, she would have had to leave him, even though she had no place she could go.
“You know,” she said cautiously, gauging his mood as she spoke. “It was kind of a shame to let go all of my students. I thought you were saving up for a pool table. It’s going to be harder to get one without me working. Maybe I could just see one or two students a week to help earn the money…”
“Now, peanut, we’ve been over this.” Hank gave her a stern look from his beady black eyes. “Having students and doing all that other stuff was interfering with your wifely duties. You weren’t keeping the house up right.”
Mia bit the side of her cheek to keep back the sharp reply that rose to her lips.
“I…I’m not sure what else I can do, Hank,” she said, keeping her voice low and even. “I keep everything as clean as I can. I do all the laundry and make the bed and I wash the dishes and put them away after every meal—”
“Reminds me—there’s a plate in the sink right now. Better take care of it,” he interrupted her and belched, letting out a miasma of salami and beer fumes.